The Metropolitan Police has written to alleged victims of the late businessman Mohamed Al Fayed apologising for the distress they have suffered because he will never face justice.

And in an unusual move, Scotland Yard also plans to send the women a video statement later this week to provide an update on its ongoing investigation.

The force has promised to answer questions about the investigation into what it has said are 40 allegations, including rape and sexual assault.

These relate to the former Harrods boss - who died in 2023, aged 94 - as well as others who may have enabled his abuse.

In the letter, Detective Chief Superintendent Angela Craggs, now leading the investigation, said she was "acutely aware the case is especially distressing to all those who have suffered".

"Not least due to the fact that the main suspect will now never directly face justice for his crimes, and for this I am truly sorry," she wrote.

But some of Al Fayed's accusers have suggested the Met needs to do more.

Speaking on behalf of a group of survivors, Pelham Spong, who says she was sexually assaulted by Al Fayed in her 20s, questioned whether Met is giving the case the "gravitas and attention" it deserves.

She told the BBC it was "difficult to place a huge amount of trust" in the police investigation.

Some 21 women accused the tycoon between 2005 and 2023, but he was never charged. One focus of the Met's inquiry is assessing whether anybody still alive enabled his activities, but there have been no charges.

Scotland Yard plans to send alleged victims a video statement on Friday, which could provide the first substantial update about the investigation since the Met asked potential victims or survivors to come forward last September.

The Met decided against holding a meeting, online or in-person, to update the women because of concerns about anonymity and the potential to harm testimony for any future trial.

DCS Craggs' letter describes the inquiry as a "large-scale investigation into the allegations made against Al Fayed and those who may be involved in his offending", which is being run by complex investigations team at the Met.

She wrote: "Some of you may have heard, and perhaps experienced dissatisfaction in previous investigations into Al Fayed by the Met and hence may have little confidence in us."

To address that she has asked for questions from the alleged victims, which will be answered in Friday's video statement.

Ms Spong, who lives in the US state of South Carolina and reported her 2008 encounter with Al Fayed in 2017, said: "My fear is that most of our questions will remain unanswered, and we'll merely be given vague promises of change and accountability with no real action.

"It is hard to know what to expect and it is difficult to place a huge amount of trust in the process when the police have ignored and silenced so many victims for several decades."

In 2017, detectives investigating some of the claims against Al Fayed while he was still alive were "unable to obtain an account from the suspect owing to his poor state of health", according to an email they sent to Ms Spong. The case was subsequently closed.

Ms Spong has complained to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, the police complaints watchdog for England and Wales, that the Met failed to challenge this response from Al Fayed's lawyers.

The Met's inquiry has grown rapidly since the BBC broadcast the documentary "Predator at Harrods" in September 2024, which brought the wider claims against him into the open. The tycoon owned Harrods between 1985 and 2010.

The force has refused to put a timescale on its investigation. In February, Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said it was a live investigation, and he was not going to give a running commentary.

Separate civil cases involving hundreds of women are ongoing.

A spokesperson for the Met Police said, as well as the video briefing, one-to-one liaison between officers and alleged victims will continue.

"We continue to support all victims and we urge anyone with information, whether they were directly affected by Mohamed Al Fayed's actions or aware of others who may have been involved, or committed offences to come forward," the statement added.

"We cannot comment further at this time, but will provide an update as soon as we are able to and where this won't jeopardise criminal or other proceedings."

It was just two days after Christmas 2023 when Chris Marriott selflessly stepped in to help a stranger in need - a decision which led to him being fatally struck by a car used by its driver, Hassan Jhangur, as a weapon. What turned out to be the 46-year-old's final act of kindness came as no surprise to those who knew the father-of-two from Sheffield, who has since been described as a "modern day Good Samaritan".

Mr Marriott's life was tragically cut short on 27 December, a wet and gloomy Wednesday, after a sudden break in the weather had prompted him, as well as Bryony - his wife of 16 years - and their two children, to head out for a stroll in Burngreave.

Midwife Alison Norris and her family had similarly taken the opportunity to get some fresh air and walk their dog.

Both their routes took them past College Close, and it was there they all came across Nafeesa Jhangur, who was lying motionless in the road.

Mr Marriott and Ms Norris rushed over to help - an instinctive act of public spirit that unwittingly placed them in the middle of a volatile family dispute.

"I later found out his name was Chris," Ms Norris told the BBC.

"I didn’t know him, but I remember he was very sensible."

Recollecting the scene, Ms Norris said Mr Marriott "checked she was breathing, checked there was a pulse, called the ambulance".

"I was calming down thinking, 'right, we just need to keep her stable until the ambulance comes'," she said.

However, Ms Norris said that as she and Mr Marriott tended to Ms Jhangur, she saw a "brightly lit" car heading straight towards them.

The car, driven by Hassan Jhangur, first struck Riasat Khan, before then ploughing into the group of people who had gathered around Jhangur's sister.

"Chris’s back was to the car and I was facing it," Ms Norris said.

"I think if we’d been the other way round it would have been me.

"I couldn’t see him because of the way the car came between us and I remember thinking, 'I hope he’s all right, I hope he’s all right, I hope he’s all right'."

Mr Marriott died at the scene, while Mr Khan, Jhangur's sister Nafeesa, their mother Ambreen and Ms Norris all suffered serious injuries.

A lengthy trial at Sheffield Crown Court, which has just concluded, heard that the horrific scenes then continued.

The jury was told that Jhangur, who is now 25, got out of the car and stabbed Hasan Khan, his new brother-in-law, several times in the head and chest.

The court heard that Mr Khan had married Amaani Jhangur just that morning, amid serious tensions between the families over its timing and location.

Following the lengthy trial Hassan Jhangur was found guilty of murder, as well as three counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and two of wounding with intent.

His father Mohammed Jhangur, 57, was convicted of perverting the course of justice.

Reflecting on what happened, Ms Norris said the tragedy was a stark reminder of how anger and the desire for revenge could lead to devastating consequences.

"We all have times when we are bitter, angry and fearful," she said.

"We don't have to act on that. We can check ourselves, then act from our best thinking, our kindness and our mutual respect."

In the aftermath of the attack, Ms Norris said it was the support from her community that carried her and her family through "the dark times".

"When I was shocked and injured, friends from all communities turned up and walked the dog, and brought food.

"They sat with me and offered to go with us when it was hard to walk by the scene," she said.

Ms Norris recalled a small but powerful moment of recovery: riding her bicycle again for the first time after overcoming her fear of traffic which had emerged following the events in Burngreave.

She explained that one of the local taxi drivers spotted her, stopped and clapped, genuinely delighted at her progress.

"People's kindness was humbling," she said.

A memorial service for Mr Marriott reflected the deep love and respect he had inspired in both the congregation at City Church Sheffield, of which he was a member, and also among those closest to him.

He was a steady presence, described as someone on whom people could rely, and a natural bridge-builder who brought people together.

Friends remembered him as the kind of person who would take a day off work just to support someone feeling unwell - a man whose quiet acts of care spoke volumes about his character.

Ben Gibbins, Mr Marriott's friend of nearly 30 years, said: "Chris was just a great guy to be around.

"From your interactions with him, you always came away feeling loved and cared for, and you always had a laugh, always had a joke."

Mr Gibbins said that while Mr Marriott's death had left an immense hole in his life, he would remain inspired by his friend's decision to help someone in need.

"I can’t think of anything else I should be doing, or could be doing, but doing the same thing and being a Good Samaritan and hopefully, in some small way, making a difference in other people’s lives," he said.

Meanwhile, at Jubilee+, a Christian anti-poverty organisation where Mr Marriott worked as a conference administrator for several years, his loss has also been felt deeply.

Chief executive Natalie Williams said: "When I heard how Chris died, my first thought was that it was so in keeping with who he was.

"It was no surprise to me at all that he died helping someone else.

"Chris was a man of very, very strong faith, and his faith in Jesus motivated him to want to be a Good Samaritan in all areas of his life.

"It wasn't just a one-off thing for him. It was a day-by-day decision to do good for other people."

Graham Pyman, director of ChristCentral Churches, who had worked with Mr Marriott for more than a decade, compared his actions to the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan, who helped an injured stranger.

Mr Pyman described Mr Marriott as the "modern day version of that".

"I think we can all learn something from Chris’s life," he explained.

"Whether you are a person of faith or not, just the attitude of putting other people before yourself is certainly something he demonstrated in the way he lived and, indeed, sadly in the way he died."

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A police officer has denied he "lost control" in the aftermath of being allegedly assaulted by two brothers at Manchester Airport.

Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 20, and Muhammad Amaad, 26, are said to have struck out after police were called to a reported assault at the Starbucks cafe in Terminal 2 arrivals on July 23 last year, when Mr Amaaz is said to have headbutted a customer.

Jurors at Liverpool Crown Court were shown a photograph of injuries to the face of the defendants' mother, said to have been caused as PC Zachary Marsden attempted to arrest Mr Amaaz at the terminal car park.

PC Marsden said it was "unclear" if his actions that caused her injuries.

The Greater Manchester Police officer said: "I believe I was not the only person who made contact with Mrs Akhtar."

CCTV footage played to the jury showed Mrs Akhtar knelt near to her son on the floor after a Taser discharge knocked him down.

Cross-examining PC Marsden, Imran Khan KC, defending Mr Amaaz suggested that the officer caused Mrs Akhtar's injuries by hitting her with a Taser.

PC Marsden said: "I firmly believe that you can't wholly attribute my actions to those injuries."

Mr Khan said: "Did you push the Taser you were holding into Mrs Akhtar at the time she was tending to Mr Amaaz?"

PC Marsden said he did, and that he felt it was justified "in the circumstances".

He said the mother grabbed his left leg, and when he tried to remove her grip she "clamped" onto his left hand pulling him forward.

"I was being pulled over Mr Amaaz and at risk of falling on top of him and being vulnerable," he said.

Mr Khan said: "She was concerned for Mr Amaaz. She was not a threat. She was not interfering with anything you were doing and this was conduct, I suggest, where you have lost control."

PC Marsden said: "I would deny that."

'Beyond reasoning'

Mobile phone footage was also played to the jury of PC Marsden later using Pava spray on a bystander who he said was effectively "shielding" another man who officers wanted to detain for obstructing their duties.

PC Marsden told the court he did this because events were "beyond verbal reasoning".

The officer was then seen to grab the man around the neck and pull him to the floor, Mr Khan said.

Mr Khan said: "How do you justify putting your hands around a man's neck?"

PC Marsden said: "Immediately prior, I had been subjected to the most violent assault of my life.

"I was now terrified that we are on the tipping point of another volatile situation. They were complicit in watching us being violently assaulted.

"I used pre-emptive force. I was in pain, exhausted and wanted to try the best I could to effect an arrest."

When Mr Khan asked if the bystander was doing anything that required Pava spray in the face, PC Marsden said he was concerned that he would be "combative" which could lead to another "hostile fight".

Mr Amaaz is alleged to have assaulted PC Marsden and PC Lydia Ward, causing them actual bodily harm.

He is also accused of the assault of PC Ellie Cook and the earlier Starbucks assault of Abdulkareem Ismaeil.

Mr Amaad is alleged to have assaulted PC Marsden, causing actual bodily harm.

Both men, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, deny the allegations.

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While Russia's overnight drone and missile attacks on Ukraine have hit record levels, on the ground its military is claiming territorial gains.

Last month Russian forces seized 556 sq km (215 sq miles), it's biggest land grab this year, according to the open-source DeepState monitoring website in Ukraine. That is an area four times the size of Liverpool and nearly the same size as the city of Chicago.

Russia's goal is to cut off supply routes used by Ukrainian troops in the east, and create a buffer zone inside Ukraine's northern borders.

But its advance remains relatively slow. At this pace it would take more than 70 years to capture the entire country.

Most Russian attacks have been concentrated on three areas:

• The Sumy region that borders Russia in the north-east
• The two eastern cities of Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka
• A third front, west of Pokrovsk

Russian troops managed to push about 10-12km (6-7.5 miles) deep inside the Sumy region, but that advance has come to a stop in the face of fierce resistance.

Vladimir Putin says he wants to create a buffer zone to protect Russian territory, after Ukrainian forces captured a swathe of Kursk territory last summer. Russian forces eventually drove them out, with the help of North Korean troops and ammunition.

The Russians then crossed into Ukraine but quickly became bogged down in fighting over small border villages, which keep changing hands even today. Without major reinforcements, it is unlikely Russian troops will be able to push much further here.

Another northern region where Russia's army has reportedly crossed the state border is Kharkiv. Last week they claimed the capture of a border village, but without committing substantial resources they are unlikely to make further gains.

Military observers believe these operations are aimed at forcing Ukraine to spread its forces too thin along the entire 1,200-km long front line, so that they divert troops from key areas.

One of those frontline areas is Pokrovsk, a strategic hub in eastern Ukraine, which Moscow has been trying to capture for more than two years. According to the head of Ukraine's army Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, Russia has concentrated some 111,000 troops in that area.

Russians rarely launch massive assaults, says Lt Artem Pribylnov from Ukraine's 155th brigade, stationed near Pokrovsk.

Any large movement of troops and armoured vehicles will be quickly detected and destroyed by drones. Instead, Lt Pribylnov says, the Russians rely on small groups of infantry troops who relentlessly attack Ukrainian positions, sometimes on motor bikes but more often on foot.

This kind of "creeping offensive", as some call it, is aimed at exhausting Kyiv's resources until endless waves of Russian soldiers eventually push the Ukrainians out of their positions. But the price they pay is frighteningly high.

Ukraine's general staff puts Russia's casualties at more than 1,000 soldiers a day. The BBC cannot verify these figures independently, but they do indicate the heavy losses Russia is suffering.

Russia's aim in eastern Ukraine appears to be to create "a cauldron", semi-encircling the Ukrainians around Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka and then forcing them to retreat.

Read more:

• Ukraine suffers heaviest attack as Trump criticises Putin
• Steve Rosenberg: Moscow shrugs off Trump's irritation with Putin

Russian troops are now trying to wedge into the area between these two cities to create "a bridgehead from where they can attack Pokrovsk or Kostyantynivka", says Maj Viktor Trehubov, a spokesman for the Khortytsya operational-strategic group, which co-ordinates forces in eastern Ukraine.

A breakthrough here is not considered likely. Russia's advance between Kostyantynivka and Pokrovsk is already slowing down and earlier attempts to push from other sides have stalled.

The biggest Russian gain in recent weeks was further west from Pokrovsk, in an area referred to by the Ukrainian military as the Novopavlivske direction, named after the village of Novopavlivka which became a defence hub following the westward retreat of Ukrainian troops.

Military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets says Moscow's operation there was most threatening for Ukraine as its defence measures "collapsed", allowing the Russians to advance up to 10km a day.

Their move was so rapid that Russian military bloggers even claimed that their troops had reached the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time since the start of the invasion.

Ukrainian military officials deny these claims, saying that a small group of Russian soldiers entered a village in the Dnipropetrovsk region to take photos with a Russian flag but were quickly "eliminated". The Institute for the Study of War, however, indicates that Russian troops are still operating there.

Maj Trehubov argues this area offers little strategic advantage for Russian troops and their assault was instead motivated by political goals.

Advancing further into Dnipropetrovsk region may work well for propaganda messages, but would require greater resources that are currently tied up in Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka.

The Ukrainians are nevertheless facing increasing pressure on the front lines, as Russian troops are constantly trying to cut off their supply lines with drone attacks.

"Those routes that we used two months ago, we can't use them now, not during the daytime, not even at night," Staff Sgt Viktor Pyasetskyi from Ukraine's 93rd brigade stationed near Kostyantynivka told the BBC over the phone.

As a result it has become extremely complicated and slow to deliver food and ammunition, evacuate the wounded and rotate troops on the front line.

Russian drones like the Gerbera can fly for hundreds of kilometres to reach places that until recently were regarded as relatively safe.

Their aim is not just to erase defence lines but also "to terrorise the population", says Staff Sgt Pyasetskiy. "They systematically destroy civilian buildings. They want to undermine morale and weaken our faith in Ukraine's ability to stop the Russians."

As he spoke, he was interrupted by the roar of drones. Shortly afterwards there were reports of an apartment block being hit. It was later confirmed the staff sergeant had survived.

At least 161 people are still missing in a single Texas county four days after deadly and devastating flash floods hit parts of the state last week, Governor Greg Abbott said, as hope fades for survivors to be found alive.

The missing in the hard-hit Kerr County include five campers and one counsellor from Camp Mystic, a Christian all-girls summer camp located on the banks of Guadalupe river.

At least 109 people have died in the disaster, including 94 in the Kerrville area alone, Abbott said in a news conference on Tuesday.

Texas is not alone. New Mexico saw a flash flood emergency as well, with the National Weather Service (NWS) warning of intense flooding on Tuesday night.

In Texas, frantic search and rescue efforts continue, with Abbott vowing emergency crews "will not stop until every missing person is accounted for".

Abbott added that it is very likely more missing will be added to the list in the coming days, and urged people to report anyone they think is unaccounted for.

General Thomas Suelzer from the Texas National Guard said search efforts include Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters with rescue hoists.

He said there are 13 Black Hawk helicopters helping in the search effort, including four that arrived from Arkansas. He added that authorities were also using reaper drones.

Responders from various agencies are working together on rescue efforts, including agents from border patrol, the FBI and the National Guard.

More than 250 responders from various agencies have been assigned to the Kerrville area alone to help with search and rescue.

One of those rescue volunteers, named Tim, told the BBC he has never seen any destruction at this scale before.

"I've done the floods down in East Texas and Southeast Texas, and hurricanes, and this is a nightmare," he said.

Another rescue volunteer, named Justin, compared the effort to "trying to find a single hay in a haystack".

"There's a wide trail of destruction for miles, and there's not enough cadaver dogs to go through all of it," he told the BBC.

"It's hard to access a lot of it with heavy machinery. Guys are trying to pick at it with tools and hands, and they're not even putting a dent in it – not for lack of effort."

Questions have been raised about whether authorities provided adequate flood warnings before the disaster, and why people were not evacuated earlier.

• 'Lives are at stake:' Deadly Texas storms puts spotlight on Trump's weather agency cuts
• Three key factors that made Texas floods so deadly

Experts say there were a number of factors that contributed to the tragedy in Texas, including the extreme weather, the location of the holiday homes and timing.

The governor, who had spent part of the day surveying the flood zone, said authorities had issued a storm warning and knew about a possible flash flood, but "didn't know the magnitude of the storm".

No one knew it would lead to a "30-foot high tsunami wall of water", he said.

The governor responded to a question about who was to "blame" for the enormous death toll, saying: "That's the word choice of losers."

He made a sports analogy, saying American football teams make mistakes; champion teams are the ones who don't "point fingers".

• 'Hero' dad, twin girls and riverside campers among Texas flood victims
• What early warnings did flood-hit Texas receive?

Most of the victims died in Kerr County, where the Guadalupe River was swollen by torrential downpours before daybreak on Friday, the July Fourth public holiday.

Camp Mystic had earlier confirmed at least 27 girls and staff were among the dead.

Those who survived are now focused on trying to rebuild.

Justin Brown has lived along the Guadalupe River for more than 25 years.

A week ago, he lived in his mobile home at the Blue Oak RV Park with his two young daughters and dog. Now, there is a huge puddle where his home once stood – his RV swept away in the floods.

"We were one of the few parks that got almost everybody out," Mr Brown told the BBC as he described the efforts of his landlord and emergency workers, who evacuated almost all of the park's residents.

Looking out over the empty lot where his home once stood – now just debris – he said he hopes to move back in as soon as he can.

President Donald Trump will travel to the flood-ravaged areas with First Lady Melania Trump on Friday.

Separately, in New Mexico, the NWS declared a flash flood emergency on Tuesday and told residents of Ruidoso to be on high alert for flooding.

Officials there are already working to rescue people trapped in floodwaters and houses are reportedly being washed away.

A flood wave on the Rio Ruidoso has reached 15 feet (4.5m), the NWS in Albuquerque said in a post on X.

The waters receded about two hours later, according to CBS, the BBC's US partner.

Officials had to perform some swift boat rescues and some people were unaccounted for as of Tuesday evening.

Linda Yaccarino, the boss of Elon Musk's social media site X, has announced she is stepping down.

Ms Yaccarino has been in the role since June, 2023.

In a post on the social media platform, she said was "immensely grateful" to Musk for "entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around, and transforming X into the Everything App".

Musk has not yet commented on Ms Yaccarino's departure.

The BBC has approached X for comment.

Ms Yaccarino was previously head of advertising at NBCUniversal, where she was credited with helping to steer it through the upheaval caused by technology firms.

She joined X, then Twitter, at a time of tumult with advertisers quitting the site and Musk having overseen the firing of a huge number of staff.

In her departure post, she said that she had decided to step down after "two incredible years".

She added: "When Elon Musk and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company."

Musk has continued to attract controversy during her time at the helm of X.

The most recent of these has seen Musk's chatbot, Grok, start to speak favourably about Hitler.

In a statement, xAI said it was working to remove what it called "inappropriate" posts.

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Police have confirmed they are preparing for a potential visit by US President Donald Trump to Scotland later this month.

He is expected to visit a new course at his golf resort in Aberdeenshire, though it is understood there will be no private meeting with King Charles.

Trump will also make a full state visit to the UK later in the year, most likely in September.

Assistant chief constable Emma Bond of Police Scotland: "Planning is under way for a potential visit to Scotland later this month by the President of the United States."

She added: "While official confirmation has not yet been made, it is important that we prepare in advance for what would be a significant policing operation."

If the visit goes ahead, it would be the first time Donald Trump has travelled to Scotland since his victory in the US election.

The Trump organisation owns Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeenshire and the Trump Turnberry resort in Ayrshire.

His last visit as president in 2018 required a major security operation with thousands protesting in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Eric Trump and his father broke ground on the 18-hole links MacLeod Course at the Trump International resort in Menie in 2023.

Trump International claimed the new course - named after Trump's Lewis-born mother, Mary - would feature the "largest sand dunes in Scotland" and form "the greatest 36 holes in golf" alongside the original course, completed in 2012.

The resort has prompted controversy in the past - five years ago the dunes at Menie lost their status as a nationally-important protected environment.

But Trump International claimed the new course was "one of the most environmentally friendly and sustainable" ever built.

The Scottish Green Party previously said Trump and his new golf course were "not welcome in Aberdeenshire", accusing him of being a climate-change denier with a "long history of lies and dodgy business dealings".

During his 2018 visit, Trump was booed during an afternoon game of golf by demonstrators gathered at the perimeter of the Turnberry resort.

A paraglider was also able to fly over the resort hotel with a banner criticising Trump.

France's far-right National Rally party has accused authorities of a "new harassment campaign", after police raided its headquarters in an inquiry into its campaign finances.

Party president Jordan Bardella said the "spectacular and unprecedented operation" was a "serious attack on pluralism and democratic change".

Prosecutors said they were investigating potential acts of "fraud committed against a public figure" and alleged violations involving loans and donations during election campaigns in 2022 and 2024.

Wallerand de Saint-Just, the party's former treasurer, said National Rally (RN) had done nothing wrong.

"This process that looks completely unacceptable and outrageous. We're being persecuted on a daily basis," he told reporters outside the party's Paris headquarters.

"All our campaign accounts have been approved and reimbursed."

Despite a series of legal setbacks, RN are ahead in French opinion polls, and Bardella, its 29-year-old president, has topped one recent poll as the most popular political figure in the country.

Earlier this year, RN leader Marine Le Pen was convicted by a French court of helping to embezzle European Union funds. She was barred from running for office for five years, in a blow to her ambitions to run for the presidency for a fourth time.

She has appealed the conviction, which she has condemned as a "witch hunt", but last month accepted she may have to hand the baton to her young lieutenant ahead of the 2027 presidential vote.

Bardella was not present during the police raid as he was attending a European Parliament session in Strasbourg, but he said 20 finance brigade police had used the search as an excuse for seizing internal party documents and to raid his office.

There was no immediate comment from Le Pen.

Police also raided the head offices of several companies and their bosses.

The raids were linked by Paris prosecutors to an inquiry launched exactly a year ago into allegations of embezzlement, forgery and fraud centring on Le Pen's party.

Prosecutors said on Wednesday that the inquiry should establish whether the party's 2022 presidential and parliamentary election campaign and its 2024 European election campaign were funded by "illicit payments by individuals that benefited the National Rally party or candidates.

They said they would also investigate whether inflated or fictitious invoices had been submitted as campaign expenses to be paid back by the state.

RN said the allegations of illicit campaign financing are based on the fact that no French bank was prepared to help with funding. It previously secured loans from banks in Russia and Hungary.

In another setback for National Rally, the European Union public prosecutor's office formally launched an investigation this week into a former political grouping at the European Parliament that RN was part of.

Identity and Democracy was dissolved last year and is suspected of misusing Parliament funding. RN is now part of the Patriots for Europe group, which includes far-parties from Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain and Portugal.

Bardella said on Tuesday that the inquiry was a "new harassment operation by the European Parliament".

A man who killed a passer-by when he drove his car into a crowd of people at his sister's wedding reception has been found guilty of murder

Hassan Jhangur, 25, killed Chris Marriott, 46, when he deliberately crashed his Seat Ibiza into the group in Burngreave, Sheffield, in December 2023.

"Good Samaritan" Mr Marriott, who had stopped to help after Jhangur's sister had been injured in an earlier brawl, died at the scene while four other people were injured in the crash.

Jhangur, of Whiteways Road, Sheffield, was found guilty by a majority verdict of murder and three counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and one of wounding with intent relating to those also hurt.

He was cleared of a charge of attempted murder but convicted of a second count of wounding with intent after jurors heard he launched a vicious knife attack on his new brother-in-law, Hasan Khan, following the crash, stabbing him repeatedly in the head and chest.

Addressing him, Mr Justice Morris said: "The sentence for murder will be life imprisonment. At the sentencing hearing it will be for me to set the minimum period of time for you to serve before you are considered for release."

Jhangur's father, Mohammed Jhangur, 57, who was also on trial, was found guilty of perverting the course of justice after the court heard he had hidden the knife his son used to attack Hasan Khan.

The judge warned him "all sentencing options remain open" before releasing him on bail.

During the trial at Sheffield Crown Court jurors heard how a complex series of events involving the Jhangur and Khan families had led to the death of devout Christian Mr Marriott.

On 27 December, a dispute between the two families came to a peak following the marriage of Amaani Jhangur and Hasan Khan that morning.

The couple had been celebrating at the Khan's family home in College Court when the bride's mother, Ambreen, and sister, Nafeesa, arrived and a fight broke out in the street, during which Nafeesa was knocked to the ground, seemingly unconscious.

At this point Mr Marriott, who was out for a walk with his family, and off-duty midwife Alison Norris came across the scene and stepped in to help.

Moments later, Hassan Jhangur arrived in a Seat Ibiza, with witnesses describing him flying round the corner into College Court before driving straight into Riasat Khan and then, without braking, smashing into the group of people gathered around Nafeesa Jhangur

The court heard Mr Marriott died at the scene, while Ms Norris, Ambreen Jhangur, Nafeesa Jhangur and Riasat Khan were all seriously injured.

'Only trying to help'

Hassan Jhangur then got out of the car brandishing a knife and attacked Hasan Khan before passing the knife to his father, Mohammed Jhangur, who hid it in the boot of his taxi.

Opening the case, prosecutor Jason Pitter KC said: "Chris Marriott was only trying to help. Alison Norris was only trying to help too.

"It was that public spirit of both of them that brought them unwittingly into the midst of a family dispute."

He told jurors that although Hassan Jhangur's target may have been the Khan family, "the law says your intentions can be transferred from one person to another, even if he did not intend to hit that particular person".

Both Hassan Jhangur and Mohammed Jhangur will return to the court for sentencing at a later date.

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Any analysis of Donald Trump's current thinking on Russia risks getting out of date very quickly.

Read too much into an individual tweet, post or off-the-cuff comment by the US president, and the danger is that your conclusions will be contradicted by tomorrow's tweet, post or off-the-cuff comment.

Believe me. I've been there.

As today's edition of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper put it: "The US president blows hot and cold…he changes his mind on key issues as easily as he changes shoes."

Recently, though, when it comes to Russia, the White House does appear to have been blowing more cold than hot, which explains the headline in today's edition of Moskovsky Komsomolets: "The Russian-American Chill."

Following Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump's most recent telephone conversation on 3 July – their sixth this year – President Trump revealed that the two leaders "didn't make any progress" towards ending the war in Ukraine.

"I'm not happy about that," he added.

Four days later, President Trump threatened to impose a 10 percent tariff on any country aligned with the BRICS, the group of nations that includes Russia.

On Tuesday, his frustration boiled over with some of his strongest language so far: "We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth," President Trump said at a cabinet meeting.

"He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless."

Today I asked for the Kremlin's reaction.

"We are pretty calm about this," Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told me on a Kremlin conference call for journalists.

"Trump's way of talking is generally quite harsh…we plan to continue our dialogue with Washington to mend our broken bilateral relations…we hope that Trump and his team will continue their efforts to get the peace process back to the realm of diplomacy."

The Kremlin was trying, at least, to sound diplomatic.

The Russian press? It wasn't even trying.

In Komsomolskaya Pravda, a political pundit accused Donald Trump of "an absence of geopolitical achievements".

The tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets wrote about President Trump's "mercurial temperament, his propensity for sudden moods and chaotic changes of direction".

This week's edition of Arguments and Facts mocked Donald Trump over Elon Musk's new America Party.

"Now every time the US president says 'Make America Great Again' he'll be inadvertently promoting Musk's party," the paper wrote.

This is a sea-change from the previously positive coverage in Russia of the Trump administration. Back in March, a political scientist told Izvestia that "America now has more in common with Russia than Washington does with Brussels or Kyiv".

In May, the business daily Kommersant declared: "Donald Trump's stance couldn't be more advantageous to Moscow.

"He refused to strengthen sanctions against Russia and confirmed his determination to develop large-scale trade with Russia."

The optimism was understandable. Earlier this year, the White House was publicly criticising President Zelensky (not President Putin) and exerting pressure on Kyiv (not Moscow).

The US and Russia had launched bilateral talks to boost their relations.

What's more, President Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff was a frequent visitor to Russia for talks with President Putin. At one of their meetings the Kremlin leader gave him a present to take back for Trump: a portrait of the US president.

It seemed as if Moscow and Washington were destined to forge a new relationship.

But it's been more than two months since Witkoff's last visit. And, in June, Russia announced that the US had cancelled the next round of talks between the two countries aimed at restoring the operations of diplomatic missions.

Meanwhile, President Trump has, it seems, been growing increasingly frustrated by Russia's refusal to agree to a comprehensive ceasefire in Ukraine.

"The Kremlin believes that Trump offers Russia too little and, therefore, the continuation of a 'good quarrel' is better than a 'bad peace' from the point of view of Russia's long-term national interests," wrote Moskovsky Komsomolets today.

In other words, on Ukraine, Vladimir Putin wants more than Trump has been prepared to offer.

More in terms of territory, more in terms of concessions from Kyiv on the future size of Ukraine's army, more in terms of cutting back Western arms supplies to Kyiv.

And, to borrow a Trumpian expression, Vladimir Putin clearly believes that "he holds the cards" right now and can hold out for a better deal.

Is he right? Or is Moscow miscalculating?

Much will depend on what President Trump does next: on the scale of future US military assistance to Ukraine, and on whether the White House decides to strengthen sanctions against Russia.

But keep in mind my caveat.

And that vivid image, in Komsomolskaya Pravda, of Donald Trump changing his shoes.

Only a week ago Russian commentators were celebrating the US government's decision to freeze some military assistance to Ukraine.

So, follow closely. Not only what Donald Trump says on Russia and Ukraine, but the action he takes.