European leaders have warned against Ukrainian borders being redrawn by force – two days before a US-Russia summit on Ukraine is due to take place in Alaska.
In a statement, European leaders said "the people of Ukraine must have the freedom to decide their future."
It added the principles of "territorial integrity" must be respected and "international borders must not be changed by force".
The statement was signed by 26 of 27 leaders. Missing from the signatories was Hungary's leader Viktor Orban, who has maintained friendly relations with Russia and has repeatedly tried to block EU support for Ukraine.
The statement underscored the nervousness felt by Europeans about Moscow's actions in Ukraine, which many countries – particularly those bordering Russia or those in which the memory of Soviet occupation still lingers – believe could pose a direct threat in the near future.
In recent years Sweden and Finland have joined Nato, Baltic countries have reinstated conscription, and Poland has set aside billions to build a barrier alongside its border with Russia.
European countries have a long history of borders being redrawn by bloody wars and are extremely concerned by the prospect of the US allowing that to happen in Ukraine. A legal recognition of Russia's sovereignty over territories it conquered by force is unacceptable to the EU.
However, the notion that some Ukrainian regions currently under Russian control may not return to Kyiv is gaining ground.
US President Donald Trump has insisted that any peace deal would involve "some swapping of territories" and could see Russia taking the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and keeping Crimea. In exchange it would give up the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, which it partially occupies.
Last week, while admitting that some Ukrainian territory might end up being de facto controlled by Russia, Nato chief Mark Rutte stressed that this should not be formally recognised.
In their statement, European leaders said "Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine has wider implications for European and international security", and stressed the need for a "just and lasting peace".
They also said Ukraine should be capable of "defending itself effectively" and pledged to continue providing military support to Kyiv, which was "exercising its inherent right of self-defence".
"The European Union underlines the inherent right of Ukraine to choose its own destiny and will continue supporting Ukraine on its path towards EU membership," the statement concluded.
Denting the apparent unity of the declaration was a line in smaller print at the bottom of the page pointing out that "Hungary does not associate itself with this statement".
In a post on social media its leader Viktor Orban said he had opted out of supporting the statement as it attempted to set conditions for a meeting to which the EU was not invited and warned leaders not to start "providing instructions from the bench".
He also urged the EU to set up its own summit with Russia – though EU leaders have been shunning direct talks with Moscow since it launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
On Monday Trump revealed he had sought Orban's advice over the chances of Ukraine winning against Russia on the battlefield. "He looked at me like, 'What a stupid question'," Trump said, suggesting that Orban felt Russia would continue to wage war until it beat its adversary.
EU leaders are due to hold talks with Trump on Wednesday. They will be hoping to put the security of the European continent and Ukrainian interests at the forefront of his mind – at a time when nervousness is growing that the peace imposed on Ukraine may end up being neither "just" nor "lasting".
Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are then expected to meet in Alaska on Friday.
Nigerian Afropop star Tems has told the BBC "people don't really respect women" in her industry.
The two-time Grammy award-winner told the BBC that at the start of her career, she struggled to be taken seriously.
"I realised that there's always a cost. There's always a price that you pay. And a lot of those prices I wasn't willing to pay and there wasn't a lot of options," Tems said.
Afropop has gained immense global popularity over the past decade, but despite this growth it remains notoriously male-dominated.
The industry's so-called "Big Three" - Burna Boy, Davido and Wizkid - are all male - while their female counterparts, such as Tiwa Savage and Yemi Alade, have spoken out about the barriers they face because of their gender.
Earlier this year, Tems hit out following negative comments about her body, which were made online after a video of her performing was posted onto X.
She wrote on the social media platform: "It's just a body, I will add and lose weight. I never once hid my body, I just didn't feel the need to prove or disprove anyone. The more you don't like my body the better for me actually."
Tems told the BBC she wants "to change the way women see themselves in music", and hopes to achieve this through her new platform, The Leading Vibe Initiative.
The project aims to provide opportunities for young women throughout Africa's music industries.
"I promised myself that if I get to a place where I can do more, I will make this initiative for women like me and maybe make it easier for women to access platforms and access a wider audience and success," Tems said.
The launch of Tems' Leading Vibes initiatives saw young vocalists, producers and songwriters coming together in the Nigerian city of Lagos
The initiative kicked off on Friday in Tems' hometown, Lagos. Vocalists, songwriters and producers were invited to a series of workshops, masterclasses and panel discussions, all with the aim of developing skills and connections.
Asked what advice she would give to young women wanting to crack the industry, she said: "I think it's important to have an idea of what you want for yourself, what your brand is, what's your boundary.
"What are the things that you wouldn't do for fame and the things that you would do?"
Tems, who has scored hits with the likes of Love Me Jeje and Free Mind, said anyone trying to break into the industry must be passionate about their craft.
"It's not everybody that sings that loves music. If I wasn't famous, I would still be doing music. I would be in some kind of jazz club... randomly on a Friday night," she said.
But this is far from Tems' reality. Five years on from her debut EP, she has collaborated with the likes of Beyoncé and Rihanna, racked up more than 17m monthly listeners on Spotify and headlined international festivals.
And next month, she will be supporting British band Coldplay during their sold-out run of gigs at the UK's Wembley Stadium.
Getty Images
Tems is not only a musician - she is also part-owner of US football club San Diego FC
Tems puts her success down to being "authentic" and "audacious".
"Even when people tell you to change your sound, change your style, you look at them and you say: 'No'. If it meant me not being signed, I was okay not being signed. I went to a couple of places that didn't sign me and I was okay with that," she said.
Music is not Tems' only passion - she is an avid football fan and recently became part-owner of US football club San Diego FC.
"I never imagined myself owning or being in an ownership of any football team," she said, adding that her brother initially got her into the sport.
Tems joined San Diego's ownership with Pave Investments, a West African private investment firm which also helped raise funds for the NBA-linked African Basketball League.
Tems' involvement with San Diego gives her hope that "people can be bold enough to try things that nobody ever thought was possible".
She said: "I don't see myself as just a singer, just a musician, just an artist. I'm much more than that."
The flash floods buried houses in Dharali village under water and debris
At least 66 people are still missing a week after flash floods hit the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, according to an official statement.
Only one body has been recovered so far, the statement added, revising an earlier death toll of four.
Nearly half of Dharali village was submerged on 5 August in a mudslide caused by heavy rains and flash floods. An army camp nearby also suffered extensive damage.
Rescue operations are continuing at the site of the disaster as workers search for missing people. The work has been affected by inclement weather and the blockage of a key highway near the site due to the mudslide.
Weeks of heavy rain have pounded Uttarakhand, with Uttarkashi region - home to Dharali village - among the worst hit by flooding.
Around 1,300 people have been rescued from near Dharali since last week, officials said.
Heavy rains last week had led to the swelling of the Kheerganga river in the region, sending tonnes of muddy waters gushing downwards on the hilly terrain, covering roads, buildings and shops in Dharali and nearby Harsil village.
Videos showed a giant wave of water gushing through the area, crumpling buildings in its path, giving little time for people to escape.
Uttarakhand's chief minister and other officials initially said the flash floods were caused by a cloudburst, but India's weather department has not confirmed this.
Vinay Shankar Pandey, a senior local official, said a team of 10 geologists has been sent to the village to determine the cause of the flash floods.
The sludge from Kheerganga blocked a part of the region's main river Bhagirathi [which becomes India's holiest river Ganges once it travels downstream] and created an artificial lake, submerging vast tracts of land, including a government helipad.
Rescue workers are still trying to drain the lake, which had initially receded but filled up again after more rains.
Mr Pandey said in a statement that a list of missing people included 24 Nepalese workers, 14 locals, nine army personnel and 13 and six individuals from the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, respectively.
Locals, however, have told reporters that more people from the area are still unaccounted for.
AFP via Getty Images
Rescue efforts are under way to locate the missing people
Rescue officials are using helicopters to reach Dharali, which is still blocked by debris.
A temporary bridge has also been built to allow easier access as workers continue to try and clear the blocked roads.
"Efforts are continuously being made to remove the debris and construct roads in Dharali to restore order," Mr Pandey said.
Sniffer dogs and earth-moving machinery are searching for those trapped beneath the rubble.
A rescue worker told the Press Trust of India that they were manually digging through the debris where a hotel had stood before the disaster hit.
"There was some movement of people in front of it when the disaster struck. The debris here is being dug manually with the help of radar equipment as people might be buried here," he said.
On Monday, a road-repair machine near Kheerganga plunged into a swollen river; its driver is missing, and the machine remains unrecovered.
India's weather department has predicted heavy rains and thunderstorms for various parts of Uttarakhand till 14 August with high alerts issued for eight districts, including Garhwal.
Watch: Can you un-bleach coral? BBC visits remote Australian reef to find out
World-famous coral reefs along Western Australia's (WA) coast have suffered the worst bleaching on record after the state's "longest, largest and most intense" marine heatwave, scientists say.
Between last August and this May, warmer water temperatures led to significant heat stress on the reefs, causing many of the coral to expel the algae which gives them life and colour - a process called bleaching, which is often fatal.
The damage - which will take months to assess - spans 1,500km (932 miles) and includes areas previously unscathed by climate change.
Coral reefs worldwide have been suffering from a two-year-long global coral bleaching event, due to record high ocean temperatures.
Eight weeks of heat stress is usually enough to kill coral, and early estimates showed many WA reefs suffered between 15 and 30, said Australia's marine science agency.
"The length and intensity of the heat stress, and its footprint across multiple regions, is something we've never seen before on most of the reefs in Western Australia," James Gilmour, from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (Aims), said.
In a new report, the Aims researchers found the 2024-25 season was the "most severe coral bleaching on record" for WA coral reefs across both the northwestern and central reefs.
"Areas which had given us hope because they'd rarely or not bleached before - like the Rowley Shoals, north Kimberley and Ningaloo - have been hit hard this time. Finally, climate heating has caught up with these reefs," he said.
Climate change means bleaching events are becoming more frequent, more intense and more widespread, which Dr Gilmore says gives coral reefs - which need 10 to 15 years to recover - little time to bounce back.
"Climate change caused by carbon emissions remains the greatest threat to our coral reefs, and all reefs globally," he said.
“Trump loves talking about keeping criminal foreigners out of the country, and now he’s like, ‘Vladimir Putin, come on over,’” Jimmy Fallon said on Monday.
Firefighters were battling blazes in France, Spain and Portugal. Forecasters warned that temperatures would soar above 104 degrees Fahrenheit in some places.
European leaders have warned against Ukrainian borders being redrawn by force – two days before a US-Russia summit on Ukraine is due to take place in Alaska.
In a statement, European leaders said "the people of Ukraine must have the freedom to decide their future."
It added the principles of "territorial integrity" must be respected and "international borders must not be changed by force".
The statement was signed by 26 of 27 leaders. Missing from the signatories was Hungary's leader Viktor Orban, who has maintained friendly relations with Russia and has repeatedly tried to block EU support for Ukraine.
The statement underscored the nervousness felt by Europeans about Moscow's actions in Ukraine, which many countries – particularly those bordering Russia or those in which the memory of Soviet occupation still lingers – believe could pose a direct threat in the near future.
In recent years Sweden and Finland have joined Nato, Baltic countries have reinstated conscription, and Poland has set aside billions to build a barrier alongside its border with Russia.
European countries have a long history of borders being redrawn by bloody wars and are extremely concerned by the prospect of the US allowing that to happen in Ukraine. A legal recognition of Russia's sovereignty over territories it conquered by force is unacceptable to the EU.
However, the notion that some Ukrainian regions currently under Russian control may not return to Kyiv is gaining ground.
US President Donald Trump has insisted that any peace deal would involve "some swapping of territories" and could see Russia taking the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and keeping Crimea. In exchange it would give up the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, which it partially occupies.
Last week, while admitting that some Ukrainian territory might end up being de facto controlled by Russia, Nato chief Mark Rutte stressed that this should not be formally recognised.
In their statement, European leaders said "Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine has wider implications for European and international security", and stressed the need for a "just and lasting peace".
They also said Ukraine should be capable of "defending itself effectively" and pledged to continue providing military support to Kyiv, which was "exercising its inherent right of self-defence".
"The European Union underlines the inherent right of Ukraine to choose its own destiny and will continue supporting Ukraine on its path towards EU membership," the statement concluded.
Denting the apparent unity of the declaration was a line in smaller print at the bottom of the page pointing out that "Hungary does not associate itself with this statement".
In a post on social media its leader Viktor Orban said he had opted out of supporting the statement as it attempted to set conditions for a meeting to which the EU was not invited and warned leaders not to start "providing instructions from the bench".
He also urged the EU to set up its own summit with Russia – though EU leaders have been shunning direct talks with Moscow since it launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
On Monday Trump revealed he had sought Orban's advice over the chances of Ukraine winning against Russia on the battlefield. "He looked at me like, 'What a stupid question'," Trump said, suggesting that Orban felt Russia would continue to wage war until it beat its adversary.
EU leaders are due to hold talks with Trump on Wednesday. They will be hoping to put the security of the European continent and Ukrainian interests at the forefront of his mind – at a time when nervousness is growing that the peace imposed on Ukraine may end up being neither "just" nor "lasting".
Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are then expected to meet in Alaska on Friday.
Harvey was described as a "cheeky chappy" by his teachers
The parents of a schoolboy who was murdered by a fellow pupil on his lunchbreak have called for an order protecting the identity of his 15-year-old killer to be lifted.
Harvey Willgoose, who was also 15, died when he was stabbed in the heart with a hunting knife at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffieldon 3 February.
Harvey's killer cannot be named because of his age. However, the BBC and other media have applied to have the anonymity order protecting his identity lifted.
Harvey's mum Caroline said her son's name had been "tarnished" throughout the trial, adding: "He hasn't been able to speak up for himself and he's been named. The defendant should be as well."
The trial judge, Mrs Justice Ellenbogen, is expected to make a decision on whether to lift the order when the 15-year-old is sentenced in October.
Harvey's parents, who have set up a youth club in his memory, reiterated their earlier call to install knife arches in schools.
"Get knife arches in, then get educating children about the pure devastation that knife crime brings," said Mrs Willgoose.
"Children know there are knives in schools. Something needs to be done."
Mrs Willgoose, who has campaigned against knife crime since her son's death, added: "If you don't think there's a problem, ask your child if they have ever known of anybody bringing a knife into school.
"I think parents would be very interested in their answer."
Harvey's dad Mark said the family had previously had met with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to discuss the issue.
The RNLI and Border Force brought more than 400 people ashore in Dover on Monday, figures are expected to show
The number of migrants to cross the English Channel in small boats since Labour came to power last summer is expected to have reached 50,000.
Home Office data shows 49,797 people had arrived as of Sunday, with Monday's total due to be released later.
Government minister Baroness Jacqui Smith told the BBC this was an "unacceptable number of people" but pointed to the "one in, one out" returns deal with France as a deterrent.
But the Conservative Party said the migrant crossing totals showed Labour had "surrendered our borders".
The latest figures come as ministers continue to grapple with how to effectively crack down on people-smuggling gangs - a key pledge of Sir Keir Starmer's when he became prime minister.
Baroness Smith told BBC Breakfast: "We understand how concerning this is to people."
She said the migrant crossing figures showed people-smuggling gangs had taken an "absolute foothold in the tragic trafficking of people" in recent years.
But the minister added the government was "making progress" on tackling people smuggling, and people had already been detained under the UK's "ground-breaking agreement" with France.
The "one in, one out" pilot will see the UK return some migrants to France in exchange for receiving the same number of asylum seekers who are believed to have legitimate claims.
The first returns are due to happen within weeks - but the initial numbers are expected to be small.
The 50,000 figure will cover 5 July 2024, when Labour came to power, to 11 August this year.
Between 5 July 2023 and 11 August 2024, during which time the Conservatives were in power for the most part, there were 36,346 migrant crossings in small boats.
A number of factors affect crossing totals, including where weather conditions are more favourable for attempts.
But the Tories accused Labour of overseeing the "worst illegal immigration crisis in our history".
"This is a taxpayer-funded ferry service for the people-smuggling trade. Every illegal immigrant should be removed immediately upon arrival," said shadow home secretary Chris Philp.
The Home Office said it wants to "end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security".
"People do not cross the Channel unless what lies behind them is more terrifying than what lies ahead," said Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council charity.
The charity's frontline workers say the men, women and children travelling in small boats are "often fleeing places like Sudan, where war has left them with nowhere else to turn", he added.
"To stop smugglers for good, the government must expand safe and legal routes, such as allowing family members to travel to be with their loved ones who are already settled in the UK," he said.
"Without these measures, desperate people will continue to take dangerous journeys, and the criminal gangs are likely to simply adapt their approaches."
The UK jobs market has continued to cool as vacancies fell and the number of people on payrolls dropped, the latest official figures suggest.
Job openings fell by 5.8% to 718,000 between May to July across nearly all industries, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
It said there was evidence that some firms may not be recruiting new workers or replacing people who have left.
Initial estimates also indicated that the number of payrolled employees slipped between April and June, with the steepest drop in the hospitality and retail sectors.
Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said the "latest figures point to a continued cooling of the labour market".
However, the slowdown was not as sharp as some economists had anticipated.
Average wage growth remained at 5%, the unemployment rate was unmoved at 4.7% and an estimated drop in people on payrolls - down 8,000 between June and July - signalled a "very gradual cooling", according to former Bank of England policymaker Andrew Sentence.
He pointed out that there are more than 30 million people on employer payrolls in the UK.
Taylor Swift has announced her twelfth studio album The Life of a Showgirl, after an intense 24 hours of speculation from fans.
Rumours began on Monday morning, when the singer's marketing team posted a carousel of 12 photos with the caption "Thinking about when she said 'See you next era…"
The pop star's eleventh album The Tortured Poets Department, released last year, broke the Spotify record for being the most-streamed album in a day.
The title of the album was announced on social media with a clip from Kelce's podcast, and simultaneously made available for pre-order on Swift's official website.
The release date for the new music is yet to be confirmed.
A countdown appeared on Taylor Swift's official website late on Monday evening
After years of headlines during her record-breaking Eras tour, Swift appeared to have a relatively quiet start to 2025.
After her original masters sold, she vowed to re-record all six albums, which became known as "Taylor's Versions". To date, she has re-released four of the original six.
Swift announced her purchase of her original masters with a heartfelt letter to fans, where she wrote that the final two albums would "have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right."
The singer wrapped up the Eras tour in December 2024, after playing 149 shows in 53 cities.
In the UK alone, she played to almost 1.2 million people, including eight nights at Wembley Stadium. The tour generated an estimated £1bn for the country's economy.
Italian orienteer Mattia Debertolis has died after collapsing during the World Games in China last week.
The 29-year-old was found unconscious by organisers during an orienteering event last Friday in Chengdu.
The Italian died on Tuesday - four days after his collapse.
"Despite receiving immediate expert medical care at one of China's leading medical institutions, he passed away," World Games organisers said in a statement.
International Orienteering Federation (IOF) President Tom Hollowell said he was "not able to adequately describe the unfathomable depth of sadness in this tragic loss of life".
Debertolis' cause of death is unknown at this stage.
The World Games is a multi-sport event held every four years for events that are not listed in the Olympics.
Debertolis was taking part in the final of the men's middle-distance event, which took place in temperatures above 30 degrees, when he collapsed.
Orienteering is an outdoor sport in which participants have to navigate between unmarked checkpoints using a map.
It combines physical activity with map-reading and problem-solving.
The Italian was one of 12 athletes listed as "Did Not Finish" in the official results.
He was part of the Italian national team and finished fifth in the 2022 World Cup final.
Debertolis, who was qualified as a civil engineer, resided in Sweden and was studying for a PhD at a university in Stockholm.
World Games organisers said they will "continue to support the family of Debertolis and the orienteering community in every possible way."
Nicola Sturgeon's memoir Frankly is now on sale, slightly earlier than expected after newspaper serialisations and interviews teased some tantalising extracts.
True to its title, the book has Scotland's former first minister writing candidly about the highs and lows of her time in office including challenges she says had a serious impact on her mental health.
So with the full text now available, what are the key things we have learned?
Transgender controversy
After more than eight years in power, and eight election victories, Sturgeon saw final months in office marred by rows about trans issues.
It was, she writes in her memoir, a time of "rancour and division".
Sturgeon now admits to having regrets about the process of trying to legislate to make it easier to legally change gender, saying she has asked herself whether she should have "hit the pause button" to try to reach consensus.
"With hindsight, I wish I had," she writes, although she continues to argue in favour of the general principle of gender self-identification.
Spindrift
Isla Bryson was jailed in 2023 after being convicted of rape
Sturgeon also addresses the case of double rapist Adam Graham who was initially sent to a female prison after self-identifying as a woman called Isla Bryson.
It was, writes Sturgeon, a development "that gave a human face to fears that until then had been abstract for most people".
As first minister she sometimes struggled to articulate her position on the case and to decide which, if any, pronoun to use to describe Bryson.
"When confronted with the question 'Is Isla Bryson a woman?' I was like a rabbit caught in the headlights," she writes.
"Because I failed to answer 'yes', plain and simple... I seemed weak and evasive. Worst of all, I sounded like I didn't have the courage to stand behind the logical conclusion of the self-identification system we had just legislated for.
"In football parlance, I lost the dressing room."
Speaking to ITV News on Monday Sturgeon said she now believed a rapist "probably forfeits the right" to identify as a woman.
JK Rowling
JK Rowling posted a selfie of herself wearing a T-shirt describing Sturgeon as a "destroyer of women's rights"
The former first minister also criticises her highest profile opponent on the gender issue, Harry Potter author JK Rowling, for posting a selfie in a T-shirt bearing the slogan "Nicola Sturgeon, destroyer of women's rights".
"It resulted in more abuse, of a much more vile nature, than I had ever encountered before. It made me feel less safe and more at risk of possible physical harm," she writes.
Sturgeon adds that "it was deeply ironic that those who subjected me to this level of hatred and misogynistic abuse often claimed to be doing so in the interests of women's safety".
Rowling has been approached for comment.
Her relationship with Alex Salmond
Sturgeon's mentor and predecessor as first minster, Alex Salmond, is mentioned dozens of times in the book, often in unflattering terms which reflect their estrangement after he was accused of sexual offences.
Salmond won a judicial review of the Scottish government's handling of complaints against him and in 2020 was cleared of all 13 charges but his reputation was sullied by revelations in court about inappropriate behaviour with female staff.
Sturgeon lambasts Salmond's claim that he was the victim of a conspiracy, saying there was no obvious motive for women to have concocted false allegations which would then have required "criminal collusion" with politicians, civil servants, police and prosecutors.
"He impugned the integrity of the institutions at the heart of Scottish democracy," she writes, adding: "He was prepared to traumatise, time and again, the women at the centre of it all". The claims have been angrily rejected by Salmond's allies.
The former SNP leader died of a heart attack in North Macedonia last year, aged 69.
The independence referendum
Nicola Sturgeon recalls a "totally uncharacteristic sense of optimism" as Scotland prepared to vote on whether to become an independent nation on 18 September 2014.
It was arguably the defining event of her professional life and, in her view, a chance to "create a brighter future for generations to come".
The campaign was tough, she says, partly because of what she calls unbalanced coverage by the British media including the BBC and partly because Salmond left her to do much of the heavy lifting.
"It felt like we were trying to push a boulder up hill," she writes.
PA Media
Sturgeon claims Alex Salmond showed little interest in the "detail" of the independence white paper
A key period in the lead-up to the poll was her preparation, as deputy first minister, of a white paper setting out the case for independence.
At one point, she says, the magnitude of the task left her in "utter despair" and "overcome by a feeling of sheer impossibility".
"I ended up on the floor of my home office, crying and struggling to breathe. It was definitely some kind of panic attack," she writes.
Sturgeon says Salmond "showed little interest in the detail" of the document and she was "incandescent" when he flew to China shortly before publication without having read it.
"He promised he would read it on the plane. I knew his good intention would not survive contact with the first glass of in-flight champagne," she writes.
Operation Branchform
Sturgeon describes her "utter disbelief" and despair when police raided her home in Glasgow and arrested her husband, Peter Murrell, on 5 April 2023.
"With police tents all around it, it looked more like a murder scene than the place of safety it had always been for me. I was devastated, mortified, confused and terrified."
In the weeks that followed she says she felt like she "had fallen into the plot of a dystopian novel".
Sturgeon calls her own arrest two months later as part of the inquiry into SNP finances known as Operation Branchform "the worst day" of her life.
She was exonerated. Murrell, the former SNP chief executive, has been charged with embezzlement.
The couple announced they were separating earlier this year.
Getty Images
Sturgeon described her house as looking like a murder scene
Text here
Leading Scotland during the pandemic
ForSturgeon, the coronavirus pandemic which struck the world five years ago still provokes "a torrent of emotion".
Leading Scotland through Covid was "almost indescribably" hard and "took a heavy toll, physically and mentally", writes the former first minister.
She says she will be haunted forever by the thought that going into lockdown earlier could have saved more lives and, in January 2024, after she wept while giving evidence to the UK Covid inquiry, she "came perilously close to a breakdown".
"For the first time in my life, I sought professional help. It took several counselling sessions before I was able to pull myself back from the brink," she writes.
PA Media
Nicola Sturgeon appeared visibly upset when giving evidence to the Covid Inquiry
Text here
Misogyny and sexism
Scathing comments about the inappropriate behaviour of men are scattered throughout the book.
"Like all women, since the dawn of time, I have faced misogyny and sexism so endemic that I didn't always recognize it as such," Sturgeon writes on the very first page.
One grim story, from the first term of the Scottish Parliament which ran from 1999 to 2003, stands out.
Sturgeon says a male MSP from a rival party taunted her with the nickname "gnasher" as he spread a false rumour that she had injured a boyfriend during oral sex.
"On the day I found out about the story, I cried in one of the toilets in the Parliament office complex," she writes.
She said it was only years later, after #MeToo, that she realised this had been "bullying of an overtly sexual nature, designed to humiliate and intimidate, to cut a young woman down to size and put her in her place".
Her personal life
PA Media
Parts of the memoir are deeply personal.
Nicola Sturgeon says she may have appeared to be a confident and combative leader but underneath she is a "painfully shy" introvert who has "always struggled to believe in herself."
She writes in detail about the "excruciating pain" and heartbreak of suffering a miscarriage after becoming pregnant at the age of 40.
"Later, what I would feel most guilty about were the days I had wished I wasn't pregnant," she says.
Sturgeon touches on the end of her marriage, saying "I love him" but the strain of the past couple of years" was "impossible to bear."
She also writes about her experience of the menopause, explaining that "one of my deepest anxieties was that I would suddenly forget my words midway through an answer" at First Minister's Question Time.
"My heart would race whenever I was on my feet in the Chamber which was debilitating and stressful," she says.
And she addresses "wild stories" about her having a torrid lesbian affair with a French diplomat by saying the rumours were rooted in homophobia.
"The nature of the insult was water off a duck's back," she writes.
"Long-term relationships with men have accounted for more than thirty years of my life, but I have never considered sexuality, my own included, to be binary. Moreover, sexual relationships should be private matters."
What the future holds
PA Media
Sturgeon loves books and has often appeared at literary events such as Aye Write in Glasgow
Nicola Sturgeon has a few regrets.
These include pushing hard for a second independence referendum immediately after the UK voted — against Scotland's wishes — to leave the EU, and branding the 2024 general election as a "de facto referendum" on independence.
But now, she says, she is "excited about the next phase" of her life which she jokingly refers to as her "delayed adolescence".
"I might live outside of Scotland for a period," Sturgeon writes.
"Suffocating is maybe putting it too strongly, but I feel sometimes I can't breathe freely in Scotland," she tells the BBC's Newscast podcast.
"This may shock many people to hear," she continues, "but I love London."
She is also considering writing a novel.
Nicola Sturgeon concludes her memoir by saying she believes Scotland will be independent within 20 years, insisting she will never stop fighting for that outcome and adding: "That, after all, is what my life has been about."
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