For many young girls in Japan today, the image of Sanae Takaichi taking the helm of power as the country's first ever female leader is powerful and formative.

It means a patriarchal society and a political system that has long been dominated by men is now led by a woman.

But while the optics speak of a progressive moment, some women don't see her as an advocate for change.

"It was quite interesting to see how people outside Japan have reacted to the news." Ayda Ogura, 21, says.

"Everyone's like, 'wow, she's the first female prime minister in Japanese history and that would be a great opportunity for women empowerment and gender equality in Japan'.

"I think that's a very naive interpretation."

Instead, Ms Ogura points to her "political beliefs and what she stands for", adding: "She perpetuates the patriarchal system."

A big fan of Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi has always wanted to be the "Iron Lady" of her country.

And like Thatcher, Takaichi is a staunch conservative.

Observers say her leadership is a tactical move from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to appeal to the more conservative base which had recently gravitated towards Japan's parties further to the right.

Takaichi opposes same-sex marriage and has long stood against legislation that would allow married couples to have separate surnames, preventing many women from keeping their maiden names.

She's also against women being in line for succession in the imperial family.

However, she did soften some of her messaging during her campaign - saying she favours giving tax incentives to companies that provide childcare facilities to their employees and spoke of possible tax breaks for families spending on childcare.

But she has over the years backed the idea of a more traditional role for women in society and in the family.

When it comes to women's issues, Takaichi is consistent with her country's less than impressive record on gender issues.

Japanese women are among the best educated and highest qualified in the world and yet they struggle with the expectations of a conservative society that still pushes them in traditional roles.

According to the 2025 gender gap index by the World Economic Forum, Japan ranked 118th among 148 countries, with female representation in the field of politics notably low.

Leadership positions have traditionally been dominated by men and Japan has struggled to increase the number of female lawmakers and business leaders.

The world's fourth largest economy ranks last among the G7 countries when it comes to the share of women in its national parliament. Specifically, women make up about 15.7% of lawmakers in Japan, the lowest figure among the G7.

It is even slow when it comes to women's reproductive health: only this week was it announced that the "morning after" pill - a form of emergency contraception available without prescription in more than 90 countries - had finally been approved for over the counter use in Japan.

Even so, some see Takaichi's rise to power as a pivotal moment that could change how women view their prospects.

"There is great significance in Ms Takaichi becoming prime minister, with a broader impact on society," Naomi Koshi - who became the country's youngest female mayor in 2012 - told Japan's Kyodo news agency.

Koshi argued Japan having a female prime minister will "lower psychological barriers" for women and girls, helping them feel it is normal to "stand out" as leaders in companies and society, even as gender-based stereotypes and expectations still remain.

But Audrey Hill-Uekawa, 20, points out that, while it is remarkable Japan has its first female leader, one must remember it took her more than 30 years to get to that position.

"She's also not really going against the grain. She's saying the same thing as the men."

Ms Hill-Uekawa adds that she shouldn't be put on a pedestal simply because she is a woman.

"We need to make sure we're talking about her policies. We need to be able to criticise her equally as everyone else."

It is not just what Takaichi has said which has led people to label her as a defender of the patriarchy.

It's also evident by who her champions inside the party have been.

She's the protégé of the late former hawkish prime minister Shinzo Abe, and was backed in the leadership election by Taro Aso - a senior figure in the LDP at the head of one of the ruling party's most influential conservative blocs.

His faction's support for Sanae Takaichi was pivotal in uniting the party's right wing behind her.

"I do feel that it is difficult for women to sort of relate to her success because it furthers this idea that we must be compliant with the status quo," 21-year-old Minori Konishi says.

Ms Ogura agrees, saying that with her as a figurehead for women in politics, "people are going to expect the same from us as well".

"They're going to expect us to be compliant, not go against the ideals that they have, and it might make our job more difficult."

Making history, however, was just the first of the challenges Takaichi will face - not least tackling a sluggish economy and inflation and winning back the trust of a frustrated and angry electorate, as well as hosting president Trump within days of taking power.

It's safe to say that no-one expects gender equality issues to be high on her priority list.

French police are desperate to retrieve priceless jewels stolen from the Louvre in a brazen daylight robbery, but experts have warned it may already be too late to save them.

In Paris on Sunday, thieves broke into the world's most-visited museum, stealing eight valued items before escaping on scooters, in a daring heist that took about eight minutes.

Dutch art detective Arthur Brand told the BBC he feared the jewels may already be "long gone", having been broken up into hundreds of parts.

It is highly likely the pieces will be sold for a fraction of their worth and smuggled out of France, other experts have said.

Who may be behind the heist

The group were professionals, Mr Brand believes, as demonstrated by the fact they were in and out of the Louvre so quickly.

"You know, as a normal person, you don't wake up in the morning thinking, I will become a burglar, let's start with the Louvre," he said.

"This won't be their first heist," he said. "They have done things before, other burglaries. They are confident and they thought, we might get away with this, and went for it."

In another sign the professionalism of the gang is being taken seriously, a specialist police unit with a "high success rate in cracking high-profile robberies" has been tasked with tracking them down.

Authorities have said they suspect the heist is linked to an organised crime network. Mr Brand says it means the perpetrators will likely have criminal records and be known to the police.

Organised crime groups like these generally have two objectives, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said. "Either to act for the benefit of a sponsor, or to obtain precious stones to carry out money laundering operations."

Mr Brand thinks it would be impossible to sell the items intact, and he said stealing-to-order for a private collector is something that only happens in Hollywood films.

"Nobody wants to touch a piece so hot," he explained. "You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your children, you cannot sell it."

Potential £10m price tag

Mr Brand believes the objects will be dismantled and broken up, with the gold and silver melted down and the gems cut up into smaller stones that will be virtually impossible to track back to the Louvre robbery.

Jewellery historian Carol Woolton, who presents the podcast If Jewels Could Talk and was Vogue magazine's jewellery editor for 20 years, told the BBC the robbers had "cherry-picked" the most important gemstones from the Louvre's collection.

The "beautiful large flawless stones" would likely be dug out of their mountings and sold, she said, except for the crown from Empress Eugénie which has smaller stones set in it and was "too hot to handle", she added.

This could explain why it was dropped during the escape, along with one other item, and found by authorities.

Empress Eugenie's tiara, which was stolen, has rare natural pearls which have a very large value, experts say.

While the items have been described as being priceless, Ms Woolton expects them to be sold for a fraction of their worth.

"They will go to someone who is willing to handle these," she said. "Everyone will be looking for these – they will take what they can get."

How much exactly could they fetch in money if sold on? When asked about the potential value of the haul, Mr Brand said the cut-up parts could be worth "many millions".

The gems and gold stolen could fetch up to £10 million (€11.52m; $13.4m), says Tobias Kormind, managing director of 77 Diamonds, an online jeweller.

He told the BBC the gang would need a skilled expert to remove the gems, and a professional diamond cutter to change the larger recognisable stones.

Smaller stones that were not easily identifiable could be sold immediately and while it was hard to tell the exact price of all the stones stolen, the larger ones could be worth around £500,000 each, he said.

"There are at least four of that size, so adding all of those up plus the gold, you are probably approaching £10m," he said.

"The diamond and gemstone market is liquid and there are many buyers on the fringes that don't ask too many questions."

There are hopes that the items could reappear intact one day - but those hopes are narrowing as the days pass.

There is a precedent - the Cartier exhibition at the V&A Museum features an item of jewellery stolen in 1948 before reappearing in an auction several decades later.

What is certain is many in France are deeply shocked by the Louvre heist, having felt an emotional attachment to the jewels.

"We don't necessarily like jewellery because it's a question of power, and that doesn't necessarily have a good connotation in France," Alexandre Leger, head of heritage at French jeweller Maison Vever, said.

"But inevitably, what was stolen belonged as much to you as it did to me. It belongs to France, so everyone owns a little piece of these objects, just as everyone owns a little piece of the Mona Lisa.

"It's as if someone had stolen the Mona Lisa from us... Someone stole France."

Additional reporting by Izumi Yoneyama.

South Korean police said they would seek an arrest warrant for a woman who set fire to her apartment building while trying to kill a cockroach with an improvised flamethrower, local media report.

One of the woman's neighbours died after falling to the ground in a failed attempt to escape through a window.

The woman, who is in her 20s, told police that she tried to torch a cockroach with a lighter and a flammable spray, adding she had used the method before. But on Monday, items in her home caught fire.

Police in the northern city of Osan said the woman could be charged with accidentally starting a fire and causing death by negligence.

Blasting cockroaches - with blowtorches or homemade flamethrowers - have emerged as a novel way of getting rid of house pests, made popular by videos on social media.

In 2018, an Australian man set fire to his kitchen while trying to kill cockroaches with a homemade flamethrower made from insect spray.

The woman who died in the Osan city fire, a Chinese national in her 30s, lived on the fifth floor of the building with her husband and two-month-old baby.

When they realised that a fire had broken out, the couple opened their home window and called for help.

They handed their baby through the window to a neighbour in the adjacent block, before trying to evacuate themselves.

The woman's husband managed to climb over to the next block. She tried to do the same, but fell from the window. She was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead hours later.

Police said they believed the couple had tried escaping through the window because thick smoke from the fire had blocked the stairway, local media report.

The building houses commercial shops on its first floor and 32 residential units from its second to fifth floor.

Eight other residents suffered from smoke inhalation because of the fire.

A semi-transparent crab about the size of an almond and a tiny, glowing lantern shark are among two new species discovered by Australian scientists exploring the deep sea.

In late 2022, scientists from Australia's science agency CSIRO embarked on a research voyage in the Gascoyne Marine Park, about 20km (12 miles) off the coast of Western Australia.

Australia is one of the world's biggest biodiversity hotspots, home to more than a million different species, many of which are not found anywhere else on earth.

But - like much of the globe - large swathes of its water remain unexplored, and the animal and plant life within them unknown to science.

Among the hundreds of specimens collected during the 2022 voyage was the newly described West Australian Lantern Shark. Growing up to 40cm, it has large eyes and a glowing belly, and was found more than 600m below the ocean's surface.

"Lantern sharks are bioluminescent, with light produced by photophores located on their belly and flanks, which is where their common name comes from," Dr Will White, a fish scientist, said.

They also discovered a new type of porcelain crab, about 1.5cm in length and found about 122m below sea level. They use hairs to catch food, instead of their claws.

"Porcelain crabs are known as filter feeders, feeding on plankton by using modified mouthparts with long hairs to sweep the water for small pieces of food such as plankton, rather than the typical crab method of grabbing and pinching food with their claws," said Dr Andrew Hosie, curator of aquatic zoology from the Western Australian Museum.

About 20 new species have been unearthed as a result of the voyage so far, including the Carnavon Flapjack Octopus, a rusty red creature around 4cm big.

Researchers estimate about 600 more are yet to be described and named, as it can take years for scientists to gather the information to prove they're unique.

Nicolas Sarkozy will become the first French ex-president to go to jail, as he starts a five-year sentence for conspiring to fund his election campaign with money from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Not since World War Two Nazi collaborationist leader Philippe Pétain was jailed for treason in 1945 has any French ex-leader gone behind bars.

Sarkozy, who was president from 2007-2012, has appealed against his jail term at La Santé prison, where he is will occupy a cell roughly measuring 9 sq m (95 sq ft) in the jail's isolation wing.

More than 100 people stood outside the jail, after his son Louis, 28, called on supporters for a show of support.

Another son, Pierre, called for a message of love - "nothing else, please".

Nicolas Sarkozy, 70, was due to arrive at 10:00 (08:00 GMT) at the infamous 19th-Century prison in the Montparnasse district south of the River Seine. He continues to protest his innocence in the highly controversial Libyan money affair.

Sarkozy has said he wants no special treatment at the notorious La Santé prison, although he has been put in the isolation section for his own safety as other inmates are notorious drugs dealers or have been convicted for terror offences.

Other than Philippe Pétain, the only other former French head of state to have been jailed was King Louis XVI before his execution in January 1793.

Inside his cell he will have a toilet, shower, desk and small TV. He will be allowed one hour a day for exercise, by himself.

At the end of last week he was received at the Élysée Palace by President Emmanuel Macron, who told reporters on Monday "it was normal that on a human level I should receive one of my predecessors in that context".

In a further measure of official support for the ex-president, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said he would go to visit him in prison as part of his role in ensuring Sarkozy's safety and the proper functioning of the jail.

"I cannot be insensitive to a man's distress," he added.

• Read more: Former French president Sarkozy given five-year sentence after Libya case

Ahead of his arrival at La Santé prison, Sarkozy gave a series of media interviews, telling La Tribune: "I'm not afraid of prison. I'll keep my head held high, including at the prison gates."

Sarkozy has always denied doing anything wrong in a case involving allegations that his 2007 presidential campaign was funded by millions of euros in Libyan cash.

The former centre-right leader was cleared of personally receiving the money but convicted of criminal association with two close aides, Brice Hortefeux and Claude Guéant, to talk to the Libyans about secret campaign financing.

The two men both had talks with Gadaffi's intelligence chief and brother-in-law in 2005, in a meeting arranged by a Franco-Lebanese intermediary called Ziad Tiakeddine, who died in Lebanon shortly before Sarkozy's conviction.

As he lodged an appeal, Sarkozy is still considered innocent but he has been told he must go to jail in view of the "exceptional seriousness of the facts".

Sarkozy said he would take two books with him into prison, a life of Jesus and the Count of Monte Christo, the story of a man wrongly imprisoned who escapes to wreak vengeance on his prosecutors.

A man who shot and seriously injured the Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico in an attack last year has been sentenced to 21 years in prison after being found guilty of terrorism.

Juraj Cintula, a 72-year-old pensioner, fired five shots at the prime minister in May 2024 when he was on a visit to Handlova, about 180km (112 miles) from the capital Bratislava.

The gunman shot Fico at extremely close range, just as he was reaching out to shake his hand - thinking he was a supporter.

In court, Cintula denied trying to kill the prime minister, saying he had deliberately aimed away from his vital organs.

Footage from the scene of the shooting showed a man raising a gun and firing at the prime minister before being subdued by bodyguards. Other members of Fico's security team rushed the prime minister into his car.

He was seriously injured in his abdomen and was airlifted by helicopter to a nearby hospital for surgery, with his condition described as life threatening.

The attacker, an amateur poet in his 70s, claimed he only wanted to injure Fico in order to stop policies he believed were harming Slovakia.

The prime minister has tried to blame the opposition for the attack and for whipping up hatred, though he is known for deeply divisive rhetoric himself.

Cintula was sentenced on terror charges, with Judge Igor Kralik stating: "The court considers proven that the defendant did not attack a citizen but specifically the prime minister."

The gunman's lawyer had attempted to reduce the charge to attacking a public official, which has a lower penalty, but that was rejected by the judge.

Cintula's lawyer said he would likely appeal the verdict.

A Chinese-born woman has been charged for the theft of six gold nuggets worth about 1.5 million euros ($1.75m; £1.3m) from the Museum of Natural History in Paris last month, French prosecutors have said.

The woman was arrested in Barcelona trying to dispose of some melted gold, according to officials, and is being held in pre-trial detention.

Famous for its stuffed animals and bone collections, the museum is home to a mineralogy gallery, from the where the gold was taken. Police found an angle-grinder and a blowtorch at the scene.

The museum's alarm and surveillance systems had been disabled by a cyberattack, with thieves apparently aware of this, French media reported at the time.

• Can France retrieve its priceless crown jewels - or is it too late?
• How Louvre gang carried out France's most shocking theft

"The thieves, clearly very experienced and well-informed, exploited a security flaw that had not been identified during the last audit conducted in 2024 ," a museum spokesperson told French newspaper Le Figaro.

Cleaners discovered the break-in when they arrived for work before dawn at the museum, which is part of the Sorbonne university and located near the Jardin des Plantes in central Paris.

The suspect was arrested by Spanish police on 30 September on a European Arrest Warrant and handed over to the French on the same day, officials said in a statement.

At the time of her arrest, she was in possession of around a kilo of melted-down gold. Investigations are continuing, the statement added. It is believed she was preparing to leave for China.

One of the largest stolen nuggets, originally from Australia, weighs 5kg. At the current gold price, it would be worth around €585,000.

"We are dealing with an extremely professional team, perfectly aware of where they needed to go, and with professional equipment," Emmanuel Skoulios, the museum director, said to French broadcasters.

"It is absolutely not by chance that they went for these specific items," he told France 2 television last month.

The charges come just days after a separate daring heist at the Louvre saw thieves make off with the priceless French crown jewels.

On Sunday, "professional" thieves broke into the world's most-visited museum, stealing eight valued items before escaping on scooters. The raid took less than eight minutes, police said.

Experts told the BBC that items are likely to be broken up and sold for a fraction of their worth.

"This won't be their first heist," Dutch art detective Arthur Brand said on Monday.

"They have done things before, other burglaries. They are confident and they thought, 'we might get away with this', and went for it."

At least four French museums - including the Louvre and the natural history museum - have been robbed in recent months, according to media reports.

The small Central American nation of Belize has signed an agreement with Washington to act as a "safe third country" for migrants as they seek asylum in the United States.

Belize PM John Antonio Briceño said the deal - which must be approved by the Belize Senate - will mean that migrants deported from the US could apply for asylum instead of returning to their home countries.

The US State Department called it "an important milestone in ending illegal immigration", and "shutting down abuse" of the US asylum system.

The deal appears to be similar to one with Paraguay announced in August.

This year Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras have also taken in people deported by the US.

Human rights groups in the US and abroad have strongly criticised such deals, saying migrants face the risk of being sent to countries where they could be harmed.

Belize's ministry of foreign affairs posted on social media that the agreement "includes strict security measures to protect Belize's national security and sovereignty".

"The Agreement gives Belize full authority to approve or reject transfers, limits eligibility to specific nationalities, and ensures comprehensive background checks, among other measures," it said.

Prime Minister Briceño told local media that for Belize it will be "more like a job programme, whereby people with certain qualifications can come to Belize" and "participate meaningfully in our economy."

He added that the country - which has a population of 417,000 - would prefer to take people from Central America, adding "we're not going to open up to the whole world".

But leader of the opposition, Tracy Taegar Panton, expressed "grave concern" about the deal, saying it "could reshape Belize's immigration and asylum systems, impose new financial burdens on taxpayers, and raise serious questions about national sovereignty and security".

The US State Department posted on X that the agreement was "an important milestone in ending illegal immigration, shutting down abuse of our nation's asylum system, and reinforcing our shared commitment to tackling challenges in our hemisphere together".

Further details of the agreement have not yet been released.

Since the start of his second term, US President Donald Trump has embarked on sweeping efforts to remove undocumented migrants - a key election promise that drew mass support during his campaign.

In June, the US Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump to resume deportations of migrants to countries other than their homeland without giving them the chance to raise any risks they might face with officials.

Virginia Giuffre would have viewed Prince Andrew giving up his titles "as a victory", the ghostwriter of her posthumous memoir told BBC Newsnight.

The book, Nobody's Girl, co-written by Amy Wallace, details Ms Giuffre's encounters with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell - and more details of her allegations about Prince Andrew, which he has always denied.

In the memoir - released on Tuesday - Ms Giuffre described three occasions where she alleged Prince Andrew had sex with her.

Ms Wallace spent four years writing the book with Ms Giuffre, who took her own life almost six months ago.

In the book, Ms Giuffre said she had sex with Prince Andrew on three separate occasions. She says the third occasion was on Epstein's island as part of what Ms Giuffre called "an orgy" with Epstein and approximately eight other young women.

Prince Andrew, who reached a financial settlement with Ms Giuffre in 2022, announced on Friday that he was voluntarily deciding not to use his titles including the Duke of York, an honour received from his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II.

He is also giving up membership of the Order of the Garter - the oldest and most senior order of chivalry in Britain.

But there are still calls for them to be formally removed.

Ms Wallace said: "I can speak for Virginia; I know that she would view it as a victory that he was forced, by whatever means, to voluntarily give them up."

She called it a "symbolic gesture" which has made "modern history in terms of the royal era", describing it as "a step in the right direction".

"Virginia wanted all the men who she had been trafficked to, against her will, to be held to account, and this is just one of the men.

"Even though he (Andrew) continues to deny it, his life is being eroded because of his past behaviour, as it should be," Ms Wallace said.

Ms Wallace went on to say there was a period when Prince Andrew "indicated he was willing to help investigators in the US" but he was "never available, for some reason".

"That's something he could still do. He could say, as he has repeatedly, 'I still deny that I was involved... however, I was in these houses and I was on that island and I was on the jet and I saw things, and I know how much these women have suffered and I would like to share what I saw," Ms Wallace said.

Ms Wallace said the private jets used by Epstein "had been remodelled in order to afford many bedrooms - they were designed as flying trafficking agents, they were there to use girls in".

She added: "Prince Andrew was on at least one of those jets that I know of, if not more.

"He has to take sort of the measure of his own moral compass - he said in his settlement with Virginia that he now acknowledges the pain that these women and young girls had suffered. If you really feel it, do something about it."

Speaking about Ms Giuffre, Ms Wallace said: "I'm sad and I'm honoured to be able to speak at least a little bit on her behalf to stand up for her.

"She wrote this book to try to help other people, to make the world a better place.

"She deserves all credit for whatever role she played in forcing Prince Andrew to relinquish a few more of his titles but she deserves all credit even more than that for being brave enough to stand up to say 'this isn't right'."

The memoir, which the BBC bought from a book store in central London days before its official release, paints a picture of a web of rich and powerful people abusing young women.

At the centre of the abuse was Epstein and his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence on sex-trafficking charges.

Ms Giuffre says that even decades later, she remembers how much she feared them both.

Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a person under the age of 18. He died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Nicolas Sarkozy will become the first French ex-president to go to jail, as he starts a five-year sentence for conspiring to fund his election campaign with money from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Not since World War Two Nazi collaborationist leader Philippe Pétain was jailed for treason in 1945 has any French ex-leader gone behind bars.

Sarkozy, who was president from 2007-2012, has appealed against his jail term at La Santé prison, where he is will occupy a cell roughly measuring 9 sq m (95 sq ft) in the jail's isolation wing.

More than 100 people stood outside the jail, after his son Louis, 28, called on supporters for a show of support.

Another son, Pierre, called for a message of love - "nothing else, please".

Nicolas Sarkozy, 70, was due to arrive at 10:00 (08:00 GMT) at the infamous 19th-Century prison in the Montparnasse district south of the River Seine. He continues to protest his innocence in the highly controversial Libyan money affair.

Sarkozy has said he wants no special treatment at the notorious La Santé prison, although he has been put in the isolation section for his own safety as other inmates are notorious drugs dealers or have been convicted for terror offences.

Other than Philippe Pétain, the only other former French head of state to have been jailed was King Louis XVI before his execution in January 1793.

Inside his cell he will have a toilet, shower, desk and small TV. He will be allowed one hour a day for exercise, by himself.

At the end of last week he was received at the Élysée Palace by President Emmanuel Macron, who told reporters on Monday "it was normal that on a human level I should receive one of my predecessors in that context".

In a further measure of official support for the ex-president, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said he would go to visit him in prison as part of his role in ensuring Sarkozy's safety and the proper functioning of the jail.

"I cannot be insensitive to a man's distress," he added.

• Read more: Former French president Sarkozy given five-year sentence after Libya case

Ahead of his arrival at La Santé prison, Sarkozy gave a series of media interviews, telling La Tribune: "I'm not afraid of prison. I'll keep my head held high, including at the prison gates."

Sarkozy has always denied doing anything wrong in a case involving allegations that his 2007 presidential campaign was funded by millions of euros in Libyan cash.

The former centre-right leader was cleared of personally receiving the money but convicted of criminal association with two close aides, Brice Hortefeux and Claude Guéant, to talk to the Libyans about secret campaign financing.

The two men both had talks with Gadaffi's intelligence chief and brother-in-law in 2005, in a meeting arranged by a Franco-Lebanese intermediary called Ziad Tiakeddine, who died in Lebanon shortly before Sarkozy's conviction.

As he lodged an appeal, Sarkozy is still considered innocent but he has been told he must go to jail in view of the "exceptional seriousness of the facts".

Sarkozy said he would take two books with him into prison, a life of Jesus and the Count of Monte Christo, the story of a man wrongly imprisoned who escapes to wreak vengeance on his prosecutors.

US Vice-President JD Vance has arrived in Israel as part of the Trump administration's efforts to strengthen the Gaza ceasefire agreement.

He is expected to push the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to start negotiations on long-term issues for a permanent end to the war with Hamas.

The two special US envoys who helped negotiate the deal, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, also held talks with Netanyahu on Monday.

Their visits come after a flare-up of violence on Sunday that threatened to derail the 12-day-old truce. Israel said a Hamas attack killed two soldiers, triggering Israeli air strikes which killed dozens of Palestinians.

US President Donald Trump insisted on Monday that the ceasefire was still on track but also warned Hamas that it would be "eradicated" if it violated the deal.

Trump is said to have dispatched his deputy and envoys to Israel to keep up the momentum and push for the start of talks on the second critical phase of his 20-point Gaza peace plan.

It would involve setting up an interim government in the Palestinian territory, deploying an international stabilisation force, the withdrawal of Israeli troops, and disarmament of Hamas.

Vance, Witkoff and Kushner are also attempting to ensure the ceasefire deal, which is based on the first phase of the peace plan, does not collapse first.

The New York Times cited US officials as saying they were concerned that Israel's prime minister might "vacate" the deal and resume an all-out assault against Hamas.

Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament on Monday that he would discuss "security challenges" and "political opportunities" with Vance during his visit.

He also said Israeli forces had dropped 153 tonnes of bombs on Gaza in response to what he called a "blatant" breach of the ceasefire by Hamas on Sunday.

"One of our hands holds a weapon, the other hand is stretched out for peace," he said. "You make peace with the strong, not the weak. Today Israel is stronger than ever before."

The Israeli military blamed Hamas for an anti-tank missile attack on Sunday that killed two Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza and then carried out dozens of strikes across the territory which hospitals said killed at least 45 Palestinians.

Afterwards, the Israeli military said it was resuming enforcement of the ceasefire, while Hamas said it remained committed to the agreement.

However, four Palestinians were reportedly killed by Israeli fire east of Gaza City on Monday. The Israeli military said its troops fired towards " terrorists" who crossed the agreed-upon ceasefire line in the Shejaiya area.

Later, Trump told reporters at the White House: "We made a deal with Hamas that they're going to be very good. They're going to behave. They're going to be nice."

"If they're not, we're going to go and we're going to eradicate them, if we have to. They'll be eradicated, and they know that," he added.

Hamas's chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, who is in Cairo, meanwhile insisted that his group and other Palestinian factions were committed to the ceasefire deal and "determined to fully implement it until the end".

"What we heard from the mediators and the US president reassures us that the war in Gaza is over," he told Egypt's Al-Qahera News TV .

Hayya also said Hamas was serious about handing over the bodies of all the deceased hostages still in Gaza despite facing what he described as "extreme difficulty" in its efforts to recover them under rubble because of a lack of specialist equipment.

Overnight, Israeli authorities confirmed that Hamas had handed over the body of another deceased Israeli hostage to the Red Cross in Gaza.

The remains were identified as those of Tal Haimi, 41, who the Israeli military said was killed in Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October, which triggered the war.

That means 13 of the 28 hostages' bodies held in Gaza when the ceasefire took effect on 10 October have so far been returned.

Twenty living Israeli hostages were also released last week in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails.

There has been anger in Israel that Hamas has not yet returned all the dead hostages, with the Israeli prime minister's office saying that the group "was required to uphold its commitments".

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others as hostages.

At least 68,216 have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

She's the astronaut who smashed through the glass ceiling. And kept on going.

Eileen Collins made history as the first woman to pilot and command a spacecraft - but despite her remarkable achievements, not everyone will know her name.

Now a feature-length documentary called Spacewoman, which chronicles her trailblazing career, looks set to change that.

We meet Collins at London's Science Museum. She's softly spoken, warm and very down to earth - but you quickly get a sense of her focus and determination. She clearly has inner steel.

"I was reading a magazine article on the Gemini astronauts. I was probably nine years old, and I thought that's the coolest thing. That's what I want to do," she says.

"Of course, there were no women astronauts back then. But I just thought, I'll be a lady astronaut."

But that little girl set her sights even higher - she wanted to be at the controls of a spacecraft.

And the only way to achieve this was to join the military and become a test pilot.

In the Air Force, she stood out from the crowd and was selected to join the astronaut programme. She was to fly Space Shuttles - Nasa's reusable "space planes".

She knew the eyes of the world were on her when her first mission launched in 1995.

"As the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle, I worked very hard at that because I didn't want people to say, 'Oh look, the woman has made a mistake'. Because it wasn't just about me, it was about the women to follow me," she says.

"And I wanted there to be a reputation for women pilots that was: 'Hey, they're really good'."

She was so good in fact that she was soon promoted to commander, in another space first.

Collins was also a parent to two young children. The fact that she was a working wife and mother was frequently brought up in press conferences at the time, with some journalists seemingly astonished that she could be both.

But Collins says being a mum and a commander were "the two best jobs in the world".

"But I'm going to tell you it is harder to be a parent than to be a space shuttle commander," she laughs.

"The best training I ever had for being a commander was being a parent - because you have to learn how to say no to people."

Nasa's Space Shuttles, which flew for three decades, reached breathtaking highs, but also some terrible lows.

In 1986, the Challenger spacecraft suffered a catastrophic failure seconds after launching, killing all seven crew members on board.

And in 2003, the Columbia shuttle broke up in the skies over Texas at the end of its mission, killing its crew of seven as well.

A piece of insulating foam on Columbia's fuel tank broke loose during launch, damaging the heat shield with devastating results.

Columbia was unable to withstand the fiery re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, disintegrating as the world watched on in horror.

Collins shakes her head at the memory of the disaster, and of the friends whose lives were lost.

But with her job as commander, she had to pick up the mantle - she was to be in charge of the shuttle's following flight.

Did she think about quitting at that point?

"People throughout the shuttle programme were counting on the commander to stick with it," she says quietly.

"I think quitting the mission would have been the opposite of brave… and I wanted to be a brave leader. I wanted to be a confident leader. I wanted to instill that confidence in other people."

But when her mission finally took to the skies in 2005, the nightmare scenario happened again. A chunk of foam broke away during launch.

This time, though, there was a plan in place to check the damage. But it meant undertaking one of the riskiest maneuvers in space history.

Collins had to pilot the shuttle through a 360 degree flip while flying beneath the International Space Station. It allowed colleagues on the orbiting lab to photograph the craft's underside and check if the heatshield had been breached.

"There were engineers and managers saying it couldn't be done, all these reasons why it was too dangerous," she says.

"I listened to the discussion, they knew I was the commander, and I said: 'It sounds like we can do it'."

With her hands steady at the controls, her voice calm as she spoke to mission control, Collins piloted the craft through a slow, graceful somersault. With the shuttle's underside now visible, the damage was quickly spotted - and a spacewalk was carried out to repair it.

It meant Collins and her crew would make it safely home.

This was Collins's last flight. She tells us that she always planned to stop after her fourth mission - to give others a chance to go to space.

And she's watched plenty of astronauts follow in her footsteps. Does she have any advice for the next generation dreaming of the stars?

"Do your homework, listen to your teacher, pay attention in class and read books, and that will give you something to focus on," she says in a matter-of-fact way.

Those who follow Collins to space will learn just how much she achieved, not only as a woman, but as a formidable pilot and commander.

She says she has no regrets about bringing her astronaut career to an end. She made her decision and didn't look back. But there's still a wistful look in her eye when we ask if she'd be tempted if a seat on a spacecraft became free.

"Yes, I would love to go on a mission someday. When I'm an old lady, maybe I'll get a chance to go back in space."

I first met Nicholas Rossi - or Arthur Knight, as he insisted on being called - in February 2022 in a corridor at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

He was there to fight extradition to the US, where he has now been jailed for rape.

Sitting in his electric wheelchair, dressed in a three-piece suit and sporting a wide brimmed hat, the raspy voice behind the oxygen mask was telling anyone who would listen that this was all a terrible misunderstanding.

His hands, meanwhile, were hoovering up reporters' business cards.

Rossi's departure that day set the tone for what became a familiar scene - a slapstick performance in front of the cameras during which he tipped his wheelchair onto the pavement while trying to manoeuvre into a waiting taxi.

Later that evening an unknown number flashed up on my mobile phone and I heard that same raspy voice.

"Hello Steven, it's Arthur… do you have a minute?"

And so began an exercise in separating fact from fiction that lasted more than three years, which I explored in a podcast as part of the Strange But True Crime series on BBC Sounds.

The name Nicholas Rossi first came to wider attention in December 2021 when he was arrested on the Covid ward of a Glasgow hospital.

Staff had recognised his mugshot and distinctive tattoos from an Interpol wanted notice.

The problem for the American authorities was that the man they were seeking to extradite swore blind he was the victim of mistaken identity.

He claimed he was Arthur Knight, an Irish-born orphan who had never been to America - and said he could prove it.

A couple of weeks after our first phone-call, "Arthur" was sitting opposite me in a BBC studio, his wife Miranda by his side, telling his tale for the cameras.

He said he grew up in care in Dublin and escaped to London as a teenager. There, he sold books with his friends at Camden market, like Del Boy from the comedy Only Fools and Horses.

Years later he married Miranda in Bristol before they moved to Glasgow. He showed me their marriage certificate - accompanied by a special licence from the Anglican Church, because "I wouldn't lie to the Archbishop of Canterbury".

What he couldn't produce was a birth certificate. Or a passport.

He was vague about his schooldays and couldn't say what happened to his old friends.

At times the conversation veered as wildly as his accent – from claims he survived the London Tube bombing (he got the date wrong) to a story about once meeting Del Boy's sidekick Rodney.

He repeatedly denied being Nicholas Rossi, but when I asked about tattoos he said he was "too tired" to show me his arms.

It was a surreal, unconvincing performance that was being watched across the Atlantic by plenty of people who recognised the main character.

"I'd know those hands anywhere," Mary Grebinski later told me.

She'd been a college student in 2008 when Nicholas Rossi sexually assaulted her on the way to class. He was convicted and placed on the sex offenders register.

In Dayton, Ohio – the city where that attack happened – I also spoke to Rossi's ex-wife.

Kathryn Heckendorn said she had bought him the red silk pyjamas "Arthur" had been filmed wearing outside court.

Their unhappy marriage lasted eight months. The judge who granted their divorce in 2016 said Rossi was guilty of "gross neglect of duty and cruelty" on account of his abusive behaviour.

Conversations like this helped fill in the blanks.

Nicholas Rossi was born Nicholas Alahverdian in 1987. Rossi was the name of his stepfather, who at the time was Rhode Island's premiere Engelbert Humperdinck impersonator.

As a teenager he spent time in care and, years later, enjoyed a degree of local fame as a child welfare campaigner.

When reports of Alahverdian's death emerged in 2020, politicians paid tribute from the floor of the Rhode Island State House.

According to an online obituary his last words were: "Fear not and run towards the bliss of the sun."

But it didn't take long for this deception to begin unravelling.

A priest who had been asked to arrange a memorial mass was warned by a detective not to go ahead because "Nicholas isn't dead".

Instead, the authorities suspected Rossi was somewhere in the UK, having fled after discovering that the FBI were investigating an alleged credit card fraud.

It was his online footprint that ultimately led police to his hospital bedside in Glasgow – ironically as the fugitive was recovering from a genuine near-death experience in the shape of Covid.

At one of his early extradition hearings the sheriff commented that advancing the case shouldn't be "rocket science".

But the legal process dragged on and on – in large part due to Rossi's antics.

There were rambling courtroom monologues, questionable medical episodes and theatrical outbursts which were often directed at his own lawyers as a prelude to sacking them.

Sitting in the public gallery, it was rarely dull. Rossi's claim that a corrupt hospital employee called Patrick tattooed him while he was in a coma was one of the more memorable exchanges.

In the end the sheriff's conclusion was that the Arthur Knight charade was "implausible" and "fanciful".

And yet Rossi stuck to his story – even as his extradition was approved and High Court judges refused his appeal.

He stuck to his story as US Marshals bundled him onto a private jet and as prison guards booked him into the Utah County jail.

He stuck to his story in a Utah courtroom, until suddenly he didn't.

In October last year I tuned in to a routine bail hearing online when, without warning, the posh English persona disappeared.

Speaking in a clear American accent he told the judge he was born Nicholas Alahverdian before his name changed to Rossi.

As he claimed to have hidden his identity to escape "death threats", I found myself wondering why he'd chosen that specific moment for the mask to slip.

The intrigue and farce had been stripped away, but serious allegations remained.

He stood trial in two separate cases, accused of raping two women in 2008 in Salt Lake County and Utah County.

Those juries both returned guilty verdicts.

The judge in Salt Lake City described Rossi as a "serial abuser of women" and ordered him to serve between five years and life in prison.

He will be sentenced in the second case next month.

A lengthy court saga which has spanned continents will now end with Rossi serving a lengthy sentence in a US jail.

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