US special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner will join Gaza peace plan talks between Israeli and Hamas negotiators in Egypt on Wednesday.

Their arrival comes as a second day of indirect talks on Tuesday ended without tangible results, a senior Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations told the BBC.

Trump struck a positive tone on Tuesday, as Israel marked the second anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attacks, saying "there's a possibility that we could have peace in the Middle East".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not comment on the status of the talks, but told Israelis they were in "fateful days of decision".

In a post on X, Netanyahu added that Israel would continue to act to achieve its war aims: "The return of all the kidnapped, the elimination of the Hamas regime and the promise that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel".

Witkoff and Kushner were expected to depart the US on Tuesday evening and arrive in Egypt on Wednesday, a source familiar with the talks told the BBC.

Qatar's prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, seen as a key mediator, will also join the talks, an official told the Reuters news agency.

Al Thani's attendance was aimed at "pushing forward the Gaza ceasefire plan and hostage release agreement", the official said.

Qatar's foreign minister and the head of Turkish intelligence are expected to join him.

• What are the key sticking points in Trump's Gaza peace plan?
• Read the full 20-point peace plan
• What is Hamas and why is it fighting with Israel in Gaza?
• Israel and the Palestinians: History of the conflict explained

A senior Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations told the BBC that an evening round of indirect talks on Tuesday began at 19:00 local time (16:00 GMT).

The official said the morning session ended without tangible results, amid disagreements over the proposed Israeli withdrawal maps from Gaza and over guarantees Hamas wants to ensure Israel does not resume fighting after the first phase of the deal.

He added that the talks were "tough and have yet to produce any real breakthrough," but noted that mediators were working hard to narrow the gaps between the two sides.

Earlier, a Palestinian official said the negotiations were focused on five key issues: a permanent ceasefire; the exchange of the hostages still held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners and detainees from Gaza; the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza; arrangements for humanitarian aid deliveries; and post-war governance of the territory.

Chief Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, whom Israel targeted last month in a series of strikes on Qatar's capital, told Egyptian state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV the group had come "to engage in serious and responsible negotiations," according to the Reuters news agency.

Al-Hayya said Hamas was ready to reach a deal, but it needed "guarantees" that the war would end and not restart.

Senior Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum said the group's negotiators were working to remove "all obstacles to an agreement that meets the aspirations of our people".

Trump said the prospects for peace were "something even beyond the Gaza situation", adding that "we want the release of the hostages immediately".

Speaking on the anniversary of the 7 October attacks, the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, UN Secretary General António Guterres called on all parties to agree to Trump's peace plan, describing it as a "historic opportunity" to "bring this tragic conflict to an end".

Opinion polls now consistently show that around 70% of Israelis want the war to end in exchange for the release of the hostages.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 67,160 have been killed by Israeli military operations in Gaza since then, including 18,000 children, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. Its figures are seen as reliable by the UN and other international bodies.

In August, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed body, said that more than half a million people across Gaza were facing "catastrophic" conditions characterised by "starvation, destitution and death".

Netanyahu has repeatedly denied starvation is taking place in Gaza.

A United Nations commission of inquiry found Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a report Israel's foreign ministry categorically rejected as "distorted and false".

French President Emmanuel Macron will name a new prime minister within 48 hours, the Elysee Palace has said, fending off speculation that fresh elections could be imminent.

Earlier on Wednesday, outgoing Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the possibility of dissolving parliament was beginning to fade following talks with political parties over the last two days.

"There is a majority in parliament and that is the majority that keen to avoid fresh elections," he said.

On Monday, Lecornu - a close ally of Macron - became the third French PM to leave his job in less than a year, driven out by a hung parliament deeply divided along ideological lines.

He was then asked by Macron to stay on for two days to form a consensus among parties on how to get out of the current political crisis.

In a much-awaited TV interview on Wednesday evening, Lecornu said that as well as not wanting fresh elections, most MPs also recognised the pressing need to pass a budget by the end of the year.

However, Lecornu recognised the path towards forming a government was still complicated due to the divisions within parliament and to politicians eyeing the next presidential election.

Whoever ends up in government "will need to be completely disconnected from any presidential ambition for 2027," Lecornu said.

Lecornu, a former armed forces minister, gave no indication about who the next prime minister would be, and although he said his mission was "finished" he also did not appear to rule himself out entirely.

France's political stalemate began following snap elections in July 2024. Since then no one party has had a majority, making it difficult to pass any laws or reforms including the yearly budget.

The big challenge facing Lecornu and his two predecessors has been how to tackle France's crippling national debt, which this year stood at €3.4tn (£2.9tn), or almost 114% of economic output (GDP), the third highest in the eurozone after Greece and Italy.

Previous prime Ministers Michel Barnier and Francois Bayrou were ousted in confidence votes after they presented austerity budgets.

Lecornu said his own draft budget would be presented next week, although it would be "open for debate".

"But the debate needs to begin... parties cannot say they'll vote it down without examining it," he added.

Similarly, Lecornu said, one big issue that has been plaguing French politics since 2023 will need to be revisited - Macron's highly contested pension reforms. "We have to find a way for the debate to take place," Lecornu said.

But some factions in parliament appear immovable from their positions.

Mathilde Panot of the radical left France Unbowed (LFI) said soon after Lecornu's TV interview that the only solution was "the resignation and departure of Emmanuel Macron".

Meanwhile, far right National Rally's leader Marine Le Pen, who has long been calling for fresh elections, stated on Wednesday that she would vote down any new government.

It is unclear, at this stage, which political forces would support a new government.

The so-called common platform of centrists and Republicans that have run the government since last year appears to have fallen apart.

The big question now is whether over the last 48 hours Lecornu was able to persuade the Socialists, who were part of that left bloc during the elections, to prop up a government in some way.

Asked about the calls by some political factions for Macron to resign, with even Macron's own former prime minister Edouard Philippe floating the idea earlier this week, Lecornu said France needed a stable, internationally recognised figure at its helm.

"This is not the time to change the president," Lecornu said.

However, Macron is appearing increasingly isolated, with even close allies beginning to distance themselves from him.

Earlier this week Gabriel Attal, widely seen as Macron's protégé, said he "no longer understood" Macron and called for the appointment of an independent negotiator to steer the government.

Macron has not yet spoken publicly since Lecornu's shock resignation on Monday morning. Lecornu promised the president would "address the French people in due course," without specifying when that may be.

• Spoiler warning: This article reveals details from the first episode of The Celebrity Traitors

TV shows with famous contestants usually have a loose definition of the word "celebrity". But there are no recycled Love Islanders among the 19 big names in the first series of The Celebrity Traitors, which has got off to a cracking start.

"When they came to me and said they wanted to do a celebrity version, I said, 'Oh I don't think we should do that, I like just doing it non-celeb'," said host Claudia Winkleman at the show's launch, only half joking.

"Thankfully I have absolutely zero power, because they said, 'Well, these are the people who have expressed interest.' And I couldn't believe it."

Granted, it's worth keeping things in perspective. It's not Taylor Swift and Tom Cruise entering Ardross Castle in Inverness. But frankly, if Kate Garraway is on board, so are we.

The ITV daytime star was joined by Jonathan Ross, Celia Imrie, Sir Stephen Fry and other familiar names as the series got under way on Wednesday.

Here are six highlights from the opening episode.

Spoilers below

1. The celebrities want to make each other laugh

As you'd expect, the celebrities are extremely comfortable in front of the cameras, creating a fun new dynamic and giving the show a new lease of life.

Many of them already know each other and had an immediate confidence that the regular contestants don't. All of them evidently know and love the format, and there were some genuinely funny moments as the stars tried to make each other laugh.

• "What was your name again?" joked singer Paloma Faith (a faithful, appropriately) as she introduced herself to her fellow players in the car
• "I'm worse than Linda!" remarked comedian Alan Carr later, referencing the notoriously awful but lovable traitor from series three
• When TV presenter Clare Balding pointed out that banishments are decided by a vote, Carr told her: "God, you're looking beautiful today"
• Later, Faith brilliantly pretended to drop dead on the round table after drinking an apparently poisoned glass of water just after the traitors had been selected
• The stars were even happy to make jokes about being traitors. As they left the round table, Sir Stephen shouted: "Traitors stay behind please!", while Ross commented later: "See you in the turret!"

2. Alan Carr is extremely good value

Making the comedian a traitor was exactly the kind of brilliant casting decision we were hoping for. ("How could you not?" said Claudia.)

In the first episode, Carr was panicked, sweating and generally squirming over being a traitor. "I feel sick," he said. "It's the worst secret ever and it's just burning me, I'm so nervous."

He is a delight to watch - even just the sight of him strolling the corridors with his hood up trying to look menacing makes you laugh.

"I've had to have my cloak taken out because I'm so fat," he joked in the first traitors' meeting in the turret.

The traitors were completed by chat show host Ross and singer Cat Burns - both of whom seem to have more of the conniving mindset needed for a great traitor.

But Carr is the truly inspired choice. "My aim was to go under the radar, and I think I've pole-vaulted over it," he reflected at one point. We're in for some fantastic memes.

3. The celebrities literally dig their own graves

Instead of the traditional arrival by train, the stars were driven to a graveyard and set an opening challenge that saw them dig through soil in search of six available shields.

The lucky recipients included Ross, Garraway, rugby player Joe Marler, comedian Joe Wilkinson and singer Charlotte Church.

The sixth shield finder was actress Celia Imrie - albeit helped by Ted Lasso star Nick Mohammed.

"My aim was to try and get Celia a shield, because I love her," he explained. But this is exactly the sort of kindness that can make people suspicious in this show, so he'd better tread carefully.

Messing with the format isn't always a success - who can forget the disastrous "Seer" twist that ruined the climax of the last series? - but this was a terrific task, especially Carr's disappointment that the shield he thought he'd found was actually a rock.

4. Clare Balding is a liability in missions

The contestants were challenged to pull a giant Trojan horse up a hill and through a series of gates that each required a special code, before eventually setting the horse alight.

Unfortunately, Balding locked in an incorrect combination at the first gate before the contestants had even begun tackling the puzzle, not realising you only got one chance to enter the code.

"No! I didn't realise I locked it in, sorry!" she shouted. "I've made a complete mistake there."

She explained later: "I thought, oh we can guess lots of numbers, so while they're working that out, I'll just stick a number in."

"I would've done exactly the same," sympathised Winkleman. "She was mortified, she really was, so I felt terrible for her."

The mission raised a few eyebrows - some were suspicious that Church gave up her shield so willingly in exchange for Balding's error, while swimmer Tom Daley suspected Balding might have deliberately sabotaged the task because she's a traitor.

Luckily, the rest of the task went well, partly thanks to Mohammed, who Garraway described as a "puzzle ninja". Ultimately the contestants completed the mission, would you believe it, with just moments to spare.

5. It's a whole new ball game with celebrities

Some fans were nervous about the celebrity spin-off, but the bottom line is: it works.

"It's not often in our sheltered world that we are put in a position where we have no idea how we're going to react," noted Sir Stephen.

"I don't want to incriminate myself, but I've always wanted to murder a celebrity," added Ross.

But in some ways, the fact that the contestants are well-known makes strategising harder.

"I was thinking about going in speaking Welsh and pretending I've actually been Welsh all this time. Sort of a reverse of Charlotte," joked comedian Lucy Beaumont ahead of the series, referring to the last traitor standing in series three.

The celebrities are playing for a £100,000 prize for their chosen charity (although they also receive a separate appearance fee).

"You think you know these people," Winkleman reflected, "and then you watch them play this game, and I was awestruck by the way they played it - with empathy, with wit and with real smarts."

6. The cliffhanger is unbearable

Despite its extended running time, the episode ended without a murder or a banishment, leaving us with a huge number of questions.

We didn't find out if the celebrities are any better than previous contestants at spelling each other's names at the round table, or whether there will be another outbreak of contestants telling each other: "I'm voting for yourself."

But we know there will be drama. "Did the roundtables get heated? Yes," said Winkleman.

"They're polite, but they want to catch the traitors, and the traitors want to remain undetected, and both parties are excellent at what they do."

Sir Stephen's total dismissal of the "gut instinct" tactic was particularly refreshing.

"The idea that you can be good at reading people is absolute nonsense, and it's just like astrology or anything else," he said before heading into the castle. "Woo woo. You just can't do it.

"We can all be convinced, even though the facts tell us otherwise. These notions of 'I just knew, it's the way he lifted his glass, his eye doing that thing' – all nonsense."

As the episode drew to a close, the most pressing question was which star would be murdered by Carr in plain sight.

"I can't believe they've left me to it," he said. "I have people I want to kill, but it's not going to be easy. What am I going to do?"

We can't wait to find out.

The Celebrity Traitors is on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, and continues on Thursday at 21:00 BST.

King Charles says he wants to inspire a "sense of determination" to protect the environment, as details are announced of a TV documentary in which he will explain his philosophy of "harmony" and the need "to work with rather than against nature".

The King's Foundation says the feature-length TV film, provisionally titled Finding Harmony: A King's Vision, will be screened on Amazon's Prime Video early next year.

"Never has it been more important for the world to make a concerted effort to protect and prioritise our planet, and to restore our relationship with it," the monarch said about the project.

In the film the King will reflect on his own decades of campaigning for sustainability.

The King said it was his "fondest hope that this film may encourage a new audience to learn about the philosophy of Harmony - and perhaps inspire the same sense of determination it has given me to help build a more sustainable future."

The King has appeared in a behind-the-scenes BBC film about the Coronation, but this will be a more unusual approach in looking at his beliefs.

"For much of my life I have sought to promote and encourage ways we can work with, rather than against nature. In other words, to restore balance to our planet which is under such stress," said the King.

The one-off documentary will show how he believes humans are "part of nature, not apart from nature" and that a healthy connection with nature is at "the core of human wellbeing".

With examples from around the world, the documentary will show how the philosophy of harmony can be applied to agriculture, traditional craft skills, architecture and town planning.

"This film will, I hope, demonstrate just some of the remarkable work being done around the world to put harmony into practice, from the forests of Guyana to sustainable communities in India – and, closer to home, through the work of my King's Foundation at Dumfries House and Highgrove," said the King.

Director Nicolas Brown said there was a gap in knowledge about how the King's views on harmony had shaped his work.

"Remarkably few people around the world know the full depth of the King's lifelong battle to bring nature and humanity into harmony," he said.

Their cameras recorded the King's first harmony summit, held at Highgrove in Gloucestershire in July.

This brought together leaders of Indigenous people from around the world who shared their knowledge of how communities can live in tune with the natural world. Along with the King, they performed a fire ceremony at the start of the day, paying their respects to nature.

The King's views on harmony and the design of towns have also influenced thinking about creating a new generation of new towns in England.

With his Amazon documentary, the King will be the latest royal to appear on a streaming service. Prince William recently faced questions from Eugene Levy on Apple TV+ and Prince Harry and Meghan were in a Netflix series about their departure from royal life.

They have provided platforms for the royals to share their thoughts and opinions, but without a conventional interview format.

Kristina Murrin, chief executive of the King's Foundation, said the documentary would show the decades of the King's commitment to harmony, in a way that was "both moving and inspiring to see that journey committed to film".

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Dolly Parton's sister has asked fans to pray for the American country singer, who last week postponed a forthcoming Las Vegas residency due to unspecified health issues.

The 79-year-old country music legend has delayed the December concerts, telling fans she needs "a few procedures" to deal with ongoing "health challenges".

"Last night, I was up all night praying for my sister, Dolly," Freida Parton wrote on Facebook. "Many of you know she hasn't been feeling her best lately."

"I truly believe in the power of prayer, and I have been lead to ask all of the world that loves her to be prayer warriors and pray with me."

Freida ended her message on an upbeat note.

"She's strong, she's loved, and with all the prayers being lifted for her, I know in my heart she's going to be just fine," she wrote.

"Godspeed, my sissy Dolly. We all love you!"

Parton had been scheduled to perform six shows at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in December.

But she postponed the gigs until September next year, explaining she wouldn't have enough time to rehearse for them.

Parton did not disclose the nature of her health issues, but she was recently forced to pull out of a Dollywood event after being diagnosed with a kidney stone that she said was causing "a lot of problems".

Earlier this year, she lost her beloved husband Carl Dean after nearly 60 years of marriage.

She later dedicated a new song, If You Hadn't Been There, to his memory.

The musician is best known for a string of country crossover hits including Coat of Many Colors, I Will Always Love You, 9 To 5 and Jolene.

Her Las Vegas stint would have been her first visit to the Strip since the 1990s, when she performed alongside her Islands In The Stream duet partner, Kenny Rogers.

A former Royal Marine who is suing the Ministry of Defence (MoD) over hearing loss says he and others in his unit cheated hearing tests with the help of military medics so they could be deployed.

Christopher Lambie is one of about 10,000 former personnel suing the MoD over noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL).

He is one of four test cases which is being heard at the High Court, with the result of those hearings impacting how much compensation others could receive. Before proceedings began one test case, retired Lt Col Andrew Davies, settled his claim for £182,250.

The MoD accepts it has a duty of care but disputes the extent to which hearing loss happened in some cases.

Mr Lambie, 45, is claiming more than £400,000 in damages, but the MoD has offered him about £58,000 with its barristers claiming his hearing loss has not and will not have an impact on his future income.

He joined the Royal Marines in 1998 and was diagnosed with NIHL in 2002 but, in a witness statement, said "nothing was put in place to prevent me from being exposed to loud noise".

Members of his unit were put through a hearing test before deployment to Afghanistan in 2011 and Mr Lambie said he was "very conscious" about as his "entire career was spent training for deployment".

He initially failed but said he passed a retake by watching the medic testing him "press the button for the tone and then I pressed my clicker straight away".

"We all knew that the emphasis on the staff was to ensure that Marines passed all the tests they needed to pass for deployment, as the MoD needed as many people as possible to deploy," he said.

He said: "This is why the medics helped us pass our medicals," adding the medic conducting the tests was "completely aware" of this,

Mr Lambie, who is now a defence and security consultant after being discharged in 2021, said members of the unit had joked about cheating the tests to ensure they passed regardless of whether they needed to.

The MoD has accepted "primary causation" in his case, but disputes how much he should receive.

David Platt KC, for the department, said in written submissions that Mr Lambie's "instance of faking" the hearing test in 2011 was an "undoubtedly regrettable" but was "apparently isolated instance of cheating".

He said the amount the former marine was claiming was "wholly unrealistic" as hearing loss had not impeded his career.

At a hearing in July last year, the MoD admitted that it had a duty of care to former personnel, having disputed this in earlier legal action.

It also accepted that noise exposure during service caused hearing loss among former personnel, but disputes the extent to which this happened in some individual cases.

Lt Col Davies, 58, said his pay out "does finally acknowledge what I lost and provides some justice". In a statement he said that serving was an "honour and a privilege" but being left with a permanent injury which could have been prevented was "hard to accept".

Another former serviceman, Stephen Hambridge settled his case for £550,000.

The trial is due to last nine weeks.

Separately thousands of military veterans are taking legal action against the MoD and an earplug manufacturer after being given ear protection they say was faulty.

An MoD spokesperson said: "To ensure value for money for the taxpayer, we are defending against a range of claims or limiting costs.

"Many of these claims are historic, and in the years since, we have substantially improved protective measures around hearing to prevent noise-related issues amongst our people.

"The Armed Forces Compensation Scheme provides no-fault compensation to Service Personnel and veterans for injuries, illness and death caused by service."

Comedian Romesh Ranganathan will make his West End debut later this year, co-starring in a play with Sheridan Smith. But although it's first time acting on stage, he tells BBC News he's aware of the risks of overexposure.

The 47-year-old is already one of the most familiar faces in British entertainment, with a CV that includes The Weakest Link, A League of Their Own, a BBC Radio 2 show, hosting the TV Baftas, and several documentaries and sitcoms.

From December, Ranganathan will also appear in a new production of Alan Ayckbourn's Woman in Mind. But taking on new roles isn't without risk, in an entertainment landscape where the public can grow tired of seeing the same stars.

"Well, I just want to put this out there, and I'd love you to publicise this as much as possible: I do say no to stuff," Ranganathan jokes to BBC News. "I'm not just walking around taking whatever's offered.

"The truth is, people say to me 'you're on everything' - that accusation has been levelled at me.

"But I feel like whenever I'm thinking about doing something, I'm just asking, do I think think this will be good, is it something I'd watch, is it something I think I'd be able to do a decent job at? And then, if the answer to those questions is yes, that's what makes you do it.

"I mean, obviously I need a fee as well," he laughs, "there's no point in doing it totally for the love of the game."

Many figures at the very top of television - Ant and Dec, Michael McIntyre and Claudia Winkleman - are selective with their choices, notably hosting no more than three or four shows each per year.

But when a particular star is in demand, it can be tricky to strike the delicate balance between saying yes to work while not taking on too much.

"I understand the thing about overexposure, but if that happens, it happens," Ranganathan reflects. "I try not to overthink things that much, to be honest.

"You normally just have a gut feeling whether something's good or not or whether you'll be good for it or not.

"But who knows, maybe after this play goes out, the general public might say 'OK we've had enough', and I'll go and work in a café or something."

Ranganathan will join the previously announced Smith in Woman in Mind, which will run at London's Duke of York's Theatre from 9 December until 28 February, before playing additional dates in Sunderland and Glasgow in March.

Ayckbourn's psychological comedy follows a woman named Susan, who has an accident that leaves her with a head injury. A new fantasy life emerges in front of her, before the line between her real and imagined lives begins to blur.

"I play her doctor, who basically is the only link between the two worlds throughout the play," Ranganathan explains.

Smith shot to fame in the early noughties sitcoms The Royle Family and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, and went on to appear in The Railway Children Return and ITV's Cilla, which saw her portray the legendary British entertainer Cilla Black.

But she has also has a huge number of stage credits - she led West End hits such as Funny Girl and Shirley Valentine, and has won two Olivier Awards for her roles in Legally Blonde and Flare Path.

Announcing her role in Woman in Mind last month, Smith told BBC Radio 2's Scott Mills: "I'm so excited, this is an amazing part for an actress.

"It's thought of as one of Alan Ayckbourn's finest plays, it's really funny and it's got a lot of darkness as it goes on.

"There are loads of characters, it's just bonkers and brilliant, it's kind of like a big farce. I can't wait to get started."

Working with Sheridan 'exciting but intimidating'

Woman in Mind premiered in 1985 and has since been revived in the US and the UK several times. Stockard Channing, Julia McKenzie and Dame Helen Mirren have all previously played the role of Susan.

Ranganathan says he and Smith had a text exchange when he was cast, adding: "It's both exciting and intimidating, because she's obviously incredibly talented, phenomenal at what she does, so it's an honour to be doing it opposite her.

"But also what it means is my abilities will be in sharp contrast to that, so there's a little bit of added pressure. But we're both excited, I've not worked with her before so I'm looking forward to that."

The comic has previously acted in TV sitcoms such as Avoidance and Romantic Getaway, but this will mark his first time acting on stage. "Well, since primary school", he laughs. "I might have played second shepherd in the Nativity."

Ranganathan says he feels "nervous" about his West End debut, but adds: "It was something I'd been thinking about doing for a while.

"I'd been talking about it for maybe a year or two, my wife is an ex-drama teacher and has a real passion for theatre, so it's something I started discussing, but I didn't know what it would be. This kind of popped up and they were kind enough to let me read for it, and it felt like an opportunity too good to miss."

The new adaptation will be directed by Michael Longhurst, with Ranganathan noting: "It's going to be very close to the source material, but the way it might be performed and presented might be a little bit different.

"But what I want to do is allay any fears that we might decide to rap it," he jokes. "There's nothing like that in the works."

An emotional Gerry McCann has spoken of the "distressing" impact caused by claims from a Polish woman that she is his missing daughter.

From behind a privacy screen, Mr McCann and Kate McCann - parents of missing Madeleine McCann - gave evidence to Leicester Crown Court on Wednesday in the trial of Julia Wandelt, 24, and 61-year-old Karen Spragg.

Ms Wandelt and Mrs Spragg are each charged with one count of stalking Mr and Mrs McCann between June 2022 and February this year.

Mr McCann was told to "take his time" as he went through his evidence, while Mrs McCann spoke of the "fright" she felt at the defendants turning up outside the family home in December 2024.

Mrs McCann first took to the stand, with the jury told the use of a screen was "entirely usual" and did not reflect on the defendants in any way.

She told the court that learning of Ms Wandelt's contact with her daughter Amelie was "the final straw", prompting her to phone the police.

'You're not Madeleine'

Mrs McCann was also asked about her reaction to a letter from Ms Wandelt - posted a day after the face-to-face confrontation outside her home - signed off with her missing daughter's name and a kiss.

"I think that is an example of the thing that was upsetting me most," she said.

Later, Mr McCann spoke from the witness box and told of the phone repeatedly ringing.

He said on one occasion, he answered.

Mr McCann said: "I can't remember the exact words but I said something like, 'you're not Madeleine'."

He seemed to be struggling as he spoke of the impact on his family.

"We don't know what happened to Madeleine; there's no evidence she's dead," Mr McCann said.

"When people claim to be your missing daughter you haven't seen for this long, it pulls on your heartstrings. But it is damaging the search for Madeleine."

Madeleine's disappearance at the age of three, during a family holiday in Portugal's Algarve on 3 May 2007, is one of the most widely reported missing child cases and remains unsolved.

The trial has heard that from June 2022, Ms Wandelt had begun to tell "anyone who would care to listen" that she was Madeleine, initially contacting a Polish missing persons charity she had previously spoken to, to claim she was two other missing children.

After repeated attempts to contact the McCann family, the court heard Ms Wandelt travelled to the family's home village of Rothley in Leicestershire on 3 May 2024 - the anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance - but by chance Mr and Mrs McCann were away.

Ms Wandelt began to "spread the net", the prosecution said, and ended up encountering co-defendant Mrs Spragg online.

The jury was told Mrs Spragg became a "forthright" supporter of Ms Wandelt's and the "conspiracy theory" that Madeleine's parents were involved in her disappearance.

The McCanns, the court heard, then came across the defendants face-to-face when Ms Wandelt and Mrs Spragg turned up outside their home on 7 December 2024 and "accosted" them.

Along with a demand for a DNA test, the defendants were accused of trying to force a letter into Mr McCann's hand.

Mrs McCann told the jury "logically" she did not believe Ms Wandelt could be Madeleine.

She said having seen a photograph of Ms Wandelt - and the fact she was Polish - "none of it made any sense".

"I know I can't say what Madeleine looks like now, but I know I'd recognise her," she added.

Recalling the events of 7 December, Mrs McCann said: "I pulled up on the drive, it was really dark, it was the weekend - we had really bad gales.

"I was opening the boot to get stuff out and I heard 'Kate' - it gave me a fright."

She added she felt "invaded in her own home", while Mr McCann recalled "Kate was still pretty shaken".

"She was in the house on her own, I think she felt frightened," he said.

"We rarely get people coming to the house now, but every time you're driving home you're worried if someone's going to be there - you're nervous for the 10 seconds it takes to drive down your road."

Ms Wandelt was arrested in February after arriving at Bristol Airport, with Mrs Spragg also detained in a nearby car park.

The trial of Ms Wandelt, of Jana Kochanowskiego in Lubin, Poland, and Mrs Spragg, of Caerau Court Road, Cardiff, continues.

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Stephen Lawrence's killer David Norris is not safe to be released from prison, a psychologist has told a parole hearing.

Norris, 49, is bidding for release from his life sentence after being jailed in 2012 for Stephen's murder.

The prison psychologist, giving evidence anonymously on Wednesday, said Norris should be moved to a lower security, closed prison where his behaviour could be tested.

Norris publicly admitted for the first time to being a part of the racist attack on Stephen in 1993 during the first day of the hearing on Tuesday.

It marked the first time since the teenager was stabbed by a gang while waiting at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London, that any of his killers admitted their involvement.

Norris and one other man, Gary Dobson, are the only people to have been found guilty of the murder, with four other suspects never convicted.

For decades Norris publicly denied being part of the attack, claiming he was innocent during his trial, but the hearing was told on Tuesday that he had admitted his involvement since being in prison.

Norris has refused to name Stephen's other killers, saying that doing so would pose a risk to him and his family.

Of his own involvement, he described punching Stephen but denied stabbing him.

The parole board panel will have to decide whether Norris is safe to be released from prison on licence, recommend a move to an open prison or conclude that he should remain in a closed prison.

'Careful about what he wants to admit'

The psychologist had spent nine hours interviewing Norris and told the hearing he was an "unreliable narrator of his own life".

He said some details of Norris' confession had been inconsistent, including different accounts of the number of punches thrown and whether or not he had kicked Stephen.

The psychologist was asked by the panel if Norris was an unreliable narrator because of poor memory or due to "deliberate rewriting of history".

He replied: "I don't know the answer to that, but I would say probably a combination of these."

"He's careful about what he wants to admit to."

The psychologist said his recommendation was that Norris did not reach the threshold for release from prison or a move to an open prison.

Instead, he recommended that Norris be moved to a lower security, closed prison where he could be tested.

The hearing was told on Tuesday that Norris used racially abusive language in prison, according to intelligence reports from different facilities.

It heard that Norris had been involved in clashes with Muslim prisoners, including claims that he had thrown excrement and used derogatory terms, which he denied.

The psychologist said on Wednesday: "I find it unlikely that, across prisons, staff are making things up."

He said Norris had a lack of racial awareness and was more likely to use racist language during times of mental ill health or frustration.

Separately, he said he believed Norris had expressed genuine remorse for the killing - adding that some of it had been expressed "nowhere near a parole hearing".

He said people could still feel remorse but "lapse" in certain situations.

The hearing is taking place in an unnamed prison with a video stream to the Royal Courts of Justice in London for the press, public and Stephen's family, including his mother Baroness Doreen Lawrence.

Norris appeared with his back to the screen and occasionally used a hearing loop.

The court heard that he had been in his current prison for around two years and worked in the servery, where food is prepared and distributed.

A prison key worker said he had come to the unit wanting to work on "reactions and perceptions of rudeness towards him".

The hearing is set to continue, with the parole board deciding whether to release Norris later this month.

A man has been arrested as a suspect in setting the Pacific Palisades fire in Los Angeles that killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,000 homes in January.

Justice department officials announced at a news conference that 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht had been detained.

They said evidence collected from his digital devices showed an image he generated on ChatGPT depicting a burning city.

The fire was sparked on 7 January near a popular hiking trail overlooking the wealthy coastal neighbourhood. The Eaton Fire, ignited the same day in the Los Angeles area, killed another 19 people and destroyed about 9,400 structures, officials said. The cause of that fire remains unclear.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

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A violin that once belonged to one of history's best known scientists has sold at auction for £860,000.

The 1894 Zunterer violin is believed to have been Einstein's first and was initially expected to fetch around £300,000 when it went under the hammer at Dominic Winter Auctioneers in South Cerney, Gloucestershire.

A philosophy book that Einstein gifted to a friend also sold for £2,200.

All prices will have an extra 26.4% commission added on top, meaning the final price for the violin will be above £1m.

Auctioneers believe that once the commission is added the sale could be the highest ever for a violin that was not previously owned by a concert violinist or made by Stradivarius - with the previous record being held by an instrument that was likely played on the Titanic.

Chris Albury, senior auctioneer and historical memorabilia specialist at Dominic Winter Auctioneers, described the sale, which was completed in about 10 minutes, as a "special moment".

"We had three phone bidders heavily involved up until the very end," he told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

Mr Albury said many people were unaware that Einstein had played the violin.

"He always said that if he hadn't been a scientist, he'd have liked to have been a musician.

"He started learning the violin at about the age of four and played it every day through his life."

A bike saddle also owned by Einstein did not sell at the auction and may be re-listed.

All the items up for auction were given to his good friend and physicist colleague Max von Laue in late 1932.

Shortly afterwards Einstein fled to America to escape the rise of antisemitism and Nazism in Germany.

Max von Laue gifted them to an acquaintance and Einstein fan, Margarete Hommrich 20 years later, and it was her great-great granddaughter who had now put them up for sale.

Another violin once owned by Einstein, which was gifted to him when he arrived in the United States in 1933, was sold at auction for $516,500 (£370,000) in New York in 2018.

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How visible will it be this year?

Will the skies be clear?

How do I watch the Draconids?

• Five celestial events to look out for this autumn

  Published
  15 September

• WATCH: Six planets align in the night sky

  Published
  25 January

The country's most successful political party, when it comes to winning elections, finds itself in a position as dire as it is unprecedented.

They were crushed in a general election and have gone backwards since. The Conservatives' opinion poll ratings are desperate.

Kemi Badenoch's position as leader remains perilous because of this.

But there's been a concerted effort over the last few days here at the Conservative Party conference to give the party something to talk about, in other words: a blitz of policy.

And from one or two conversations I've had after her speech, including from some internal sceptics, "pleasant surprise" is a recurring theme.

In Badenoch's first keynote speech to the conference, there was one big reveal. They were so excited about it that they didn't tell us in advance. It was new to us, and to many in the party too: the abolition of stamp duty on main homes in England and Northern Ireland.

Put alongside proposed savings of £47bn, the Conservatives think this amounts to claiming back the mantle of economic responsibility in a way that ordinary households can notice.

But the key thing here is that yes, the party has given itself something to talk about, but is anyone listening?

As a new leader, Badenoch did not want to rush into announcing policies.

Partly out of an authentic belief that you've got to think things through before you announce them, so she talked about policies, not announcements, detail, not just headlines.

But the perpetual challenge for an opposition party, is that if you announce policies too soon, either they get nicked or time overtakes them - and you end up ditching them before you get into power, and are able to implement them.

What I've noticed this week is there's a Darwinian selection about the people who have come to the conference in Manchester.

Yes, the numbers were down on where they were a few years ago as you'd expect. But those who've turned up are up for the fight.

There's a definite desire for the Conservatives to find some clear blue water, particularly on the economic agenda.

And there's some polling evidence to suggest despite all the rows, on the legacy of Liz Truss and her mini-budget, that there is a well of support on their economic prospectus that they might be able to build on.

And one more fascinating thing – this was all framed around a conversation about the Conservatives or Labour.

There was barely references to Reform and Nigel Farage.

Badenoch will hope her speech buys her some time and some attention. In our noisy political ecosystem, neither is guaranteed.

The man who carried out the Manchester synagogue attack made a 999 call in which he pledged allegiance to the so-called Islamic State group.

Jihad Al-Shamie, 35, was shot dead by police outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue after a car and knife attack that saw two Jewish men killed.

The call was made after Al-Shamie's car hit a wall after he drove into worshippers, a spokesperson for Counter Terrorism Police North West confirmed.

Melvin Cravitz, 66, and 53-year-old Adrian Daulby died in the attack on Middleton Road around 09:30 BST on 2 October.

It was confirmed later that Mr Daulby was shot by a police bullet which penetrated through the door of the synagogue in Crumpsall as armed officers opened fire on Al-Shamie - who was wearing a fake bomb vest.

A police bullet also struck another man, Yoni Finlay, who is recovering in hospital after surgery.

Two other men remain in hospital after sustaining serious injuries in the attack, including one who was stabbed in the neck and chest.

Al-Shamie walked to the synagogue on foot around 15 minutes earlier, police said, and was asked to leave due to his "suspicious" behaviour.

Doorbell camera footage obtained by the BBC showed him walking down White House Avenue a short distance away from the synagogue, where he is believed to have parked a black Kia Picanto car, at 09:22.

The black Kia Picanto also matches the description of a car driven through the gates at the synagogue and at worshippers.

As with the car used in the attack, the back right hubcab can be seen missing from the vehicle in the footage.

This week, Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson said the force has put "every available resource into making sure that we understand precisely what has happened".

Sir Stephen said:" There is a limit to what I can say at this juncture in terms of the dynamics of that investigation.

"Suffice to say that we know that there are answers that people require, and those answers will be forthcoming as soon as it is appropriate to give them.

"I do want to reassure people that no stone is being left unturned."

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Stephen Lawrence's killer David Norris is not safe to be released from prison, a psychologist has told a parole hearing.

Norris, 49, is bidding for release from his life sentence after being jailed in 2012 for Stephen's murder.

The prison psychologist, giving evidence anonymously on Wednesday, said Norris should be moved to a lower security, closed prison where his behaviour could be tested.

Norris publicly admitted for the first time to being a part of the racist attack on Stephen in 1993 during the first day of the hearing on Tuesday.

It marked the first time since the teenager was stabbed by a gang while waiting at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London, that any of his killers admitted their involvement.

Norris and one other man, Gary Dobson, are the only people to have been found guilty of the murder, with four other suspects never convicted.

For decades Norris publicly denied being part of the attack, claiming he was innocent during his trial, but the hearing was told on Tuesday that he had admitted his involvement since being in prison.

Norris has refused to name Stephen's other killers, saying that doing so would pose a risk to him and his family.

Of his own involvement, he described punching Stephen but denied stabbing him.

The parole board panel will have to decide whether Norris is safe to be released from prison on licence, recommend a move to an open prison or conclude that he should remain in a closed prison.

'Careful about what he wants to admit'

The psychologist had spent nine hours interviewing Norris and told the hearing he was an "unreliable narrator of his own life".

He said some details of Norris' confession had been inconsistent, including different accounts of the number of punches thrown and whether or not he had kicked Stephen.

The psychologist was asked by the panel if Norris was an unreliable narrator because of poor memory or due to "deliberate rewriting of history".

He replied: "I don't know the answer to that, but I would say probably a combination of these."

"He's careful about what he wants to admit to."

The psychologist said his recommendation was that Norris did not reach the threshold for release from prison or a move to an open prison.

Instead, he recommended that Norris be moved to a lower security, closed prison where he could be tested.

The hearing was told on Tuesday that Norris used racially abusive language in prison, according to intelligence reports from different facilities.

It heard that Norris had been involved in clashes with Muslim prisoners, including claims that he had thrown excrement and used derogatory terms, which he denied.

The psychologist said on Wednesday: "I find it unlikely that, across prisons, staff are making things up."

He said Norris had a lack of racial awareness and was more likely to use racist language during times of mental ill health or frustration.

Separately, he said he believed Norris had expressed genuine remorse for the killing - adding that some of it had been expressed "nowhere near a parole hearing".

He said people could still feel remorse but "lapse" in certain situations.

The hearing is taking place in an unnamed prison with a video stream to the Royal Courts of Justice in London for the press, public and Stephen's family, including his mother Baroness Doreen Lawrence.

Norris appeared with his back to the screen and occasionally used a hearing loop.

The court heard that he had been in his current prison for around two years and worked in the servery, where food is prepared and distributed.

A prison key worker said he had come to the unit wanting to work on "reactions and perceptions of rudeness towards him".

The hearing is set to continue, with the parole board deciding whether to release Norris later this month.

A man has been arrested as a suspect in setting the Pacific Palisades fire in Los Angeles that killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,000 homes in January.

Justice department officials announced at a news conference that 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht had been detained.

They said evidence collected from his digital devices showed an image he generated on ChatGPT depicting a burning city.

The fire was sparked on 7 January near a popular hiking trail overlooking the wealthy coastal neighbourhood. The Eaton Fire, ignited the same day in the Los Angeles area, killed another 19 people and destroyed about 9,400 structures, officials said. The cause of that fire remains unclear.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

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The next Conservative government will abolish stamp duty on the sale of main homes, Kemi Badenoch has said, in a surprise announcement at the end of her first conference speech as party leader.

Badenoch received a standing ovation from Tory activists in Manchester as she declared: "That is how we will help achieve the dream of home ownership for millions."

She said scrapping stamp duty - a tax on the sale of homes in England and Northern Ireland - will "unlock a fairer and more aspirational society" and help people of all ages.

It came after a speech packed with new policies aimed at grabbing political attention and setting out clear dividing lines with her opponents.

Badenoch was under pressure to deliver the speech of her political career, to end speculation that she will face a leadership challenge, as her party continues to trail Labour and Reform UK in the polls.

Her 45 minute address was peppered with jokes and personal stories and went down well in the hall, where - in contrast to some of the other speeches this week - there was standing room only.

And in a clear break with the leaders' speeches at the Labour and Liberal Democrat conferences, she only mentioned Reform twice.

Instead, she concentrated her fire on Labour, accusing Sir Keir Starmer of leading a "weak and directionless" government, which was making "one hell of a mess" of the country.

Her announcement on stamp duty was kept under wraps until she delivered it, telling the Tory faithful: "Stamp duty is a bad tax.

"We must free up our housing market, because a society where no one can afford to buy or move is a society where social mobility is dead."

Stamp duty is paid by people buying homes for more than £125,000 - but first time buyers are exempt from it on properties worth up to £300,000.

Those buying homes worth more pay a percentage of the value of the home.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves was reported to be considering scrapping stamp duty in her November Budget, although Badenoch claimed it would be significantly increased.

Stamp duty brought in an estimated £13.9bn in the last financial year, but a large proportion of this is from additional homes and other buildings.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that abolishing stamp duty on primary residences will cost around £4.5bn.

The Conservatives said they had "cautiously" estimated that the policy would cost £9bn.

Badenoch insisted she could meet this promise, with the money to come from some of the £47bn in planned savings from the welfare budget and foreign aid, announced earlier this week.

Under the Tory plans, stamp duty will be abolished entirely on "primary residences" and will not apply to "additional properties, properties purchased by companies, or by non-UK residents".

Stamp duty does not apply in Scotland and Wales, which have separate property taxes. The Welsh Conservatives have said they will replicate the cut if they win power in May's elections.

In her conference speech, Badenoch claimed the Conservative Party was "fizzing with ideas" to fix the "broken model" she said was holding the country back.

She pledged to scrap a string of government policies - from new employment rights to VAT on private school fees.

And she ran through some of the big policy announcements the party has made this week, including:

• Scrapping business rates to boost high streets
• Axing the carbon tax on electricity
• Trebling police stop and search in crime hotspots
• Closing down "rip off" university courses and boosting apprenticeships.

Her promise to end the "family farm tax" got a big cheer in the hall, and her proposals to slash welfare spending and take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights also went down well.

In a sustained attack on the Labour government, she said: "All they have delivered is a doom loop of higher taxes, weaker borders, and month after month of chaos.

"They had a plan to win, but no plan for power.

"No vision for Britain. They know how to make promises, but not how to deliver them."

Acknowledging the Conservatives' dire opinion poll ratings and recent local election losses, she said voters were "still angry" with her party.

And in a swipe at Reform, she said this had led to "parties that in normal times would never be seen as a serious option for government are gaining ground, making promises they will never be able to keep".

But the speech was chiefly aimed at emphasising that the Conservative Party is under new leadership - one that was prepared to make the "bold" and "tough" decisions that her opponents would not.

The Skeik building, in a quiet road off Omar al-Mukhtar Street in western Gaza City, was a familiar sight to Gaza's lovers.

The tree-lined street that ran beside it was once a favourite place for courting couples, eager to avoid Gaza's socially conservative gaze.

But the road nicknamed "Lovers' Street" – and the six-storey building that overlooks it – is now surrounded by rubble. There are few residents left who remember the old days. Those hiding here now are not running from Gaza's disapproval, but from Israeli tanks.

Gaza's war has left this once-glitzy neighbourhood in ruins. The smart shops and restaurants running down to the beach are now pockmarked with shrapnel and bullet holes, the park with its French-manicured trees, is buried under grey rubble.

The Skeik building itself is still standing, but its walls are now splattered by shrapnel and a large artillery-sized hole has punched through an upper floor. Its pre-war faces replaced by an ever-changing confetti of displaced people.

Two years after Gaza's war began, this one building offers a snapshot of how the conflict has eroded ties to home and community among Gaza's people, and what impact that has had.

The previous tenants of the Skeik building are long gone. Above the boarded-up storerooms on the ground floor, eight of the building's 10 apartments have become temporary homes for families displaced by the war.

Hadeel Daban - fourth floor

Twenty-six-year-old Hadeel Daban lives on the fourth floor with her husband and three young children: nine-year-old Judi, six-year-old Murad and two-year-old Mohammad.

The family arrived here two months ago, paying 1,000 shekels ($305; £227) a month to camp in the empty rooms.

"The people who were here before us left because it was dangerous," Hadeel said. "Shrapnel hits the walls here, but it's still better than a tent."

The family's few belongings are neatly stashed in piles of bags along the walls. Torn sheets cover the gaping holes where the windows used to be. It's the 12th place the family has moved to.

"When loading our belongings on a cart, I put my children on top of it all and tell them to play with the items, like the kitchen stuff," Hadeel told me. "I tell them we're going to live a different life, a bit away from the one we had."

The family home stands less than a mile away, in Gaza City's al-Tuffah neighbourhood. They fled in the first week of the war, after a relative's apartment above theirs was hit.

They returned a few months later. But on 15 March 2024, a strike on the building next door to them killed Hadeel's mother-in-law, injured the three children and buried Hadeel's husband alive.

"We spent hours searching for him, and found him under the rubble," she said.

Her husband, Izz el-Din, was unconscious. They took him to al-Shifa hospital, where Hadeel says she was told her husband had a skull fracture and was in a coma.

Three days later, he was still being treated when Israel sealed the hospital and began a two-week military operation there, to root out Hamas command posts, it said.

It was only when Israeli forces finally withdrew that Hadeel was reunited with her husband, fragile but alive.

Hadeel told us he still needed regular medical checks. "I used to take him to a neurologist [in Gaza City], but six weeks ago all the doctors moved to the south," she said.

A home is not just shelter or belongings. And all three families we spoke to in the Skeik building had moved multiple times.

"None of my neighbours are my neighbours anymore, because new people come every month," Hadeel said. "I don't even know where my original neighbours are – some went south, some were killed or injured. There are no neighbours anymore."

On the day our colleague met Hadeel, Gaza City was emptying again as hundreds of thousands of people headed for safer areas further south.

The Israeli army, advancing through the city, had issued "a last warning" to leave. But the families we spoke to were planning on staying put.

While Hadeel was talking to our cameraman, a series of explosions echoed through the apartment.

Through the windows, huge grey clouds rose in the middle distance.

Neither of her young sons even flinched.

The Skeik building was built in 2008, on the back of the construction boom that swept Gaza City in the mid-1990s. A prime location right next to the American International School and a block away from the Palestinian parliament – both now in ruins.

It was this central location, off the main Omar al-Mukhtar street, that put the Skeik building in the path of Israeli tanks during the first months of the war.

Al-Shifa hospital lies two blocks to the north. Within weeks of the invasion, Israel's army moved in to capture the complex, saying it was being used as a Hamas base.

Troops approached from several directions, including the roads around Omar al-Mukhtar street.

Near the back of the Skeik building, a large rectangular hole has been blown in the wall. Inside, Hebrew graffiti reads, "the last Samurai" – a reference to a Hollywood film about a 19th Century Japanese warrior outgunned by modern weapons.

We asked Israel's army whether its forces had ever used the building or fought there. We received no reply.

But the building's owner, Suheil Skeik, now living in Turkey, told us the block had been used as an observation post by Israeli troops during operations.

And Israel said it had struck several compounds used by Palestinian snipers in the area in March.

Ground forces remained in Gaza City for months during the first months of the war, launching a second assault on al-Shifa hospital in March 2024, while Hadeel's husband was being treated inside.

With such a rapid turnover of residents, no one in the building now remembers what happened in those early months of the war.

But the fighting still continues around it.

Muna Shabet - fifth floor

In the apartment above Hadeel's, 59-year-old Muna Amin Shabet plays with her grandchildren beneath large bullet holes punched in the wall.

"Two days ago, bullets hit here, inside the building," she explained. "I grabbed the children and ran with them over there, where it's safer. We sat there praying to God that it would be OK. The children were terrified."

Muna is also from al-Tuffah neighbourhood. She's been living here since August with her husband, three of her children, and her grandchildren. They aren't paying rent. The family lost everything, Muna says, when their home was destroyed weeks into the war.

"They levelled the entire al-Tuffah area – all of it, not one house was left," she said. "We are starting life again, collecting spoon by spoon, plate by plate. Famine came, and we ground pigeon-feed to eat, and lived on wild greens," she told us. "After two years of war, I say I am not alive, I am one of the dead."

Another resident, from the northern town of Beit Lahia, told us his area was now a "wasteland", after Israel's army razed it to the ground. "There are no houses, or even any signposts left, to tell you there was once a neighbourhood here," he said.

The UN says 90% of Gaza's residential buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Whole neighbourhoods - with their shared history, family ties, and social support – demolished.

But the idea of home is harder to destroy than bricks and mortar.

When our cameraman visits Muna's apartment, two of her granddaughters are drawing a picture. It's an idyllic story-book image of a house – small and neat, with a sloping red tile roof. The sun is perched on the horizon, the sky is pink and blue, there are trees and plants.

It looks nothing like where they live.

And the widespread destruction of housing and communities has often meant families splintering to survive.

Of Muna's five sons, two have moved to the south, another has gone to stay with his in-laws. The others, she says, have come and gone. Even she and her husband spent months apart before moving to the Skeik building, while Muna sheltered with relatives.

The extended family that once surrounded her and anchored her world is fraying.

"We are scattered. The separation is the hardest thing," she said. "Life has been stripped away. My health is gone. Our home is gone, and the dearest people to our hearts are gone - nothing is left for us."

Shawkat al-Ansari - first floor

It's a feeling Shawkat al-Ansari knows well.

Originally from Beit Lahia, now razed to the ground, he told us his mother and sister were sleeping on the street in southern Gaza, while Shawkat lived with his wife and seven children on the first floor of the Skeik building.

Four months ago, his brother went missing.

"He went to get flour from the house of one of our in-laws in Shejaiya [on the northern edge of Gaza City]. We still don't know what happened to him. We searched everywhere but couldn't find him."

The constant churn of people moving in search of food, safety or shelter has made it hard to keep families together.

"We were living OK before," Shawkat said. "Now my brother is missing, and we're all stranded in different places."

One by one, the anchors holding people in place - home, community, family - have been loosened by the constant uprooting of Gaza's population and the razing of its neighbourhoods and streets.

Now, sitting in the empty concrete rooms of the Skeik building, Shawkat is also watching the future slip away. His children were doing well at school before the war, he says, but now they're forgetting how to read and count.

The constant movement is freezing their lives.

Days later, we received a call from Hadeel. She and several other families in the Skeik building were on the move again.

Israeli forces had dropped smoke bombs across the area, she told us, to signal that they were about to enter.

"We didn't see the tanks last night," she said, "but if we don't leave now, we'll wake up to them tomorrow."

Hadeel was packing up when we spoke, planning to join her brother nearby before trying to head south together.

"We'll stay on the streets and live in a tent," she said. "No matter what we do, nothing will rebuild what's inside us. My children aren't my children anymore. There's more suffering than innocence in their eyes now."

All across Gaza, the buildings left standing have become transit hubs for families, brought together then separated by the war.

If negotiations succeed, peace could end their journeys, and reconstruction could bring them a different kind of future.

But their old lives are behind them.

This war has wiped out the road to the past.

Additional reporting by Aamir Peerzada and Gaza colleagues. Design by the BBC's Visual Journalism team.

The Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M Yaghi for their work on metal organic frameworks.

The announcement was made by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at a news conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

The three winners will share prize money of 11 million Swedish kronor (£872,000).

Last year Demis Hassabis, John Jumper, and David Baker won the prize for their work on proteins, which are the building blocks of life.

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The first series of the Celebrity Traitors kicks off later, with Sir Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie Alan Carr and Jonathan Ross among the contestants.

Presenter Claudia Winkleman will welcome 19 famous faces to the Scottish highlands when the 70-minute opening episode launches at 21:00 BST.

Charlotte Church, Kate Garraway, Paloma Faith and Tom Daley are among the other stars who will be sitting at the famous round table.

Ahead of the launch, Winkleman told journalists: "You think you know these people, and then you watch them play this game, and I was awestruck by the way they played it - with empathy, with wit and with real smarts."

It is the first celebrity version of the show, and will consist of nine hour-long episodes.

The show has already made headlines for the starry cast it has attracted - with many viewers saying the line-up features bigger names than other celebrity TV series.

"I don't think there's ever been a reality show on television with a line-up like this," commented BBC Radio 2 breakfast host Scott Mills on Wednesday morning.

As in previous years, the series will see three of the contestants assigned as "traitors", while the remaining "faithful" contestants must attempt to root them out.

Who are the celebrity contestants?

The contestants are:

• Alan Carr - Comedian
• Cat Burns – Singer/songwriter
• Celia Imrie – Actress
• Charlotte Church – Singer/activist
• Clare Balding - Broadcaster
• David Olusoga - Historian and filmmaker
• Joe Marler – Former England rugby union player
• Joe Wilkinson - Comedian
• Jonathan Ross - TV Presenter
• Kate Garraway - TV and radio presenter
• Lucy Beaumont - Comedian
• Mark Bonnar - Actor
• Nick Mohammed - Actor and comedian
• Niko Omilana - Online content creator
• Paloma Faith - Singer/songwriter
• Ruth Codd - Actress
• Stephen Fry - Actor and writer
• Tameka Empson – Actress and comedian
• Tom Daley – Olympian

What is the prize?

The celebrities will play for a cash prize of up to £100,000.

The exact figure will depend on how they perform in missions throughout the series, where the money can go up or down.

However, unlike the civilian version where the contestants keep the jackpot, the celebrities are playing for their chosen charity.

But they will receive a separate appearance fee for taking part in the series.

What can we expect from the series?

The trailer for the Celebrity Traitors shows the celebrities expressing their excitement as they are driven to Ardross Castle in Inverness.

But Winkleman soon tells them: "I know out in the real world you're very important and successful, but here, there is no special treatment."

The teaser also shows the celebrities taking part in their first mission, and sitting at the round table for the first time, wearing their blindfolds.

Looking ahead to the series, the stars also grapple with whether they will be chosen as traitors, or remain faithful.

"Maybe I have got a dark side," says Carr, while Sir Stephen adds: "I don't know what beasts lie within me". Imrie simply says: "I'm here to win."

For the first time, comedian Ed Gamble will take the spin-off show Uncloaked on location to the castle, to interview celebrities as soon as they leave.

Ahead of the series, Winkleman said: "We're incredibly lucky these brilliant people have said yes. I'd love to say we'll take it easy on them and they'll just wander round the castle and eat toast for a couple of weeks but that would be a lie."

Series three winner Leanne Quigley told BBC Breakfast on Wednesday: "What's going to be so interesting about the celebrity version is they're going in with a reputation, they're all going to know each other.

"They know what it's like to have cameras around them all the time, whereas we didn't, so they're going to know how to be on TV.

"So it's going to be interesting to see if they immerse themselves in the game, because I know for certain it's really difficult not to get involved and emotional, and play the game wholeheartedly."

What have the contestants said?

The celebrities haven't done many interviews ahead of the series launch, but here are what a few of them said in their Q&As on the BBC website.

Discussing her reasons for taking part, presenter Claire Balding said: "I really find it fascinating, the way group thinking can be influenced. I don't know whether I can resist that or whether I can influence that and I'm kind of interested in it from a psychological perspective."

Asked if she'd be good at finding traitors, comedian Lucy Beaumont joked: "When I was a teenager, I was good at spotting 15-year-old boys that were lying but things have changed since then. I hope the skills might return in this game."

Singer Cat Burns commented she has "always been really intrigued to see if I would, one, be able to work out who the Traitors are, and two, if I was a Traitor, if I would be able to keep up the mystery of it".

Actor Mark Bonnar said he was hoping to be a faithful. "I think that the added pressure of being a Traitor, just keeping that facade up the whole time, would be incredibly exhausting and quite stressful," he said.

Singer Charlotte Church, meanwhile, said she didn't have a game plan. "I'm going to read the field, moment by moment and be present. If you're able to stay present and be really open to your sensory portals - your ears, your eyes, even your spidey senses, then I think that you're able to be much more present."

The Celebrity Traitors begins on BBC One and iPlayer at 21:00 BST on Wednesday.

Hours before his deadline for resolving France's political crisis, outgoing Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said political parties have shown a "willingness" that could stave off the threat of new parliamentary elections.

Lecornu on Monday became the third French PM to leave his job in less than a year. He has until Wednesday evening to come up with a plan for the "stability of the country" and has held talks with several political parties.

Like his predecessors, Lecornu was unable to push through a budget to bring down the government's deficit and tackle public debt.

Ahead of a second day of talks, Lecornu said he had detected a "willingness to have a budget for France before 31 December".

"And this willingness creates movement and convergence, obviously, which makes the prospect of dissolution [of parliament] more remote," he said in a statement in the courtyard of his Paris residence at the Hôtel Matignon.

The outgoing prime minister then began talks with Socialist leaders. He is due to go on French TV at 20:00 local time (18:00 GMT) to give details of whether he had found a solution.

His best hope appears to be some kind of political pact to prevent any new government being thrown out in a confidence vote.

Commentators and officials said Lecornu's TV appearance meant it was unlikely President Emmanuel Macron would himself give an address.

Lecornu's shock resignation on Monday left France in renewed political turmoil, 18 months before the end of Macron's second term in office. Macron's decision to call snap elections in mid-2024 left France with a hung parliament and a succession of minority governments.

Lecornu was in the job for only 26 days before his government fell apart, triggered by criticism from the leader of the conservative Republicans, Bruno Retailleau.

• Time may be running out for master of clocks Macron: What next for France?
• Yet another French PM resigns, spelling yet more trouble for Macron

Macron then gave the outgoing prime minister 48 hours to find a way out of the crisis.

After talks with Lecornu on Wednesday, Socialist leader Olivier Faure appeared to rule out any chance of his centre-left party joining the next government.

"The budget plan, the way it was presented today, is a budget plan that we cannot be part of... and a joint government with Macron's [allies] is unimaginable," he told reporters.

That does not mean the Socialists would try to bring down a new government, which the hard-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen and radical left would be likely to try. Le Pen, whose party leads in the polls, has called on Macron to "seriously consider" dissolving parliament and holding new parliamentary elections.

Overnight there were suggestions that Lecornu could secure centre-left support if the government suspended highly contested pension reforms that raised the retirement age from 62 to 64. However, outgoing Finance Minister Roland Lescure warned that would cost France hundreds of millions of euros this year, and billions more in 2026, when the country is trying to cut its budget deficit.

France's public debt earlier this year was almost 114% of economic output (GDP), and this year's budget deficit is projected to hit 5.4% of GDP.

Without Socialist involvement in the next government, Lecornu's best hope is to cobble together a revitalised centrist cabinet with the Republicans - known as the socle commun - or common platform.

The Republicans have so far made clear they will not join a left-led government, but their return to government with the Macronists is not definite either.

National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet, who met Macron on Tuesday, told French radio they had not discussed dissolving parliament and she did not see it as a good idea: "Above all it wouldn't resolve a great deal."

Braun-Privet later warned that if a budget deal was not agreed in the coming days, France would face "very serious consequences".

Lecornu said in his statement that reducing France's budget deficit below 5% of national economic output (GDP) was crucial, and that based on his conversations so far there was a willingness to have a budget by the end of the year.

"Reducing our [budget] deficit is key, including for the credibility of France's signature abroad, and quite simply our ability to borrow, and therefore the impact also on interest rates. That's true for the state but it's also especially true for households and businesses," he added.

But as well as insisting on the need to bring down the deficit, he said the new government would need to agree on the future of France's South Pacific territory of New Caledonia.

His planned 2026 budget was due to include vital financial aid to the territory after heavy damage caused by riots last year.

The French government has stopped short of granting New Caledonia full independence but has offered greater autonomy, in a deal yet to be approved in a vote. Lecornu's resignation on Monday halted the planned timetable for a referendum followed by provincial elections next year.

Among the many questions Conservatives members at the party conference in Manchester are asking themselves: how they can win the support of young people?

Conservative members and voters have always skewed older than other parties, but now it is more pronounced.

Pollster Luke Tryl, from More in Common, told a Tory conference fringe meeting: "At the last election the average age someone started voting Conservative was in their 60s. It's now even later.

"The Conservatives are basically only being kept afloat in the polls at the moment by the over 75 age category. Obviously, for demographic reasons, that is not a sustainable place to be."

At another event, pollster Jonathan Jones of JL Partners began his presentation on the attitudes of voters under 40 with the ominous words: "Conservative Party members turn away now."

One Young Conservative sought to offer some good news by telling the event that at Keele University the Conservative Society now had the biggest membership in a decade.

He paused to allow for some impressed noises from the audience before adding: "We now have 11 members."

With 16-year-olds likely to get the vote at the next election, the problem could become yet more acute.

"The party has been a bit lazy on this," says shadow housing minister Paul Holmes.

"We need to pull our finger out of our bums."

But what - if anything - can Conservatives do to fix the problem?

Beware the Millennial Pause

"We need to be where the voters are," says Luke Evans a Conservative MP, shadow minister and keen Tik-Toker.

He says his colleagues should be embracing the social media platform more but warns colleagues to avoid the "Millennial Pause" - the two-second gap the older generation leave at the beginning of videos before starting to talk.

"That's the biggest turn off," he says.

At another event, one audience member said the party needed to copy the approach of American right-wing online influencers.

They suggested that the Conservatives should run a campaign encouraging young people to send in stories of left-wing behaviour that they argue could be mocked online - for example, a teacher calling Winston Churchill a fascist or a classmate identifying as a cat.

Blake Stephenson, the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, agrees that Conservatives had to "communicate in a way they want to consume the information".

"Unfortunately, we live in a world where anything beyond 10 or 15 seconds is just sort of too much for people and they just scroll up.

"At this conference we're talking about very complicated policy areas... and we're saying quite rightly that the solutions are not easy.

"If anyone tells you that the solutions to any of these complicated problems are easy, then they are sort of sending you up the river.

"But yet we need to project complicated responses and answers to complicated questions in 20 seconds."

'A stake in society'

Former minister and former Conservative leadership contender Tom Tugendhat says young people were not "drifting away from the centre" but "drifting away from what doesn't work for them".

Young people were "realising the entire economy is now geared towards a bunch of people who are aging," he says.

"They are not stupid - they are choosing parties that are revolutionary."

Fred Lynam from the Young Conservatives says the party has a "difficult hill to climb – even more difficult with young voters".

"The way it will happen is by giving young people a stake in society – then they will feel like they have got something to conserve.

"That is why they are flocking to Your Party, the Greens and Reform because they are arguing that we need to tear it down, because it is not working."

Several panellists at conference events say that offering policies that made it easier for young people to buy a home would help.

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride has announced that the Conservatives would give young people a £5,000 tax rebate in their first job, in a bid to help them buy their first home; and in her keynote speech, Kemi Badenoch promised a Conservative government would scrap stamp duty on homes.

At the beginning of conference, Badenoch said Conservatives needed to "face up" to what they got wrong, pointing to the rise in small boats crossings and - without mentioning her by name - Liz Truss's mini budget as examples.

But some at conference have argued that too much hand-wringing could blur the Conservatives message to young people.

"By the next election there will be voters who haven't experienced a Conservative government in their adult life so that need for contrition is probably less," says Lynam.

Blake Stephenson says that during the 2024 election campaign he had experienced a lot of anger from voters and that "humility is important".

"How long will the blood letting take. I don't know. I hope fairly quickly."

"The facts of life are Conservative" is a quote from former PM Margaret Thatcher which has been trotted out at fringe events.

It reflects a sense among some at conference that voters in the younger demographic will inevitably turn to the Conservatives, because their arguments will be proved right in time - particularly if, as some delegates predict, there will be an economic crisis in the next few years.

Rebecca Paul says young people have "bad associations" with the last Conservative government which "tried to keep everyone happy and ended up with a mishmash of policies".

She says Badenoch wouldn't make the same mistakes. "She is honest. She will tell you things you don't want to hear.

"We need to come up with sensible policies. People will in time start listening to us.

"Tough gig but we're going to be back."

Julian Ellacott, chair of the Conservative's National Convention, told one fringe event the research suggested it would take two years before voters of all ages started listening to the Conservatives again.

"The answer is - who knows. We have to stick to our job, focus on our own game.

"It will take as long as it takes but we mustn't be like magpies and get distracted by shiny things.

"We need to get the core things right."

'People want to harm me'

'Premier League player coming out would move mountains'

'I'm here to create change'

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The Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M Yaghi for their work on metal organic frameworks.

The announcement was made by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at a news conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

The three winners will share prize money of 11 million Swedish kronor (£872,000).

Last year Demis Hassabis, John Jumper, and David Baker won the prize for their work on proteins, which are the building blocks of life.

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US special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner will join Gaza peace plan talks between Israeli and Hamas negotiators in Egypt on Wednesday.

Their arrival comes as a second day of indirect talks on Tuesday ended without tangible results, a senior Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations told the BBC.

Trump struck a positive tone on Tuesday, as Israel marked the second anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attacks, saying "there's a possibility that we could have peace in the Middle East".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not comment on the status of the talks, but told Israelis they were in "fateful days of decision".

In a post on X, Netanyahu added that Israel would continue to act to achieve its war aims: "The return of all the kidnapped, the elimination of the Hamas regime and the promise that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel".

Witkoff and Kushner were expected to depart the US on Tuesday evening and arrive in Egypt on Wednesday, a source familiar with the talks told the BBC.

Qatar's prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, seen as a key mediator, will also join the talks, an official told the Reuters news agency.

Al Thani's attendance was aimed at "pushing forward the Gaza ceasefire plan and hostage release agreement", the official said.

Qatar's foreign minister and the head of Turkish intelligence are expected to join him.

• What are the key sticking points in Trump's Gaza peace plan?
• Read the full 20-point peace plan
• What is Hamas and why is it fighting with Israel in Gaza?
• Israel and the Palestinians: History of the conflict explained

A senior Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations told the BBC that an evening round of indirect talks on Tuesday began at 19:00 local time (16:00 GMT).

The official said the morning session ended without tangible results, amid disagreements over the proposed Israeli withdrawal maps from Gaza and over guarantees Hamas wants to ensure Israel does not resume fighting after the first phase of the deal.

He added that the talks were "tough and have yet to produce any real breakthrough," but noted that mediators were working hard to narrow the gaps between the two sides.

Earlier, a Palestinian official said the negotiations were focused on five key issues: a permanent ceasefire; the exchange of the hostages still held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners and detainees from Gaza; the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza; arrangements for humanitarian aid deliveries; and post-war governance of the territory.

Chief Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, whom Israel targeted last month in a series of strikes on Qatar's capital, told Egyptian state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV the group had come "to engage in serious and responsible negotiations," according to the Reuters news agency.

Al-Hayya said Hamas was ready to reach a deal, but it needed "guarantees" that the war would end and not restart.

Senior Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum said the group's negotiators were working to remove "all obstacles to an agreement that meets the aspirations of our people".

Trump said the prospects for peace were "something even beyond the Gaza situation", adding that "we want the release of the hostages immediately".

Speaking on the anniversary of the 7 October attacks, the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, UN Secretary General António Guterres called on all parties to agree to Trump's peace plan, describing it as a "historic opportunity" to "bring this tragic conflict to an end".

Opinion polls now consistently show that around 70% of Israelis want the war to end in exchange for the release of the hostages.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 67,160 have been killed by Israeli military operations in Gaza since then, including 18,000 children, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. Its figures are seen as reliable by the UN and other international bodies.

In August, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed body, said that more than half a million people across Gaza were facing "catastrophic" conditions characterised by "starvation, destitution and death".

Netanyahu has repeatedly denied starvation is taking place in Gaza.

A United Nations commission of inquiry found Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a report Israel's foreign ministry categorically rejected as "distorted and false".

Justin Bieber has filmed a video for his new single in a Dundee pub during a visit to Scotland.

The Canadian singer was seen in Abandon Ship in the city centre at the weekend and has now released a video for his song Bad Honey, filmed at the venue.

The 31-year-old flew into the city by private jet on Thursday and was also seen over the weekend playing golf at St Andrews and Gleneagles.

The video has been liked by more than 120,000 people on the singer's Instagram account.

Bar manager Rae Wright said the superstar came into the bar asking if there was DJ equipment he could use.

She said: "It was just a standard Saturday night and then he waltzes in with three or four people.

"He put his speaker on, set the place up, put a couple of lights on and then he just started filming."

Rae was initially unsure if it actually was the singer.

She said: "I'm used to the baby Justin Bieber with the hair flick and stuff, but obviously I've followed him a little bit.

"But no one walks around Dundee in a green beanie looking like that.

"And then my manager gave me the side eye that said, no this is really the Biebs."

Rae said Bieber was "lovely" and happily spoke to the bar staff and customers.

She said: "He chatted to the bar staff like we were actually people, which a lot of people don't seem to do.

"It will be nice when we've actually processed it all and think, wow, Justin Bieber was here."

Bieber posted the video to his social media channels on Monday night with the message "Bad Honey video for your headtops".

The bar shared the video on its Facebook page, posting: "You might have heard we had a special visitor over the weekend.

"Enjoy Justin Bieber laying down a new video for Bad Honey live at Abandon Ship right here in Dundee, Scotland."

Footage has circulated on social media of the singer drinking in the pub with local customers at the weekend.

Bieber also posted photos of himself drinking a beer in the street in St Andrews on Sunday morning.

He was previously seen at the Gleneagles Hotel, where he was filmed playing the piano and singing his song Walking Away.

Hundreds of National Guard troops from Texas have arrived at an army training centre outside Chicago to support US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

Trump has branded Chicago a "war zone", following recent protests against federal immigration officials in the third-largest US city.

The deployment comes amid opposition from local officials. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has accused the Trump administration of an "authoritarian march" and said the state would "use every lever at our disposal to stop this power grab".

Sources told CBS News, the BBC's US partner, that some troops could begin their assignments as early as Wednesday.

CBS also reported that trailers have been set up as temporary living quarters on the Army Reserve Training Center about 50 miles (80km) south-west of Chicago.

Fencing was also put up around the training facility late on Tuesday.

Local officials have said they have received few details on the troop assignments.

Trump argues the use of the troops is necessary to quell violence in Democratic-controlled cities, crack down on crime and support his deportation initiatives.

National Guard troops have limited power. They do not enforce the law, or make arrests, seizures, or searches - their role is instead about protecting federal officers and property.

Trump has already sent guard members into Los Angeles and Washington, DC, and has ordered them to enter Memphis and Portland.

A federal judge temporarily barred troops from deploying to Portland, however. Another judge has allowed the Chicago deployment for now.

Chicago has seen an increase in protests over immigration enforcement in the city, many of them happening outside US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities.

Last weekend, US Border Patrol personnel shot and injured a woman after a group of people rammed cars into immigration enforcement vehicles - though local media report that her lawyer has contested parts of the government's version of the events.

• Life next to Portland protest angering Trump
• Why is Trump trying to deploy the National Guard to US cities?

A hearing is scheduled for Thursday in the lawsuit filed by Illinois and Chicago - which are suing to stop National Guard troops from their state and from Texas being federalised, or brought under the control of the president.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson told BBC News on Tuesday that doing so, "literally handpicking National Guard people from another state, the state of Texas, and then sending them to the state of Illinois - this is illegal, unconstitutional, and dangerous".

On Monday, Johnson signed an executive order banning ICE agents from operating on city-owned properties.

The deployments have posed both legal and constitutional questions, as National Guard troops are typically deployed by a state's governor and century-old laws limit the government's use of the military for domestic matters.

Trump has said that he would consider invoking an even older law, the Insurrection Act, if federal courts stopped his deployment of National Guard troops to US cities.

The 1807 act allows a US president to use active-duty military personnel to perform law-enforcement duties inside the country.

Asked about that in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump referenced Chicago and said that "if the governor can't do the job, we'll do the job".

Unscrupulous foreign firms are using AI-generated images and false back stories to pose as family-run UK businesses to lure in shoppers.

Customers say they feel "completely ripped off" after believing they were buying from independent boutiques in England but were delivered cheap clothes and jewellery, mass-shipped from warehouses in east Asia.

Among the websites is C'est La Vie, a shop purporting to be run by couple Eileen and Patrick for 29 years and based in Birmingham's historic Jewellery Quarter - but with a returns address in China.

Consumer guide Which? said the growing use of AI tools was making it possible for fraudsters to mislead the public on an "unprecedented" scale.

Another website appearing to use AI-generated images is Mabel & Daisy, a seemingly quintessential, mother and daughter-owned clothing firm, which claims to be based in Bristol but has an address in Hong Kong.

More than 500 one-star reviews for the companies appear on review platform Trustpilot, with customers complaining of paying high prices for cheaply-made goods and being charged extortionate return fees.

Shoppers told the BBC they were targeted by ads as they scrolled on Facebook.

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), which recently banned ads by Marble Muse, a Chinese clothing company pretending to be based in London, said social media platforms also had their part to play in tackling the issue.

The BBC has contacted Facebook owner Meta for comment.

A grieving widow and 80%-off sale

With their warm smiles, branded shirts and cabinets full of jewellery behind them, Eileen and Patrick are the perfect image of a successful husband and wife team.

Except, they are literally too perfect, according to a professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Birmingham, Mark Lee.

"Previously there were obvious clues, for instance AI had difficulty generating realistic hands with plausible finger placement," he said after viewing the website.

"This seems well done but the images look a little bit too perfect and staged to be real."

'Lumps of resin'

Recent adverts for C'est La Vie, which claims to be based in Colmore Row, Birmingham, stated the couple had befallen a tragedy - Eileen's "beloved husband" Patrick had died and she was shutting the business down with an 80%-off clearance sale.

"I've battled to keep our handmade jewellery boutique alive but grief has drained my strength and I must close our doors," it said.

But customers lured in by the sob story posted furious reviews on Trustpilot about receiving "lumps of resin", "plastic junk" and "cheap metal rubbish".

"If I could give 0 stars, I would - complete scam, no such company in Birmingham, can't believe I fell for it," one said.

Sunny Pal, who runs Astella Jewellery in Birmingham, said that the scams damaged the reputation of the city's Jewellery Quarter and tarnished the hard work of local businesses.

"The lying ruins the distinguishing factor between different businesses. It takes the credibility away from family-run businesses that have been here for so long," he said.

Within hours of the BBC's first approach to C'est La Vie, its website stated all its products had sold out, the business was closed with a message from Eileen that said: "We're carefully packing and shipping the final orders that were placed."

The name of the business on its website then temporarily changed to "Alice and Fred" before returning to its C'est La Vie branding.

The company did not reply to a request for comment.

Justyne Gough spent £40 on a pink floral dress from Mabel & Daisy, a business that claims to have created "timeless clothing" in Bristol since 2022.

She realised it was a "complete scam" when the garment arrived weeks later looking nothing like the elegant dress on the website and made of an "awful material".

"The website looked lovely, professional and authentic but I had to email a few times to say the items hadn't arrived even though the money had been taken straight away," she said.

When she tried to return it, Ms Gough was told it would cost another £20. She eventually managed to get a refund of £20.

Emma, from Birmingham, said she tried to send a £50 jacket back to Mabel & Daisy which was far too big - but was told to keep it and, for an extra £10, she could be sent a smaller size.

"There was no way I wanted to give them any more money - I realised it wasn't based in Bristol when a load of Chinese symbols popped up when my initial transaction went through," she said.

Mabel & Daisy did not respond to our questions.

'Poor-quality tat'

Last month, in response to a complaint from BBC's Watchdog, the ASA banned ads for a so-called "British" clothing firm that used images of roses, cobbled streets and the union jack when it was shipping goods from a warehouse in Asia.

The regulator said it was continuing to take action on misleading ads.

But their spokesperson added: "Other regulators and the platforms on which these ads appear all have a part to play in tackling this issue."

Sue Davies, from Which?, said trading standards teams were "severely under-resourced and not well-equipped" to deal with the websites, meaning many could be going uninvestigated.

"Although the onus should not fall on consumers, there are steps they can take to limit the risk of ending up with poor-quality tat," she said.

Shoppers should check reviews online to see how other people have found the company's products and customer service.

It is also worth checking if the company is based in the UK - terms and conditions pages can reveal the location of businesses.

Identifiable locations

Prof Mark Lee said some things to look for were "images of the person in different settings, with different backgrounds and the inclusion of real, identifiable locations".

But he warned: "AI is becoming better every day and soon the challenge might not be to prove whether the site is AI-generated but whether there's actually a real human involved at all."

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The first series of the Celebrity Traitors kicks off later, with Sir Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie Alan Carr and Jonathan Ross among the contestants.

Presenter Claudia Winkleman will welcome 19 famous faces to the Scottish highlands when the 70-minute opening episode launches at 21:00 BST.

Charlotte Church, Kate Garraway, Paloma Faith and Tom Daley are among the other stars who will be sitting at the famous round table.

Ahead of the launch, Winkleman told journalists: "You think you know these people, and then you watch them play this game, and I was awestruck by the way they played it - with empathy, with wit and with real smarts."

It is the first celebrity version of the show, and will consist of nine hour-long episodes.

The show has already made headlines for the starry cast it has attracted - with many viewers saying the line-up features bigger names than other celebrity TV series.

"I don't think there's ever been a reality show on television with a line-up like this," commented BBC Radio 2 breakfast host Scott Mills on Wednesday morning.

As in previous years, the series will see three of the contestants assigned as "traitors", while the remaining "faithful" contestants must attempt to root them out.

Who are the celebrity contestants?

The contestants are:

• Alan Carr - Comedian
• Cat Burns – Singer/songwriter
• Celia Imrie – Actress
• Charlotte Church – Singer/activist
• Clare Balding - Broadcaster
• David Olusoga - Historian and filmmaker
• Joe Marler – Former England rugby union player
• Joe Wilkinson - Comedian
• Jonathan Ross - TV Presenter
• Kate Garraway - TV and radio presenter
• Lucy Beaumont - Comedian
• Mark Bonnar - Actor
• Nick Mohammed - Actor and comedian
• Niko Omilana - Online content creator
• Paloma Faith - Singer/songwriter
• Ruth Codd - Actress
• Stephen Fry - Actor and writer
• Tameka Empson – Actress and comedian
• Tom Daley – Olympian

What is the prize?

The celebrities will play for a cash prize of up to £100,000.

The exact figure will depend on how they perform in missions throughout the series, where the money can go up or down.

However, unlike the civilian version where the contestants keep the jackpot, the celebrities are playing for their chosen charity.

But they will receive a separate appearance fee for taking part in the series.

What can we expect from the series?

The trailer for the Celebrity Traitors shows the celebrities expressing their excitement as they are driven to Ardross Castle in Inverness.

But Winkleman soon tells them: "I know out in the real world you're very important and successful, but here, there is no special treatment."

The teaser also shows the celebrities taking part in their first mission, and sitting at the round table for the first time, wearing their blindfolds.

Looking ahead to the series, the stars also grapple with whether they will be chosen as traitors, or remain faithful.

"Maybe I have got a dark side," says Carr, while Sir Stephen adds: "I don't know what beasts lie within me". Imrie simply says: "I'm here to win."

For the first time, comedian Ed Gamble will take the spin-off show Uncloaked on location to the castle, to interview celebrities as soon as they leave.

Ahead of the series, Winkleman said: "We're incredibly lucky these brilliant people have said yes. I'd love to say we'll take it easy on them and they'll just wander round the castle and eat toast for a couple of weeks but that would be a lie."

Series three winner Leanne Quigley told BBC Breakfast on Wednesday: "What's going to be so interesting about the celebrity version is they're going in with a reputation, they're all going to know each other.

"They know what it's like to have cameras around them all the time, whereas we didn't, so they're going to know how to be on TV.

"So it's going to be interesting to see if they immerse themselves in the game, because I know for certain it's really difficult not to get involved and emotional, and play the game wholeheartedly."

What have the contestants said?

The celebrities haven't done many interviews ahead of the series launch, but here are what a few of them said in their Q&As on the BBC website.

Discussing her reasons for taking part, presenter Claire Balding said: "I really find it fascinating, the way group thinking can be influenced. I don't know whether I can resist that or whether I can influence that and I'm kind of interested in it from a psychological perspective."

Asked if she'd be good at finding traitors, comedian Lucy Beaumont joked: "When I was a teenager, I was good at spotting 15-year-old boys that were lying but things have changed since then. I hope the skills might return in this game."

Singer Cat Burns commented she has "always been really intrigued to see if I would, one, be able to work out who the Traitors are, and two, if I was a Traitor, if I would be able to keep up the mystery of it".

Actor Mark Bonnar said he was hoping to be a faithful. "I think that the added pressure of being a Traitor, just keeping that facade up the whole time, would be incredibly exhausting and quite stressful," he said.

Singer Charlotte Church, meanwhile, said she didn't have a game plan. "I'm going to read the field, moment by moment and be present. If you're able to stay present and be really open to your sensory portals - your ears, your eyes, even your spidey senses, then I think that you're able to be much more present."

The Celebrity Traitors begins on BBC One and iPlayer at 21:00 BST on Wednesday.