Thailand's prime minister has been removed by the Constitutional Court, plunging the country's politics into turmoil and dealing a blow to its most powerful political dynasty.

Paetongtarn Shinawatra was dismissed for violating ethics in a leaked June phone call, where she could be heard calling Cambodia's former leader Hun Sen "uncle" and criticising the Thai army, amid worsening border tensions with Cambodia.

The call, leaked by Hun Sen himself, damaged her reputation and critics accused her of undermining the country's army.

The ruling makes Paetongtarn, the daughter of former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, the fifth prime minister to be removed from office by the court since 2008.

On Friday, the court's nine judges voted six to three against Paetongtarn, ruling that her actions had violated ethical standards expected of her office.

The court said that Paetongtarn possessed a "personal relationship" that "appeared to align with Cambodia" and dismissed her claims that the call was a "personal negotiation to... bring back peace without using violence".

In a ruling, it said "caused the public to cast doubt" on whether her actions "would benefit Cambodia more than the nation's interest".

In a brief press conference, Paetongtarn acknowledged the court's verdict but insisted she was trying to save lives.

Her call with Hun Sen came as tensions rose on the Thai-Cambodia border, which weeks later erupted into a five-day conflict in which dozens of people were killed and hundreds of thousands fled their homes.

Paetongtarn, 39, was thrust into the spotlight after the surprise dismissal of her predecessor Srettha Thavisin by the same court a year ago. She had only joined Pheu Thai in 2021 and became its leader in 2023.

Her replacement will be chosen by parliament, where her ruling Pheu Thai party has a thin majority.

A coalition partner had earlier quit her government, leaving her with only a slim majority as thousands of people protested in Bangkok to demand her resignation.

The powerful Shinawatra family have presided over several Thai governments - and Paetongtarn's removal is a blow to their political dynasty.

She becomes the third Shinawatra to have their premiership cut short: her father Thaksin was deposed by a military coup in 2006 and her aunt Yingluck was also removed by the Constitutional Court in 2014.

Despite his retirement from formal politics years ago, Thaksin remained hugely influential - though it's now unclear how much influence the Shinawatra name will now continue to bear.

The body of Israeli hostage Ilan Weiss has been recovered in an operation in the Gaza Strip, Israel's military has announced.

Weiss, 56, was killed during Hamas's attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

The remains of a second hostage, whose identity has not been released yet, were also recovered, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says.

Israel launched a massive offensive in Gaza following the attack in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken back to the territory as hostages.

After the latest announcement, 48 hostages remain in Gaza - 20 of whom Israel believes are still alive.

Ilan Weiss was killed while defending Kibbutz Beeri on the day of the attack. His body was taken to Gaza.

Weiss's wife, Shiri, and daughter, Noga, were taken hostage by Hamas on the same day. They were released during a temporary ceasefire in November 2023.

"Ilan showed courage and noble spirit when he fought the terrorists on that dark day," Israeli President Isaac Herzog said, before praising Weiss's family's "extraordinary strength in their struggle for his return".

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been facing strong domestic pressure to agree a deal that would enable the return of all hostages still in captivity.

Huge protests have been held demanding an end to the war, as Israel pushes ahead with its plan to take over Gaza City and eventually establish control over the entire Strip. Netanyahu argues the defeat of Hamas will secure the release of the hostages.

The country's military says it has begun the "initial stages" of its advance into Gaza City.

The IDF said a scheduled pause in military action which had been due to come into effect at 10:00 (07:00 GMT) would not apply to Gaza City. It said this was in "accordance with the situational assessment and directives of the political echelon".

In recent days, Israel has carried out air strikes on Gaza City and advised residents to make their way towards makeshift housing in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Since 14 August, the day the offensive was announced, about 20,000 people have been displaced to the south from Gaza City in addition to about 40,000 moving further north, according the UN's humanitarian affairs office.

Western countries - and the UN - have warned that an operation in an area of Gaza where more than a million people live would have devastating consequences.

Most of Gaza's population has been repeatedly displaced.

More than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed and the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed.

Last week, a UN-backed body, which monitors hunger levels around the world, raised its food insecurity status in parts of Gaza to the highest and most severe - confirming famine for the first time. Israel denies there is starvation in the territory.

At least 62,966 Palestinians have been killed by Israel's military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Thailand's prime minister has been removed by the Constitutional Court, plunging the country's politics into turmoil and dealing a blow to its most powerful political dynasty.

Paetongtarn Shinawatra was dismissed for violating ethics in a leaked June phone call, where she could be heard calling Cambodia's former leader Hun Sen "uncle" and criticising the Thai army, amid worsening border tensions with Cambodia.

The call, leaked by Hun Sen himself, damaged her reputation and critics accused her of undermining the country's army.

The ruling makes Paetongtarn, the daughter of former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, the fifth prime minister to be removed from office by the court since 2008.

On Friday, the court's nine judges voted six to three against Paetongtarn, ruling that her actions had violated ethical standards expected of her office.

The court said that Paetongtarn possessed a "personal relationship" that "appeared to align with Cambodia" and dismissed her claims that the call was a "personal negotiation to... bring back peace without using violence".

In a ruling, it said "caused the public to cast doubt" on whether her actions "would benefit Cambodia more than the nation's interest".

In a brief press conference, Paetongtarn acknowledged the court's verdict but insisted she was trying to save lives.

Her call with Hun Sen came as tensions rose on the Thai-Cambodia border, which weeks later erupted into a five-day conflict in which dozens of people were killed and hundreds of thousands fled their homes.

Paetongtarn, 39, was thrust into the spotlight after the surprise dismissal of her predecessor Srettha Thavisin by the same court a year ago. She had only joined Pheu Thai in 2021 and became its leader in 2023.

Her replacement will be chosen by parliament, where her ruling Pheu Thai party has a thin majority.

A coalition partner had earlier quit her government, leaving her with only a slim majority as thousands of people protested in Bangkok to demand her resignation.

The powerful Shinawatra family have presided over several Thai governments - and Paetongtarn's removal is a blow to their political dynasty.

She becomes the third Shinawatra to have their premiership cut short: her father Thaksin was deposed by a military coup in 2006 and her aunt Yingluck was also removed by the Constitutional Court in 2014.

Despite his retirement from formal politics years ago, Thaksin remained hugely influential - though it's now unclear how much influence the Shinawatra name will now continue to bear.

No Israeli government delegation will be invited to a global defence exhibition in London next month because of the Gaza war, the UK has said.

"The Israeli government's decision to further escalate its military operation in Gaza is wrong," a UK government spokesperson said. "As a result, we can confirm that no Israeli government delegation will be invited to attend DSEI UK 2025."

Israel's defence ministry called the move a "deliberate and regrettable act of discrimination" and said it would be withdrawing and not setting up a national pavilion.

UK leaders have become more outspoken against Israel's conduct in Gaza, including a recent plan to expand the war and take over Gaza City.

"There must be a diplomatic solution to end this war now, with an immediate ceasefire, the return of the hostages and a surge in humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza," the UK government spokesperson said in a statement on Friday.

The defence expo, which is set to take place at Excel London from 9 to 12 September, is organised and run by a private company with backing from the government, Reuters reported.

Israel's defence ministry said the UK's decision on the event "introduces political considerations wholly inappropriate for a professional defence industry exhibition".

But the ministry said Israeli industries that chose to participate would receive its "full support".

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in October 2023 in response to the Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostage back to Gaza. Fifty hostages are still held there, 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

Israeli military actions in Gaza have since killed 62,966 people, including at least 18,592 children, the Hamas-run health ministry has said.

The UN has said Israel has restricted aid, and UN-backed experts have confirmed famine in Gaza City and its surrounding areas, with more than half a million people across Gaza facing conditions including starvation.

Israel, which controls entry of goods into the territory, has denied this report and defended its military operation as a fight against Hamas.

UK leaders have become increasingly critical of Israel's conduct in Gaza.

In March, the UK suspended talks on a trade deal with Israel, summoned the country's ambassador and imposed fresh sanctions on West Bank settlers, as Foreign Secretary David Lammy called the military escalation in Gaza "morally unjustifiable".

In recent months, Lammy said he was appalled and sickened by the plight of civilians in Gaza and called on Israel to allow in more aid.

This week, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said Israeli strikes on a hospital that killed at least 20 people, including five journalists, "completely indefensible".

After the Labour Party came to power last year, it suspended 30 out of 350 arms export licences to Israel, but did not include parts for the F-35 jet, which the government said it could not prevent Israel from obtaining as they are sent to manufacturers worldwide.

These jets have been used extensively in Gaza.

Elon Musk is seeking to dismiss a lawsuit by US regulators alleging he wrongly saved money by revealing he increased his initial investment in Twitter too late.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said in a January complaint that Musk failed to disclose that he had built up his stake in the company within the regulator's timeframe.

It said this had allowed him to save about $150m (£123m) by purchasing shares in Twitter - which he bought outright months later and renamed X - at "artificially low prices".

Musk's lawyers, filing shortly before the court's deadline for his response, called the lawsuit "a waste of this Court's time and taxpayer resources".

"The SEC does not allege that Mr. Musk caused any investor harm. Rather, the SEC alleges that Mr. Musk late-filed a single beneficial ownership form three years ago, and fully corrected any alleged error immediately upon its discovery," they said in their Thursday filing.

"There is no ongoing violation. There is no intent. There is no harm."

In its January complaint, the SEC alleged that Musk violated US securities rules requiring investors to disclose within 10 days if their holdings in a company surpass 5%.

It said Musk should have revealed he had crossed the threshold for disclosure of shares by 14 March 2022, but he did not disclose it until 21 days after his purchase - on 4 April.

"Musk's violation resulted in substantial economic harm to investors," it claimed.

During a prior investigation by the SEC into Musk's purchase of Twitter, he gave two depositions - with mystery surrounding whether he appeared at a further interview.

When the SEC filed its lawsuit in January, Musk blasted the regulator as a "totally broken organisation" on social media and accused it of wasting its time.

His lawyers' formal response, submitted on Thursday, also accused the SEC of targeting the executive in a "relentless pursuit".

"The Commission's selective enforcement against Mr. Musk - seeking monetary relief more than 1,500 times larger than the relief imposed on similarly situated individuals in similar cases - reveals an agency targeting an individual for his protected criticism of government overreach," it said.

It said other investigations launched by the watchdog over the past seven years - including one in which he was eventually cleared by a jury of wrongdoing over a tweet about the future of Tesla's ownership - reflected "relentless scrutiny".

The BBC has approached the SEC for a response.

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Half a century ago, people living in one of the most remote areas of England made a plea to be connected to mains electricity. Now, at last, some of the current hardy residents can experience joys such as hair straighteners on demand and not having to plan cups of tea.

The farms and cottages of the Upper Coquet valley in Northumberland have always been off grid, reliant on noisy expensive generators.

From a window of one of those farmhouses, Shona Anderson looks out on to a view generations of families in the area thought might never exist.

A row of newly erected electricity poles.

"I was at work and Scott my husband rang and said 'it's live, we're on mains power' and I hardly dared believe it," Shona says.

"I keep flicking the lights on and off and thinking 'that's mains power'."

Four generations of the Anderson family have lived in the valley, but in recent times Shona, Scott and their three sons have rented a house elsewhere, with Scott returning each day to work on the farm.

There were structural problems with the farmhouse, but they also got tired of a generator that "often broke down".

"We would sometimes book a caravan somewhere when that happened," Shona says, "just to have power".

"It was like living in the olden days," her son T-jay adds.

"Having to go out in the dark every time the generator conked out."

Mains electricity means they are back in the house Scott's grandmother was born in and he has a legacy to cement.

"I want to build the farm up and see future generations here," Scott says.

"T-jay wants to take it on and mains power will make life easier for him and those after him."

The valley missed out on the electrification programmes of the 20th Century.

For many years, the community of fewer than 50 people dotted along a single track road winding into the Cheviot Hills was told a connection would be too expensive.

But when the government decided an electricity supply was needed to three emergency telecommunication masts in the valley, an opportunity arose to connect many of the properties too.

Funds for the project were then found by the Home Office and Ministry of Defence (MoD) which owns the land.

The valley is within the Northumberland National Park and its planning authority initially wanted all the lines buried.

A compromise was agreed which saw the construction of nine miles (15km) of overhead line and three miles (4.7km) go underground.

Among the homes connected so far are two that were formerly served by a single generator.

The shared source meant neighbours Jaycee Charlton and Katherine Singer could never boil the kettle at the same time because it would plunge them both into darkness.

"It's happened" they confirm as they watch an engineer switch their energy supply from the generator to mains.

"Hair straighteners, I wouldn't dare put them on if the kettle was on too," says Jaycee.

And now? "You're not going to have to think so much about all that sort of thing."

Katherine, meanwhile, is looking forward to being able to go out without worrying about the power going off in their absence.

"It's a real opportunity to diversify the farm too," she adds.

The work was carried out by Northern Powergrid, with the company saying the project posed "unique challenges" and that it had been a "technically complex scheme."

It said it had given special consideration to the "unique landscape of Upper Coquetdale", with cables running below ground "wherever possible to preserve the area's natural beauty and reduce visual impact".

Some in the valley have not got rid of the loud chugging of the generator quite yet.

Harry and Megan's Byatt's farm was one that was judged too remote and there remain hundreds of other homes in Northumberland still off grid.

"We know we're the lucky ones, says Katherine.

"But we're just so grateful to everyone who has worked so hard to make this happen."

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There's a line in George Clooney's new film where one character tells him: "You're the American dream, the last of the great movie stars."

It's a comment which could easily apply to Clooney in real life, and one of several parallels between the US actor and the ageing movie star he plays in Netflix's Jay Kelly, which has just launched at the Venice Film Festival.

A hugely successful actor playing a hugely successful actor may not sound like much of a stretch. But Clooney's performance goes much deeper than that, portraying an actor who finds himself feeling strangely empty as he reflects on his life choices.

The fictional Kelly may be adored by everyone and greeted with a slice of cheesecake wherever he goes (a stipulation of his rider), but as he reflects on his career and legacy, he begins to grapple with how much family life he missed out on.

"There was something compelling to us about the premise of a movie star going through a crisis and going on a journey that was a physical journey, but also an interior, psychological journey," explains director Noah Baumbach.

Jay Kelly's somewhat lacking sense of self, he adds, "became a way to try to wrestle with this notion of who we are, and how we want to make peace with this gap between how we present ourselves and who we might actually be".

Clooney may have spent much of the last decade directing films while only occasionally appearing in them, but in Jay Kelly, he is firmly back in movie star mode.

While the film is an unabashed crowd-pleaser, the subtlety of Clooney's performance could put him in the awards conversation in the coming months, in a year where the best actor race is packed with A-listers.

The film sees its leading man suddenly down tools, a week before he's due to start shooting a movie, after a string of setbacks including the death of a close friend and a heated encounter with his former college roommate (played by Billy Crudup).

With no warning, Kelly decides to fly to Europe to spend time with his daughters and get his head together - albeit with a stop-off in Italy to collect a lifetime achievement prize.

His entourage - including his publicist (Laura Dern) and stylist (Emily Mortimer) - are forced to follow them, as Kelly shows characteristically little interest in their lives compared with his own.

But his various assistants gradually peel off one by one and head back to the US as they realise Kelly is serious about potentially giving up his career.

One person who stays by his side, however, his his manager Ron, played by Adam Sandler, in a performance which reminds audiences how good a dramatic actor he is when not doing comedy.

"As an actor, when you read a script like this you say, 'Holy [expletive], I can't believe I'm getting this gift," Sandler tells journalists.

Of course, Sandler, Dern and Crudup are stars in their own right - and all agree the film helped them reflect on their relationships with the people who surround them in the Hollywood publicity machine.

"I've always appreciated my manager, agent, publicist, I just know how hard they work and how difficult it is to hear my ups and downs in life and back me up no matter what," says Sandler.

"But I do appreciate what they do, and I was excited to play a man who is devoted to somebody. And I admire everybody who does that and how much it means to them."

Dern says she relished the opportunity to play "the role of the people who have helped raise me in my professional life", and describes her publicist as "a mother figure", particularly early in her career after she began acting aged 11.

She too, intends to be more considerate and aware of her own power as a celebrity. "Did I know that my publicist has a family? I definitely did, but I definitely want to be that much more mindful now," she says.

Early reactions to the film have varied wildly in Venice. In a five-star review, the Telegraph's Robbie Collin described it as a "midlife crisis masterpiece", and highlighted the final scene as a "knockout".

"[Jay Kelly] looks like Clooney. He acts like Clooney," Collin said. "But perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to cleanly equate one man with the other – because Jay Kelly isn't Jay Kelly either, and that's the problem."

The Independent's Geoffrey McNab awarded four stars, writing: "If Clooney is playing yet another variation on himself in Jay Kelly, at least he's doing so in a far more raw and revealing way than he has ever done before."

But a one-star review from the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw said it was a "dire, sentimental and self-indulgent film".

Clooney may be in Venice for the film's premiere and has posed for photos on red carpets, but he is missing from the traditional press conference due to a sinus infection - "Even movie stars get sick," jokes Baumbach.

But there is still huge excitement on the ground for Jay Kelly - a name which, many viewers might notice, sounds suspiciously similar to George Clooney.

"I've known George over the years and I've been wanting to find something to do with him, and early on [when writing the script], we began to say, this is going to be George," Baumbach says of writing the script with Mortimer.

Actors often try to avoid playing versions of themselves on screen - it's far more fashionable to go through a significant transformation. But Baumbach says in this case Clooney's real-life popularity was more of a help than a hindrance.

"I felt it was important the audience watching the movie have a relationship with the actor playing the character.

"The character is running from himself for so much of the movie, deflecting and trying to hide, and what essentially I was asking of George was to reveal more and more of himself as he does it."

The Oscars might be months away, but Clooney is one of several A-listers already getting into position for what is likely to be a competitive year for the best actor race.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Timothée Chalamet, Daniel Day-Lewis and Dwayne Johnson are just a handful of the names starring in films which are being geared towards an awards season campaign in the coming months.

It's also fair to say that Hollywood always enjoys a film about itself - which could stand Jay Kelly in good stead come awards season.

Clooney, 64, is eyeing his first acting nomination since The Descendants in 2012 - but we'll have to wait until much later in the season to see how his performance stacks up against others.

Baumbach himself is no stranger to Oscar voters (his 2019 film Marriage Story scored Dern an Oscar), and he is back on form after his poorly received last film, White Noise.

The director reflects: "If you make a movie about an actor, you're making a movie about identity and performance and a search for self."

"Actors are always trying to find themselves within a character, and asking where they fit in, it's a character outside themselves. And I think it was something we felt we are all doing essentially as we go through life."

In her latest film, US actress Emma Stone plays a powerful CEO who is kidnapped by two men who believe she's an alien.

It might sound a little out there, but Bugonia is one of the most talked-about movies at this year's Venice Film Festival, thanks to its unique depiction of the impact of conspiracy theories and echo chambers.

The film could easily have been a preachy lecture about the dangers of the internet. But Bugonia, directed by Oscars favourite Yorgos Lanthimos, is spinning a lot more plates than you initially think, and there is more at play than meets the eye.

"There's so much that's happening that I think is reflective of this point in time and our world," says Stone at the film's launch, "and is told in a way that I found really fascinating, moving, funny, [messed]-up and alive."

The film is Stone's fourth collaboration with Lanthimos following The Favourite, Kinds of Kindness and Poor Things - which won the 36-year-old her second best actress Oscar.

"The opportunity to get to work on these things that I have with him has been just a dream," Stone reflects, "because this material, there's so much [to confront]."

The director's films aren't for everyone - they are often dark, twisted and gory. But while this one ticks those same boxes, viewers who struggled with his earlier films might find Bugonia more accessible.

Regardless of your thoughts on alien life, the film functions as a gripping kidnap drama, and is a truly wild ride.

Stone plays Michelle Fuller, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company which a troubled young man, Teddy (Jesse Plemons), holds responsible for his mother's ill health and a declining bee population.

As a result, Teddy carefully plans the kidnap with his reluctant cousin Don (Aidan Delbis). Stone puts up a hell of a fight, but ultimately ends up being held captive in Teddy's basement, where much of the film plays out.

It's easy to dismiss Teddy as crazy, with foil on the windows around his house, but the film gradually shows more of his character and explores the factors that shaped his personality.

"Throughout history, there has been a human instinct to unconsciously categorise someone, and I think I probably tried to do that [with Teddy] when I started reading this script," says Plemons.

"His core, his relationship with Don, what you discover happened to his mother, I could talk for a long time about Teddy but my way of understanding him was he's a really tortured soul that was trying with all his might to help. It's a crazy thing to say, but I believe that."

It's true, Teddy believes, that capturing the CEO and trying to extract information from her is for the greater good of humanity. Some of his beliefs seem ridiculous and he would be laughed at by many - but that's the point.

"For all his ranting and raving, Plemons brings plenty of depth to Teddy, a man who has locked himself down in the wake of past traumas," wrote Screen Daily's Nikki Baughan.

"In this battle of wits between this well-dressed, carefully-controlled woman and this pony-tailed, irrational bumpkin, we know who we are supposed to believe. But can we? Should we?"

Plemons, who previously scored an Oscar nomination for The Power of the Dog, says Bugonia appealed because it forced him to confront his own preconceptions about people on the fringes of society.

"I think we have an instinct in general to close the book on things that are scary, hard to look at, hard to understand."

"For me as an actor, it's a way I can try and make sense of some of these things, and some of these people who are very difficult to understand. And there's a risk in writing them off as being non-human, because they are [human], and they exist."

Bugonia is a loose remake of Jang Joon-hwan's 2003 Korean sci-fi movie Save the Green Planet! - but Plemons admits he didn't watch it before shooting, so he could approach the role uninfluenced.

The role required Stone to shave her head. Or, more accurately, for the two men holding her captive to shave it for her.

"Was it easy for me to shave my hair? It was the easiest thing in the world, you just take the razor, it's so much easier than any hairstyle," the actress laughs.

Asked whether she gives any credence to theories about aliens, she doesn't totally shut down the idea.

"One of my favourite people who has ever lived is [astronomer] Carl Sagan," she explains. "I watched his show Cosmos, and fell madly in love with his philosophy and science and how brilliant he seems to be.

"He very deeply believed that the idea that we are alone in this vast expanse of the universe is a pretty narcissistic thing to think.

"So yes," she jokes, raising her hand, "I'm coming out with it, I believe in aliens, thank you."

The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney described Bugonia as a "genre-hopping blast of suspense, sci-fi, paranoia and dark comedy" and said Lanthimos "can always be relied upon to serve up something weird and subversive".

"As things grow increasingly frantic and gruesome, Lanthimos expertly milks maximum comic tension," said the Telegraph's Robbie Collin in a five-star review.

Stone was widely praised for her central performance, even by critics who were less keen on the film as a whole.

Time's Stephanie Zacharek said the actress is "a bold, creative performer" who is "laceratingly funny and bracingly convincing".

But she also described the movie as "punishing", adding that while "Stone can do anything, that doesn't mean she should."

It could be tempting to describe the film as dystopian, but Lanthimos doesn't think that quite hits the mark.

"Not much of the dystopia in this film is fictional," he notes. "A lot of it reflects the real world. If anything, this film says, this is happening now, and actually it became more relevant as time went by.

"Humanity is facing a reckoning very soon, people need to choose the right path in many ways, otherwise I don't know how much time we have, with technology, AI, with wars.

"And the denial of all these things, how desensitised we've become to them. To me, it's a reflection of our times and hopefully will trigger people to think today."