Published
18 September 2024, 03:27 BST

Donald Trump has praised an “amazing” woman motorist who he said tailed an alleged gunman as he made his getaway after an apparent assassination attempt on the former president on Sunday, leading to a speedy arrest.

In his first public appearance since the incident, the Republican presidential candidate told a crowd that the unnamed civilian “saw something in this guy that was bad”.

She spotted the suspect running to his car and became suspicious, so followed him in her own vehicle and took pictures of his licence plate, Trump said.

Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was arrested in an SUV less than an hour after he allegedly fled Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump shared the account on Tuesday night at a town hall-style event in Flint, Michigan, with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his former press secretary and now governor of Arkansas.

Trump was rushed to safety unharmed after Secret Service agents spotted a muzzle of a rifle sticking through the shrubbery as the former president was playing a round of golf.

The Republican candidate was about 300-500 yards (275-460m) away.

An agent shot in the direction of the apparent sniper’s nest before the suspect dropped the rifle and fled into a black Nissan SUV, police said.

“You want to know another sort of a miracle?” Trump told the crowd after lauding the Secret Service. “So the guy's now running for his life, and he's got a car a block away or whatever.”

He added: “And a woman, driving in a car, saw a man on the street, pretty busy street, running.

“And she followed him. And he got into the car. And she stopped because she thought he was trouble. He looked different.

“She followed him, it wasn't very far, and parked the car behind his car and started taking pictures of his licence plate.”

“Seriously, who would do that?” he said, adding that “she was really amazing”.

Trump said she quickly sent those images to the authorities.

“Women are smarter than men,” he told the crowd, adding that he would like to meet her.

Routh was stopped by police driving northbound on the I-95 highway.

He appeared in court on Monday, charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obstructed serial number. More counts could follow.

It was apparently the second assassination attempt targeting Trump in as many months.

Published
17 September 2024

Hip-hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs has been denied bail after pleading not guilty in a sex-trafficking case.

A New York federal judge remanded the musician in custody after prosecutors argued he was a "serious flight risk".

Mr Combs, 54, was arrested on Monday evening, accused of running a criminal enterprise from at least 2008 that relied on drugs and violence to force women to "fulfill his sexual desires", according to prosecutors.

A 14-page indictment charges him with racketeering, sex trafficking by force, and transportation to engage in prostitution.

If convicted on all three counts, the rapper and record producer faces a sentence of 15 years up to life in prison.

He was wearing a black T-shirt and grey sweatpants during Tuesday's court appearance in Manhattan.

Asked by US Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky how he wished to plead, Mr Combs stood up and said: "Not guilty."

According to court documents, Mr Combs "wielded the power" of his status to "lure female victims... to engage in extended sex acts" called "Freak Offs".

"During Freak Offs, Combs distributed a variety of controlled substances to victims, in part to keep the victims obedient and compliant," the indictment said.

In a news briefing, US prosecutor Damian Williams said officials found firearms, ammunition and more than 1,000 bottles of lubricant during raids on Mr Combs's homes in Miami and Los Angeles, about six months ago.

Mr Williams said federal agents had also found three semi-automatic rifles with defaced serial numbers, and a drum magazine.

He told reporters that further charges were possible, without offering specific details.

Mr Combs's lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said the defence team had already launched an appeal against the judge's bail decision, with a hearing set for Wednesday.

"We believe in him wholeheartedly," Mr Agnifilo told reporters at the Manhattan court.

"He didn't do these things. There's no coercion and no crime. He's not afraid of the charges."

Mr Agnifilo said Mr Combs was the target of "an unjust prosecution".

In court documents, federal prosecutors said that Mr Combs had "abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct".

Prosecutors accuse Mr Combs of "creating a criminal enterprise" whose members - under his direction - engaged in sex trafficking, forced labour, kidnapping, arson and bribery.

"On numerous occasions", the documents said, Mr Combs assaulted women by "striking, punching, dragging, throwing objects at, and kicking them".

The indictment did not specify how many women were alleged victims. It also does not accuse Mr Combs himself of engaging directly in unwanted sexual acts with women.

The Bad Boy records founder, who was also known during his career as P. Diddy and Puff Daddy, has faced many of the accusations before.

Last November, his ex-girlfriend, singer Casandra Elizabeth Ventura, filed a civil lawsuit against him that included graphic descriptions of violent abuse. He denied the accusations, but settled the case a day after it was filed.

In May, Mr Combs released a public apology after video footage from a Los Angeles hotel appeared to show him beating Ms Ventura in a hallway.

Tuesday's indictment against Mr Combs accuses him of similar violence.

Ms Ventura's lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, declined to comment on Mr Combs's arrest.

The indictment follows a string of sexual assault allegations against Mr Combs, one of the most successful music moguls in the history of rap.

Four women, including Ms Ventura, have filed lawsuits accusing him of sexual and physical abuse.

In a statement issued last December, Mr Combs defended himself against what he described as "sickening allegations" made by "individuals looking for a quick payday".

In June, he returned a ceremonial "Key to the City of New York" following a request from Mayor Eric Adams, who had bestowed the honour on him just nine months beforehand.

Days later, Howard University announced it was revoking Mr Combs's 2014 honorary degree.

The musician is credited with helping turn rappers and R&B singers such as Usher, Mary J Blige and Notorious B.I.G. into stars in the 1990s and 2000s.

Published
2 hours ago

A wildlife charity has declared a national “butterfly emergency” after its annual Big Butterfly Count recorded its lowest ever numbers.

The count has been running for 14 years. This year’s poor results are partly down to the wet weather but the long-term trend is hugely concerning, says Butterfly Conservation.

It is calling on the government to ban pesticides that can harm butterflies and bees “before it’s too late”.

Butterflies are at “their lowest ebb” on the back of 50 years of decline, said the charity's head of science, Dr Richard Fox.

“Butterflies are a key indicator species; when they are in trouble we know that the wider environment is in trouble too,” he said.

Neonicotinoid pesticides were banned in the UK in 2018 but have been approved four times in a row in emergencies to tackle a virus that attacks sugar beet.

A spokesperson from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs said it was “committed to deliver for nature and will change existing policies, including banning the use of those neonicotinoid pesticides that threaten vital pollinators” - but has given no time scales for doing so.

The 2024 Big Butterfly Count took place in July and August across the UK when thousands of people recorded over a period of 15 minutes how many butterflies they saw, even if it was none.

Overall, participants spotted seven butterflies on average per count, the lowest in the scheme’s 14-year history. Last year's average was 12.

Butterfly Conservation said it was the worst year recorded for the common blue, holly blue, green-veined white, small white, small tortoiseshell, painted lady and Scotch argus.

This year’s fall in butterfly numbers is thought to have been made worse by the wet spring coupled with the late arrival of summer heat.

Wider data from the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, external - one of the longest running insect monitoring schemes in the world – shows yearly fluctuations in butterfly numbers in response to weather conditions amid a long-term picture of decline driven by climate change, habitat loss, pollution and pesticides.

Dr Marc Botham of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology said 33% of species had shown a significant decline in their abundance on monitored sites in the UK over the past 48 years.

“It’s quite simple really – there’s not enough habitat and what is there isn’t good quality," he said.

"We need to be putting [measures] in place to increase the amount and quality of habitat so that [butterflies and other wildlife] can do better.”

Published
2 hours ago

Junior doctors working across the NHS will now be called resident doctors instead - in a change intended to better reflect their expertise.

The doctors union, the British Medical Association (BMA), which called for the change, called the term junior "infantilising and demeaning".

"Resident doctor" will refer to more than 50,000 qualified doctors working in GP practices and hospitals - some recently out of medical school and others with a decade of experience.

Health ministers say they have accepted the new name as part of a drive to "reset the relationship" between NHS doctors and the government.

It comes just days after resident doctors in England accepted the government’s offer of a 22% pay rise over two years, ending an 18-month dispute.

The BMA says many of its members said the term "junior" was confusing and wrongly implied doctors were unqualified.

Politicians had also sometimes used the term to "undersell the role", it says.

BMA member Dr Lily Huang, who works in London and specialises in ear, nose and throat surgery, has been a qualified doctor working in NHS hospitals for seven years.

"I'm 40, I have two kids, a cat and a mortgage," she says.

"When I say, 'junior doctor', my friends and family interpret that to mean I am still at medical school.

"It takes a lot of explaining to say I'm still in training to be a consultant but am not a student."

And while "resident" is not "entirely accurate" - because many resident doctors are not necessarily resident in the hospitals they work in - it is a much better term.

"It is more neutral," Dr Huang says.

"It doesn't have an inherent value judgement in it that 'junior' does and is a little more akin to what people are used to watching [TV drama] Grey's Anatomy."

After qualifying as a doctor, Dr Huang completed two years of foundation training, two of core surgical training, three of speciality training and has three years' training left.

Some patients were confused by the term "junior", she says, as she is often responsible for a lot of care.

"For example if someone comes into the emergency room with a catastrophic nose bleed, I'll be the one to operate," Dr Huang says.

"Or on a clinic day, I will see some 20 patients and I'm often the doctor who will be asked to help if people have life-threatening problems with their airways."

A BMA committee considered many alternative terms before deciding "resident" was the most appropriate.

The term, already used in the US, Canada, Philippines, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Spain and Australia, reflects the role of medics "on the ground, keeping hospitals ticking" that is often highly experienced and "anything but junior", it says.

A resident doctor is a qualified doctor continuing some form of clinical training.

After graduating from medical school, resident doctors start their roles by completing a two-year foundation programme.

Typically, many resident doctors then enter speciality training in a particular area of medicine and surgery, or general-practice training to become a GP.

Full training can take a long time, meaning some resident doctors have more than a decade of practical experience and are responsible for many aspects of medical care.

Over the training period, resident doctors deal increasingly with patients without direct senior supervision from a consultant or GP.

A consultant is a senior doctor with overall responsibility for the care of patients in hospital.

Some doctors choose different pathways, including associate specialist and staff-grade doctors.

Published
3 hours ago

Former Prime Minister Sir John Major has criticised the previous government's Rwanda asylum plan, branding it "un-Conservative and un-British".

The scheme aimed to deter people crossing the Channel in small boats by sending some migrants who arrived in the UK illegally to the east African country.

However, the plan was stalled by legal challenges and scrapped by the new Labour government, with no migrants sent to Rwanda under the scheme.

In an interview with the BBC's Amol Rajan, Sir John, who was Tory PM from 1990 to 1997, said he thought the plan was "odious".

"I thought it was un-Conservative, un-British, if one dare say in a secular society, un-Christian, and unconscionable and I thought that this is really not the way to treat people," he said.

Challenged over whether the scheme was a necessary deterrent to stop small boat crossings, Sir John said: "Are they seriously saying to me that somewhere in the backwoods of some North Africa country, they actually know what the British Parliament has legislated for? I think not."

He added: "If it actually happened it might have been [a deterrent] - but it would still have been odious in my view."

In the wide-ranging interview, Sir John was also asked about his views on the future of the Conservative Party.

The former PM said he had not done many TV interviews recently because "there’s not been a great deal I could say, I would wish to say, in favour of what the previous government were doing".

He added: "I thought it better just to stay off the air. Now, of course, the election's behind us, the party’s looking again to the future, and I can return to speaking out, hopefully in favour."

Asked if his party deserved to lose July's general election, when the Conservatives suffered their worst defeat in the party's parliamentary history, Sir John said "there’s a time of when democracy needs a change in government".

Sir John's government was also unseated by a Labour landslide in 1997, when Tony Blair won power.

"I could see that in 1997, we had been in government for 18 years and it was perfectly true to say, that we were tired and that we were running out of fresh people to make ministers and reinject the government with vigour," he said.

"And of course the same thing applies [with the recent election results], although it was only 14 years."

Sir John urged his party to appeal to the centre-right, "where our natural support really lies", arguing the Tories lost far more seats to Labour and the Liberal Democrats than the right-wing Reform UK party.

"We lost five [seats] to Reform UK and people are jumping up and down, and some, rather reckless people are saying, well we must merge with them.

"Well, that will be fatal."

However, Sir John said he was "optimistic" about the party's future, adding: "We have had such a bad defeat, we have got a base upon which we can build, in a wholly new and, I think, potentially effective way."

Sir John said he had not decided who he was backing to be the next Tory leader, who will be announced on 2 November.

But he added: "I would like to support someone who's going to look at the long-term problems and make a suggestion as to which direction we should go and bring people back into the party who are genuinely centre-right."

The full interview, Amol Rajan Interviews: John Major, is on BBC Two at 19:00 BST and will be available on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds from 06:00.

Published
3 hours ago

Buffer zones will come into force around abortion clinics in England and Wales from 31 October.

It means it will be illegal for anyone to cause harassment or distress to someone accessing or working at a clinic.

The protection zones, which will prohibit protest, will extend to a 150 metre radius around abortion services and those convicted of breaking the new law will face an unlimited fine.

One abortion charity said the move could not "come soon enough" but a pro-life organisation warned women would lose access to "vital practical support".

Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips said: “The right to access abortion services is a fundamental right for women in this country, and no-one should feel unsafe when they seek to access this.

“We will not sit back and tolerate harassment, abuse and intimidation as people exercise their legal right to healthcare."

The law was initially approved by Parliament in May 2023. However the government said it would launch a consultation on guidance before permitting the buffer zones to be implemented.

This led one charity to accuse the then-Conservative government of kicking the issue "into the long grass".

Campaigners also raised concern that the draft guidance would still allow "silent prayer" outside abortion clinics.

The Home Office now says the changes will be implemented from the end of October.

Under the law it would be illegal for "anyone to do anything that intentionally or recklessly influences someone’s decision to use abortion services, obstructs them, or causes harassment or distress to someone using or working at these premises," the department said.

It is expected that silent prayer will fall under the scope of the law. Police and prosecutors will get guidance on enforcing the law in the coming weeks.

A similar ban was introduced in Northern Ireland last year and another will come into force in Scotland on 24 September.

Heidi Stewart, head of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said the implementation of the zones "can't come soon enough".

"For years our staff and the women we care for have endured anti-abortion fanatics standing outside clinics for hours on end staring at them accessing or going to provide private medical care, stopping them outside and telling them that abortion is murder."

She added that the government should remember the law was "designed to address the harm caused by so-called silent prayer" and that "all forms of harassment" should be prohibited.

Catherine Robinson, a spokesperson for Right To Life UK, said the zones would mean "vital practical support provided by volunteers outside abortion clinics, which helps to provide a genuine choice, and offers help to women who may be undergoing coercion, will be removed".

Published
4 hours ago

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Published
4 hours ago

Jane Phillips was among the first people to vote in the Scottish independence referendum.

A teacher from Dundee, she was second in line at her local polling station when it opened on the morning of 18 September 2014.

Then aged 58, she was dreaming of a Yes victory that for months had seemed almost inconceivable.

A decade on, she tells BBC Scotland News: “I just remember the kind of tension, the excitement.

“There was a real sense that we could do it - a groundswell. A feeling that we were going to edge it over the line.”

It was an emotional day in the No camp too, says Cat Headley.

A 30-year-old solicitor making her first foray into politics at the time, she campaigned for Better Together in Edinburgh.

“The energy that existed was an amazing thing to be part of and I doubt I’ll ever experience that again," Cat says.

Malcolm Andrew, a 20-year-old No activist in Inverclyde in 2014, recalls both excitement and fear for those campaigning to keep Scotland in the UK.

"We were fighting for our country's place, which had been stable for hundreds of years," he says.

Malcolm remembers bright skies on 18 September, continuing what had been a sun-soaked summer for much of Scotland.

But for many, polling day brought cloud and rain, as well as the curtain down on a remarkable campaign.

Referendums naturally breed entrenchment. And everyone wanted to have their say.

From US President Barack Obama to Wetherspoons boss Tim Martin.

From royalty - Queen Elizabeth - to Scottish royalty - Andy Murray.

Rory Stewart, an MP over the border, even helped build a cairn, external near Gretna to promote “mutual respect and affection”.

But it was also a time of great fluidity.

Radicals and right-wingers coalesced on the Yes side.

Party politics - and inter-party politics - were forced to take a back seat in Better Together, no matter how much tensions bubbled towards the surface.

The Yes campaign, with Big Country's One Great Thing as its unofficial soundtrack, took an unexpected lead in an opinion poll, external just over a week before the referendum.

Three days out from the vote, independence supporters gathered in the Usher Hall in Glasgow to be serenaded by some of the cause's celebrity backers - including Frightened Rabbit, Amy MacDonald, Mogwai and Franz Ferdinand.

Following a walk down Byres Road in the city's west end - filled with stalls, flags and activists handing out Yes badges - Jane remembers her son, Tom, telling her: “We’re going to do this aren’t we?”

Louise Thomason Drever, who campaigned for Yes in Shetland, remembers a "mood of possibility".

“We just felt like we had a real shot," she tells BBC Scotland News.

That kind of exuberance was not always felt on the No side.

Former Better Together activist Alan Grant, then a 26-year-old politics graduate, says that by polling day he was just "relieved it was coming to an end".

Although he had no doubts about the outcome, he describes the campaign as "long, exhausting, tiring".

Ian Thomson, an organiser for Yes Berwickshire, describes polling day as “probably the busiest day of my life".

Then aged 60, he did Borders "valley dashes" - co-ordinating stalls on village greens and ferrying people to voting booths.

The first concrete indication that such efforts would be in vain came out of Clackmannanshire at 01:30.

Eva Comrie, a lawyer who campaigned for Yes, had been "absolutely certain" of victory in her local area. Instead, it was won by No with 55% of the vote.

"It was incredibly depressing, embarrassing, shameful," says Eva.

"It was one of the most major disappointments of my whole life."

Agony for some, ecstasy for others.

Cat, who spent the night at the Edinburgh count, says: "You could sense it from the Yes campaigners - from that moment on they knew what the result was likely to be."

The No side then secured thumping, if unsurprising, wins in Orkney and Shetland, before a narrow victory in the Western Isles.

Louise and her friends, filled with "nervous excitement", gathered in Shetland to watch the results.

She called it a night early after things started to go "badly wrong".

"I was thinking I would sit up all night but I remember thinking actually I can't face this," she says.

The major drama came from Inverclyde, where No won by just 86 votes, sparking groans and hands on heads among the Yes ranks in Glasgow.

Malcolm says it was pure relief for the Better Together team at the count.

Soon Alan was cheering a "delightful” win for No in his native East Lothian.

When the national result - 55.3% for No, 44.7% for Yes - was confirmed, Cat describes a scene of "exhilaration" at the Edinburgh count.

She adds, though, that it was "impossible not to feel for those who felt as passionately as you but that weren't getting the outcome that they had dreamt of”.

Consolation came in the form of Yes cities Glasgow and Dundee - of which Jane says she was proud - but the 2014 dream was over.

Better Together grandees toasted their success at the Marriot Hotel in Glasgow, while Yes chiefs attended what Nicola Sturgeon described as a "wake" in another part of town.

Meanwhile, trouble flared in the city centre after a group of union supporters charged at independence activists in George Square, with dozens of arrests made.

Though that was a rare instance of disorder, tensions had inevitably run high throughout the campaign - both on Scotland's streets and in the nascent Twitter-sphere.

Ian in Berwickshire complains of "aggression" from the No side, while Cat says Better Together activists were sometimes accused of being "traitors".

“It wasn’t all being shouted at on street stalls," she adds, reminiscing about people from across the UK turning up in Edinburgh on the day of the vote to support the union.

The Better Together activist sensed Scotland was on the "cusp of something", adding: "But the kind of new beginning that we were on the cusp of wasn't what I was hoping it would be.”

Such sentiments hint at a key contradiction of the referendum - neither side walked away completely content.

While No was victorious on the night, Better Together activists lament what they see as a failure to properly move political discourse on from September 2014.

"That’s been the lasting, scarring legacy of the whole sorry mess," says Alan.

The Yes side did not get the result it wanted, yet it has claimed a victory of sorts.

Louise recalls fondly a period when she feels Scots were able to "imagine something other than the status quo".

"It was hugely positive," says Ian of the campaign.

Jane adds: "It has changed my view on what is possible. It's given me hope and aspiration for the future.”

A decade on, memories may have faded, but feelings remain raw.

Published
4 hours ago

Somalia may be one of the poorest countries in the world and beset by violence, but it is “fixable”, according to its top climate official.

The country has been torn apart by more than 30 years of overlapping conflicts - including an Islamist insurgency, a civil war, and a series of regional and clan confrontations. Yet Abdihakim Ainte, the Somali prime minister’s climate advisor, still regards his country as “as story of potential - of promise”.

What makes his optimism all the more surprising is the fact climate change is amplifying virtually all the challenges his country faces.

One commentator described climate change as a “chaos multiplier”, because it exacerbates existing tensions and entrenches conflict in fragile states like this.

Listen to Justin Rowlatt’s reporting from Somalia on The Climate Question

But Somalia, the easternmost country in continental Africa, can’t be held responsible for our changing climate. The figures are staggering. Somalia has emitted roughly as much carbon dioxide from fossil fuels since the 1950s as the US economy does in an average three days, external.

The most obvious effects of climate change here have been in agriculture. Somalia is still overwhelmingly an agricultural economy, with about two thirds of the population depending on farming and animal herding for most of their income.

In 2022 the country experienced its worst drought for 40 years – an event scientists estimate was made 100 times more likely by human-caused climate change.

The extent of the challenge Somalia faces became clear as the convoy of International Red Cross (ICRC) Land Cruisers we were travelling in rumbled into the dry scrub that covers most of the country. We were accompanied by three guards clutching AK47s - Somalia is the only country in the world where Red Cross staff travel with armed security as standard.

The camel herders and small-scale farmers we met are on the front line of climate change here. For thousands of years Somalis have been eking out a living moving their herds of camels and goats from one pasture to the next across this dry land.

But climate change is disrupting the patterns of rain that made this way of life possible.

Sheik Don Ismail told us he lost all his camels during the drought, when grazing grounds dried up and the fodder he grew on his small farm wasn't enough to sustain them.

“The well became dry and there was no pasture, so the animals began to die,” he said, shaking his head. “The life we lead now is really bad - really bad.”

That drought left farmers and herders fighting for access to water and pasture. Sheik Don said he was sometimes forced to defend his land at gunpoint.

“There is no respect if you don’t have a gun,” he said. “The herders who lead their animals into the farm stay back when they see my weapon. They get scared.”

In a country divided into rival clan groups and already scarred by violence, these localised disputes can easily spiral into full-blown battles, said Cyril Jaurena, who runs the ICRC operation in Somalia.

“Access to boreholes and pastureland gets more and more difficult to find, and so the population in the area might end up fighting - competing for those resources, and sometimes it goes to people shooting at each other,” he warned.

And drought isn't the only problem here. Last year Somalia experienced terrible floods as a result of rains scientists say were made twice as intense by human-caused global warming. The floodwater washed away precious soils killing hundreds of people and displacing one million others.

The effects of Somalia’s climate change “double whammy” are all too evident in the hunger clinic the Red Cross runs in a hospital in the port city of Kismayo on the south coast.

Every day a steady stream of mothers bring their malnourished babies here. Many have had to cross from territory controlled by al-Qaeda’s lethal affiliate, Islamist militants al-Shabab, to get here.

The UN estimates more than 1.5m children under the age of five are acutely malnourished in Somalia.

Around four million Somalis have been driven into vast makeshift refugee camps – about a fifth of the total population.

Displaced people make their homes out of anything they can get hold of – pieces of old fabric, plastic sheets and rusty corrugated iron - all draped over a web of dry sticks. Some people even unroll tin cans into strips to form parts of their walls.

There is little international support, if any. At the refugee camp I visited, just outside the city of Garowe in the north of Somalia, families have to pay for their food and water, as well as pay rent for the scraps of land where they build their shacks.

After more than three decades of war, Somalia has fallen way down the list of international priorities. Its problems have been eclipsed by what seem like more urgent conflicts, in places like Ukraine and Gaza. The UN calculates Somalia needs at least $1.6bn (about £1.2bn) to meet the basic humanitarian needs of the people this year, but so far just $600 million has been pledged by donor governments.

The entwined impacts of climate and conflict have created a huge reservoir of potential recruits for the country’s many conflicts.

Those in the camps are desperate for money, and the easiest work to come by - according to the people I spoke to - is as a paid fighter with one of the many rival armies.

One woman told me of her fears for her husband and four of her five sons after they became fighters with a local militia.

“They are rural people with no skills, so the only work they could get was in the army,” Halima Ibrahim Ali Mohamud said as we sat on carpets laid over the dirt floor of her hut.

“They were desperate, and when you are without food long enough, and your children are looking at you, you will do anything.”

As we went from shack to shack, mothers told us similar stories of husbands and sons who had left to become fighters, some of whom had been killed.

But many Somali people are taking action. The local power station in Garowe has been investing in wind and solar power, for example.

The decision wasn’t prompted by some international initiative, says the company CEO. Abdirazak Mohamed said he hasn’t received any grants or aid from abroad. The National Energy Corporation of Somalia (NECSOM), who he works for, is making the investments because renewables - energy derived from natural sources like the sun and the wind - are much better value than the diesel generators the power station used to rely on.

I met Somali entrepreneurs setting up businesses, including a woman who had arrived in the Garowe refugee camp with nothing, but who set up a thriving business.

Amina Osman Mohamed explained how she had borrowed food from a local stall, cooked it, and used the small profit she made to do the whole thing again the following day.

The small but busy café she created generates the extra cash she so desperately needs to care for her sick husband and 11 children - including those of her widowed daughter.

As I left Amina’s bustling café, I began to understand why the Somali prime minister’s climate advisor is optimistic about his country’s future.

There is hope. But with climate change turbo-charging the conflict here, this country will need continued international help to make peace and build resilience against our changing climate.

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to get exclusive insight on the latest climate and environment news from the BBC's Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt, delivered to your inbox every week. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

Published
4 hours ago

Nicola Sturgeon has predicted Scotland will become independent as part of a "wider shake-up" of UK governance, including Irish reunification.

The former first minister also suggested further devolution for Wales in the coming years as part of a "very healthy realignment of how the nations of the British Isles are governed and co-operate together”.

Speaking to BBC Scotland News to mark the 10-year anniversary of the 2014 independence referendum, the ex-SNP leader said she believed a Yes victory was "within grasp" on the eve of the vote.

Former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson also claimed Sturgeon lost her opportunity to secure a second referendum by making her call "so fast, so hard and so early" after the 2016 Brexit vote.

Although the Yes side lost the referendum, the SNP enjoyed unprecedented electoral success in the decade since.

But it has also been rocked by the loss of 39 seats in July's general election, a public fallout between Sturgeon and Salmond and an ongoing police investigation into party finances.

Asked about her future hopes for independence, Sturgeon said: “I believe that, perhaps as part of a wider shake-up of UK governance, the reunification of Ireland, perhaps, more autonomy in Wales, that I think we will see Scotland become an independent country.

"I'll certainly campaign and advocate for that for as long as I've got breath in my body.”

She declined to predict whether she thought Irish reunification or Scottish independence would come first, adding: “It's not a matter for me, obviously, just as Scottish independence is not a matter for people in Ireland. But I do think that will happen."

In May 2022, 10 months before she stepped down as first minister, Sturgeon met Sinn Féin vice president Michelle O'Neill at her official Bute House residence in Edinburgh to discuss Brexit.

Sturgeon said at the time that the departure from the EU had "brought to the fore some very fundamental questions" over governance in the UK.

O'Neill became Northern Ireland's first nationalist first minister in February, fuelling debate about the possibility of a border poll.

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement says that "the people on the island" should be able to exercise "their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united Ireland", subject to the principle of consent in Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Act 1998 states, external that “if at any time it appears likely" that a majority of those voting in a border poll would "express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland”, the secretary of state will consent to a border poll.

It is not clear exactly how this process would come about.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said last year that an Irish unity referendum was "not even on the horizon".

Speaking to BBC Scotland News, Sturgeon described herself as a natural pessimist but said that was not the case come polling day, 18 September 2014.

"Unusually for me, in the final days, I was really optimistic," she told BBC Scotland News.

"I definitely felt that victory was within grasp.”

The then deputy first minister had a leading role in the Yes campaign and spent the summer touring around Scotland.

She returned to her home constituency of Glasgow Southside in the days before the referendum.

“The mood on the streets of Glasgow gave me perhaps a bit of an overly optimistic view of how the campaign was going right across the country," Ms Sturgeon said.

The No side ultimately won by 55.3% to 44.7%.

Sturgeon described the campaign as the "best of times and the worst of times".

“What I remember most about the campaign was just the energy, the sense of political awakening and in engagement that seemed to grip Scotland," she said.

Asked about any regrets, Sturgeon said she questioned whether the Yes campaign could have done some things differently.

She cited a united front from Westminster parties in opposition to proposals for a currency union, and described as a "disaster" the first TV debate between her predecessor Alex Salmond and Better Together chairman Alistair Darling

Darling was thought to have got the better of that exchange in early August 2014 after pressing Salmond on a plan B on currency plans.

Ms Sturgeon added: "Because these things didn't lead to a haemorrhaging of Yes support, I think we comforted ourselves that they hadn’t done any real harm.

"Looking back, I think these were moments that probably slowed down what was quite a steady shift of opinion from soft No undecided voters to the Yes side.”

Later in August, Salmond was widely considered to have outperformed his opponent in the second televised debate.

Two years after the independence referendum, the UK voted to leave the EU - despite Scotland voting in favour of Remain by 62% to 38%.

The SNP's subsequent demands for a second referendum were thwarted by Westminster, leading to criticism from within the Yes movement of Sturgeon's leadership.

The ex-SNP leader admitted she “didn't get everything right, far from it".

She said she "fervently" wished the SNP had made further progress on independence in the past decade.

Sturgeon insisted while it may not feel like the Yes campaign was “motoring forward”, levels of support were stable, and especially high among young people.

The former first minister added: “I came up against a brick wall of Westminster democracy denial in refusing the right of the Scottish people to choose their own future.

"Do I wish I had found a way around that? Yes, but that was the situation I faced.”

“Had that right to choose been secured, I believe Scotland would have voted Yes.”

Prof Sir John Curtice, president of the British Polling Council, told BBC Scotland News that support for independence had stabilised at just under 50%, external, and had been unaffected by the SNP's recent issues.

According to YouGov polling, external published on Tuesday, almost one in four (39%) of 16 to 24-year-old respondents said they would back Yes, with three in 10 (31%) in favour of No.

Yes was also more popular than No among 25 to 49-year-olds, although there was a majority for the union in older age groups.

In the immediate aftermath, Sturgeon declared a fresh ballot on independence was “highly likely” - prompting her then deputy, John Swinney, to raise concerns about that strategy.

Former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, who campaigned for Better Together a decade ago, said Sturgeon "probably" had an opportunity to secure a second independence referendum following the Brexit vote.

“Her appetite to go so fast, so hard and so early took that opportunity away from her," she told BBC Scotland News.

She suggested Sturgeon should have “put party politics aside” and tried to work with the UK government to “salvage” what it could from Brexit.

“And then maybe six months down the line said, you know what I can’t work with these people, Scotland has another opportunity, it has another choice, I think things could have been materially different," Davidson said.

The former Tory leader said that while she would have argued against a second referendum, it would have been "incredibly hard" if Sturgeon adopted a different approach.

Davidson claimed people who may have supported Sturgeon's call for another vote were "turned off by the idea that she wanted to use Brexit to immediately jump to this other thing".

Swinney, who succeeded Humza Yousaf as first minister in May, will address independence campaigners in Edinburgh to mark the anniversary of the referendum.

He is expected to say that while he was "devastated" by the result, he is "in no doubt" the referendum left "an overwhelmingly positive legacy" on Scotland.

Published
4 hours ago

A young woman who was sexually assaulted by a taxi driver as she came home from a night out has said she saw "no remorse" when she faced her attacker in court.

Chloe, who was 18 at the time of the assault in 2017, was collected by Paul Bryan in his taxi in Letterkenny, County Donegal after becoming separated from friends.

Bryan, 63, from Newtowncunningham, County Donegal, admitted to two counts of sexual assault and was sentenced to four years, two in prison and two on license, last week at Londonderry Magistrates' Court.

Chloe, from Derry, told BBC News NI there needs to be tougher sentences for sex offenders.

As he was sentenced, Chloe said there was "not a single sorry, not a hint of remorse".

She said she has decided to speak publicly as a survivor, and hopes others who have faced the same trauma will come forward.

"It has changed my life completely," she said.

"I didn’t leave my house for a few years after the attack because I was petrified... now I am trying to learn that not everyone has hurt in their heart for people.

"It’s been very hard."

Chloe added: "Life has changed. I have become stronger, become the woman I want to be, to petition for change.

"But in terms of a victim, I am still in that taxi on that night, nothing has changed there."

Chloe described the sentence handed to her attacker as "a joke".

"He has two years in jail. I spent three times that waiting to find out what would happen, being called an alleged victim for seven years."

The office of the Lady Chief Justice (LCJ) Dame Siobhan Keegan, Northern Ireland’s most senior judge, said in a statement: "The sentence imposed will depend on the specific circumstances in each case and a wide range of different factors will be considered."

The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) said it recognised "all parts of the criminal justice system can move slowly due to a variety of cross-system factors".

It said it is "currently considering" whether there is a basis to refer the sentencing in Bryan’s case to the Court of Appeal for review.

Chloe said she can’t remember the full assault by Bryan.

"I just remember trying to get home – I was scared, I remember waking up to Bryan over the top of me for about three or four seconds," she said.

"Sometimes you think of going to sleep just to escape everything, I can’t escape anything when I am asleep, I still remember, feel what happened."

On the night of the attack it was her mother who first called police.

She was taken to Northern Ireland’s only rape crisis centre in Belfast, 75 miles from her home.

Chloe said: "I remember being so lonely, in a room with a coffee machine, expected to wait, going through my story, it felt like they were trying to make sure my story added up even though I was the one at that rape centre."

Chloe said CCTV footage passed by An Garda Síóchána (Irish police) to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) showed her "being dragged" by him.

She has never seen the footage, Chloe added, because it has been deemed too traumatising.

"I didn’t know what he looked like for seven years, once I did see him it confirmed everything," she added.

Chloe said she never relented in her pursuit of justice, calling police and constantly seeking any updates to the case.

"It’s only because I am not willing to let this happen to someone else that I pushed so hard.

"No one deserves to live the life I have been left with," she said.

Last week, she faced her attacker in court, where Bryan admitted his guilt.

“I wanted to stand and look at him,” Chloe said.

“I have done everything legally, fairly and without hate. He could only hold his head in shame that day.

“I shook the whole way through court. It was important my face was the last thing he seen because for seven years his taxi was the last thing I seen in my head, his face was blocked out but I recall everything.”

The LCJ statement said in calculating the appropriate sentence for a particular offence, the judge will consider all of the evidence provided to the court.

It will also consider the relevant statute and case law including; the maximum sentence which the court can impose, any sentencing guideline judgments relevant to the offence committed, whether the offender pleaded guilty, the level of culpability, the offender’s previous convictions, and any other aggravating or mitigating factors presented to the court by the prosecution and defence.

The court may also take into account other evidence such as a victim statement, expert medical reports and a pre-sentence report, the LCJ said.

The PPS said there had been “no undue delay by the PPS at any stage in this case” and that “sentencing is a matter for the trial judge”.

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story, help and support is available at BBC Action Line.

Published
4 hours ago

“I thought I’d spend my whole life here, fighting a corrupt government - but the younger generation did something.”

Samadhi Paramitha Brahmananayake is looking at the field where she spent months camped out with thousands of other demonstrators in Sri Lanka’s capital in 2022.

She can’t quite believe that luscious green grass has replaced the hundreds of protester tents that filled the field opposite the presidential secretariat.

“I feel we’re now more energetic, more powerful,” says Ms Brahmananayake, a 33-year-old banker based in Colombo.

Two years ago, huge crowds forced the country’s deeply unpopular leader from office – now voters are just days away from choosing who they want for president.

It’s the first election since the mass protests - called the “aragalaya”, Sinhalese for struggle – which were sparked by Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis. Inflation was at 70%. Basics like food, cooking gas and medicine were scarce.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president at the time, and his government were blamed for the mess. He fled the country just before crowds stormed his residence. Euphoric protesters leapt into the presidential pool, taking victory laps.

Mithun Jayawardana, 28, was one of those swimmers. “It was awesome,” he said thinking back. Jobless, with no gas or electricity at home, he says he joined the aragalaya for a lark.

Today, he recognises how crucial the elections on Saturday are: “We need a president who is elected by the people. The people didn’t elect the current president.”

Ranil Wickremesinghe, the man who currently holds the job, was appointed to the position after Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned. Mr Wickremesinghe, who’s been tasked with steering Sri Lanka through a period of painful economic reform, is running for re-election as an independent.

He's stood for president twice before but never succeeded, and his political future appears uncertain.

Many associate Wickremesinghe with the Rajapaksas, a political dynasty who have dominated Sri Lankan politics for decades. Many blame them for the years of financial mismanagement that led to Sri Lanka’s economic woes.

Even the country’s top court ruled that Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother Mahinda, another former president, were among 13 former leaders responsible for the financial crisis.

Despite the political baggage that comes with the name, a Rajapaksa has entered the political fray in these elections - there are still places the family enjoys a lot of support.

One such district is just over an hour outside Colombo. Music, fireworks and the cheers of supporters greeted Namal Rajapaksa as he approached the podium to address the hundreds that had come to hear him speak on Monday in the town of Minuwangoda. Even his father, Mahinda joined him on stage.

Namal Rajapaksa denied his family’s role in Sri Lanka’s economic collapse.

“We know our hands are clean, we know we have not done anything wrong to the people or this country,” he told the BBC.

“We are willing to face the people, let the public decide what they want and who to vote for.”

In all, a record 38 candidates are contesting the 21 September election, none of them women. In 2019, Sajid Premadasa, leader of the country's main opposition party, won 42% of the popular vote, losing to Gotabaya Rajapaksa. This time around he is thought to be in with a chance too.

For people looking for change, many are looking to Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The candidate of the leftist National People’s Party alliance has emerged as an unlikely frontrunner.

Thousands of people flocked to a field in the small town of Mirigama, two hours north-west from Colombo, to hear Mr Dissanayake speak last Saturday, many wearing bright pink hats or T-shirts with his face.

“Yes 100% sure, okay,” he tells the BBC, when asked if he can win. Campaigning as the voice of the working class, he is hoping to disrupt Sri Lanka’s political establishment.

Unlike past elections in Sri Lanka, the economy is front and centre in this one.

Holding her four-year-old son Nehan, Rangika Munasinghe laments the higher taxes she now pays.

“It’s very difficult. Salaries are being reduced, taxes on products and food are high. Kids meals, milk powder, all more expensive. Taxes are so high, we can’t manage it,” the 35-year-old told the BBC at a busy market in Colombo.

Sri Lanka was able to stave off bankruptcy in 2022 thanks to loans from the International Monetary Fund, and countries like China and India. But now everyone is feeling the pressure from the country’s enormous $92bn (£69bn) debt burden, which includes both foreign and national debt.

“I’m doing two jobs,” says Mohamed Rajabdeen, who’s in his 70s. He is selling spoons from a stall off a busy street. Once this is done, he will travel to his second job, working in security.

“We should get good salaries, university students should get jobs, and people should be able to live in peace and harmony. We expect our government to fulfil all of that.”

Being that vocal about their expectations from elected officials is something new for many people in Sri Lanka. That change has been brought about by the protest movement, says Buwanaka Perera, a youth political activist.

“People are more gutsy in confronting the state or in confronting what’s wrong,” the 28-year-old said. “It’s not just the state, it’s trickled down to everyday things - it can be in your household, it can be in your streets. To make a stand to voice out and to look out for one another.”

Ms Brahmananayake agrees, calling it a lasting impact of her efforts and the thousands of others who participated in the uprising two years ago.

“People are talking about politics now. They are asking questions. I think people have the power in their hands. They can vote.”

Like her, climate and political activist Melani Gunathilaka, 37, knows the path forward will not be easy for Sri Lanka, but they have hope.

“There hasn’t been a change in the political and economic culture - but there has been a massive change in terms of society,” she says.

“For the first time people took charge, people exercised their democratic rights to do what’s right for the country.”

Ranil Wickremesinghe, a six-time former prime minister, was appointed president after Gotabaya Rajapaksa was ousted in 2022.

The 75-year-old, who faced the monumental task of trying to lead Sri Lanka out of economic collapse, has been accused of protecting the Rajapaksa family, allowing them to regroup, while shielding them from prosecution - allegations he has denied.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake is the candidate of the leftist National People’s Party alliance.

His promises of tough anti-corruption measures and good governance have boosted his candidacy, positioning the 55-year-old as a serious contender.

Sajith Premadasa, the runner-up last time, is the leader of the country's main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB).

Earlier this week, he told news agency AP that he would ensure that the rich would pay more taxes and the poor would see their conditions improve if he won.

Namal Rajapaksa comes from a powerful political clan that produced two presidents.

The 38-year-old's campaign has centred around the legacy of his father, who is still seen as a hero by some Sri Lankans for presiding over the bloody end to the civil war against Tamil Tiger rebels. But he needs to win over voters who blame the Rajapaksas for the economic crisis.

Published
4 hours ago

Two sisters living with a condition which affects how the ovaries work have said they were left feeling alone and without support as they tried to discover a diagnosis.

Annika Thomas, 39, and Sarah Davies, 44, from Carmarthenshire, experienced symptoms such as irregular periods, infertility and low mood due to polycystic ovary syndrome, external (PCOS).

Cardiff University research has shown that the condition is becoming more common and suggests that due to the various symptoms, women often need many different appointments, costing the UK an estimated £1.2bn a year.

The Welsh government said its women's health plan, which includes PCOS, will be announced by the end of the year and it has invested in research.

During PCOS awareness month, Annika and Sarah said they both spent years navigating different appointments before a diagnosis of PCOS.

"It started with my cycles, they were very light, there was a long time in between them," said Annika.

"Because I am not the typical PCOS patient - what they look for is maybe being overweight, the excess hair... acne - because I wasn't having those symptoms they weren't keen on testing. I did push for it."

"But years and years would go before I felt like I got anywhere because I was chasing up the tests and it took forever."

Now a mother of three, Annika said she had "tough years" before her first son was born in 2018 through IVF treatment.

"It was such an emotional time," she said.

"You feel alone. I was never offered support."

Sarah said there was a lack of joined-up thinking as she attended different appointments for the multiple symptoms of PCOS that she experienced.

"The biggest one [symptom] for me was infertility. But I was always having breakouts, acne, and then another big one for me is weight, always going up and down," she said.

"Sometimes low mood, especially through hard times like the infertility. PCOS is such a complex condition."

PCOS is a condition that affects many parts of the body, including metabolism and function of the ovaries.

One of the main symptoms is irregular periods due to the ovaries not regularly releasing eggs, which can lead to problems with fertility.

Symptoms also include excess facial or body hair, acne, hair loss and, in some patients, weight gain.

Long-term, patients may be at an increased risk of depression, anxiety, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

A Hywel Dda University Health Board spokesperson said it was "always sorry to hear when patients are unhappy with the treatment they have received".

"We are always striving to improve communications between our departments so that patients are seen by the clinician who can help them best as soon as possible," they added.

According to the new study at Cardiff University's School of Medicine, a greater number of people are now being diagnosed.

The team of experts studied over 120,000 patients with PCOS and found that risk was increased among lower socio-economic background patients and those of Asian ethnicity.

Experts concluded that more investment is needed for research and to improve resources to support patients.

Professor of endocrinology Aled Rees said it had a "huge impact" on a patient's quality of life.

"It can be difficult to diagnose. The irregular periods, absent periods, challenges with weight gain, unwanted hair growth and challenges around fertility," he said.

"The frustration is that we don't have a condition-specific treatment, so we need more research.

"There is a little bit more of awareness now but there's still a gap."

Victoria Vasey, the director of Women's Equality Network Wales, said the findings were not surprising.

"What we hear from members is that this is a profoundly difficult, human condition which has enormous physical health impacts," said Ms Vasey.

"But partly because of misdiagnosis or late diagnosis and symptoms, it also has a huge mental health impact.

"This is a problem which affects a vast number of women, but if we know it affects women in certain groups, then that helps us with solutions."

A Welsh government spokesperson said all health boards were expected "to take positive action to improve the experiences and outcomes of women and address any inequalities".

"This year we appointed the first ever clinical lead for women's health and established a women's health network which is developing and taking forward the 10-year women's health plan for Wales," it added.

"The plan will focus on a range of women's health issues, including menstrual health and PCOS. The plan is due to be published by the end of 2024.

"We also announced £750,000 into research focused on women's health priorities to be launched in 2025."

Published
17 September 2024

Nine people, including a child, have been killed after handheld pagers used by members of the armed group Hezbollah to communicate exploded across Lebanon, the country’s health minister says.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was among 2,800 other people who were wounded by the simultaneous blasts in Beirut and several other regions.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, said the pagers belonged “to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions” and confirmed the deaths of eight fighters.

The group blamed Israel for what it called “this criminal aggression” and vowed that it would get “just retribution”. The Israeli military declined to comment.

Hours before the explosions, Israel’s security cabinet said stopping Hezbollah attacks on the north of the country to allow the safe return of displaced residents was an official war goal.

There have been almost daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the day after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on 7 October.

Hezbollah has said it is acting in support of the Iran-backed Palestinian group. Both are proscribed as terrorist organisations by Israel, the UK and other countries.

The UN's spokesman said the latest developments in Lebanon were "extremely concerning, especially given that this is taking place within a context that is extremely volatile".

Many Lebanese were in a state of shock and disbelief on Tuesday evening, unable to get their heads around an event that was unprecedented in scale and nature.

Hezbollah said an unspecified number pagers - which the group relies on heavily for communications due to the risk of mobile phones being hacked or tracked - exploded at around 15:30 local time (12:30 GMT) in the capital Beirut and many other areas.

One CCTV video showed an explosion in a man’s bag or pocket at a supermarket. He is then seen falling backwards to the ground and crying out in pain as other shoppers run for cover.

Hours later, ambulances were still rushing to hospitals overwhelmed with the number of casualties, 200 of whom the health minister said were in a critical condition. Outside, relatives were waiting in the hope of receiving updates.

The LAU Medical Centre in Beirut's Ashrafieh district closed its main gate and was limiting the number of people getting in. “It’s very sensitive and some scenes are horrific,” one staff member told the BBC.

Most of the wounds were at the level of the waist, face, eyes and hands, he said, adding: “A lot of casualties have lost fingers, in some cases all of them.”

The wife of Iranian ambassador Mojtaba Amani said he was "slightly inured" by one of the explosions and that he was "doing well" in hospital.

Hezbollah's media office announced the deaths of eight fighters. It did not give details on the locations and circumstances, saying only that they were “martyred on the road to Jerusalem".

A source close to the group told AFP news agency that the son of Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar and the 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member in the Bekaa Valley were among those killed. Later, the source said the son of another lawmaker, Hassan Fadlallah, was wounded, having initially reported that he was dead.

Fourteen people were also wounded by exploding pagers in neighbouring Syria, where Hezbollah is fighting alongside government forces in the country's civil war, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression,” Hezbollah said in a statement on Tuesday evening.

“This treacherous and criminal enemy will certainly get his just retribution on this sinful aggression from where it counts and from where it does not count,” it added.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati also blamed Israel for the explosions, saying that they represented a “serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he told his Lebanese counterpart that he "strongly condemned Israeli terrorism".

The US, Israel's closest ally, denied any involvement and urged Iran not to heighten tensions.

Hezbollah did not say what it believed had caused the pagers to explode.

The Wall Street Journal cited a source as saying the affected devices were from a new shipment that Hezbollah had received in recent days. A Hezbollah official also told the newspaper some people had felt the pagers heat up before the blasts.

Overheated lithium-ion batteries can catch fire, but experts said hacking into the pagers and making them overheat would not usually cause such explosions.

A former British Army munitions expert, who asked not to be named, told the BBC the pagers would have likely been packed with between 10g and 20g of military-grade high explosive, hidden inside a fake electronic component.

Once armed by a signal, called an alphanumeric text message, the next person to use the device would have triggered the explosive, the expert said.

Lina Khatib, a Middle East analyst at the UK-based Chatham House think tank, told the BBC: "Israel has been engaging in cyber operations against Hezbollah for several months, but this security breach is the largest in scale.”

Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based senior fellow of the American think tank the Atlantic Council, said: “Israel in one fell swoop has rendered combat ineffective hundreds if not thousands of Hezbollah fighters, in some cases permanently.”

He warned that Hezbollah's leaders would now “face extreme pressure from the ranks and supporters to retaliate heavily”, describing it as "the most dangerous moment" in the Hezbollah-Israel conflict since October.

A statement put out by the Israeli military on Tuesday evening did not comment on the pager explosions, but said the chief of staff Lt Gen Herzi Halevi had held a situational assessment with commanders "focusing on readiness in both offence and defence in all arenas".

It also said there was no change in defensive guidelines to the Israeli public but asked them to remain alert and vigilant.

Earlier in the day, the military said an air strike had killed three “Hezbollah terrorists operating within a terrorist infrastructure site” in the Blida area, near Lebanon’s border with Israel.

Lebanon’s health ministry confirmed that three people had been killed in an Israeli strike, while Hezbollah’s media office said it had carried out missile and drone attacks targeting Israeli troops and military sites.

Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service also said it had foiled a Hezbollah bomb attack targeting an unnamed former senior Israeli security official. Hezbollah did not comment on the accusation.

This comes at a time when Israel's government is threatening to step up its military effort against Hezbollah.

On Tuesday morning, Israel's security cabinet made the safe return of 60,000 residents displaced in the north by Hezbollah attacks an official goal of the Gaza war.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said during a meeting with US envoy Amos Hochstein on Monday that the only way to return northern residents was through "military action".

“The possibility for an agreement is running out as Hezbollah continues to ‘tie itself’ to Hamas, and refuses to end the conflict,” a statement from his office said.

Since the hostilities escalated in October, at least 589 people have been killed in Lebanon, the vast majority of them Hezbollah fighters, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

On the Israeli side, 25 civilians and 21 members of security forces have been killed, the Israeli government says.

Additional reporting by Frances Mao

Published
6 hours ago

The Princess of Wales has carried out her first work meeting since she began cancer treatment earlier this year.

In another small step on her return to public life, the princess had a meeting on Tuesday in Windsor Castle about her early childhood project.

It follows last week's video message from Catherine where she revealed her relief that her chemotherapy had ended.

The princess said this year had been "incredibly tough" but she had gained a "renewed sense of hope and appreciation of life".

This latest update is part of Catherine's carefully managed return, which later this year could see her making a small number of public appearances, such as at Remembrance events in November and her annual Christmas carol concert.

There is still great caution about her health. She said in her video last week that her "path to healing and full recovery is long and I must continue to take each day as it comes".

But her return for this meeting near her home in Windsor, recorded in the official Court Circular, suggests continuing progress.

There are no details of the meeting, but one of Catherine's flagship projects has been the Shaping Us campaign, raising awareness about the importance of early childhood, which she has described as her "life's work".

This tentative return to work follows a year of health problems.

In January she was in hospital for abdominal surgery and then in March it was revealed that she was undergoing cancer treatment.

There were a couple of public appearances, at Trooping the Colour and the Wimbledon tennis championship, but it has mostly been a year away from the public eye.

Last week's highly personal video, filmed with her family in Norfolk, described her emotional journey during the months of her cancer treatment - saying that "out of darkness, can come light".

The princess described the "stormy waters" of her experience of cancer and how it had felt "complex, scary and unpredictable".

"With humility, it also brings you face to face with your own vulnerabilities in a way you have never considered before, and with that, a new perspective on everything," she said.

Published
6 hours ago

A former employee of the company behind the doomed Titan submersible has told a public hearing he believed a safety incident was "inevitable" as the firm "bypassed" all standard rules.

OceanGate's former operations director David Lochridge testified to US Coast Guard investigators that he had warned of potential safety problems before he was fired in 2018, but was ignored.

Five people on board the Titan sub died when the experimental deep-sea craft imploded in June 2023 as it began a planned descent to the wreck of the Titanic.

The public hearings began on Monday as part of a two-week inquiry by the US Coast Guard into the disaster. The investigation has been going on for 15 months.

Mr Lochridge's highly anticipated testimony on Tuesday marked his first time speaking out publicly since raising concerns with his former employer.

He was fired from OceanGate and sued by the company for revealing confidential information. He countersued for wrongful dismissal.

A key former employee of the company, he had been asked by the CEO, Stockton Rush, to assemble a quality inspection report in 2018 of the Titan.

US court documents show Mr Lochridge had major concerns with the Titan's design, including the fact it was made from carbon fibre, warning that the material would damage further with every dive.

On Tuesday, he told US Coast Guard investigators the "whole idea" of OceanGate was "to make money".

"There was very little in the way of science," he said.

Mr Lochridge also accused the company and its CEO of "arrogance", saying they refused to work with experts at the University of Washington to develop the Titan submersible and opted to do all the engineering in house.

"They think they could do this on their own without proper engineering support," he said.

He testified his relationship with the company began breaking down in 2016 because he raised concerns about safety, saying he was probably labelled "the troublemaker" for being outspoken.

Mr Lockridge was one of as many as 10 former OceanGate employees, including co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein, and experts in marine safety and undersea exploration expected to speak to the Coast Guard's Marine Board of Investigations (MBI).

On Monday, officials detailed communications between the Titan and its mother ship, the Polar Prince.

It was revealed "all good here" was one of the final messages from the submersible before it imploded.

OceanGate’s former engineering director Tony Nissen told the hearing that he once refused to get into the sub several years before Titan’s last trip.

“‘I’m not getting in it,’” Mr Nissen said he told the company CEO, Rush, also testifying that he had felt pressured to get the vessel ready to dive.

While offering a historical look at the Titan, officials noted it was never subject to third-party testing and had been left exposed to weather and other elements while in storage.

They noted that during 13 dives to the Titanic in 2021 and 2022, the submersible had 118 equipment issues.

Officials also offered a handful of specific examples of submersible failures including its batteries dying and leaving passengers stuck inside for 27 hours.

As well as OceanGate's CEO, British explorer Hamish Harding, veteran French diver Paul Henri Nargeolet, the British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman were on board the ship.

OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations following the incident.

Published
6 hours ago

Unlawful children’s homes are demanding up to £20,000 a week per child and failing to keep vulnerable young people safe, the Family Court has heard.

In one case, heard in August in Liverpool, the court heard how despite the local authority paying high fees to an unregistered children’s home, a 14-year-old boy was still at serious risk.

Increased demand for placements, especially for children with the most complex needs, has led to costs described as “breathtaking” by a senior judge.

The estimated bill for housing children in one local authority area has more than doubled in three years to £16m, one senior manager told the BBC, which risks bankrupting the council.

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It is a busy day at Liverpool Family Court.

The BBC has taken advantage of unprecedented access to report its proceedings, as part of an extended pilot to make the workings of family courts in England and Wales more transparent.

Judge Stephen Parker is hearing two separate but very similar cases, both involving 14-year-old boys in care in north-west England.

Both are violent, and both are suspected of being criminally exploited by drug dealers.

They are the responsibility of different local authorities, both of which have been forced to place them in unregistered homes, unregulated by Ofsted - no other children’s home would take them.

Samantha Derbyshire is a senior manager at Cheshire East Council, where she is in charge of finding residential placements for children. She is giving evidence in one of the cases today.

Her local authority is being asked to pay as much as £20,000 a week per child for round-the-clock care.

“This is public money,” she tells the BBC outside court.

“This is your money, this is my money, and they are profiteering off our children without the experience, and without the Ofsted regulations to go with it.”

She has struggled to find anywhere that will take “Jack” (not his real name), who has been in care since February.

In that time, he has attacked staff and even broken a staff member’s arm.

While being moved between locations, Jack tried to kick out the windscreen of a moving car. Care workers said that to protect themselves, they were forced to transport him in the boot.

Most recently, Cheshire East Council placed him with a private care provider that was not Ofsted-registered. The £16,000-per-week cost of the placement is equivalent to £830,000 per year.

Despite this, Jack has repeatedly run away, and smoked cannabis regularly in the children’s home.

Once, he returned to the home covered in what appeared to be someone else’s blood - and would not say how that had happened.

The council is now applying to the Family Court to move Jack to a new private children’s home, under what is known as a Deprivation of Liberty (DoL) order.

This means he will be constantly monitored by at least two staff who can lock him in, and physically restrain him if he tries to run away.

The new home - like the current one - is not registered with the regulator, Ofsted, and so it should be unlawful to place a child under 16 there.

However, Steven Parker, sitting as a judge of the High Court, has the power to permit the placement, and the restraint.

He does so, saying there is no alternative. He adds that there is a risk Jack might “kill or be killed” if this order is not made.

Ms Derbyshire tells the court that in the past three years, the local authority’s bill for children’s residential care has risen from £7.5m per year to an estimated £16.5m.

She says this is an overspend with a significant potential impact: “Either there will be cuts in another part of the local authority, or we may be forced into bankruptcy.”

The new placement agreed for Jack will cost £12,000 per week, and the provider agrees to apply for Ofsted registration.

On the same day, Judge Parker hears the case of another boy who - like Jack - is suspected of involvement with organised criminal gangs.

The boy, who we are calling “Joe”, has been in care for three years and has several criminal convictions - one for wounding a child, and nine offences for criminal damage and theft.

He is already subject to a DoL order and his local authority is asking the court to extend it.

The terms of Joe’s placement means he is supervised at all times by three members of staff, who are allowed to restrain him. He has been out of education for over a year.

He occasionally leaves the home - closely supervised - to visit his family, or for outings.

But he has attacked staff, and made repeated attempts to abscond. Once, he tried to jump from a moving vehicle on the motorway.

Judge Parker says he sees “a risk of catastrophic harm or risk” and agrees to extend the DoL order.

As in Jack’s case, he says anyone restraining Joe must be specially trained.

Joe's placement costs his local authority, Halton Council, £13,600 per week - about £750,000 per year.

Judge Parker describes the costs of placements as “breathtaking” and comments that local authorities are “essentially being left to the mercy of the private sector”.

He says that local authorities are often faced with “Hobson’s Choice” (a choice that is no choice at all).

Speaking to the BBC after the court hearing, Ms Derbyshire says that while there are excellent Ofsted-registered placements run by private companies who do not charge excessive rates, there are also private care providers who are not registered or inspected - some of these, she says, “are in it for the wrong reasons”.

Ms Derbyshire says some of these unregistered providers charge “staggering” sums, and says the placements are not usually staffed by trained social workers, nor do they offer specialist or therapeutic care.

However, she says it is difficult for councils to challenge the rates.

“They will always say it’s an executive cost or it’s a responsible individual cost or a management cost,” she tells us.

“And equally it’s difficult for us at this moment in time to engage in those conversations because we know there’s 10 other children waiting for that one bed.”

Ms Derbyshire says her council is not an outlier and many others face similar problems. Last year the Local Government Association said “immediate national action” was needed.

The Children’s Home Association represents providers registered with Ofsted.

Its CEO, Dr Mark Kerr, says his members want to see action taken against unregistered homes: “They’re warehousing children [who are] not getting the care that they need.”

Dr Kerr says the government also needs to support new specialist provision for children like Jack and Joe. At the moment, he says, it would be difficult to accommodate them in homes with other children.

The Minister for Children and Families, Janet Daby, has told us that the government is committed to “cracking down on providers making excessive profits”, and that measures will be contained in the upcoming Children’s Wellbeing Bill, Labour’s flagship legislation on education and children’s care.

“It is devastating that these young people are being let down by a system that should be keeping them safe,” she says.

Meanwhile, more children like Jack and Joe are coming before the Family Court.

The number of DoL orders has increased 12-fold in the past six years, from just over 100 per year to 1,200.

Ms Derbyshire tells us she often worries about whether these children are safe.

“I feel helpless,” she says.

“I’m constantly thinking - where are they going tonight and is somebody looking after them to the standards which we expect?”

Published
7 hours ago

I don't think I have ever seen such undiluted joy at a party conference.

The Liberal Democrat gathering in Brighton amounted to the party giving itself a four-day pat on the back.

And little wonder: they were crushed to near irrelevance numerically in Parliament for nearly a decade.

Now, there are more Lib Dem MPs than ever before and they can't quite believe it.

There are three things I reckon tell you a lot about the Liberal Democrat strategy for 2024 – before, during and now after the election.

Geography, tone and message.

Firstly, geography.

It was a ruthless geographical focus, rather than a boom in enthusiasm for the Lib Dems, that explained their bumper general election result.

As the House of Commons Library has pointed out, external: "The Liberal Democrats won 72 seats with 12.2% of the vote. This was 61 seats more than in 2019, with an increased vote share of 0.7 percentage points."

They did this by focusing on where they could win.

The mastermind behind the strategy was the party’s director of field campaigns, Dave McCobb.

It is not often backroom teams get public adulation and namechecks, but Mr McCobb did in Sir Ed Davey’s speech - so central was he to the party's current standing.

Secondly, tone.

The colourful stunts, which continued in Brighton with Sir Ed Davey arriving on a jet ski, are part of a strategy to be seen as the agents of hope and optimism in British politics, in contrast with what the party sees as the current gloomfest from the government.

It goes beyond the stunts too to Sir Ed’s choice of language.

And thirdly, messaging.

They want to exude a message discipline - in other words talk over and over again - about a topic they seek to own: health and social care.

One senior figure said they’d had a call from a colleague worried that the focus of all three main three days of the conference was health and social care and fretted that perhaps there ought to be more variety.

No, came the answer, if the Lib Dems are seen as a one-issue party and that is the issue, so be it.

They conclude it is such a massive concern to so, so many people it is political turf they want to colonise.

Incidentally, Lib Dems are claiming privately there are senior figures in the government who are delighted that Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran is the new chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, because they hope she will put pressure on the Department of Health to move more quickly on social care changes, and that might contribute to heaping pressure on the Treasury to find the money to do it.

Let’s see.

The conference maintained its homespun feel, with yellow T-shirt wearing activists wandering around with yellow buckets hawking for loose change donations.

In a nod to modernity, the buckets possessed a QR code on the outside - for digital donations - as well as coppers and some notes on the inside.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat chief whip, Wendy Chamberlain, was handing out badges.

"72 in 24" they read, spelling out their numerical success.

But the balance of power in Parliament matters too, as well as the raw numbers.

Yes, the Lib Dems have 72 MPs, but Labour have an enormous majority.

As things stand, the government can do what it wants and choose to ignore the protestations and suggestions coming from the opposition parties.

Turning their swelled numbers into influence won't be easy.

But for the Liberal Democrats this is a nice problem to have, after years in the doldrums.

Don’t expect those Lib Dem smiles to ease just yet.

Published
8 hours ago

The mistaken arrest of an actor who says he was pepper-sprayed, kicked and thrown to the ground by officers in west London is being investigated by the Metropolitan Police.

Reece Richards, who appeared in the Netflix show Sex Education, was returning home to Fulham on 4 September after performing in the musical Hairspray when he says he witnessed a car crash and two men fleeing on foot.

Despite pointing out the direction in which the two men had fled, he says four officers sat on him, worsening injuries to his back, ribs and stomach.

The force has admitted pepper spray was used and said its directorate of professional standards, which investigates complaints, had been informed.

The Met said officers were pursuing a suspected stolen car with false plates before the incident involving Mr Richards, who has accused the force of "racial profiling".

Scotland Yard added that before Mr Richards had been de-arrested on Fulham Palace Road "a Taser was pointed but not discharged".

The police watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said it was "not aware of any referral [from the Metropolitan Police] at this time".

A video, shared by Mr Richards and Hairspray director Brenda Edwards, appears to show a number of police officers holding an individual to the floor.

Writing on Instagram, Mr Richards said he had complained to the Metropolitan Police and the police watchdog about what he called "racial profiling" in the incident, in the early hours of 4 September.

The actor said: "In a flash, I was face-down on the pavement with multiple officers holding me down, forcing my head into the ground.

"I couldn't see anything, but I could hear my mum nearby, screaming and crying, begging them to let me go.

"That feeling of helplessness will never leave me. The whole experience was embarrassing, deeply upsetting, and exhausting.

"I won’t rest until I’ve gotten to the bottom of this and I am deeply saddened for anyone else who has been through this."

He added: "I do everything I can to avoid interactions with the police, yet this experience has made it painfully clear that racial profiling remains a significant issue."

The Hairspray UK Tour Instagram account posted: "We stand in full support and solidarity with Reece Richards , a valued member of our cast who was wrongfully targeted by the Met Police whilst making his way home after a performance of Hairspray the Musical."

It added that it "strongly condemns any form of racism" and was "offering him our full support during this difficult time".

The Met said the driver, aged 15, had been arrested at the scene for failing to stop, dangerous driving and burglary.

Scotland Yard said two passengers, aged 20 and 21, had run off but were located nearby.

Both were arrested on suspicion of theft of a motor vehicle, while the 20-year-old was also held on suspicion of being in possession of a pointed or bladed article.

As a precaution, all three were taken to hospital where their injuries were assessed as not being life-threatening or life-changing.

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Published
17 September 2024

Ghislaine Maxwell's appeal against her sex trafficking conviction has been rejected by a US court.

Maxwell, 62, was found guilty in December 2021 of helping disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse young girls.

She was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June 2022.

Judges at Manhattan's Second US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Maxwell's five convictions and said her sentence was "procedurally reasonable".

A lawyer for Maxwell said she plans to challenge the ruling at the US Supreme Court.

Epstein, a former boyfriend of Maxwell's, died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell, five weeks after he was arrested and charged with sex trafficking.

Maxwell had claimed that she should be set free under the terms of a 2008 deal between Epstein and federal prosecutors in Florida.

Under the agreement, prosecutors agreed not to pursue his alleged co-conspirators.

Maxwell's lawyers argued in March that the British socialite "should never have been prosecuted", because of the "weird" agreement.

But three judges dismissed her arguments, saying Epstein's non-prosecution deal was intended to bind only prosecutors in southern Florida.

The judgement also dismissed Maxwell's claims that she did not have a fair trial because one of the jurors did not disclose that he had been sexually abused as a child.

Maxwell's lawyer indicated she will now take the appeal against her conviction to the US Supreme Court.

"We are obviously very disappointed by the court's decision and we vehemently disagree with the outcome," Arthur Aidala said in a statement.

"We are cautiously optimistic that Ghislaine will get the justice she deserves from the Supreme Court of the United States."

Throughout the course of Maxwell's 2022 trial, four women testified that they had been abused as minors at Epstein's homes in Florida, New York, New Mexico and the Virgin Islands.

They recounted how Maxwell, who is the daughter of former Daily Mirror owner Robert Maxwell, had talked them into giving Epstein massages which turned sexual.

They claimed they were lured with gifts and promises about how Epstein could use his money and connections to help them.

During her trial, a judge rejected attempts to throw out the case, including an argument by Maxwell's lawyers that she had not been allowed to prepare adequately for her trial and that prosecutors had waited too long to bring their case against her.

Published
17 September 2024

Warning: This story contains distressing details from the start.

Dominique Pelicot, the 71-year-old man accused of drugging his wife to sleep and recruiting dozens of men to abuse her for over 10 years, has admitted to all the charges against him in his first testimony since the trial opened on 2 September.

Referring to the 50 co-defendants who are accused of raping his now ex-wife Gisèle, Mr Pelicot said: "I am a rapist like the others in this room."

"They all knew, they cannot say the contrary," he said. Only 15 of the 50 defendants admit rape, with most saying they only took part in sexual acts.

Of his ex-wife, Mr Pelicot said: "She did not deserve this."

"I was very happy with her," he told the court.

He begged his wife and family to accept his apology, saying: "I ask for forgiveness, even though it is unacceptable."

Gisèle, who was given the chance to respond shortly after, said: "It is difficult for me to listen to this. For 50 years, I lived with a man who I would've never imagined could be capable of this. I trusted him completely."

Although no cameras are allowed in court, the trial is open to the public at the request of Gisèle Pelicot, who waived her right to anonymity at the beginning of the proceedings. Her legal team said opening up the trial would shift the "shame" back on to the accused.

As she stepped out of the courtroom during a pause in the hearing on Tuesday, Gisèle was met by applause from onlookers, and she smiled as she accepted a bouquet of flowers.

Since the trial began, Gisèle has become a symbol of resilience and courage. Last weekend, thousands of people gathered in cities across France to show their support to her and other victims of rape, and the trial has ignited a national conversation on marital rape, consent and chemical submission.

Mr Pelicot, who is a father and grandfather, began his testimony by telling the court of traumatic childhood experiences and said he was abused by a male nurse when he was nine years old.

When asked about his marriage to Gisèle, Mr Pelicot said he considered suicide when he found out she was having an affair.

Throughout his testimony on Tuesday morning, Mr Pelicot repeatedly assured the court that he never "hated" his wife and was in fact "crazy about [her]... I loved her immensely and I still do."

"I loved her well for 40 years and badly for 10," he added, apparently referring to the decade during which he drugged her and abused her.

Mr Pelicot was then questioned by Stéphane Babonneau, one of Gisèle's lawyers, who asked him why he had been unable to find the will to stop abusing her, even when she started presenting medical problems.

In previous sessions of the trial, Gisèle said she had been worried she was developing Alzheimer’s or a brain tumour because of hair and weight loss and large memory gaps. These were, in fact, side-effects of the drugs her husband was giving her.

"I tried to stop, but my addiction was stronger, the need was growing," he said.

"I was trying to reassure her, I betrayed her trust. I should've stopped sooner, in fact I should've never started at all."

Mr Pelicot is also accused of drugging and abusing his daughter, Caroline, after semi-naked photos of her were found on his laptop. He has previously denied this and on Tuesday he also stated he had never touched his grandchildren. "I can look my family in the eyes and tell them that nothing else occurred," he said.

Mr Pelicot also said he "became perverted" when, in 2010, he met a male nurse on the internet who suggested he drug his wife with a sedative, explained how to administer it and shared photos of drugged women. "That's when it all clicked," Mr Pelicot said. "Everything started then."

In one section of Tuesday's hearing, Mr Pelicot was also asked about the thousands of videos he filmed of men abusing his unconscious wife. These were found by investigators and were instrumental in tracking down the 50 men who are now accused of rape.

Mr Pelicot recognised he had filmed the men partly for "pleasure," but also "as insurance".

Throughout the morning, Mr Pelicot appeared determined to rebut one of the main lines of defence of several of the accused, which hinges on the premise they did not “know” they were raping Gisèle - in other words, that they thought they were having consensual intercourse with her.

Mr Pelicot met the defendants on a chat room called "Without her knowledge" on a now-closed website which hosted pornographic material.

"I didn't force anyone, they came to look for me," he said on Tuesday. "They asked me if they could come, and I said yes. I never handcuffed and dragged anyone."

Some have said they were "manipulated" by Mr Pelicot into believing they were taking part in an erotic game in which Gisèle was only pretending to be asleep because she was shy, and several denied they knew they were being filmed.

But Mr Pelicot said the only person he ever "manipulated" was his wife, and also said that the men must have known they were being filmed: "There was a tripod and a screen attached to it, everyone could see it as soon as they walked into the room."

Mr Pelicot said he wanted to prove that his wife "was a victim and not an accomplice. To prove that everything happened without her knowledge. I'm aware many [defendants] have disputed this."

Béatrice Zavarro, Mr Pelicot's lawyer, told French TV that she did not know what people would think of her client, but that he was "sharing his truth".

She added that Mr Pelicot was "very downtrodden" and that although she did not know what his wife would make of his request for forgiveness, "the confession is now under way and he will continue."

She said: "We will get to the end of this trial and we will know everything about Dominique Pelicot."

Mr Pelicot, who was diagnosed with a kidney infection and kidney stones, was absent from court for nearly a week because of illness. He is set to give his testimony throughout the day, although he will be allowed frequent breaks.