A state funeral is taking place in Iran for about 60 people, including military commanders and nuclear scientists, killed during the 12-day conflict with Israel.

Coffins draped in the Iranian flag, bearing portraits of deceased commanders, were flanked by crowds near Tehran’s Enghelab Square.

The conflict ended with a ceasefire earlier this week, after the US became directly involved by bombing key nuclear sites in Iran.

Huge crowds of mourners dressed in black chanted slogans, waved Iranian flags and held portraits of those killed.

Ahead of the event, a media campaign urged people to participate, with authorities providing free bus and metro rides. Government offices were shut for the day.

Among those being laid to rest is Mohammad Bagheri, the highest-ranking military officer in Iran who was chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces.

Bagheri will be buried with his wife and daughter, who were killed in an Israeli strike. In total, Iranian authorities said 627 people were killed in Iran. Israeli officials said 28 people were killed in Israel following missile attacks by Iran.

Saturday’s funeral also includes Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, as well as a number of nuclear scientists such as Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, who was head of Azad University in Tehran.

It comes after US President Donald Trump said he would “absolutely” consider bombing Iran again.

Responding to a question from the BBC’s Nomia Iqbal at a White House press briefing on Friday, he said he would “without question” attack the country if intelligence concluded Iran could enrich uranium to concerning levels.

Trump has also repeated his assertions that Iran was “decimated”, writing: “Why would the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of the war-torn country of Iran, say so blatantly and foolishly that he won the war with Israel, when he knows his statement is a lie.”

Trump also claimed to have known “exactly where he [Khamenei] was sheltered”, saying he “would not let Israel, or the US Armed Forces… terminate his life”.

“I saved him from a very ugly and ignominious death, and he does not have to say, ‘thank-you, president Trump!'”, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, warned Trump against making “disrespectful” comments about Khamenei, who claimed US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites had achieved “nothing significant”.

“If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei,” Araghchi posted on X.

“The Great and Powerful Iranian People, who showed the world that the Israeli regime had no choice but to run to ‘Daddy’ to avoid being flattened by our Missiles, do not take kindly to Threats and Insults.”

Araghchi has admitted that “excessive and serious” damage was done to Iran’s nuclear sites by the recent bombings.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said it is still not known how much of Iran’s nuclear capabilities – including highly-enriched uranium and the centrifuges needed to purify the metal – have been destroyed or moved.

The agency’s director general Rafael Grossi also said that stopping Iran from being able to build nuclear weapons would not be achieved through military attacks.

“You are not going to solve this in a definitive way militarily, you are going to have an agreement,” he told the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

On social media, Trump claimed that in recent days he had been “working on the possible removal of sanctions, and other things, which would have given a much better chance to Iran at a full, fast, and complete recovery”.

But he said Khamenei’s comments had deterred him, declaring: “Instead I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief, and more.”

Health and fire warnings have been issued in countries across southern Europe, with temperatures expected to exceed 40C in some places over the weekend.

Italy, Greece, France, Spain and Portugal are among the countries affected – with the Spanish city of Seville forecast to hit 42C.

Hot air from North Africa, which is spreading across the Balkans to holiday destinations such as Croatia, is contributing to the soaring temperatures.

BBC Weather says the heatwave is “very intense” for this time of the year -with the continent normally experiencing such high temperatures in July and early August.

In Spain, emergency staff have been placed on standby to deal with a surge in heatstroke cases especially among the vulnerable including children, the elderly and those with chronic illnesses.

Italian authorities are advising residents in several cities, including Rome, Milan and Venice – where several A-list celebrities have gathered for the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and TV presenter Lauren Sanchez – to stay indoors between 11:00 and 18:00 local time.

France, meanwhile, has been experiencing a heatwave for more than a week. Orange heat alerts, the country’s second-highest warning, were issued for southern regions on Friday.

In the city of Marseille, municipal swimming pools are being opened free of charge until the end of the heatwave.

Yellow and amber alerts are also in place for parts of England this weekend, with temperatures set to reach 32C. The heatwave is forecast to last until Tuesday evening.

Wildfires have already struck some parts of Europe, including Greece, where coastal towns near the capital, Athens, erupted in flames that destroyed homes – forcing people to evacuate.

While it is hard to link individual extreme weather events to climate change, heatwaves are becoming more common and more intense due to climate change.

Scientists at World Weather Attribution, who analyse the influence of climate change on extreme weather events, say June heatwaves with three consecutive days above 28C are about 10 times more likely to occur now compared to pre-industrial times.

The Supreme Court on Friday handed a significant victory to Donald Trump – and future American presidents – when curbing lower courts’ power to block executive orders.

President Trump was beaming as he addressed reporters at the White House briefing room podium, calling it a “big, amazing decision” which the administration is “very happy about”.

He said it was a “monumental victory for the constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law”.

The court’s decision not only impacts Trump’s birthright citizenship order, but also emboldens him to enact many of his other policy actions that have been temporarily thwarted by similar injunctions.

The Supreme Court has opened the door for the Trump administration to no longer grant automatic citizenship to everyone born on American soil – at least for the moment. Now the White House will have to implement its plan, which will be no easy task.

On Friday, the nation’s highest court allowed Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship to go into effect in a month’s time, while leaving room for lower courts to curb the impact on those who have standing to sue.

States traditionally handle processing birth certificates, and many do not record the citizenship of the parents. Democratic-run state governments will be in no rush to do so, no matter what the Trump administration may desire.

And Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority, left the door open for states to make the case that a more broad block on Trump’s birthright citizenship action is necessary.

That sets up big legal battles to come.

“As the States see it, their harms — financial injuries and the administrative burdens flowing from citizen-dependent benefits programs — cannot be remedied without a blanket ban on the enforcement of the Executive Order,” Barrett wrote.

“The lower courts should determine whether a narrower injunction is appropriate, so we leave it to them to consider these and any related arguments.”

President Trump described the court’s decision on Friday as a “giant win”.

He added that the “birthright citizenship hoax” has been “indirectly, hit hard” and that the decision would prevent “scamming of our immigration process”.

Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Friday that the Supreme Court will decide whether the US will end birthright citizenship in October during its next session.

The court’s decision to limit the power of lower court federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions will have immediate, wide-ranging consequences.

Both Democratic and Republican presidents have often criticised what they say are ideological jurists in federal district courts who have been able to singlehandedly block executive actions and even legislation passed by Congress.

While doing away automatic citizenship for the children of undocumented migrants born on US soil is at the centre of this high profile case, there are a number of other actions taken by Trump in recent months that have also been held up by lower-level judges.

From Trump’s inauguration to April 29, the Congressional Research Service counts 25 such instances.

Following the court’s decision on Friday, Trump told journalists, “We can now properly file to proceed with policies that have been wrongly enjoined.”

Lower courts have blocked the president’s cuts to foreign assistance, diversity programmes and other government agencies, limited his ability to terminate government employees, put other immigration reforms on hold and suspended White House issued changes to election processes.

With the Supreme Court’s decision in this case, the administration is in a much stronger position to ask courts to allow it to push forward on many of these efforts.

During the Biden presidency, conservative judges prevented Democrats from enacting new environmental regulations, offering student loan forgiveness, modifying immigration rules. Courts blocked changes to normalised immigration status for some undocumented migrants during Barack Obama’s presidency, as well, and prevented him from making more white collar employees eligible for overtime pay.

In all these types of cases, courts will ultimately be able to step in and halt presidential actions that they deem illegal or unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court in its opinion said, ” The lower courts shall move expeditiously to ensure that, with respect to each plaintiff, the injunctions comport with this rule and otherwise comply with principles of equity.”

But that will come further along in the judicial process, at the appellate and Supreme Court level. In the meantime, presidents – Donald Trump and his successors, whether they are Republicans or Democrats – will have more time and space to act.

US President Donald Trump has said he is cutting off trade talks with Canada “immediately” as the country looks to start enforcing a tax policy targeting big tech companies.

The latest move, which he announced on social media, comes as the neighbouring nations had been working to agree a trade deal by mid-July.

Both countries have imposed tariffs on each other’s goods after Trump sparked a trade war earlier this year and threatened to annex Canada using “economic force”.

On Friday, the US president said he was ending talks due to what he called an “egregious tax” on tech companies and added he would announce new tariffs on goods crossing the border within the next week.

“We are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,” he wrote on social media.

“We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”

In brief comments to reporters, Prime Minister Mark Carney suggested that talks would continue.

“We will continue to conduct these complex negotiations in the best interest of Canadians,” he said.

Canada’s 3% digital services tax has been a sticking point in its relationship with the US since the law was enacted last year. The first payments are due on Monday.

Business groups estimate it will cost American companies, such as Amazon, Apple and Google, more than $2bn a year.

Canadian officials had said they expected to address the issue as part of trade talks with the US.

There were hopes that the relatively warm relationship that newly-elected Carney has forged with Trump might help those negotiations.

The president’s latest move casts doubt on a future deal, though Trump has often used social media threats to try to gain leverage in talks or speed up negotiations he sees as stalling.

Last month, for example, he threatened to ramp up tariffs on goods arriving to US shores from the European Union, only to climb down a few days later.

Candace Laing, chief executive of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce which has been critical of the digital services tax, said that “last-minute surprises should be expected” as the deadline for a deal approaches.

“The tone and tenor of talks has improved in recent months, and we hope to see progress continue,” she added.

During Trump’s first term, the White House fought hard as many countries began considering taxes on digital services.

But Inu Malak, fellow for trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that the issue was left unresolved in the trade deal the US and the UK reached earlier this year, suggesting some flexibility.

She said Trump’s threat seemed like a move to ramp up pressure out of his typical negotiating “playbook – but was also a sign the president had refocused on Canada, which could open the way for a deal.

“It does provide a bit of an opening – maybe not the one that Prime Minister Carney wanted … but it does provide some space for them to hasten those talks,” she said.

The US is Canada’s top trade partner, buying more than $400bn in goods last year under a longstanding free trade agreement.

But Trump hit that trade with a new 25% tariff earlier this year, citing concerns about drug trafficking at the border.

New US tariffs on cars, steel and aluminium have also scrambled relations. Car parts, for example, cross US, Mexican and Canadian borders multiple times before a vehicle is completely assembled and such import taxes threaten supply chains.

Trump later carved out exemptions for some goods in the face of widespread alarm from businesses in both the US and Canada, which has hit back with tariffs of its own on some US products.

Shares in the US fell on Friday after Trump said he was cutting off talks, but later bounced back with the S&P 500 closing at a record high.

I’m on the hunt for a microbial saviour – a type of virus that can treat infections rather than cause them.

We all know the viral bad guys – Covid, flu, norovirus, herpes, chicken pox, measles… the list goes on.

But there’s a type of virus that’s not interested in infiltrating our bodies, instead it preys on bacteria.

They’re known as bacteria eaters, or bacteriophage, or commonly as phage.

Capturing them could give us new ways of treating infections, including superbugs that are becoming incurable.

So, how to catch a killer?

I’ve been promised it’s surprisingly easy. The team at the Phage Collection Project sent me some vials to collect samples, along with a pair of gloves. All I need to do is hunt for some dirty water, the dirtier the better, dip the vials in and screw on the lid.

I tried a couple of ponds, the juice from a worm-composting bin and then I needed my dirtiest sample. I didn’t flush the toilet after a poo and left it for a couple of hours. I pop on a glove and hold my breath as I go in for the final sample. Strict hygiene instructions, including vigorous hand-washing, were followed, at all times.

The vials were packaged up for collection and then three days later I headed off to the University of Southampton to see what was inside.

“They were a bit dirty when I received them,” phage scientist Michelle Lin tells me as we don our blue lab-coats and matching gloves to go into the Containment Level 2 microbiology laboratory.

We grab my samples from the fridge, which look much clearer now they have been filtered of any… debris. “It’s fine, it’s needed,” Michelle, who had the unpleasant job, reassures me.

Filtering is the first step in looking for phage, next they get served dinner – a cocktail of yummy bacteria – to help them grow in number.

Now comes the really cool bit – finding a useful phage. The scientists have been working with the local hospital to collect bacteria from patients with troublesome infections.

Michelle grabs a petri dish that’s growing bacteria from a patient with a painful, urinary tract infection that keeps coming back.

And to my amazement – one of the phage I collected from my toilet was able to kill this infection in the lab.

“The way to see that the phage has infected bacteria is you get these zones where the bacteria are not growing and that’s because they’ve been killed by the phage,” says Michelle.

You can see the leopard print pattern in the petri dish where the phage have been making light work of a bacterial infection that modern medicine was struggling to shift.

“As crazy as it sounds, well done to the toilet sample,” says Michelle with great delight.

And when I was offered the chance to name the phage, well of course it’s the Gallagher-phage.

“Sounds amazing to me,” says Michelle.

So far this is all good fun in the laboratory, but could my phage ever be given to a patient?

“Yes and I hope so,” says associate professor Dr Franklin Nobrega as we look at images of my phage captured with an electron microscope.

“Your phage, already in just 24 hours, we were able to get in a high concentration and able to be a very good killer, which means this is very promising for patients, so thank you,” said Dr Nobrega.

Phage remind me of a moon lander – a big capsule on spindly legs – just instead of landing on the surface of the moon they use their legs to select their victim.

They then hijack the bacteria and transform it into a mass-production factory for more phage, which burst out of their host, killing it in the process.

There are pros and cons to phage. They reproduce as they go along so you don’t need constant doses like you would with drugs.

They are also very picky eaters. You need a precise match between phage and the strain of bacteria you’re trying to treat whereas antibiotics tend to kill everything good and bad. So it is harder to find the right phage, but if you do it comes with fewer side effects.

Dr Nobrega tells me infected wounds are a “very good application” for phage because you can apply them directly to the injury, but they can also be inhaled via a nebuliser to treat lung infections or to target urinary tract infections “which is our target currently”.

Phage science may sound new and exciting, but it is actually a century old idea stemming from the discoveries of Felix d’Hérelle and Frederick Twort in the 1910s.

Bacteriophage therapy was a branch of medicine and the idea was compelling. Even as late as the 1940s there was an active pharmaceutical industry in western countries trying to produce phage-therapy to defeat bacterial infections.

However, it was rapidly eclipsed by the wonder-drug of the 20th century.

“Antibiotics were working so well that most people said ‘why bother’,” says Dr Nobrega.

Work on phage therapy continued in places like Georgia and there are individual accounts of it working wonders; but there hasn’t been the same depth of medical research and clinical trials as there have for drugs.

But just as the initial success of antibiotics suppressed phage research, the failure of antibiotics is reigniting excitement at their potential.

More than a million people a year are already dying from infections caused by microbes that are resistant to treatment – it’s known as the “silent pandemic”. By 2050, that figure is projected to reach 10 million a year.

This “antibiotic apocalypse” would mean common infections could kill again and undermine modern medicine. The drugs are also used to make organ transplants, open surgery and chemotherapy possible.

“The predictions around antibiotic resistance are very frightening, but the reality is we’re seeing it now and it’s only going to get worse,” says Prof Paul Elkington, the director of the institute for medical innovation at the University of Southampton.

He is also a doctor with a speciality in lung medicine and is already at the point where – after a year of treatment and turning to ever more toxic and less effective antibiotics – “in the end you have to have a conversation [and say] ‘we can’t treat this infection, we’re really sorry'”.

He says we can’t rely solely on antibiotics in the future and phage are a potential alternative.

But he warns the steps needed to get from the laboratory and into patients are “uncharted”.

Things are changing. Phage therapy is available in the UK on compassionate grounds when other treatments have failed. And the drugs regulator – The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency – has published its first official rules to support the development of phage therapy.

“If one looks 15-20 years into the future, with the emerging methodologies, it’s going to be possible for them to be much more widely available and for doctors to prescribe phage instead of antibiotics for some infections,” says Prof Elkington.

If you want to see if you can find a friendly virus too then The Phage Collection Project are launching their new sampling kits at the Summer Science Exhibition taking place this week at the Royal Society and through their website.

“Antimicrobial resistance is something that could affect all of us,” says Esme Brinsden from the Phage Collection Project, “when the public get involved they may just find the next phage that can help treat and save a patient’s life”.

Reality stars, actors, royals and a whole host of A-listers have travelled to Venice for the lavish wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and TV presenter Lauren Sanchez.

Oprah Winfrey, Orlando Bloom, Kylie Jenner and Ivanka Trump were just some of the celebrities seen on the boats and streets of the Italian city on Thursday and Friday.

The festivities are expected to last three days, ending with a large party for the married couple and their hundreds of guests on Saturday.

The event has attracted protests from a variety of groups in Venice, including locals fighting over-tourism to climate change activists.

Sanchez, 55, wore a lace Dolce & Gabbana haute couture gown for the wedding – she was seen smiling alongside a jubilant Bezos, 61, after the ceremony, in a picture posted on Instagram.

An estimated 200 people were invited to Friday’s ceremony on the small island of San Giorgio, where Matteo Bocelli – son of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli – reportedly performed.

While the exact cost of the wedding is not known, estimates range from $20m (£14m) to more than $50m.

Getting ready for a role in a blockbuster film always has its challenges, but for Damson Idris, there was one thing he couldn’t prepare for.

“How do I look cute when the wind is hitting me at 180mph?”

The actor stars alongside Brad Pitt in F1: The Movie and had to spend months learning how to drive the racing cars before shooting.

“We were really following the Grand Prix as it was happening,” he tells 1Xtra’s Nadia Jae.

Damson says driving on iconic tracks like Silverstone and Rockingham is an intense experience.

“You need to remember when you’re driving those cars sometimes you’re hitting 180mph. I was moving, it was fire,” he says.

“Then on top of that, you got to act within a movie, you’ve still got to try and look cute.”

Damson had some help from current F1 driver Sir Lewis Hamilton, one of the film’s producers, who also has a cameo.

“When it comes to driving he really encouraged me,” Damson says.

“He brought that energy on set that just reminded us of how authentic this movie is and that was always our goal – to make the most authentic racing movie of all time.

“And Lewis is my brother as well so to see him getting his acting bag was so amazing to me.”

The film was released in the UK on Wednesday to generally positive reviews and marks a new era for Damson.

The 33-year-old, who grew up in Peckham, south London, had his breakout role in 2017 US crime drama Snowfall, which he says was overlooked by “mainstream awards”.

But he was recognised by organisations such as BET, NWACP and Mobo, which celebrate black artists in the entertainment industry.

“It’s funny that every single award that the culture could give me, I won,” he says.

“We cleaned up there.”

Transitioning to a major Hollywood role has been a long road for Damson but he says he never lost hope thanks to his mum.

“The conversations she used to have with me my during my periods of rejection, she’d come in and give me these words and really educate me,” he says.

“That knowledge of manifestation and acceptance makes you prepared for when it actually is a reality.”

One thing he wasn’t prepared for though – spitting on his co-star Brad Pitt on set.

He says the confession, which he made during an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, has been following him around ever since.

“I never should have said it,” he says.

“People are like: ‘Bro you phlegmed on Brad Pitt?’ I’m like: ‘I never phlegmed’.”

He insists it was an accident.

“It was a little speck,” says Damson. “But it was a speck too much, I mean it’s Brad Pitt.”

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

Dame Anna Wintour had just sent off her first edition of US Vogue in October 1988 when the magazine received a phone call from the printers. They had seen the issue’s front cover, and had one question: “Has there been a mistake?”

The cover, Dame Anna’s first as editor-in-chief, featured a lesser-known model, Michaela Bercu, smiling at the camera in a stylish Christian Lacroix couture jacket.

But two things were notably different from usual: the model was standing outside, in the street, and wearing a pair of jeans. The printers half-assumed there had been some kind of error.

“I couldn’t blame them,” Dame Anna later recalled. “It was so unlike the studied and elegant close-ups that were typical of Vogue’s covers back then, with tons of makeup and major jewellery. This one broke all the rules.”

The jeans had, in fact, been a last-minute addition, after the skirt which Bercu was supposed to wear didn’t fit properly. But the intended message was clear: the cover star was a regular, everyday girl – and this was a new era for Vogue.

Dame Anna’s arrival, and desire to defy convention, “signalled a revolution” at the magazine, according to CNN Style’s Oscar Holland, who praised her debut issue as “warm and easygoing”.

After two years in charge of British Vogue, Dame Anna had been hired for the US edition precisely to shake things up. She was tasked with making sure the magazine didn’t lose its edge as it headed towards the 1990s.

In the decades since, Dame Anna has “steered the title from glossy print editions featuring first supermodels then grunge, via Noughties celebrity culture and reality TV stars, into an online era of social media and digital publishing,” noted the Times’ fashion editor Harriet Walker.

But this week, Dame Anna announced she would be stepping back as Vogue’s editor-in-chief after 37 years.

She will remain publisher Condé Nast’s chief content officer, a role she was appointed to in 2020, which means she will still oversee Vogue’s content, along with the company’s other titles such as GQ, Wired and Tatler.

But while she may be staying with the company, her departure as editor-in-chief marks the end of an extraordinary era for the magazine, which helped to define pop culture.

Dame Anna will be remembered for “the greater sense of informality that she brought to her early Vogue covers” and the tone they set, says Dr Kate Strasdin, senior lecturer at the Falmouth University’s Fashion and Textile Institute.

“She also pioneered the celebrity cover image, positioning popular culture beneath the famous Vogue banner.”

In her first year as editor-in-chief, Dame Anna put Madonna on the cover, the first celebrity to have featured, as part of her wider mission to merge the words of fashion and entertainment.

“She was the first to make fashion a global, cultural industry,” Marian Kwei, a stylist and contributor to Vogue, told BBC Radio 4’s Today. But, she adds, Dame Anna “also showed that fashion could be more approachable”.

“She took away the elitism that was in fashion, and brought a democratisation, and made fashion this party that everybody else was invited to.”

It hasn’t always been smooth sailing, however. In 1993, animal rights group Peta occupied her office in protest over Dame Anna’s decision to wear fur, something she no longer does.

There were arguably occasional cultural missteps, too. The LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen cover in April 2008 sparked a debate, Dr Strasdin recalls, about whether it reinforced old stereotypes of race and power.

More recently, Dame Anna faced a much more existential challenge – how to move Vogue into the digital age with hugely increased competition.

In 2018, designer Philip Plein compared the number of Vogue’s readers with the number of Instagram followers Kim Kardashian had.

“So what is more important nowadays for a brand?” he asked. “This is an interesting question.”

In a fast-moving media landscape, some industry watchers may wonder whether Dame Anna was quietly asked to step down by Conde Nast to make way for fresh blood.

But Alexandra Shulman, former editor of British Vogue, said she doubted this, telling BBC News: “I don’t think there’s any view that a new vision is needed.

“Anna’s made it perfectly clear that she’s remaining in control at American Vogue… so I think she will still have the final say.”

Shulman added that it was likely Dame Anna herself would choose her successor at Vogue.

Dame Anna is as known for her own image as much as the aesthetic she has created in her magazines. Her trademark sunglasses and bobbed haircut are partly what helped her become such an instantly recognisable figure.

She told the BBC’s Katie Razzall last year, somewhat cryptically, that her sunglasses “help me see and they help me not see… they help me be seen and not be seen”.

The editor has always been something of an enigma, and will be well aware that the conversation and speculation that surrounds her just fuels the interest further.

But she played down the focus on her image, saying: “I don’t really think about it. What I’m really interested in is the creative aspect of my job.”

Her reputation as an editor has, of course, been widely debated, Dr Strasdin notes.

“The fashion industry has traditionally been a space where egos and creativity can clash spectacularly,” she says, adding that documentaries such as The September Issue and First Monday in May “offer some insight into the strangeness of that world”.

Over time, Dame Anna gradually became a significant figure not just in fashion, but western culture. She is regularly referenced in hip-hop lyrics, with Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z and Ye (formerly Kanye West) among the artists who have name-checked her.

“I believe what she has done,” reflected Kwei, “is carved a space in fashion, culture, time, history that we will never be able to outdo”.

Dame Anna was the loose inspiration for Miranda Priestly, the demon magazine editor in The Devil Wears Prada, portrayed on screen by Meryl Streep.

The editor has appeared to enjoy occasionally leaning in to the comparison, and last year attended the gala night for the stage adaptation.

But asked if she thought people were frightened of her in real life, Dame Anna replied: “I hope not.”

Dame Anna’s impact can be seen in all kinds of ways, including, for example, at Amazon founder Jeff Bezos wedding to Lauren Sánchez in Venice this weekend.

“She created that moment, and almost created that brand,” the former Sun editor David Yelland told the BBC. “It was when she put Lauren Sancehz on the front of Vogue in 2023, that the Bezos/Sanchez brand started.

“She did the same with Kim Kardashian and she did the same with the Trumps. When she put Ivana on the front in 1990 it was incredibly controversial, people called it tacky, but that was the beginning of the Trump brand in the higher end of global society. So she’s not just an editor, she’s the high priestess of our time.”

The question of Dame Anna’s successor is complicated. “This is a challenging era for print media,” explains Dr Strasdin. “Vogue’s social media platforms are frequently under fire for the seemingly relentless celebrity content which critics decry as diluting the mission of Vogue.

“But a strong digital presence is vital. Eva Chen, as director of fashion partnerships for Instagram, brings that expertise. She has long been a Met Gala regular and has to be on the longlist I should think.”

“Chioma Nnadi must also be in the running,” she continues. “She hails from London, and has spent the last two years heading up editorial content at British Vogue. She is Wintour’s protege and it does feel as if she has been waiting in the wings.”

Other possible candidates, according to the Daily Mail’s fashion editor Margaret Abrams, include former head of Teen Vogue Amy Astley, who still works for Condé Nast editing another magazine.

Vogue’s senior editor Chloe Schama, her namesake Chloe Malle, editor of Vogue’s website, or even Dame Anna’s own daughter, film producer Bee Shaffer Carrozzini, could also be in the frame.

“As ever fashion is regarded as both superficial and economically valuable,” says Dr Strasdin.

“Anna Wintour has had to tread the tightrope of maintaining relevance as far as style is concerned at the very same time that fashion has had to undergo re-evaluation in relation to sustainability, plagiarism and labour conditions.

“I think these are the very real concerns that her successor will have to navigate.”

In 2023, Doechii announced she was three years into her five-year plan for becoming one of the biggest names in music.

“By year five I want to be at my peak,” she told Billboard magazine.

“I want to be in my Sasha Fierce era, the top of my game with still a long way to go – but I want to reach my prime and never leave it.”

Back then, it felt like a bold claim.

The Florida-born rapper and singer had scored a couple of viral hits – most notably Persuasive, an ode to marijuana that ended up on Barack Obama’s summer playlist – but nothing that had crossed over to the mainstream charts.

But jump-cut to 2025 and Doechii is a Grammy Award-winning “woman of the year“, who’s about to play one of the most hotly-anticipated sets at Glastonbury Festival.

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It’s hard to identify the turning point. Some people say it was her mesmerising performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last December.

With her hair carefully braided to her backing dancers, she delivered a meticulously-choreographed performance of Boiled Peanuts and Denial Is a River – a cartoonish character piece, in which she confides to her therapist that her boyfriend’s been cheating on her with another man.

Others pinpoint her Tiny Desk Concert, released on YouTube two days later. The 15-minute set bursts with joie de vivre, simultaneously soulful and fiery, as the star rattles through jazzy, full-band recreations of her mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal.

She won even more fans at the Grammys in March, where she won best rap album, making her just the third female artist to win in the category.

In her speech, she spoke directly to young, black, queer women like her: “Don’t allow anybody to project any stereotypes on you, to tell you that you can’t be here, that you’re too dark or that you’re not smart enough or that you’re too dramatic or you’re too loud.”

She capped off her win with an ultra-physical performance that referenced Michael Jackson, Missy Elliott and Bob Fosse – and ended with her pulling the splits while being held aloft by five male dancers.

With three “star-is-born” performances in just four months, Doechii became the most talked-about new rapper of her generation… just like she planned.

So where did it all start?

Doechii was born Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon in Tampa, Florida and raised in a “heavily Christian” single-parent household by her mother, Celesia Moore.

A studious kid who loved writing poetry, she invented her alter-ego at the age of 11, after being viciously bullied in school.

“I was in a position where I thought about killing myself because the bullying was so bad,” she told Dazed magazine in February.

“Then I had this realisation: I’m not gonna do that, because then they’re gonna all get a chance to live and I’m gonna be the one dead.”

Overnight, her attitude shifted.

“Jaylah might’ve been getting bullied, but I decided Doechii wouldn’t stand for that,” she recalled in an interview with Vulture.

“And then,” she told The Breakfast Club, “I went to school in a tutu and I started doing music.”

As a teenager, she spent four years at Tampa’s Howard W. Blake School of the Arts, after winning a place on the choral programme by performing Etta James’ At Last.

The school unlocked her creativity, allowing her to take classes in everything from nail design and hair, to ballet, tap, cheerleading and stage production. However, it was gymnastics that left the biggest impression.

“The way that gymnasts train is really, really tough. It’s brutal and hard and difficult,” she told Gay Times.

“But at some point in my gymnastic career I learnt how to embrace and really love pain. To view pain as me getting stronger and better. That caused a deep discipline that has never left me.”

The school also helped the teenager accept her sexuality.

“Even though I was aware [that I was queer], I didn’t feel as comfortable until I started surrounding myself with more gay friends at my school.

“Once I had gay friends it was like, ‘OK, I can be myself, I’m good, I can feel safe, this is normal, I’m fine.’ I have those same friends today and will have them for life.”

That’s not all they gave her: Those same friends convinced Doechii to give up her ambitions of becoming a chorister, and start writing and releasing her own music.

Initially called iamdoechii, she uploaded her first song to Soundcloud in 2016, and self-released her debut single Girls two years later.

It already bore the hallmarks of her best work: Rhythmically and lyrically dextrous, and chock full of personality.

“,” she chided over a mellow electric piano, before the beat switched up and her rapping became more frenetic. By the closing bars, she barely had time catch breath as she listed her accomplishments.

“

The lines were more prophecy than reality. Doechii had a solid following on YouTube, but she was still working at Zara to make ends meet.

In 2019, she was booked for a showcase in New York City and hopped on a bus – without the money for her return trip.

“The night after, I slept at a McDonald’s,” she recalled in a 2022 interview.

“And then I had to call one of my mom’s friends… and, like, beg her to let me sleep at her house. And I ended up living there until I got back on my feet.”

Things started to turn around with the release of 2020’s Yucky Blucky Fruitcake, named after Junie B. Jones’s children’s book, in which Doechii sketched out her own childhood.

According to the lyrics, she was precocious (“”), competitive (“”) and frequently broke (“”).

The song marked a breakthrough in her writing.

“I was lacking this sense of vulnerability and honesty in my music,” she told Billboard, until “I learned accuracy and just saying exactly what it is, like on Lucky Blucky Fruitcake”.

The song went viral, winning her a record deal with Top Dawg Entertainment – the label that launched Kendrick Lamar and SZA.

She followed it up with the effortlessly hooky Persuasive, earning praise from SZA (who jumped on a remix) and former President Barack Obama.

“I can’t imagine Obama just jamming my song,” she exclaimed. “I just don’t believe it, but if he really does – that’s crazy.”

Doechii next collaborated with Kodak Black on the 2023 single What It Is (Block Boy), earning her first Top 40 hit.

Then, everything stalled.

Subsequent singles flopped, and Doechii was, as she later wrote on social media, “drowning in my own vices, battling differences with my label and a creative numbness that broke me”.

Initially, her Alligator Bites Never Heal mixtape looked set to repeat the pattern. Released last August, it entered the US charts at number 117 and vanished a week later.

But reviews were ecstatic.

Critics loved the acerbic, funny lyrics, that saw Doechii unpack the trials and tribulations of the last two years; and heaped praise on bars that recalled greats such as Q-Tip, Lauryn Hill and Slick Rick, while keeping pace with contemporaries like Kendrick Lamar.

After a period dominated by the mumbled bars of Souncloud rap, her precision was a breath of fresh air.

“One of the year’s most fully-realized breakout albums,” wrote Rolling Stone. “If this is the sound of Doechii pushing against constraints, a little friction might not be the worst thing,” added Pitchfork.

As word spread, she was booked to play the Colbert show and Tiny Desk. Those performances lit a rocket under her career. By April, Alligator had chomped into the US Top 10, and the UK Top 40.

Around the same time, she bowed to fan pressure by releasing her 2019 YouTube song, Anxiety, a pop-rap crossover based on a sample of Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know.

With an eye-catching video that recreated a full-on panic attack, it hit number three in the UK, and even earned Doechii a citation in medical journal Psychology Today.

“The song and accompanying video work so well in showing exactly how anxiety feels in our bodies and minds,” wrote Professor Sandra Chafouleas.

“Think about quick and short breaths, racing thoughts, and worrying about things that haven’t happened yet. Anxiety feels like ‘Anxiety’ sounds, with brilliant mirroring of how the experience can hijack us.”

Since then, Doechii’s been hard at work on her debut album. There’d been rumours she’d release it in time for her Glastonbury slot on Saturday night, but perfectionists have got to perfect. At the time of writing, she’s still in the studio.

Speaking to Dazed, she dropped a few hints of what’s in store.

“In Alligator Bites Never Heals, the archetype was a student of hip-hop. For this next project, I’m thinking about how this student develops.

“Who does she develop into? What has she learned? I’m still unpacking how that character develops into this next project.”

Despite the delay, Doechii’s headline set remains one of Glastonbury’s biggest draws.

She might only be performing for 45 minutes, but she’ll make every one of them count.

As the star boasted on her single Nosebleeds: “”

“Defender ready?” calls the host.

A thumbs up and moments later, two burly men – with no protective gear – run full speed at each other before they clash, the unmistakable sound of flesh and bone crunching.

The crowd erupts into a collective roar, some cheering, others wincing.

This is the moment they’ve been waiting for – and it’s exactly this adrenaline-fuelled energy that organisers of the Run It Championship League are banking on to help bring what they call the “world’s fiercest, new collision sport” to global audiences.

It is a supercharged version of a one-on-one tackle game which originated in the backyards and school playgrounds of Australia and New Zealand – namely in Pacific Islander communities.

One person carrying a ball must “run it straight” at the defender, who is also sprinting towards them: they are not allowed to duck, hurdle or sidestep the tackler.

Videos of the game have recently gone viral, and the founders of the Run It league have capitalised on the surge of interest – they say they’ve gained millions of views online, won over thousands of fans, attracted big name sponsors, and even inspired rival competitions.

They’ve held jousts in Melbourne and Auckland, and on Saturday another will take place in a Dubai arena, the winner taking away prize money of A$200,000 (£98,000). Next on their agenda, is an expansion to the UK and US.

But the groundswell of support for the league is increasingly being rivalled by critical voices. Medical experts and sporting figures are worried about the physical and mental health impacts of the game – which has also become a wider social media craze, that is already accused of claiming one life.

“It’s like shaking a baby,” says Peter Satterthwaite, whose teenage nephew died after copying the game at a party.

The objective of the game is simple: be the person who “dominates” the contact, as deemed by a panel of three judges.

Two of the league’s seven co-founders, Brandon Taua’a and Stephen Hancock, tell the BBC they have fond memories of playing the game as teenagers in Melbourne.

“I used to ‘run it straight’ at Brandon all the time,” Hancock says, joking that the pair would usually try to avoid hitting each other straight on.

There’ll be none of that this weekend, when the eight finalists compete for that giant cash prize in United Arab Emirates.

Hancock insists Run It is a “game of skill” – “[It’s] all about the footwork” – but there’s no denying the violent nature of it.

A quick scroll of the league’s social media accounts shows dozens of quick-burst videos, all honing in on the explosive action of two men colliding.

In other videos circulating from the events, several competitors are knocked out and require immediate medical attention.

Taua’a acknowledges the sport comes with risks, but says the league has safety protocols to minimise them.

Competitors are screened, undergoing medical assessments – such as blood tests and a physical exam – and they must also send a recent video of themselves playing a sport that features tackling. Medical staff are also on the sidelines of the events.

“There’s an element of danger with surfing, with boxing, and many other sports as well,” Taua’a argues.

For Champ Betham – who won NZ$20,000 earlier this month at the competition in Auckland and is gunning for the title in Dubai on Saturday – the element of danger is a secondary consideration.

“This is a massive blessing to a whole heap of us to pretty much try and win 20K or whatever for a couple hours’ work,” he told Radio New Zealand at the time.

“We got to pay off some debts and stock up the fridges and the cupboards, food for our little ones, especially with the economy and stuff like that here in New Zealand. Nothing’s cheap these days.”

The money involved, for a league which has only been around for six months, is impressive. Along with the prize fund, competitors’ travel and accommodation expenses are being paid. A 1,600-seat arena has been booked. The league has a slick social media account, a PR representative, and a bunch of promoters – including antipodean sports stars.

Its initial financial backers have been described only as “a group of local investors who believe in the product”, but bigger names are emerging: days before the Dubai event, the league announced it had secured a major sponsor in online gambling platform Stake.com, which is banned in key markets like Australia and the UK.

There are also ongoing talks with potential US investors, including a contact linked to American podcaster and UFC heavyweight Joe Rogan, which Taua’a says “will definitely help” the league build a presence in the US.

They will need big backers to match their ambitions for the contest, which they argue is more than just a fleeting social media trend.

“This could actually eventuate into a sport that could sit [in a class] with MMA and boxing,” Hancock says.

But as Taua’a and Hancock focus on the competition’s future ambitions, more and more voices are questioning its safety.

“They might as well set up smoking as a legitimate sport,” says neuroscientist Alan Pearce.

Speaking to the BBC from the New Zealand city of Palmerston North, Peter Satterthwaite is unequivocal.

“It’s not a sport,” he says. It’s “a dangerous activity” designed purely “to hurt the guy in front of you”.

His 19-year-old nephew Ryan was celebrating a 21st birthday with friends at a local park when they decided to try the game they’d seen all over their social media feeds.

Ryan did two tackles. Neither he or his friend fell down or clashed heads. But as he walked away, he told his mates he didn’t feel well, his uncle recounts.

“[Ryan] was coherent for a bit, then he lay down and his eyes just rolled back in his head.”

Friends rushed him to hospital where doctors had to “cut a sizable chunk out of his skull” to alleviate pressure caused by brain swelling, Satterthwaite says.

“I saw him on the ventilator, his chest going up and down as he was breathing, and it was like ‘Get up! Open your eyes’.”

On Monday evening, just a day after he was playing with his mates, Ryan’s life support was turned off in a hospital room filled with loved ones.

“It was just an innocuous clash,” Ryan’s uncle says, “and it just shows you how fragile life is and how fragile your brain is.”

Run It says it understands the dangers of contact sports and takes safety seriously. Weeks after Ryan’s death, the league posted a video saying the game is “not for the backyard, not for the street”.

“Do not try this at home,” they said.

But Satterthwaite doubts that warning will have much impact.

“I don’t think there’s a sport in the world that people don’t do at the beach, or in their backyard, or at the park.”

It’s not just the physical impacts that worry Shenei Panaia.

As a Samoan growing up in Australia, she would often see schoolkids playing the game as a bit of fun. But the mental health worker fears it reinforces “a version of masculinity where silence is strength, and violence is proof of pride”.

“It sends a dangerous message to young men that their worth is based on how much pain they can take. That if you’re not tough, you don’t belong.”

And the league’s attempt to turn this into a lucrative spectator sport contradicts the values of many in the Pacific Islander community, Penaia says.

“We are taught to look out for one another… and to make decisions that serve more than just ourselves.”

Their concerns are echoed by a pack of concussion experts and sporting figures.

For more than a decade, the world of high-impact sports has been introducing safety measures as the research into brain injuries develops.

Official bodies including Rugby Australia, New Zealand Rugby have warned people not to take part, with the New Zealand Prime Minister also weighing in, saying it’s a “dumb thing to do”.

Neuroscientist Pearce argues Run It magnifies “the most violent aspects of our established sport”, while the safety protocols do little to minimise any risk. Blood tests and physical exams cannot predict a brain injury, and catastrophic damage can occur even without a direct hit to the head, he says.

“I can’t see how running at 25km an hour straight at each other without stopping is safe,” he tells the BBC. “It’s as simple as that.”

There’s the risk of immediate concussion, Dr Pearce says, delayed onset brain injuries like Ryan Satterthwaite’s, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) – a degenerative disease caused by repetitive head trauma. They can lead to cognitive impairments, movement disorders, dementia, depression.

“[They’re] basically using the collision as the entertainment value, which is, in effect, commercialising concussion,” he concludes.

But a spokesperson for the league – who argues it is “not about masculinity” but “strength and skill” – say organisers have no intention of slowing down, and aren’t too worried about their critics.

Taua’a says what happens at their competitions is “not too much different” to what you see on televised rugby matches, and – with their protocols – it is far safer than many of the games played in backyards the world over.

“It’s quite new for viewers and it might take some time for them to get used to seeing what we’ve put together.”

Strawberries and cream – an iconic British combo since the 1800s. But do they belong together in a sandwich?

M&S has rolled out a limited-edition strawberries and cream sandwich, made with strawberries, whipped cream cheese and sweetened bread, which it says is inspired by the “viral Japanese fruit sando”. The supermarket chain says it was its top-selling sandwich the two days after its launch.

Strawberry sandwiches are available at some Japanese bakeries in the UK, but M&S’s offering appears to be the first time they have been widely available on supermarket shelves.

The idea of serving fruit in a sandwich might sound unusual but it’s nothing new in Japan. Known as “furutsu sando”, they became popular after Japanese fruit shops opened parlours selling desserts for customers to sample their wares.

They recently became sought-after around the world after going viral on social media, with Western tourists on TikTok scrambling to get their hands on the version sold in Japanese convenience store chain 7-Eleven.

Fruit sandwiches are typically made of sweetened, soft, spongy white bread filled with whipped cream and fruit, typically strawberries or clementine, says Shuko Oda, chef at Koya restaurant in London. They’re usually cut into triangles so that the fruit is on display.

“It looks quite pretty,” Shuko says, adding that the sandwiches are a “fun play on texture”.

Some people in Japan make them at home, but they’re more commonly bought from convenience stores, food halls or dedicated fruit sando stores, she says. People often enjoy them as a snack with tea or coffee or served on a plate alongside savoury sandwiches.

In the UK, it’s not as uncommon as you might think to pair fruit with slices of bread for a sandwich. Think of banana sandwiches, served with the fruit sliced or mashed, or the nostalgia of childhood jam sandwiches. Coronation chicken sandwiches are made with dried apricots or sultanas, too.

What is a sandwich, at its core? Does it have to be savoury? And does it have to even be made with typical wheat bread – take the jibarito, for example, which is made with fried plantain instead.

What about Scandinavian open sandwiches? And if they count as sandwiches, then what about French toast topped with fruit and sauce?

The Oxford English Dictionary says sandwiches are made of two thin slices of bread, usually buttered, “with a savoury… or other filling”.

Though humans have been making bread for thousands of years, the sandwich as we know it today is said to owe its popularity to John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. The story goes that he asked his staff to bring him meat between two slices of bread so he could continue playing cards without stopping to eat.

Some of the sandwiches we eat in the UK would raise eyebrows around the world. Take crisp sarnies, coronation chicken sandwiches, or the humble chip butty. But if you’re feeling inspired by Japan’s strawberry sandos and want to up your sandwich game, here are some more sandwiches from around the world.

Bánh mì is a Vietnamese sandwich served in a baguette, typically filled with meat, pate, pickles and spicy sauces. It’s usually eaten for breakfast. BBC Food has a recipe made with sweet and spicy pork belly and chilli sauce.

Croque monsieur is a French sandwich served hot with gooey, melted cheese. It’s made with white sauce, cheese, ham and mustard, cooked under the grill. To mix it up, served with a fried egg on top and – voila – you have a croque madame.

A po’ boy, which comes from “poor boy”, is a New Orleans street food sandwich that celebrates Louisiana’s seafood. A huge variety of fillings are available, but the most popular include fried shrimp, crab or lobster nestled among lettuce, remoulade and pickles. BBC Food has a simplified version you can make at home more easily using frozen scampi.

Rather than using bread made from typical wheat flour, arepas are made using corn flour. They’re also popular in Colombia, but it’s Venezuela where they’re most often made into sandwiches. One popular filling is Reina Pepiada, which combines chicken, avocado and coriander.

We’re no strangers to doubling up on carbs in the UK – and the Australian spaghetti jaffle draws on the same principle. It is made by serving leftover spaghetti in tomato sauce inside a toastie. At convenience stores across Japan, you can also pick up a yakisoba pan – noodles served in a hot dog bun.

Francesinha, a Portuguese sandwich originating in Porto, is a cheese and meat lover’s heaven. The impressive structure is made by filling a lightly toasted bread with a steak, sausage, cheese and ham.

More cheese is then placed on top, and the whole sandwich is typically baked in the oven until the cheese melts and then served with an egg on top. A spicy sauce made with Port, beer and tomato is then poured over the whole thing. If that wasn’t filling enough already, it’s usually served with chips on the side.

In Manhattan’s West Village, where culinary trends can change with the seasons, Chef Vijay Kumar is shaping a quiet revolution.

His 2025 James Beard Award win for Best Chef: New York State this month is more than just personal recognition – it marks a cultural inflection point.

Chennai-based culinary historian Rakesh Raghunathan says: “Following in the footsteps of fellow Tamil-origin recipients like Raghavan Iyer and Padma Lakshmi, Vijay Kumar’s recognition reflects a growing momentum for south Indian voices on the global culinary stage”.

“Tamil cuisine – along with Sri Lankan Tamil and other south Indian regional traditions – is increasingly being embraced by global diners as something refined, rich, and deeply rooted in culture.”

Born in the small farming village of Arasampatti, Madurai in southern Tamil Nadu, the 44-year-old Kumar has always cooked from memory – of forests and foraging, firewood stoves and his mother and grandmother serving meals made from scratch for the family.

When he took the stage at the JB awards ceremony, he said “the food I grew up on, the food made with care, with fire, with soul is now taking the main stage”. It was a moment of deep emotion and cultural pride for Kumar.

“There is no such thing as a poor person’s food, or a rich person’s food. It’s food. It’s powerful. And the real luxury is to be able to connect with each other around the dinner table.”

For Kumar, the win is a personal milestone but also a powerful act of visibility.

“When I started cooking, I never thought a dark-skinned boy from Tamil Nadu could make it to a room like this,” he said in his acceptance speech. It was therefore important for him to wear veshti, the traditional Tamil attire for men, for the black-tie James Beard ceremony as a nod to his roots.

Recently, Kumar was trolled by a pair of influencers in New York. Quick to rise to his defence was Padma Lakshmi, cookbook author and culinary ambassador, who called the influencers out for their cultural insensitivity.

Speaking to the BBC, Lakshmi said “Vijay’s story is important not just for south Indian food but also as a story of someone who grew up with humble means and cooked with limited resources.”

“This resourcefulness has not only propelled his work ethic but enhanced his sense of flavour, ingredients and sense of the world. He is a beacon of hope to young people all over the world that if you trust and develop your senses and skills, you can go far in a creative career.”

Kumar’s journey wasn’t smooth to start with.

Unable to afford engineering school in the big city, he chose culinary school instead – beginning his journey at Taj Connemara hotel in Chennai, cooking his way through cruise ships and kitchens, and eventually finding his promised land in America, working at Dosa in San Francisco.

His real breakthrough came when he partnered with Roni Mazumdar and Chintan Pandya of Unapologetic Foods, a New York restaurant group, to open Semma – a Tamil slang word for “fantastic” in 2021.

The trio found a “shared sense of wanting to honour our heritage, to tell the world who we really are through our cuisine”.

“At that moment, it wasn’t just about food, it was about identity,” Mazumdar told the BBC. “For too long, Indian food in the US has lived under the veil of a manufactured, watered-down north-western lens. With Semma, we set out to pull back that curtain and share something more honest.”

Kumar jumped at the opportunity to share his cuisine with the world. “His eyes lit up when we started talking about the food we grew up eating, and that kind of food rarely makes it to restaurant menus,” recalls Mazumdar.

Kumar’s strength lies in serving authentic village food that is seasonal, hyper-local, and built entirely from scratch. His farm-to-table approach, he says, was to cook the way “my mother and grandmother did”. Semma, he adds, is a celebration of that simplicity.

That simplicity resonates.

Semma’s menu defies the clichés that often define Indian food abroad. There’s no butter chicken or naan here and Kumar’s epiphany came with an unlikely encounter: French escargot.

As a child, on days when rice was scarce, he would forage with his family for snails in the paddy fields, which would be cooked in a savoury tamarind sauce. Kumar admitted that he was ashamed of it as a boy as it “felt like food born of poverty – until I saw the pride with which the French serve escargot”.

Today, the dish, nathai pirattal, sits proudly on Semma’s menu, reimagined not as a memory of scarcity, but as a symbol of resilience and cultural pride.

Semma’s menu – pepper rasam, tamarind crab, banana flower vadai, the ubiquitous dosa – offer an emotional connection for many diaspora diners, and a revelation for first-timers.

Kumar’s intention to bring village-style Tamil food and showcase it in upscale spots and in the cut-throat New York restaurant space has won a long line of admirers.

There’s depth, regionality and a powerful emotional connection in this food.

The cocktails are a nod to Tamil film stars like Rajnikanth and Silk Smitha, and the décor channels Chennai’s warmth. Even the kitchen is a space of intention – cooks are asked to prepare food with “gratitude and mindfulness”.

“I invited him to curate a black-tie gala dinner for 650 guests at the Gold Gala in Los Angeles, and he made us all proud. A year later, people still talk about how incredible the food was,” says Lakshmi, applauding Kumar’s gift for bringing regional Indian cuisine to the most glamorous platforms.

The awards and accolades feel like a natural progression of his journey. Semma is the first New York restaurant serving only south Indian cuisine to win a Michelin star and topped The New York Times’s list for top 100 restaurants. And now the JBA for Kumar.

In many ways, Kumar is not just serving food – he is serving memory, pride and a quiet revolution.

His James Beard win is a recognition of his talent, but also an affirmation that regional Indian cuisine, with its bold spices and soulful simplicity, belongs at the centre of the global table.

Kumar’s win has piqued the “curiosity of young people from all over the Indian diaspora and instilled a greater pride in our food ways”, says Lakshmi. “This will be his greatest legacy.”

Adds Mazumdar, “This win is a signal that regionality matters, and that our stories and our roots have value on the world stage.”

A Budapest Pride march is expected to go ahead on Saturday, defying Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s legal threats against LGBTQ rights activists.

The march organisers hope for record attendance this year, despite mounting pressure from nationalist conservative politicians and police to stop any display of pro-LGBTQ material.

Police have issued a ban, in line with a new “child protection” law that restricts gatherings considered to be promoting homosexuality.

A day before the Pride, Orban downplayed the possibility of violent clashes between the police and participants – but warned those who go will face possible legal repercussions.

“Of course, the police could break up such events, because they have the authority to do so, but Hungary is a civilised country, a civic society. We don’t hurt each other,” he told state radio on Friday.

“There will be legal consequences, but it cannot reach the level of physical abuse.”

Attendees risk a fine of up to €500 (£427; $586), with police empowered to use facial recognition technology to identify them.

Organisers could face a one-year prison sentence.

EU equalities commissioner Hadja Lahbib, a former Belgian foreign minister, is in Budapest and expected to join the march, along with dozens of MEPs.

On Friday, she posted a picture showing her standing with the liberal Budapest mayor Gergely Karacsony in front of a rainbow flag symbolising gay rights.

The Pride march “will be a powerful symbol of the strength of the civil society,” she wrote on X.

Karacsony, a member of Hungary’s opposition, has insisted no-one attending the march can face any reprisals as it has been co-organised by city hall, and as such is a municipal event that does not require police approval.

Ahead of the Pride, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen asked the Orban government not to block the march.

Orban was unfazed, asking her “to refrain from interfering in the law enforcement affairs” of EU member countries.

MI6 has cast distance between its new chief and her grandfather, who was this week revealed to have been a Nazi spy known as “the butcher”.

Blaise Metreweli was announced as the incoming head of the Secret Intelligence Service earlier this month. She will be its first female “C” in its 116-year history.

With little known about her wider backstory, documents show that her grandfather was Constantine Dobrowolski, who defected from Soviet Russia’s Red Army to become the Nazis’ chief informant in Chernihiv, Ukraine.

However, the Foreign Office, which speaks on behalf of MI6, said Ms Metreweli “neither knew nor met her paternal grandfather”.

A spokesperson added: “Blaise’s ancestry is characterised by conflict and division and, as is the case for many with eastern European heritage, only partially understood.

“It is precisely this complex heritage which has contributed to her commitment to prevent conflict and protect the British public from modern threats from today’s hostile states, as the next chief of MI6.”

The Daily Mail, which first revealed the family link, reports that it found hundreds of pages of documents in an archive in Freiburg, Germany, which showed Mr Dobrowolski was known as “The Butcher” or “Agent No 30” by Wehrmacht commanders.

He reportedly signed off letters to his Nazi superiors with “Heil Hitler” and said he “personally” took part in “the extermination of the Jews”.

The archive documents are said to suggest Mr Dobrowolski looted the bodies of Holocaust victims, was involved in the murdering of local Jews, and laughed while watching the sexual assault of female prisoners.

BBC News has seen evidence to suggest that Mr Dobrowolski was on a most wanted list drawn up by the KGB, the Soviet Union’s spy agency, in 1969, which appears to detail his earlier work and suggests he may have still been alive by the 1960s.

The document, labelled “top secret” and sourced from a researcher, is a 460-page alphabetical list of “foreign intelligence agents, traitors to the motherland, members of anti-Soviet organisations, punishers and other criminals subject to wanting”.

An entry that appears to be for Mr Dobrowolski says he “participated in the executions of Soviet citizens”.

“At the same time, he was a resident of German intelligence,” the document seen by the BBC says. “In September 1943, he escaped with the Germans”.

After the war, Mr Dobrowolski’s wife, Barbara, and two-month-old son Constantine Jr fled to Britain – and she married David Metreweli in 1947. Constantine Jr later took his stepfather’s name of Metreweli, but the BBC has seen existence of a naturalisation certificate, dated July 1966, still held in the National Archives today, where his surname was still Dobrowolski, with Metreweli listed as an “alias”.

Constantine Jr would go on to be a radiologist and UK armed forces veteran, and his daughter, Ms Metreweli, was born in 1977 before joining MI6 22 years later.

She has not responded to the recent reports herself.

Having risen through the ranks, she is currently responsible for technology and innovation at MI6, which gathers intelligence overseas. She will be the agency’s 18th head when she takes over later this year from Sir Richard Moore, a senior civil servant.

Upon her appointment, she said in a statement that she was “proud and honoured” to have been asked to lead.

Ms Metreweli is a Cambridge graduate, a rower and has previously had operational roles in the Middle East and Europe.

The sex trafficking and racketeering case against hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was “badly, badly exaggerated”, his lawyer told a panel of 12 New York jurors on Friday.

In his closing, Marc Agnifilo argued for four hours that the government was criminalising Combs and his girlfriends’ “swingers lifestyle” in what amounted to a “fake trial”.

His 55-year-old client pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution.

“The government targeted Sean Combs,” Mr Agnifilo told the court, leading to an objection – later sustained – from prosecutors.

Warning: This story contains details some readers may find distressing

Lawyer Christy Slavik spoke to jurors for five-and-a-half hours in the prosecution’s closing arguments on Thursday, telling them that Combs abused his power and business empire to sex traffic women and commit other crimes.

The prosecution claimed Combs plied his ex girlfriends with drugs, and used violence and other means to coerce them into so-called “freak-offs” – Combs’ name for events where he watched and filmed while they had sex with male escorts.

While Ms Slavik was calm and methodical during a guided digital presentation, Mr Agnifilo was animated – pacing back and forth, and frequently cracking jokes.

He began by attacking the credibility of Combs’ ex-girlfriends who testified against him, Casandra Ventura and anonymous witness “Jane”.

He called Combs’ 11-year-relationship with Ms Ventura – in which she alleges he beat her repeatedly – “one of the great modern love stories”. She was a willing participant in their sex lives, he said.

“She’s a woman who actually likes sex – good for her,” Mr Agnifilo said. “She’s beautiful, she should.”

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He argued Ms Ventura was no victim, as Combs was now in jail and she settled a civil lawsuit against him for physical abuse and sexual coercion for millions of dollars.

“If you had to pick a winner in this whole thing, it’s hard not to pick Cassie,” he said.

The problems in their relationship amounted to domestic violence – and not sex trafficking, Mr Agnifilo said. He tried to cast doubt on prosecutors’ argument that the rapper used violence to coerce Ms Ventura into participating in freak-offs.

The government has focused on a 2016 surveillance video of Combs beating Ms Ventura in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel, allegedly after she tried to leave a freak-off.

Playing the video for jurors again, Mr Agnifilo argued it could not have been an instance of sex trafficking because Ms Ventura appeared to gesture Combs back to their room when a security guard arrived on the scene.

There was “nothing scary in the room”, he said, adding that freak-offs were “beautiful evenings” with nice music and well-decorated rooms.

Mr Agnifilo also attempted to chip away at Jane’s testimony, citing one night where she alleges the rapper was violent with her before a freak-off.

“Her story truly makes no sense,” he said.

Combs’ lawyer attacked the government’s racketeering case, the allegation that Combs relied on his loyal employees to help him commit sex trafficking and other crimes, then cover them up.

There was a “gaping lack of evidence” that Combs and his employees ran some sort of criminal enterprise, and that there were any co-conspirators, he said.

Combs’ former chief-of-staff, Kristina Khorram, whom prosecutors have pointed to as a co-conspirator, is a “helpful” woman who everyone loved, Agnifilo told the jury.

A real co-conspirator, he claimed, would have helped kick the door down when Combs is alleged to have tried to break into his ex-girlfriend’s home.

In response to the transportation to engage in prostitution charge, Mr Agnifilo argued that male escorts the hip-hop mogul and his girlfriends hired were paid “for their time” with the couple, and not for sex.

At the end of his arguments, Combs, wearing an off-white sweater, hugged his attorney. His family, including his twin daughters and mother, were seated behind him for the second day in a row.

In a rebuttal to the defence’s closing on Friday, prosecutor Maurene Comey took a more aggressive tone than Ms Slavik’s, slamming Combs’ lawyers for suggesting his ex-girlfriends were lying and that they wanted to engage in freak-offs after being beaten.

“There is no separating the violence from the sex,” Ms Comey said. “They were trapped emotionally, physically and financially.”

She noted Ms Ventura’s lawsuit settlement, asking, “why risk it all by perjuring herself at a federal trial?”

Jurors will reconvene on Monday for the judge’s instructions on how to weigh the case against the hip-hop mogul. Deliberations are expected to begin soon after.

Combs is facing life in prison over the most serious charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.

The head of a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid group has defended its work after repeated incidents of killings and injuries of Palestinians seeking aid.

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) boss Johnnie Moore told the BBC World Service’s Newshour he was not denying deaths near aid sites, but said “100% of those casualties are being attributed to close proximity to GHF” and that was “not true”.

He accused the UN and other international organisations of spreading information they could not verify.

The GHF aid system has been condemned by UN agencies, and on Friday UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres branded it “inherently unsafe”.

“Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarized zones is inherently unsafe. The search for food must never be a death sentence,” the UN chief said.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 500 Palestinians have been killed and 4,000 injured on their way to get aid since GHF took over aid distribution.

Within days of GHF operations starting in late May, dozens of Palestinians were killed in separate incidents on 1 and 3 June, sparking international condemnation.

Since then, the UN and aid groups have expressed alarm at the near-daily reports of Palestinians being killed near the GHF’s sites, which are inside Israeli military zones.

Eyewitnesses and medics have on several occasions described Israeli forces opening fire on crowds near aid points.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a story on Friday in which unnamed IDF soldiers said they were ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians near aid distribution sites, to drive them away or disperse them.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly rejected the report calling the allegations “malicious falsehoods”.

In a statement to the BBC, the IDF said it “did not instruct the forces to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching the distribution centres”.

It added it was looking to improve “the operational response” in the aid areas and had recently added new fencing and signage, and opened new routes to reach the handout zones.

For his part, the head of the GHF said “100% of the casualties are being attributed to the IDF – as best as we can tell that’s also not true”.

In statements over the past month, the IDF have several times said they fired “warning shots” at individuals who they described as “suspects” or claimed posed a threat.

“We spend an extended period of time trying to understand what actually happened, if anything actually happened and whether there’s a way that we can make it less likely to happen,” Mr Moore said.

“In most circumstances we haven’t been able to identify anything happening.”

“People need to understand that it is disinformation that people going to GHF sites are being killed, we have no evidence of that happening in proximity to our sites,” he added.

Israel does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, to send journalists into Gaza, which limits our ability to verify what is happening on the ground in the territory.

Mr Moore alleged that prior to GHF’s operations the majority of UN aid trucks were being hijacked at gunpoint.

The UN has said there is no evidence for a large-scale hijacking of its aid trucks. When told this, Mr Moore said the “UN is not being honest”.

The volume of aid entering Gaza is still considered inadequate, despite Israel last month partially easing an 11-week blockade introduced in March. Experts have warned the territory remains on the brink of famine.

The GHF is hoping to reach the milestone of providing 50 million meals in Gaza, which would equate to less than a meal a day per person since operations began.

When pushed on whether food was really getting to the people who needed it most, Mr Moore admitted the operation was “insufficient”, but said 50 million meals was more than had been available a month ago.

He said the GHF needs to scale up and hopefully work with organisations such as the UN.

“The mission is clear. We just want to feed Gazans,” he added.

On Thursday, the US State Department announced $30m (£22m; €26m) in funding for the GHF, which is its first known direct contribution to the group.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 56,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Deal or no deal, what Wes Love wants is certainty.

His Toronto-area business, Taurus Craco, imports machinery from overseas and distributes it across North America, mainly to the United States.

But President Donald Trump’s shifting tariffs on Canadian products have left him, like many independent business owners, unable to plan for the future.

“What has been creating indecision in the market is people don’t know which way this is going to go,” Mr Love told the BBC in June.

“And in small businesses, indecision is killer.”

Taurus Craco was hit hard by the tariffs earlier this year when it was forced to shell out nearly C$35,000 ($25,500, £18,700) because a shipment to the US crossed the border a few minutes after one deadline.

“It is totally punitive. From a small business perspective, that’s more than the cost that we spend on hydro and gas for the entire year,” he said.

Even though Trump paused that tariff a few hours later, Taurus Craco still had to pay. Refusing would mean no longer being allowed to transport its products into the US, Mr Love said.

“It’s like dealing with the mob,” he said.

Canada is in a tit-for-tat tariff war with its largest trading partner, faciing a series of levies, in particular on metals and auto.

Since taking office in January, Trump has announced a series of import taxes on goods from other countries – arguing they will boost American manufacturing and protect jobs.

The ensuing uncertainty has hit Canada’s economy and intense talks between the two countries hit a snag on Friday.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has called Trump’s tariffs “unjust”, and said while campaigning for the April election that the “old relationship” with the US is “over”.

Shortly after winning that election, the prime minister visited Washington DC, taking a more conciliatory message to the White House to launch talks on a new trade and security deal.

A 16 July deadline since has been set to hash out that deal, and President Trump said at the recent G7 summit that he was optimistic the two countries could “work something out” on trade.

But on Friday, Trump said he was cutting trade talks over Canada’s digital services tax.

“We are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,” he wrote on social media.

Carney has threatened to impose another round of retaliatory tariffs on the US if the talks aren’t successful.

Mr Love welcomes any prospect of a deal.

“Give us a set of rules and leave them alone and let us operate within those rules,” he said.

“It’s like sport, right? Everybody goes onto the field and you play to a set of rules, but you don’t change the rules in the middle of the game.”

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Gaphel Kongtsa, international policy director at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said businesses are hopeful an agreement will bring stability.

Thus far, they have had to navigate a very fluid landscape, he said, “where seemingly things get increased or decreased or added on without very much clear indication as to why”.

Canada is hugely reliant on trade with the US, with 75% of its exports heading south, according to Statistics Canada.

Its economy has slowed significantly in the first quarter of 2025 as a result of trade war and the ensuing uncertainty – growing only 0.8% between 1 January and 31 March, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).

It shrank 0.1% over a month in April.

A timeline of the tariffs shows what a whirlwind few months it has been.

On 1 February, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on most Canadian imports, then suspended them for a month days later. They were re-imposed when that deadline expired, only to be again delayed.

Not long after, he granted an exemption on all goods that were compliant with the current North American free trade deal, known as the USMCA.

Then in March, the US imposed a global 25% tariff on imported steel and aluminium as well as on imported vehicles.

This month, Trump raised the metals tariff to 50%.

The manufacturing sector has been in the spotlight when it comes to the tariffs, but the service sector also is affected by the uncertainty, if not by the levies directly.

Sam Gupta is the founder and CEO at ElevatIQ, a technology and management consultancy that operates out of Buffalo, New York, and in Toronto.

Mr Gupta said most people don’t think about the service sector during a period of uncertainty, calling it the “unloved stepchild” of the economy.

“The attention goes to all the manufacturing companies and the companies that are directly impacted by the supply chain,” he said.

Still, services – which encompass everything from finance to tourism – make up a huge proportion of Canada’s economy, accounting for the vast majority of its workforce.

Service exporters have not been hit as hard as manufacturing, but their outlook and confidence in the market is at the lowest level in years, according to data from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

And while Ottawa has implemented several measures to provide relief to companies hit by the tariffs – including from funds raised by counter tariffs – the service sector has not received any compensation.

“We are not even in the conversation,” Mr Gupta said. “We don’t exist.”

He said his business is not financially struggling at the moment, but noted that inquiries for his firm’s services were “down by 50%”.

“As far as our understanding goes, not a lot of businesses are thinking about these longterm investments right now. It just, they just are not in the mindset,” he said.

“The biggest fear that we all have right now is, I don’t know how long this is going to go. If it is going to be six months, a year, 18 months, we can still survive. But let’s say this goes on for like two years, three years then oh, my goodness, it will be, really, really hard.”

This has been the toughest period for the industry in his 20-year career, as the sector faces a combination of challenges, he said.

Mr Gupta recalled how easy it was for him to get a well-paying job early in his career.

“Even when I was graduating, we were getting paid like crazy. And we were so arrogant that we would not even pick up calls from recruiters,” he said.

“But now with AI, with tariffs, the economy, everything, everybody that I know is struggling,” he said.

Statistics Canada reports that 56% of all businesses that export to the US have taken measures to mitigate the impact of tariffs.

More than 30% have delayed major investments and expenditures, while 25% sought alternative customers outside the US.

The Bank of Canada said on Wednesday that exports to the US dropped by more than 15% in April. Steel and aluminium exports were down by 25% and 11%, and the export of vehicles had fallen by 25%.

But despite everything, Mr Love remains positive.

He said businesses can navigate the challenges as long as the US does not keep changing its trade policy.

“We’re entrepreneurs. We are full of piss and vinegar, as they would say,” he said.

“And so we are doing everything that we possibly can to keep fighting. And I think we will be successful; we just need to know what the ground rules are.”

Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have signed a peace deal in Washington aimed at ending decades of devastating conflict between the two neighbours, and potentially granting the US lucrative mineral access.

The deal demands the “disengagement, disarmament and conditional integration” of armed groups fighting in eastern DR Congo.

Further details are scant and previous peace deals in the region have failed – yet that has not deterred the US and Congolese presidents from framing this as a generational victory.

“Today, the violence and destruction comes to an end, and the entire region begins a new chapter of hope and opportunity,” US President Donald Trump said on Friday.

Flanked by Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and delegates from DR Congo and Rwanda in the Oval Office, Trump called the peace treaty “a glorious triumph”.

“This is a tremendous breakthrough,” Trump said, shortly before adding his signature to the peace treaty signed earlier by the respective African delegates.

The deal was signed by the Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers at the US State Department.

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“Another diplomatic success for President Félix Tshisekedi – certainly the most important in over 30 years,” said the Congolese president’s office, ahead of the signing.

There has been talk of Tshisekedi and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame going to Washington to meet Trump together, though no date has been fixed.

When tensions between the two countries escalated at the beginning of this year, Qatar intensified de-escalation efforts, according to a diplomat briefed on the negotiations.

Qatar sent envoys to both capitals to urge de-escalation, and after the Congolese and Rwandan presidents met in Doha, a joint committee was established, supported by the US, the diplomat added.

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Decades of conflict escalated earlier this year when M23 rebels seized control of large parts of eastern DR Congo including the regional capital, Goma, the city of Bukavu and two airports.

Thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of civilians forced from their homes following the recent rebel offensive.

After the loss of territory, the government in Kinshasa turned to the US for help, reportedly offering access to critical minerals in exchange for security guarantees. Eastern DR Congo is rich in coltan and other resources vital to the global electronics industries.

Rwanda denies supporting the M23 despite overwhelming evidence, and insists its military presence in the region is a defensive measure against threats posed by armed groups like the FDLR – a rebel militia composed largely of ethnic Hutus linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Rwanda in turn accuses the Congolese government of backing the FDLR, which is denied by DR Congo. Their presence is of utmost concern to Kigali.

When some information about the deal was released last week, a statement spoke of “provisions on respect for territorial integrity and a prohibition of hostilities”, but there were no specifics.

It also talked about the “facilitation of the return of refugees and internally displaced persons”.

According to a Reuters news agency report, Congolese negotiators had pushed for an immediate withdrawal of Rwandan soldiers, but Rwanda – which has at least 7,000 troops on Congolese soil – refused.

In an angry statement a day before the deal was signed, Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe condemned “the leak of a draft peace agreement” saying Rwanda had “demanded the other parties to respect the confidentiality of the discussions”.

The calls for the total withdrawal of Rwandan troops from DR Congo are a major point of contention.

But Nduhungirehe said “the words ‘Rwanda Defense Force’, ‘Rwandan troops’ or ‘withdrawal’ are nowhere to be seen in the document”.

Just hours before the signing ceremony, Tshisekedi’s office said the agreement “does indeed provide for the withdrawal of Rwandan troops… [but] preferred the term disengagement to withdrawal simply because ‘disengagement’ is more comprehensive”.

Unless and until full details of the signed deal are made public, several crucial questions remain unanswered:

• Will the M23 rebel group withdraw from areas they have occupied?

• Does “respect for territorial integrity” mean Rwanda admits having troops in eastern DR Congo and will withdraw them?

• Would the agreed “return of refugees” allow thousands of Congolese back from Rwanda?

• Does “disarmament” mean that the M23 will now lay down their weapons?

• Who will disarm the FDLR, after the failure of several previous attempts?

• Would the agreed humanitarian access allow the reopening of the rebel-held airports for aid supply?

Prior to Friday’s signing, Rwandan government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo told Reuters news agency that the “lifting of defensive measures in our border area” would be contingent upon the FDLR’s “neutralisation”.

One of the main actors in today’s conflict – the M23 rebels – were spawned by a previous peace deal 16 years ago that failed to ensure demobilisation.

Last year, Rwandan and Congolese experts reached an agreement twice under Angolan mediation on the withdrawal of Rwandan troops and joint operations against the FDLR – but ministers from both countries failed to endorse the deal. Angola eventually stepped down as a mediator in March.

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Reality stars, actors, royals and a whole host of A-listers have travelled to Venice for the lavish wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and TV presenter Lauren Sanchez.

Oprah Winfrey, Orlando Bloom, Kylie Jenner and Ivanka Trump were just some of the celebrities seen on the boats and streets of the Italian city on Thursday and Friday.

The festivities are expected to last three days, ending with a large party for the married couple and their hundreds of guests on Saturday.

The event has attracted protests from a variety of groups in Venice, including locals fighting over-tourism to climate change activists.

Sanchez, 55, wore a lace Dolce & Gabbana haute couture gown for the wedding – she was seen smiling alongside a jubilant Bezos, 61, after the ceremony, in a picture posted on Instagram.

An estimated 200 people were invited to Friday’s ceremony on the small island of San Giorgio, where Matteo Bocelli – son of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli – reportedly performed.

While the exact cost of the wedding is not known, estimates range from $20m (£14m) to more than $50m.

US President Donald Trump has said he is cutting off trade talks with Canada “immediately” as the country looks to start enforcing a tax policy targeting big tech companies.

The latest move, which he announced on social media, comes as the neighbouring nations had been working to agree a trade deal by mid-July.

Both countries have imposed tariffs on each other’s goods after Trump sparked a trade war earlier this year and threatened to annex Canada using “economic force”.

On Friday, the US president said he was ending talks due to what he called an “egregious tax” on tech companies and added he would announce new tariffs on goods crossing the border within the next week.

“We are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,” he wrote on social media.

“We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”

In brief comments to reporters, Prime Minister Mark Carney suggested that talks would continue.

“We will continue to conduct these complex negotiations in the best interest of Canadians,” he said.

Canada’s 3% digital services tax has been a sticking point in its relationship with the US since the law was enacted last year. The first payments are due on Monday.

Business groups estimate it will cost American companies, such as Amazon, Apple and Google, more than $2bn a year.

Canadian officials had said they expected to address the issue as part of trade talks with the US.

There were hopes that the relatively warm relationship that newly-elected Carney has forged with Trump might help those negotiations.

The president’s latest move casts doubt on a future deal, though Trump has often used social media threats to try to gain leverage in talks or speed up negotiations he sees as stalling.

Last month, for example, he threatened to ramp up tariffs on goods arriving to US shores from the European Union, only to climb down a few days later.

Candace Laing, chief executive of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce which has been critical of the digital services tax, said that “last-minute surprises should be expected” as the deadline for a deal approaches.

“The tone and tenor of talks has improved in recent months, and we hope to see progress continue,” she added.

During Trump’s first term, the White House fought hard as many countries began considering taxes on digital services.

But Inu Malak, fellow for trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that the issue was left unresolved in the trade deal the US and the UK reached earlier this year, suggesting some flexibility.

She said Trump’s threat seemed like a move to ramp up pressure out of his typical negotiating “playbook – but was also a sign the president had refocused on Canada, which could open the way for a deal.

“It does provide a bit of an opening – maybe not the one that Prime Minister Carney wanted … but it does provide some space for them to hasten those talks,” she said.

The US is Canada’s top trade partner, buying more than $400bn in goods last year under a longstanding free trade agreement.

But Trump hit that trade with a new 25% tariff earlier this year, citing concerns about drug trafficking at the border.

New US tariffs on cars, steel and aluminium have also scrambled relations. Car parts, for example, cross US, Mexican and Canadian borders multiple times before a vehicle is completely assembled and such import taxes threaten supply chains.

Trump later carved out exemptions for some goods in the face of widespread alarm from businesses in both the US and Canada, which has hit back with tariffs of its own on some US products.

Shares in the US fell on Friday after Trump said he was cutting off talks, but later bounced back with the S&P 500 closing at a record high.

A state funeral is taking place in Iran for about 60 people, including military commanders and nuclear scientists, killed during the 12-day conflict with Israel.

Coffins draped in the Iranian flag, bearing portraits of deceased commanders, were flanked by crowds near Tehran’s Enghelab Square.

The conflict ended with a ceasefire earlier this week, after the US became directly involved by bombing key nuclear sites in Iran.

Huge crowds of mourners dressed in black chanted slogans, waved Iranian flags and held portraits of those killed.

Ahead of the event, a media campaign urged people to participate, with authorities providing free bus and metro rides. Government offices were shut for the day.

Among those being laid to rest is Mohammad Bagheri, the highest-ranking military officer in Iran who was chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces.

Bagheri will be buried with his wife and daughter, who were killed in an Israeli strike. In total, Iranian authorities said 627 people were killed in Iran. Israeli officials said 28 people were killed in Israel following missile attacks by Iran.

Saturday’s funeral also includes Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, as well as a number of nuclear scientists such as Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, who was head of Azad University in Tehran.

It comes after US President Donald Trump said he would “absolutely” consider bombing Iran again.

Responding to a question from the BBC’s Nomia Iqbal at a White House press briefing on Friday, he said he would “without question” attack the country if intelligence concluded Iran could enrich uranium to concerning levels.

Trump has also repeated his assertions that Iran was “decimated”, writing: “Why would the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of the war-torn country of Iran, say so blatantly and foolishly that he won the war with Israel, when he knows his statement is a lie.”

Trump also claimed to have known “exactly where he [Khamenei] was sheltered”, saying he “would not let Israel, or the US Armed Forces… terminate his life”.

“I saved him from a very ugly and ignominious death, and he does not have to say, ‘thank-you, president Trump!'”, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, warned Trump against making “disrespectful” comments about Khamenei, who claimed US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites had achieved “nothing significant”.

“If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei,” Araghchi posted on X.

“The Great and Powerful Iranian People, who showed the world that the Israeli regime had no choice but to run to ‘Daddy’ to avoid being flattened by our Missiles, do not take kindly to Threats and Insults.”

Araghchi has admitted that “excessive and serious” damage was done to Iran’s nuclear sites by the recent bombings.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said it is still not known how much of Iran’s nuclear capabilities – including highly-enriched uranium and the centrifuges needed to purify the metal – have been destroyed or moved.

The agency’s director general Rafael Grossi also said that stopping Iran from being able to build nuclear weapons would not be achieved through military attacks.

“You are not going to solve this in a definitive way militarily, you are going to have an agreement,” he told the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

On social media, Trump claimed that in recent days he had been “working on the possible removal of sanctions, and other things, which would have given a much better chance to Iran at a full, fast, and complete recovery”.

But he said Khamenei’s comments had deterred him, declaring: “Instead I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief, and more.”

The Supreme Court on Friday handed a significant victory to Donald Trump – and future American presidents – when curbing lower courts’ power to block executive orders.

President Trump was beaming as he addressed reporters at the White House briefing room podium, calling it a “big, amazing decision” which the administration is “very happy about”.

He said it was a “monumental victory for the constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law”.

The court’s decision not only impacts Trump’s birthright citizenship order, but also emboldens him to enact many of his other policy actions that have been temporarily thwarted by similar injunctions.

The Supreme Court has opened the door for the Trump administration to no longer grant automatic citizenship to everyone born on American soil – at least for the moment. Now the White House will have to implement its plan, which will be no easy task.

On Friday, the nation’s highest court allowed Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship to go into effect in a month’s time, while leaving room for lower courts to curb the impact on those who have standing to sue.

States traditionally handle processing birth certificates, and many do not record the citizenship of the parents. Democratic-run state governments will be in no rush to do so, no matter what the Trump administration may desire.

And Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority, left the door open for states to make the case that a more broad block on Trump’s birthright citizenship action is necessary.

That sets up big legal battles to come.

“As the States see it, their harms — financial injuries and the administrative burdens flowing from citizen-dependent benefits programs — cannot be remedied without a blanket ban on the enforcement of the Executive Order,” Barrett wrote.

“The lower courts should determine whether a narrower injunction is appropriate, so we leave it to them to consider these and any related arguments.”

President Trump described the court’s decision on Friday as a “giant win”.

He added that the “birthright citizenship hoax” has been “indirectly, hit hard” and that the decision would prevent “scamming of our immigration process”.

Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Friday that the Supreme Court will decide whether the US will end birthright citizenship in October during its next session.

The court’s decision to limit the power of lower court federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions will have immediate, wide-ranging consequences.

Both Democratic and Republican presidents have often criticised what they say are ideological jurists in federal district courts who have been able to singlehandedly block executive actions and even legislation passed by Congress.

While doing away automatic citizenship for the children of undocumented migrants born on US soil is at the centre of this high profile case, there are a number of other actions taken by Trump in recent months that have also been held up by lower-level judges.

From Trump’s inauguration to April 29, the Congressional Research Service counts 25 such instances.

Following the court’s decision on Friday, Trump told journalists, “We can now properly file to proceed with policies that have been wrongly enjoined.”

Lower courts have blocked the president’s cuts to foreign assistance, diversity programmes and other government agencies, limited his ability to terminate government employees, put other immigration reforms on hold and suspended White House issued changes to election processes.

With the Supreme Court’s decision in this case, the administration is in a much stronger position to ask courts to allow it to push forward on many of these efforts.

During the Biden presidency, conservative judges prevented Democrats from enacting new environmental regulations, offering student loan forgiveness, modifying immigration rules. Courts blocked changes to normalised immigration status for some undocumented migrants during Barack Obama’s presidency, as well, and prevented him from making more white collar employees eligible for overtime pay.

In all these types of cases, courts will ultimately be able to step in and halt presidential actions that they deem illegal or unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court in its opinion said, ” The lower courts shall move expeditiously to ensure that, with respect to each plaintiff, the injunctions comport with this rule and otherwise comply with principles of equity.”

But that will come further along in the judicial process, at the appellate and Supreme Court level. In the meantime, presidents – Donald Trump and his successors, whether they are Republicans or Democrats – will have more time and space to act.

Cocaine with a street value of almost £100m has been seized by Border Force officers in “one of the largest drugs busts of the past decade”.

The shipment was intercepted earlier this month on a container vessel arriving at London Gateway port from Panama.

Border Force officials and staff at the port in Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, had to move 37 large containers to locate the 2.4-tonne haul.

Worth an estimated £96m, it was the sixth largest cocaine seizure since records began, the Home Office said.

Specialist maritime officers intercepted the drugs after an “intelligence-led operation”.

Border Force said in a statement: “The interception strikes a significant financial and operational blow against the organised crime groups behind its importation and is an example of an intelligence driven outcome to disrupt criminal supply chains.”

Charlie Eastaugh, the organisation’s maritime director, said: “This seizure – one of the largest of its kind – is just one example of how dedicated Border Force maritime officers remain one step ahead of the criminal gangs who threaten our security.

“Our message to these criminals is clear. More than ever before, we are using intelligence and international law enforcement co-operation to disrupt and dismantle your operations.”

He added there were also training programmes across Latin America to help prevent the drugs entering British shores.

Government minister Seema Malhotra, said: “Drugs gangs trying to import illegal substances into the UK are a blight on society and we will leave no stone left unturned in our pursuit of organised crime gangs inflicting addiction, misery and death upon Britain’s communities.”

I’m on the hunt for a microbial saviour – a type of virus that can treat infections rather than cause them.

We all know the viral bad guys – Covid, flu, norovirus, herpes, chicken pox, measles… the list goes on.

But there’s a type of virus that’s not interested in infiltrating our bodies, instead it preys on bacteria.

They’re known as bacteria eaters, or bacteriophage, or commonly as phage.

Capturing them could give us new ways of treating infections, including superbugs that are becoming incurable.

So, how to catch a killer?

I’ve been promised it’s surprisingly easy. The team at the Phage Collection Project sent me some vials to collect samples, along with a pair of gloves. All I need to do is hunt for some dirty water, the dirtier the better, dip the vials in and screw on the lid.

I tried a couple of ponds, the juice from a worm-composting bin and then I needed my dirtiest sample. I didn’t flush the toilet after a poo and left it for a couple of hours. I pop on a glove and hold my breath as I go in for the final sample. Strict hygiene instructions, including vigorous hand-washing, were followed, at all times.

The vials were packaged up for collection and then three days later I headed off to the University of Southampton to see what was inside.

“They were a bit dirty when I received them,” phage scientist Michelle Lin tells me as we don our blue lab-coats and matching gloves to go into the Containment Level 2 microbiology laboratory.

We grab my samples from the fridge, which look much clearer now they have been filtered of any… debris. “It’s fine, it’s needed,” Michelle, who had the unpleasant job, reassures me.

Filtering is the first step in looking for phage, next they get served dinner – a cocktail of yummy bacteria – to help them grow in number.

Now comes the really cool bit – finding a useful phage. The scientists have been working with the local hospital to collect bacteria from patients with troublesome infections.

Michelle grabs a petri dish that’s growing bacteria from a patient with a painful, urinary tract infection that keeps coming back.

And to my amazement – one of the phage I collected from my toilet was able to kill this infection in the lab.

“The way to see that the phage has infected bacteria is you get these zones where the bacteria are not growing and that’s because they’ve been killed by the phage,” says Michelle.

You can see the leopard print pattern in the petri dish where the phage have been making light work of a bacterial infection that modern medicine was struggling to shift.

“As crazy as it sounds, well done to the toilet sample,” says Michelle with great delight.

And when I was offered the chance to name the phage, well of course it’s the Gallagher-phage.

“Sounds amazing to me,” says Michelle.

So far this is all good fun in the laboratory, but could my phage ever be given to a patient?

“Yes and I hope so,” says associate professor Dr Franklin Nobrega as we look at images of my phage captured with an electron microscope.

“Your phage, already in just 24 hours, we were able to get in a high concentration and able to be a very good killer, which means this is very promising for patients, so thank you,” said Dr Nobrega.

Phage remind me of a moon lander – a big capsule on spindly legs – just instead of landing on the surface of the moon they use their legs to select their victim.

They then hijack the bacteria and transform it into a mass-production factory for more phage, which burst out of their host, killing it in the process.

There are pros and cons to phage. They reproduce as they go along so you don’t need constant doses like you would with drugs.

They are also very picky eaters. You need a precise match between phage and the strain of bacteria you’re trying to treat whereas antibiotics tend to kill everything good and bad. So it is harder to find the right phage, but if you do it comes with fewer side effects.

Dr Nobrega tells me infected wounds are a “very good application” for phage because you can apply them directly to the injury, but they can also be inhaled via a nebuliser to treat lung infections or to target urinary tract infections “which is our target currently”.

Phage science may sound new and exciting, but it is actually a century old idea stemming from the discoveries of Felix d’Hérelle and Frederick Twort in the 1910s.

Bacteriophage therapy was a branch of medicine and the idea was compelling. Even as late as the 1940s there was an active pharmaceutical industry in western countries trying to produce phage-therapy to defeat bacterial infections.

However, it was rapidly eclipsed by the wonder-drug of the 20th century.

“Antibiotics were working so well that most people said ‘why bother’,” says Dr Nobrega.

Work on phage therapy continued in places like Georgia and there are individual accounts of it working wonders; but there hasn’t been the same depth of medical research and clinical trials as there have for drugs.

But just as the initial success of antibiotics suppressed phage research, the failure of antibiotics is reigniting excitement at their potential.

More than a million people a year are already dying from infections caused by microbes that are resistant to treatment – it’s known as the “silent pandemic”. By 2050, that figure is projected to reach 10 million a year.

This “antibiotic apocalypse” would mean common infections could kill again and undermine modern medicine. The drugs are also used to make organ transplants, open surgery and chemotherapy possible.

“The predictions around antibiotic resistance are very frightening, but the reality is we’re seeing it now and it’s only going to get worse,” says Prof Paul Elkington, the director of the institute for medical innovation at the University of Southampton.

He is also a doctor with a speciality in lung medicine and is already at the point where – after a year of treatment and turning to ever more toxic and less effective antibiotics – “in the end you have to have a conversation [and say] ‘we can’t treat this infection, we’re really sorry'”.

He says we can’t rely solely on antibiotics in the future and phage are a potential alternative.

But he warns the steps needed to get from the laboratory and into patients are “uncharted”.

Things are changing. Phage therapy is available in the UK on compassionate grounds when other treatments have failed. And the drugs regulator – The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency – has published its first official rules to support the development of phage therapy.

“If one looks 15-20 years into the future, with the emerging methodologies, it’s going to be possible for them to be much more widely available and for doctors to prescribe phage instead of antibiotics for some infections,” says Prof Elkington.

If you want to see if you can find a friendly virus too then The Phage Collection Project are launching their new sampling kits at the Summer Science Exhibition taking place this week at the Royal Society and through their website.

“Antimicrobial resistance is something that could affect all of us,” says Esme Brinsden from the Phage Collection Project, “when the public get involved they may just find the next phage that can help treat and save a patient’s life”.

MI6 has cast distance between its new chief and her grandfather, who was this week revealed to have been a Nazi spy known as “the butcher”.

Blaise Metreweli was announced as the incoming head of the Secret Intelligence Service earlier this month. She will be its first female “C” in its 116-year history.

With little known about her wider backstory, documents show that her grandfather was Constantine Dobrowolski, who defected from Soviet Russia’s Red Army to become the Nazis’ chief informant in Chernihiv, Ukraine.

However, the Foreign Office, which speaks on behalf of MI6, said Ms Metreweli “neither knew nor met her paternal grandfather”.

A spokesperson added: “Blaise’s ancestry is characterised by conflict and division and, as is the case for many with eastern European heritage, only partially understood.

“It is precisely this complex heritage which has contributed to her commitment to prevent conflict and protect the British public from modern threats from today’s hostile states, as the next chief of MI6.”

The Daily Mail, which first revealed the family link, reports that it found hundreds of pages of documents in an archive in Freiburg, Germany, which showed Mr Dobrowolski was known as “The Butcher” or “Agent No 30” by Wehrmacht commanders.

He reportedly signed off letters to his Nazi superiors with “Heil Hitler” and said he “personally” took part in “the extermination of the Jews”.

The archive documents are said to suggest Mr Dobrowolski looted the bodies of Holocaust victims, was involved in the murdering of local Jews, and laughed while watching the sexual assault of female prisoners.

BBC News has seen evidence to suggest that Mr Dobrowolski was on a most wanted list drawn up by the KGB, the Soviet Union’s spy agency, in 1969, which appears to detail his earlier work and suggests he may have still been alive by the 1960s.

The document, labelled “top secret” and sourced from a researcher, is a 460-page alphabetical list of “foreign intelligence agents, traitors to the motherland, members of anti-Soviet organisations, punishers and other criminals subject to wanting”.

An entry that appears to be for Mr Dobrowolski says he “participated in the executions of Soviet citizens”.

“At the same time, he was a resident of German intelligence,” the document seen by the BBC says. “In September 1943, he escaped with the Germans”.

After the war, Mr Dobrowolski’s wife, Barbara, and two-month-old son Constantine Jr fled to Britain – and she married David Metreweli in 1947. Constantine Jr later took his stepfather’s name of Metreweli, but the BBC has seen existence of a naturalisation certificate, dated July 1966, still held in the National Archives today, where his surname was still Dobrowolski, with Metreweli listed as an “alias”.

Constantine Jr would go on to be a radiologist and UK armed forces veteran, and his daughter, Ms Metreweli, was born in 1977 before joining MI6 22 years later.

She has not responded to the recent reports herself.

Having risen through the ranks, she is currently responsible for technology and innovation at MI6, which gathers intelligence overseas. She will be the agency’s 18th head when she takes over later this year from Sir Richard Moore, a senior civil servant.

Upon her appointment, she said in a statement that she was “proud and honoured” to have been asked to lead.

Ms Metreweli is a Cambridge graduate, a rower and has previously had operational roles in the Middle East and Europe.

Strawberries and cream – an iconic British combo since the 1800s. But do they belong together in a sandwich?

M&S has rolled out a limited-edition strawberries and cream sandwich, made with strawberries, whipped cream cheese and sweetened bread, which it says is inspired by the “viral Japanese fruit sando”. The supermarket chain says it was its top-selling sandwich the two days after its launch.

Strawberry sandwiches are available at some Japanese bakeries in the UK, but M&S’s offering appears to be the first time they have been widely available on supermarket shelves.

The idea of serving fruit in a sandwich might sound unusual but it’s nothing new in Japan. Known as “furutsu sando”, they became popular after Japanese fruit shops opened parlours selling desserts for customers to sample their wares.

They recently became sought-after around the world after going viral on social media, with Western tourists on TikTok scrambling to get their hands on the version sold in Japanese convenience store chain 7-Eleven.

Fruit sandwiches are typically made of sweetened, soft, spongy white bread filled with whipped cream and fruit, typically strawberries or clementine, says Shuko Oda, chef at Koya restaurant in London. They’re usually cut into triangles so that the fruit is on display.

“It looks quite pretty,” Shuko says, adding that the sandwiches are a “fun play on texture”.

Some people in Japan make them at home, but they’re more commonly bought from convenience stores, food halls or dedicated fruit sando stores, she says. People often enjoy them as a snack with tea or coffee or served on a plate alongside savoury sandwiches.

In the UK, it’s not as uncommon as you might think to pair fruit with slices of bread for a sandwich. Think of banana sandwiches, served with the fruit sliced or mashed, or the nostalgia of childhood jam sandwiches. Coronation chicken sandwiches are made with dried apricots or sultanas, too.

What is a sandwich, at its core? Does it have to be savoury? And does it have to even be made with typical wheat bread – take the jibarito, for example, which is made with fried plantain instead.

What about Scandinavian open sandwiches? And if they count as sandwiches, then what about French toast topped with fruit and sauce?

The Oxford English Dictionary says sandwiches are made of two thin slices of bread, usually buttered, “with a savoury… or other filling”.

Though humans have been making bread for thousands of years, the sandwich as we know it today is said to owe its popularity to John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. The story goes that he asked his staff to bring him meat between two slices of bread so he could continue playing cards without stopping to eat.

Some of the sandwiches we eat in the UK would raise eyebrows around the world. Take crisp sarnies, coronation chicken sandwiches, or the humble chip butty. But if you’re feeling inspired by Japan’s strawberry sandos and want to up your sandwich game, here are some more sandwiches from around the world.

Bánh mì is a Vietnamese sandwich served in a baguette, typically filled with meat, pate, pickles and spicy sauces. It’s usually eaten for breakfast. BBC Food has a recipe made with sweet and spicy pork belly and chilli sauce.

Croque monsieur is a French sandwich served hot with gooey, melted cheese. It’s made with white sauce, cheese, ham and mustard, cooked under the grill. To mix it up, served with a fried egg on top and – voila – you have a croque madame.

A po’ boy, which comes from “poor boy”, is a New Orleans street food sandwich that celebrates Louisiana’s seafood. A huge variety of fillings are available, but the most popular include fried shrimp, crab or lobster nestled among lettuce, remoulade and pickles. BBC Food has a simplified version you can make at home more easily using frozen scampi.

Rather than using bread made from typical wheat flour, arepas are made using corn flour. They’re also popular in Colombia, but it’s Venezuela where they’re most often made into sandwiches. One popular filling is Reina Pepiada, which combines chicken, avocado and coriander.

We’re no strangers to doubling up on carbs in the UK – and the Australian spaghetti jaffle draws on the same principle. It is made by serving leftover spaghetti in tomato sauce inside a toastie. At convenience stores across Japan, you can also pick up a yakisoba pan – noodles served in a hot dog bun.

Francesinha, a Portuguese sandwich originating in Porto, is a cheese and meat lover’s heaven. The impressive structure is made by filling a lightly toasted bread with a steak, sausage, cheese and ham.

More cheese is then placed on top, and the whole sandwich is typically baked in the oven until the cheese melts and then served with an egg on top. A spicy sauce made with Port, beer and tomato is then poured over the whole thing. If that wasn’t filling enough already, it’s usually served with chips on the side.

Health and fire warnings have been issued in countries across southern Europe, with temperatures expected to exceed 40C in some places over the weekend.

Italy, Greece, France, Spain and Portugal are among the countries affected – with the Spanish city of Seville forecast to hit 42C.

Hot air from North Africa, which is spreading across the Balkans to holiday destinations such as Croatia, is contributing to the soaring temperatures.

BBC Weather says the heatwave is “very intense” for this time of the year -with the continent normally experiencing such high temperatures in July and early August.

In Spain, emergency staff have been placed on standby to deal with a surge in heatstroke cases especially among the vulnerable including children, the elderly and those with chronic illnesses.

Italian authorities are advising residents in several cities, including Rome, Milan and Venice – where several A-list celebrities have gathered for the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and TV presenter Lauren Sanchez – to stay indoors between 11:00 and 18:00 local time.

France, meanwhile, has been experiencing a heatwave for more than a week. Orange heat alerts, the country’s second-highest warning, were issued for southern regions on Friday.

In the city of Marseille, municipal swimming pools are being opened free of charge until the end of the heatwave.

Yellow and amber alerts are also in place for parts of England this weekend, with temperatures set to reach 32C. The heatwave is forecast to last until Tuesday evening.

Wildfires have already struck some parts of Europe, including Greece, where coastal towns near the capital, Athens, erupted in flames that destroyed homes – forcing people to evacuate.

While it is hard to link individual extreme weather events to climate change, heatwaves are becoming more common and more intense due to climate change.

Scientists at World Weather Attribution, who analyse the influence of climate change on extreme weather events, say June heatwaves with three consecutive days above 28C are about 10 times more likely to occur now compared to pre-industrial times.

Vandals smeared a children’s playground with mud, dug several holes and carved an offensive message into a nearby area of grass, a council in Cumbria has said.

Wigton Town Council said its staff had now filled in a 6ft (1.8m) deep hole that appeared last weekend at Wigton Park’s BMX track.

An abusive message aimed at the local authority was carved into an area of grass on Tuesday, while several pieces of equipment in the children’s playground were covered in mud.

Cumbria Police said it had received a report of criminal damage between 21 and 24 June, which included fences being knocked down and holes being dug.

Wigton Park, located on the Greenacres housing estate, was established in 1923 as a public recreation space.

The council said there had been a BMX track there since the 1980s.

Over the weekend of 21 and 22 June, the council said a series of holes had appeared – including the deep one – while parts of a fence were removed.

The council said this “raised serious health and safety concerns” so the hole was filled in on Monday.

Along with the damage to the playground, which happened on Tuesday night, the council said there was “evidence of trees being pulled out and knocked over in nearby Phoenix Park”.