The value of small parcels shipped from China to the UK under an import tax exemption more than doubled last year to £3bn, exclusive data obtained by the BBC shows.

Chinese e-commerce giants such as Shein and Temu are thought to be drivers of this increase as sales of cheap goods to online shoppers in the UK continue to rise.

The UK government is reviewing the rules that mean imports of small packages worth £135 or less currently avoid customs duties.

But UK business owners and industry groups say they want swifter action to protect High Street retailers from being undercut, and consumers from potentially faulty goods.

Low-value imports sent from China to the UK totalled around £3bn in 2024-25, according to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) figures obtained by the BBC via a Freedom of Information request.

That was well over twice the £1.3bn recorded during the previous financial year.

The value of these deliveries from China made up 51% of all the small parcels shipped to the UK from around the world last year. That is up from 35% in 2023-24.

Katerina Buchy, director of Sheffield-based giftware wholesaler Ancient Wisdom, said low-value imports were hitting her company's business because it couldn't compete with the prices on sites like Shein and Temu.

"It's affecting our customers as well. They're not ordering from us because they know their customers can get it cheaper online," said Ms Buchy, who has worked at the firm since 2004.

"I think the government should not allow these companies to export such high quantities of products under these rules because it's just ridiculous.

"I'd like to know how much they are losing in taxes. We pay taxes. We employ more than 100 people."

Temu and Shein have become popular among UK consumers in recent years for selling affordable items including clothes, homeware, electronics and toys.

Founded in China but now headquartered in Singapore, Shein recorded soaring profits last year.

It has tried to get itself on the New York and London stock exchanges, but has yet to secure a listing on either.

Both companies were questioned by MPs earlier this year over labour standards linked to the making of products sold on their platforms.

Natalie Berg, retail analyst at NBK Retail, said it was no surprise that the increase in the value of small parcels from China had coincided with the expansion of companies like Shein and Temu.

"They've gone from niche newcomers to retail powerhouses in a very short period of time," she said.

But she warned that the removal of the tax exemption could disproportionately hit lower-income consumers, and small firms who use it to import goods.

She added: "This is a loophole that needs to be plugged, but the government must ensure that any changes don't ultimately harm consumers or small businesses."

'Significant and growing threat'

The Treasury announced a review of low-value imports in April following lobbying from major retailers including Next and Sainsbury's, which argued the exemption enabled overseas companies to undercut them.

But the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has called on ministers to take action now.

Andrew Opie, the BRC's director of food and sustainability, said low-value imports posed "a significant and growing threat" to investment in UK High Streets as retailers faced unfair competition.

He added that they also exposed consumers to "unregulated, potentially unsafe products" because they did not go through the same customs check process as other goods.

A spokesperson for Temu said the company aimed to have at least half of the sellers using its UK platform based in the country by the end of the year.

"This approach helps consumers access affordable products while giving UK businesses a low-cost channel to reach new customers and grow," the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Shein said the firm's "on-demand" business model allowed it to make savings that it could pass on to its customers.

They added: "Vendors are required to comply with Shein's code of conduct and stringent safety standards."

Treasury review ongoing

The US recently ended its so-called "de minimis" exemption on imports of low-cost goods from China and Hong Kong, which had allowed those valued at $800 (£596) or less to enter the country without paying any tariffs.

It is due to drop the exemption for other countries on 29 August.

The European Union also recently announced plans to charge a €2 flat fee on small packages worth €150 (£129) or less entering the bloc.

While the value of small parcels arriving in the UK from China has soared, when it comes to the actual number of items entering the country, the picture is less clear.

HMRC said it only records the number of customs declarations used for goods worth £135 or less, and multiple items can be included under one declaration.

It recorded around 281,000 customs declarations for low-value imports dispatched from China in 2024-25 – about 12% of the total.

A Treasury spokesperson said Chancellor Rachel Reeves' review of the customs treatment of low-value imports was ongoing and would be published "in due course".

They added: "We are a pro-business government that is backing Britain's High Streets by protecting and extending business rates relief that would have ended without our action, permanently lowering rates for retailers from next year, and capping corporation tax at the lowest level in the G7 to encourage investment and growth."

Additional reporting by Kris Bramwell.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has summoned the top US diplomat in Copenhagen, following a report that American citizens have been conducting "covert influence operations" in Greenland.

Denmark's public broadcaster DR quoted sources as saying the aim was to infiltrate Greenland's society and promote its secession from Denmark to the US, although it was unable to clarify whether the men were working on their own.

Rasmussen said in a statement that "any attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the Kingdom [of Denmark] will of course be unacceptable", and the US charge d'affaires had been summoned in that light.

The BBC has approached the US embassy for comment.

However, US President Trump has said several times he wants to annex Greenland, an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and Vice-President JD Vance has accused Copenhagen of underinvesting in the territory.

On a visit to Greenland a few months ago, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned the US that "you cannot annex another country".

The US currently has no ambassador in Copenhagen, so Rasmussen has summoned Mark Stroh, who as charge d'affaires is the most senior diplomat in the Danish capital.

Denmark's foreign minister said in a statement to the BBC that the government was "aware that foreign actors continue to show an interest in Greenland and its position in the Kingdom of Denmark".

"It is therefore not surprising if we experience outside attempts to influence the future of the Kingdom in the time ahead," he added.

Denmark is a member of Nato and the European Union and has long seen the US as one of its closest allies, and Danes have been shocked by Trump's determination to control its semi-autonomous territory. The US president said this year he would not rule out seizing it by force.

Lars Lokke Rasmussen has already summoned the US ambassador to Denmark this year in response to a separate report in May suggesting US spy agencies had been told to focus their efforts on Greenland.

DR's report on Wednesday gave details of a visit by one American to Greenland's capital Nuuk, saying he was seeking to compile a list of Greenlanders who backed US attempts to take over the island. The aim would be to try to recruit them for a secession movement, DR said.

The earlier May report in the Wall Street Journal also referred to learning more about Greenland's independence movement, as well as attitudes to American mineral extraction.

At the time, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard did not deny the report but accused the Journal of "breaking the law and undermining our nation's security and democracy".

A record one million hectares - equivalent to about half the land area of Wales - have burned across the European Union so far this year, making it the worst wildfire season since records began in 2006.

Spain and Portugal have been hit especially hard, with roughly 1% of the entire Iberian Peninsula scorched, according to EU scientists.

The worsening fire season in the Mediterranean has been linked directly to climate change in a separate study by the World Weather Attribution group at Imperial College London.

Experts warn that more frequent and severe fires across Europe are likely to continue in the future.

More than two thirds of the area burned in the EU is in Spain and Portugal alone.

In Spain, more than 400,000 hectares have burned since the beginning of this year up until 26 August, according to the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

This record is more than six times the Spanish average for this time period between 2006 and 2024.

Neighbouring Portugal has also suffered a record burn area of 270,000 hectares so far - almost five times the average for the same period.

The combined burn area across the Iberian peninsula this year is 684,000 hectares - four times the area of Greater London, and most of it burned in just two weeks.

Fires have been concentrated in forested areas of northern Portugal and in Spain's north-western regions of Galicia, Asturias and Castile and León.

Protected areas like Picos de Europa National Park have been impacted, as well as major routes on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage network which usually attracts more than 100,000 visitors in the summer months.

The events have triggered the largest known deployment of the EU civil protection mechanism's firefighting force.

Smoke from fires has dramatically decreased air quality in the area, with southerly wind sending smoke as far as France and the UK.

Climate change makes the conditions leading to wildfires more likely, but in a vicious cycle, the fires also release more planet-warming carbon dioxide gas (CO2) into our atmosphere.

CO2 released by fires in Spain this year has reached a record 17.68 million tonnes, according to the EU. This is more than any total annual CO2 emissions since 2003 from wildfires in that country, when data was first recorded by satellites.

For comparison, it is more than the total annual CO2 emitted by all of Croatia in 2023.

Firefighters have been battling blazes right across Europe this summer.

Climate change caused by humans made fire-prone conditions in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus about 10 times more likely, according to a rapid attribution study by World Weather Attribution group at Imperial College London.

It was responsible for a 22% increase in the extreme weather conditions behind the fires, said WWA.

It is causing more extreme heat, which dries out vegetation, increasing flammability, said Theodore Keeping, wildfire scientist at the centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London.

The continued burning of fossil fuels will lead to more of these extreme fires, the researchers warned.

"It was urgent 10 years ago to stop burning fossil fuels," said Dr Fredi Otto, Professor in Climate Science at Imperial and leader of the WWA, describing it as "lethal for people and ecosystems".

"Today, with 1.3C of warming [since pre-industrial times], we are seeing new extremes in wildfire behaviour that have pushed firefighters to their limit," said Mr Keeping.

The scientists have begun a rapid analysis on the wildfires in Spain and Portugal and expect similar findings related to climate change.

Across Southern and Eastern Europe, rural depopulation is also contributing to the intense wildfires, Mr Keeping added.

In regions like Spain and Portugal, a rising number of young people are relocating to cities in search of more profitable employment. Once-managed agricultural land is being abandoned and becoming overgrown, eliminating fire breaks and increasing the amount of flammable vegetation vulnerable to intense blazes.

Fire-hardy ecosystems struggling to cope

Fires have always been an important component of Mediterranean ecosystems and much of the natural wildlife has co-evolved to exist alongside fire.

In fact, species like the Iberian hare benefit from the newly opened habitat and native cork oaks can quickly colonise burned land.

Management techniques such as prescribed burning and vegetation removal have long kept yearly fires in check.

And regrowth of burned vegetation have typically offset the carbon emissions from wildfire as carbon once again became stored in plants and soil.

However, modern wildfires are larger, more frequent and more severe. Where forested regions struggle to regrow before the next fire, they can become part of a climate feedback loop, according to Dr Thomas Smith, Associate Professor in Environmental Geography at the London School of Economics.

"A warming climate is driving more frequent and larger fires, which is in turn driving carbon emissions that remain in the atmosphere, which is leading to a warmer climate," he explained.

The escalating risk from a hotter and drier climate makes fire management more difficult and poses a threat to long-term ecosystem stability.

There are also risks of accelerated soil erosion and water contamination from ashes washed into rivers and reservoirs, according to Professor Stefan Doerr, Director of the Centre for Wildlife Research at Swansea University.

Efforts to manage excess vegetation in fire-risk areas, as well as advances in preventing ignitions, fire detection and fire fighting could help reduce the number and severity fires in future.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending a military parade in the centre of Beijing, alongside Russian president Vladimir Putin and China's leader Xi Jinping, is quite the photo-op.

It's also a key diplomatic win for Xi.

The Chinese leader has been trying hard to project Beijing's power on the international stage - not just as the world's second-largest economy, but also as a diplomatic heavyweight.

He has emphasised China's role as a stable trading partner while Trump's tariffs upended economic relationships.

Now, while a deal with Putin to end the war in Ukraine continues to elude the US President, Xi is getting ready to host him in Beijing.

Kim's attendance, a surprise announcement, is no less significant. Trump said last week, in a meeting with the South Korean president, that he wanted to meet Kim Jong Un again.

His last shot at diplomacy with the reclusive dictator ended with no breakthroughs - despite two summits that captivated the world. Trump is suggesting he wants to try again.

Meanwhile, the Chinese leader is signalling that he may hold the geopolitical cards in this game, and that his influence – though limited – on both Kim and Putin may prove crucial in any deal.

The parade on 3 September will see a display of China's military might to mark 80 years since Japan surrendered in World War Two, bringing an end to its occupation of parts of China.

But now Xi has also turned it into a display of something more - and the timing is key. The White House has suggested that President Trump could be in the region at the end of October and is open to meeting Xi.

There is plenty on the table for them to discuss, from a long-awaited tariffs deal and the sale of TikTok in the US, to Beijing's ability to persuade Putin to agree to a ceasefire or more in Ukraine.

Now, having met both Kim and Putin, the Chinese leader would be able to sit down with Trump without feeling like has has been left out of the loop – and given his close relationship with both leaders, he may even have information his US counterpart does not.

Russia and North Korea are pariahs in the eyes of the western world. Kim for much longer than Putin because of his weapons programme, but his support for Moscow's invasion of Ukraine has renewed the condemnation.

So the invitation to Beijing is a big step for him - the last time a North Korean leader attended a military parade in China was in 1959.

There has been little public contact between Xi and Kim since 2019, when they met to mark the 70th anniversary of China-North Korean ties. Beijing was also Kim Jong Un's first stop in 2018 before his summits with President Trump to curb Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

More recently, Xi even appeared to be on the sidelines of a deepening Moscow-Pyongyang alliance, one that perhaps Beijing wanted no part of.

China has tried to stay publicly neutral on the war in Ukraine, while urging a peaceful solution. But the US and its allies have accused Beijing of supporting Moscow's efforts by supplying components Russia can use in its war effort.

Some analysts wondered if China's relationship with North Korea had soured as Kim grew closer to Putin. But Kim's visit to Beijing next week suggests otherwise.

It's not a relationship the North Korean leader can easily give up - his economy depends heavily on China, which provides almost 90% of food imports. And being on that stage with not just Putin and Xi, but other leaders, from Indonesia, Iran etc, also offers Kim legitimacy.

For Xi, this is diplomatic leverage with Washington ahead of a possible summit with Trump.

The two countries have continued talks to try and strike a deal and avert ruinous tariffs and a trade war. Another 90-day pause is under way but the clock is ticking, so Xi will want the strongest hand possible as negotiations go on.

He has much to offer: China has helped Trump in the past when he tried to meet Kim Jong Un. Could Xi do that again?

More important perhaps is what role China could play in ending the war in Ukraine.

The most striking question of all: could there be a meeting between Xi, Putin, Kim and Donald Trump?

Sir Keir Starmer is replacing the top civil servant in his Downing Street office.

Principal private secretary Nin Pandit runs the prime minister's team at No 10 and has only been in the role for ten months.

She is the third senior staff member the prime minister has appointed and later let go, after chief of staff Sue Gray left in October and director of communications Matthew Doyle stood down in March.

Ms Pandit's appointment had been announced by No 10 in the same press release that marked Ms Gray's departure.

The BBC understands the prime minister had become concerned Ms Pandit was ineffective in the role, although No 10 contests this and allies of the prime minister said he retained trust and confidence in her.

It is expected Pandit will move to another role in government.

No 10 said Ms Pandit remained in post but would not comment on whether her departure was imminent. The BBC has contacted Ms Pandit for comment.

The prime minister's principal private secretary (PPS) is one of the most prized jobs in the civil service and often a precursor to running major government departments or the service as a whole.

They act as the prime minister's gatekeeper to the official government machine and "run their life" according to one former insider.

They control the information flow to the prime minister, shape their diary and are often the last person in the room when major decisions are made.

The PPS usually sits alongside the chief of staff just outside the prime minister's office in No 10.

Before becoming PPS, Ms Pandit ran the No 10 policy unit during Rishi Sunak's premiership. Earlier in her career she was chief of staff to the chief executive of NHS England.

After a series of Labour parliamentary rebellions before the summer break, many in government are also expecting Sir Keir to soon begin a reshuffle of his junior ministers.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un will attend a military parade in Beijing on 3 September, China's foreign ministry has said - in what is believed to be his first international level meeting of leaders.

The so-called "Victory Day" parade will mark the 80th anniversary of China's war against Japan and the end of World War Two.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin will also be among the 26 heads of state expected to attend the event.

China is expected to display its latest weaponry including hundreds of aircraft, tanks and anti-drone systems - the first time its military's new force structure is being fully showcased in a parade.

The highly choreographed parade will see tens of thousands of military personnel march in formation through Tiananmen Square, including troops from 45 of the so-called echelons of China's military as well as war veterans.

The 70-minute parade, which will be surveyed by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, is expected to be closely watched by analysts and western powers.

Kim attending the parade in the centre of Beijing standing alongside Russia's Putin and China's Xi will be quite the photo op.

But it will also be a key diplomatic win for Xi.

US President Donald Trump is trying to make a deal with Putin to end the war in Ukraine. He has also in the last week announced he wants to meet Kim again.

The Chinese leader is signalling here that he holds the geopolitical cards in this game. He has influence – although it is limited – on both leaders.

The timing is also key. The White House has suggested that President Trump could be in the region at the end of October and is open to meeting Xi.

The Chinese leader would go into any summit with the US president fully briefed by Kim and Putin and will know he is not being left out of the loop.

It's been six years since Kim visited Beijing - he last attended the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 2019.

The reclusive North Korean leader also visited Beijing three times in 2018, marking a particularly busy year for international trips as he rarely travels abroad.

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

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on X to get the latest alerts.

The White House says it has fired the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Susan Monarez, after she refused to resign on Wednesday.

In a statement, it said she was "not aligned with the president's agenda" and she had been removed from her position at the health agency.

The US health department earlier announced her departure, which prompted a statement from Dr Monarez's lawyers who said she had not been told of her removal and she would not resign.

They said she was being targeted for refusing "to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts" and accused Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr of "weaponising public health".

"As her attorney's statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the president's agenda," the White House said later on Wednesday, adding that she had been terminated from her position as director.

A long-time federal government scientist, Dr Monarez was nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the CDC and was confirmed in a Senate vote along party lines in July.

Her nomination followed Trump withdrawing his first pick, former Republican Congressman Dave Weldon, who had come under fire for his views on vaccines and autism.

Almost immediately after Dr Monarez's departure was first announced by the health department, at least three senior CDC leaders resigned from the agency.

Among them was Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, who warned about the "rise of misinformation" about vaccines in a letter seen by the BBC's US partner CBS News. She also argued against planned cuts to the agency's budget.

Daniel Jernigan, who led the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, also quit citing "the current context in the department".

Head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Demetre Daskalakis, also said he was no longer able to serve "because of the ongoing weaponising of public health".

There are also reports, including by NBC News, that Dr Jennifer Layden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology, has also resigned.

The exodus comes as health experts voice concern over the agency's approach to immunisations under the leadership of Kennedy, a vaccine sceptic.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved new Covid vaccines while limiting who could receive them.

The vaccines will be available for all seniors, but younger adults and children without underlying health conditions will be excluded.

"The emergency use authorizations for Covid vaccines, once used to justify broad mandates on the general public during the Biden administration, are now rescinded," Kennedy wrote on X.

Dr Monarez was the first CDC director in 50 years to not hold a medical degree. Her background is in infectious disease research.

In her month as the CDC leader, she helped comfort agency employees after the CDC's headquarters in Atlanta was attacked by a gunman who believed he had been harmed by Covid vaccines.

The attack, in which hundreds of bullets struck the building, killed one police officer.

Earlier this month, current and former employees of the agency wrote an open letter accusing Kennedy of fuelling violence towards healthcare workers with his anti-vaccine rhetoric.

Dr Monarez departure comes about a week after a union representing CDC employees announced that it had fired about 600 employees.

The wide-ranging layoffs included employees working on the government's response to infectious diseases, including bird flu, as well as those researching environmental hazards and handling public record requests.

Alongside the taxis waiting outside Union Station in Washington DC, the sight of uniformed troops standing next to armoured military vehicles has been greeting passengers getting off their trains.

It is a striking symbol of President Trump's efforts to tackle a "crime emergency" in the US capital, which has seen his administration take over its police department and send National Guard troops, FBI and ICE agents on to the streets.

Trump says his crime crackdown, which began on 11 August, has had an immediate effect: "The numbers are down like we wouldn't believe, but we believe it".

And he has claimed that it has led to an extended period of time without any murders, a trend he says has not been seen in the city US in decades.

So what do the crime figures show?

Violent crime has fallen

There has been a significant fall in overall violent crime since the crackdown started, according to Washington's Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

It recorded 75 violent crimes from 12-26 August, a drop of 23% on the previous two weeks.

Property crimes, such as burglary and vehicle theft, fell by about a quarter over the same period.

There was a smaller fall in the crime of "assault with a dangerous weapon" and an increase in recorded "sex abuse".

US crime analyst Jeff Asher says this may not reveal the whole picture though.

"Reporting [of crime] always lags so some of that decline is likely artificial. You probably need six weeks or so for incident-based reporting to catch up and make a comparison of the most recent period."

MPD figures also show violent crime has fallen in the city over the past fortnight when compared to the same period last year.

Trump has repeatedly criticised police figures - which showed violent crime falling in 2024 and so far in 2025 - but we cannot find instances of him publicly rejecting the latest police data showing another fall during his crime crackdown.

More than 1,000 people arrested

US Attorney General Pam Bondi has been posting a daily tally of arrests since the DC takeover started.

On August 25, she posted there had been 1,007 arrests.

She has not given a detailed breakdown but US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said nearly half were "illegal criminals who never should have been in this country to begin with".

The MPD said from August 11 to August 25, 2025, it made 1,048 arrests - it would not give a breakdown either.

The Office of the US Attorney General for DC, Jeanine Pirro, told us 88% of arrests in this period have led to charges being filed.

Criminologists caution against citing arrest figures as a successful measure of tackling crime.

They stress that even if an arrest does lead to a charge, prosecutions can fall apart or the defendant can be found not guilty.

Pressure on the court system

The impact of the arrests and charges was evident when BBC Verify visited DC's District Court on Tuesday.

Some defendants have found themselves arrested over crimes which would normally be dealt with by a lower court but are now facing federal offences, which generally result in longer jail time.

Lawyers told us that the court was now struggling to process a bigger caseload.

We have asked for the latest figures of cases coming through.

Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui said from his bench that the criminal justice system in DC "was not keeping up" with the large rise in federal prosecutions being brought.

In one hearing, the judge warned suspects were being held in detention for much longer than they should be.

"If there's going to be a surge in prosecutions there has to be a surge in the protection of human dignity," he said.

Assistant Federal Defender Tezira Abe told the court her client, Darious Phillips, was "very obviously a victim of this incursion in DC of federal agents".

Mr Phillips was arrested on a gun charge last Thursday and remained in detention five days later.

Court documents seen by BBC Verify show the FBI and other federal agents were involved in the arrest, in which a Mac 9 machine gun was allegedly found.

Judge Faruqui said he was concerned that the defendant was now on "suicide watch" and had not yet had the opportunity to enter a plea.

The prosecutor argued in court that Mr Phillips remains a danger to the public and should stay in pretrial detention, not least because he served five years in jail for shooting a man at a gas station in 2018.

The Pentagon has sent 20 military lawyers from its Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps to the US Attorney's Office for DC to help with prosecutions.

The president has also signed a new Executive Order calling for the hiring of additional civilian prosecutors.

US Attorney General for DC Ms Pirro has said tougher sentences need to go hand in hand with the crackdown on crime.

In a statement, she condemned Judge Faruqui's comments and accused him of being soft on gun crime.

What about murders?

On 22 August, Trump told reporters that this is "the first time in anybody's memory, that you haven't had a murder in a week."

It is true that in the week Trump was referring to there had not been any homicides (a police term which includes both murder and manslaughter).

However, the homicide-free streak is not as rare as the president claimed.

DC police figures show there were several similar length periods earlier this year when no homicides were reported.

This happened in the week between 4 and 11 May, for example, and during the two-week period between 25 February and 13 March.

Trump said on 25 August that there had been "no murders in 11 days".

This was true at the time when the last homicide reported by DC police had been on 13 August.

But on 26 August a man was fatally shot in southeast Washington.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Two children, aged 8 and 10, were killed and 17 people were injured when an attacker fired through the windows of a Minneapolis Catholic church at people celebrating Mass, police said.

Annunciation Church, which also houses a school, was filled with students when the shooting happened on Wednesday. Of the 17 injured victims, 14 are children and all are expected to survive.

The attacker, 23-year-old Robin Westman, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene and had no "significant criminal history", authorities said.

"This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping," Police Chief Brian O'Hara told reporters.

"The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible," he added.

The motive for the shooting is still unknown. It is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime against Catholics, FBI Director Kash Patel said.

Police began receiving calls of a shooting just before 08:00 local time (14:00BST) on Wednesday.

The attacker approached the side of the building and fired dozens of shots through the church windows using three firearms - a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol. Police also found a smoke bomb at the scene.

Officials are investigating if he shot inside the building or if all the shots came from outside the church, noting that no casings from bullets were found inside.

"I could hear 'boom, boom, boom'," P.J Mudd, who lives close to the church and was working from home on Wednesday morning, told the Wall Street Journal. "It suddenly dawned on me - it was a shooting."

He then ran to the church where he saw three magazine cartridges on the ground.

A 10-year-old boy who survived the attack told CBS affiliate WCCO that his friend saved him from bullets by lying on top of him.

"I was like two seats away from the stained glass window," he said. "My friend, Victor, saved me though, because he laid on top of me, but he got hit."

"My friend got hit in the back, he went to the hospital... I was super scared for him but I think now he's okay," he said.

The school, located in a residential area of southern Minneapolis, is home to students aged between 5 and 14.

The attacker's mother, Mary Grace Westman, previously worked at the school, according to a school newsletter from 2016. A post on Facebook says she retired from the role in 2021.

Police did find a note the suspect scheduled to publish online at the time of the shooting. The FBI assisted officials and took it down.

Governor Tim Walz said President Donald Trump and his team had expressed their "deep condolences" and offered assistance.

He said the situation is "all too common - not just in Minnesota, but across the country", adding that he hoped no community or school ever had to go through a day like this.

Trump later said the US flag would be flown at half-mast at the White House as a show of respect to the victims.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un will attend a military parade in Beijing on 3 September, China's foreign ministry has said - in what is believed to be his first international level meeting of leaders.

The so-called "Victory Day" parade will mark the 80th anniversary of China's war against Japan and the end of World War Two.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin will also be among the 26 heads of state expected to attend the event.

China is expected to display its latest weaponry including hundreds of aircraft, tanks and anti-drone systems - the first time its military's new force structure is being fully showcased in a parade.

The highly choreographed parade will see tens of thousands of military personnel march in formation through Tiananmen Square, including troops from 45 of the so-called echelons of China's military as well as war veterans.

The 70-minute parade, which will be surveyed by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, is expected to be closely watched by analysts and western powers.

Kim attending the parade in the centre of Beijing standing alongside Russia's Putin and China's Xi will be quite the photo op.

But it will also be a key diplomatic win for Xi.

US President Donald Trump is trying to make a deal with Putin to end the war in Ukraine. He has also in the last week announced he wants to meet Kim again.

The Chinese leader is signalling here that he holds the geopolitical cards in this game. He has influence – although it is limited – on both leaders.

The timing is also key. The White House has suggested that President Trump could be in the region at the end of October and is open to meeting Xi.

The Chinese leader would go into any summit with the US president fully briefed by Kim and Putin and will know he is not being left out of the loop.

It's been six years since Kim visited Beijing - he last attended the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 2019.

The reclusive North Korean leader also visited Beijing three times in 2018, marking a particularly busy year for international trips as he rarely travels abroad.

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

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on X to get the latest alerts.

Ukraine has come under heavy Russian bombardment overnight, with a child among three people killed in Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said early on Thursday.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the attack on Ukraine's capital was "massive" with military officials confirming at least 24 people had been injured.

A five storey-building collapsed in the Darnytski district and a fire had also been reported in a high-rise residential building in the neighbouring Dnipro district, the mayor added.

The wave of missiles comes after more than 100,000 Ukrainian homes were left without power by the latest Russian drone attacks on energy infrastructure, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday.

In a post on Telegram, Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv's military administration, said the child who was killed was a 14-year-old girl. At least five children had been injured in the latest drone strikes.

He noted more than 20 districts had been targeted, with many buildings including a kindergarten catching on fire.

Three and a half years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, fighting on the ground shows no sign of abating.

The latest international effort to achieve a ceasefire in Ukraine was launched by US President Donald Trump earlier this month. He met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska and Zelensky with European leaders in Washington.

Trump has been pushing for a Putin-Zelensky summit. Ukraine's president has backed the move, but he has sought security guarantees from Western allies to prevent any future Russian attack in the event of a peace deal.

On Tuesday, Zelensky met the head of Britain's armed forces, Adm Sir Tony Radakin, in Kyiv, where they discussed efforts to end the war.

US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff has said he would meet Ukrainian representatives in New York this week, telling Fox News "we talk to the Russians every day".

The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, has warned that handing over Ukrainian territory to Russia as part of a peace deal was a "trap".

A record one million hectares - equivalent to about half the land area of Wales - have burned across the European Union so far this year, making it the worst wildfire season since records began in 2006.

Spain and Portugal have been hit especially hard, with roughly 1% of the entire Iberian Peninsula scorched, according to EU scientists.

The worsening fire season in the Mediterranean has been linked directly to climate change in a separate study by the World Weather Attribution group at Imperial College London.

Experts warn that more frequent and severe fires across Europe are likely to continue in the future.

More than two thirds of the area burned in the EU is in Spain and Portugal alone.

In Spain, more than 400,000 hectares have burned since the beginning of this year up until 26 August, according to the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

This record is more than six times the Spanish average for this time period between 2006 and 2024.

Neighbouring Portugal has also suffered a record burn area of 270,000 hectares so far - almost five times the average for the same period.

The combined burn area across the Iberian peninsula this year is 684,000 hectares - four times the area of Greater London, and most of it burned in just two weeks.

Fires have been concentrated in forested areas of northern Portugal and in Spain's north-western regions of Galicia, Asturias and Castile and León.

Protected areas like Picos de Europa National Park have been impacted, as well as major routes on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage network which usually attracts more than 100,000 visitors in the summer months.

The events have triggered the largest known deployment of the EU civil protection mechanism's firefighting force.

Smoke from fires has dramatically decreased air quality in the area, with southerly wind sending smoke as far as France and the UK.

Climate change makes the conditions leading to wildfires more likely, but in a vicious cycle, the fires also release more planet-warming carbon dioxide gas (CO2) into our atmosphere.

CO2 released by fires in Spain this year has reached a record 17.68 million tonnes, according to the EU. This is more than any total annual CO2 emissions since 2003 from wildfires in that country, when data was first recorded by satellites.

For comparison, it is more than the total annual CO2 emitted by all of Croatia in 2023.

Firefighters have been battling blazes right across Europe this summer.

Climate change caused by humans made fire-prone conditions in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus about 10 times more likely, according to a rapid attribution study by World Weather Attribution group at Imperial College London.

It was responsible for a 22% increase in the extreme weather conditions behind the fires, said WWA.

It is causing more extreme heat, which dries out vegetation, increasing flammability, said Theodore Keeping, wildfire scientist at the centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London.

The continued burning of fossil fuels will lead to more of these extreme fires, the researchers warned.

"It was urgent 10 years ago to stop burning fossil fuels," said Dr Fredi Otto, Professor in Climate Science at Imperial and leader of the WWA, describing it as "lethal for people and ecosystems".

"Today, with 1.3C of warming [since pre-industrial times], we are seeing new extremes in wildfire behaviour that have pushed firefighters to their limit," said Mr Keeping.

The scientists have begun a rapid analysis on the wildfires in Spain and Portugal and expect similar findings related to climate change.

Across Southern and Eastern Europe, rural depopulation is also contributing to the intense wildfires, Mr Keeping added.

In regions like Spain and Portugal, a rising number of young people are relocating to cities in search of more profitable employment. Once-managed agricultural land is being abandoned and becoming overgrown, eliminating fire breaks and increasing the amount of flammable vegetation vulnerable to intense blazes.

Fire-hardy ecosystems struggling to cope

Fires have always been an important component of Mediterranean ecosystems and much of the natural wildlife has co-evolved to exist alongside fire.

In fact, species like the Iberian hare benefit from the newly opened habitat and native cork oaks can quickly colonise burned land.

Management techniques such as prescribed burning and vegetation removal have long kept yearly fires in check.

And regrowth of burned vegetation have typically offset the carbon emissions from wildfire as carbon once again became stored in plants and soil.

However, modern wildfires are larger, more frequent and more severe. Where forested regions struggle to regrow before the next fire, they can become part of a climate feedback loop, according to Dr Thomas Smith, Associate Professor in Environmental Geography at the London School of Economics.

"A warming climate is driving more frequent and larger fires, which is in turn driving carbon emissions that remain in the atmosphere, which is leading to a warmer climate," he explained.

The escalating risk from a hotter and drier climate makes fire management more difficult and poses a threat to long-term ecosystem stability.

There are also risks of accelerated soil erosion and water contamination from ashes washed into rivers and reservoirs, according to Professor Stefan Doerr, Director of the Centre for Wildlife Research at Swansea University.

Efforts to manage excess vegetation in fire-risk areas, as well as advances in preventing ignitions, fire detection and fire fighting could help reduce the number and severity fires in future.

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Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has said he will boycott the banquet for Donald Trump's state visit next month, to "send a message" to the US president over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Sir Ed said it went against his "instincts" to decline an invitation from the King, describing this as an "honour".

But he added that Trump's influence over Israel, Qatar and other Gulf states meant "he has the power to stop the horrifying starvation and death in Gaza and get the hostages released".

Trump and his wife Melania will be hosted by King Charles and Queen Camilla for the US president's second state visit from 17 to 19 September, which includes a banquet in St George's Hall in Windsor Castle.

Around 150 guests are typically invited to the grand dinners, ranging from politicians and diplomats to religious leaders and celebrities.

As leader of the UK's third biggest party, Sir Ed has previously attended several state banquets, including for French President Emmanuel Macron's visit last month.

Sir Ed said: "Emily and I have spent all summer thinking about this and have prayed about it. There is no honour like an invitation from the King, and not to accept his invitation goes against all of our instincts.

"But I fear we could have a situation where Donald Trump comes to our country, is honoured with a lavish dinner at one of our finest palaces, yet no one reminds him that he has the power to stop the horrifying starvation and death in Gaza and get the hostages released.

"If Donald Trump tells [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu to stop this, it ends tomorrow. If Donald Trump uses his influence over Qatar and other Gulf states that Hamas relies on, all the hostages could come home tomorrow.

"Boycotting the banquet is the one way I can send a message to Donald Trump and Keir Starmer that they can't close their eyes and wish this away. We have to speak up, they have to act. Donald Trump must act to end this humanitarian crisis."

Trump has consistently backed Netanyahu during the conflict but acknowledged last month that there was "real starvation" in Gaza, something Israel has denied.

The United Nations has said there is "man-made" famine in Gaza, accusing Israel of restricting the amount of aid entering the territory.

Israel has rejected claims it is responsible for food shortages.

Israel's 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 62,819 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health ministry.

Trump was hosted by the late Queen Elizabeth II for a state visit in 2019, during his first term in office.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has described the second invitation as "historic" and "unprecedented".

Traditionally, second-term presidents are not offered a state visit and have instead been invited for tea or lunch with the monarch.

While he will be given a full ceremonial welcome, Trump will not get an opportunity to address MPs as the House of Commons breaks up for the annual party conference season the day before he is due to arrive in the UK.

In 2019, then-Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable declined to attend Trump's state banquet, saying British politicians should not be "hobnobbing with a man who is on record as a misogynist and a racist".

Then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Commons Speaker John Bercow were also among those who declined their invites.

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The value of small parcels shipped from China to the UK under an import tax exemption more than doubled last year to £3bn, exclusive data obtained by the BBC shows.

Chinese e-commerce giants such as Shein and Temu are thought to be drivers of this increase as sales of cheap goods to online shoppers in the UK continue to rise.

The UK government is reviewing the rules that mean imports of small packages worth £135 or less currently avoid customs duties.

But UK business owners and industry groups say they want swifter action to protect High Street retailers from being undercut, and consumers from potentially faulty goods.

Low-value imports sent from China to the UK totalled around £3bn in 2024-25, according to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) figures obtained by the BBC via a Freedom of Information request.

That was well over twice the £1.3bn recorded during the previous financial year.

The value of these deliveries from China made up 51% of all the small parcels shipped to the UK from around the world last year. That is up from 35% in 2023-24.

Katerina Buchy, director of Sheffield-based giftware wholesaler Ancient Wisdom, said low-value imports were hitting her company's business because it couldn't compete with the prices on sites like Shein and Temu.

"It's affecting our customers as well. They're not ordering from us because they know their customers can get it cheaper online," said Ms Buchy, who has worked at the firm since 2004.

"I think the government should not allow these companies to export such high quantities of products under these rules because it's just ridiculous.

"I'd like to know how much they are losing in taxes. We pay taxes. We employ more than 100 people."

Temu and Shein have become popular among UK consumers in recent years for selling affordable items including clothes, homeware, electronics and toys.

Founded in China but now headquartered in Singapore, Shein recorded soaring profits last year.

It has tried to get itself on the New York and London stock exchanges, but has yet to secure a listing on either.

Both companies were questioned by MPs earlier this year over labour standards linked to the making of products sold on their platforms.

Natalie Berg, retail analyst at NBK Retail, said it was no surprise that the increase in the value of small parcels from China had coincided with the expansion of companies like Shein and Temu.

"They've gone from niche newcomers to retail powerhouses in a very short period of time," she said.

But she warned that the removal of the tax exemption could disproportionately hit lower-income consumers, and small firms who use it to import goods.

She added: "This is a loophole that needs to be plugged, but the government must ensure that any changes don't ultimately harm consumers or small businesses."

'Significant and growing threat'

The Treasury announced a review of low-value imports in April following lobbying from major retailers including Next and Sainsbury's, which argued the exemption enabled overseas companies to undercut them.

But the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has called on ministers to take action now.

Andrew Opie, the BRC's director of food and sustainability, said low-value imports posed "a significant and growing threat" to investment in UK High Streets as retailers faced unfair competition.

He added that they also exposed consumers to "unregulated, potentially unsafe products" because they did not go through the same customs check process as other goods.

A spokesperson for Temu said the company aimed to have at least half of the sellers using its UK platform based in the country by the end of the year.

"This approach helps consumers access affordable products while giving UK businesses a low-cost channel to reach new customers and grow," the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Shein said the firm's "on-demand" business model allowed it to make savings that it could pass on to its customers.

They added: "Vendors are required to comply with Shein's code of conduct and stringent safety standards."

Treasury review ongoing

The US recently ended its so-called "de minimis" exemption on imports of low-cost goods from China and Hong Kong, which had allowed those valued at $800 (£596) or less to enter the country without paying any tariffs.

It is due to drop the exemption for other countries on 29 August.

The European Union also recently announced plans to charge a €2 flat fee on small packages worth €150 (£129) or less entering the bloc.

While the value of small parcels arriving in the UK from China has soared, when it comes to the actual number of items entering the country, the picture is less clear.

HMRC said it only records the number of customs declarations used for goods worth £135 or less, and multiple items can be included under one declaration.

It recorded around 281,000 customs declarations for low-value imports dispatched from China in 2024-25 – about 12% of the total.

A Treasury spokesperson said Chancellor Rachel Reeves' review of the customs treatment of low-value imports was ongoing and would be published "in due course".

They added: "We are a pro-business government that is backing Britain's High Streets by protecting and extending business rates relief that would have ended without our action, permanently lowering rates for retailers from next year, and capping corporation tax at the lowest level in the G7 to encourage investment and growth."

Additional reporting by Kris Bramwell.

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When Laura Burns was asked to leave her flat as her landlord was selling up, she discovered she didn't have enough money to move.

Energy debts and removal costs meant she needed hundreds of pounds to get a new flat.

Feeling trapped and facing eviction, the mother-of-one turned to a charity and asked for £600. The money came through almost instantly.

"I was like, 'oh my goodness', this is a weight off my mind," says the 32-year-old from Didcot, in Oxfordshire. "There are no words to describe leaving that stress behind."

Greater Change, the charity that helped Laura, believes giving money to people who are homeless or those at risk of losing their properties with few strings attached can help tackle homelessness. So far this year, it says the charity has paid out £699,000 to 403 people.

The initiative is small in scale – the homeless charity Shelter estimated there were more than 350,000 homeless people in England at the end of last year. But Greater Change says the scheme has the potential to save money in the long-run.

"We're giving people dignity of choice," says the charity's chief executive, Jonathan Tan. "Very often, in a homelessness pathway, it feels like it's things being done to you and so we're giving people the ability to make choices about their lives."

The money is paid out through a support worker and the charity says it will listen to all requests for help. It says people typically spend the money on rent deposits, bills or tackling debts.

Greater Change, which was formed by two university friends in 2018, is funded from donations, philanthropists, grant-making bodies and councils. It says its approach saves taxpayers tens of thousands of pounds per client by preventing people from becoming homeless and therefore needing support from their local authority.

"We're happy to fund anything under the sun as long as it aligns with the individual's ambitions and helps them to take that next big step out of homelessness," says Mr Tan. The charity says 86% of people it has supported moved into stable housing, with almost half finding a job.

But one concern is homeless people could spend the money on feeding addictions.

Asked how the charity ensures the money it gives out isn't spent on drugs and alcohol, Mr Tan says: "The first and most important thing to say is the international evidence is that people tend to make pretty good choices."

He says almost half of those supported were able to get a job.

One of the studies he points to is the New Leaf project, in Vancouver, Canada. It gave 50 people who were homeless around £4,000 (CAD$7,500) each directly rather than via a support worker. It also monitored another 65 homeless people who they didn't help. A follow-up study showed that after a year, those who had received the money spent fewer days without a home. There was also no evidence that they had increased spending on things like drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

A smaller scale project in the UK has shown similar results. The Personal Grants project, which involved 81 people, led by the London-based St Martin-in-the-Fields charity working alongside organisations in Glasgow, Oxford and Swansea, paid money directly into the bank accounts of homeless people.

The Personal Grants project has not had "a single adverse incident among any participants", according to the Centre for Homelessness Impact, which also worked on the scheme. They say people spent the money on furniture, books, clothes or simply saved it. "None spent the money on drugs, alcohol, or gambling," say the Centre.

They are now recruiting 250 people in Belfast and London to test the concept on a larger scale, with the project overseen by researchers from Kings College, London.

Greater Change acknowledges that its support is most effective when it is used as an early intervention - when someone is sofa surfing, or at risk of homelessness - rather than for helping entrenched rough sleepers who might need intensive mental health support for instance. Various campaigns over the years have actively discouraged people from giving money to people on the streets, arguing the funds could be misused.

These projects also do not tackle the fundamental cause of most homelessness - there is a widespread acknowledgement that a lack of affordable housing is the key to solving the crisis and the government has committed to building 1.5m homes by August 2029. But the charity says such innovative schemes can be extremely helpful to some people.

Since receiving her grant, Laura Burns' life has been transformed – she now has a new home, a job and is about to get married. The money she received was the right help, at the right time. "I know you don't get much for £600 these days. But for me it was a life-saving amount of money. Life is now dandy."

Two children, aged 8 and 10, were killed and 17 people were injured when an attacker fired through the windows of a Minneapolis Catholic church at people celebrating Mass, police said.

Annunciation Church, which also houses a school, was filled with students when the shooting happened on Wednesday. Of the 17 injured victims, 14 are children and all are expected to survive.

The attacker, 23-year-old Robin Westman, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene and had no "significant criminal history", authorities said.

"This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping," Police Chief Brian O'Hara told reporters.

"The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible," he added.

The motive for the shooting is still unknown. It is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime against Catholics, FBI Director Kash Patel said.

Police began receiving calls of a shooting just before 08:00 local time (14:00BST) on Wednesday.

The attacker approached the side of the building and fired dozens of shots through the church windows using three firearms - a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol. Police also found a smoke bomb at the scene.

Officials are investigating if he shot inside the building or if all the shots came from outside the church, noting that no casings from bullets were found inside.

"I could hear 'boom, boom, boom'," P.J Mudd, who lives close to the church and was working from home on Wednesday morning, told the Wall Street Journal. "It suddenly dawned on me - it was a shooting."

He then ran to the church where he saw three magazine cartridges on the ground.

A 10-year-old boy who survived the attack told CBS affiliate WCCO that his friend saved him from bullets by lying on top of him.

"I was like two seats away from the stained glass window," he said. "My friend, Victor, saved me though, because he laid on top of me, but he got hit."

"My friend got hit in the back, he went to the hospital... I was super scared for him but I think now he's okay," he said.

The school, located in a residential area of southern Minneapolis, is home to students aged between 5 and 14.

The attacker's mother, Mary Grace Westman, previously worked at the school, according to a school newsletter from 2016. A post on Facebook says she retired from the role in 2021.

Police did find a note the suspect scheduled to publish online at the time of the shooting. The FBI assisted officials and took it down.

Governor Tim Walz said President Donald Trump and his team had expressed their "deep condolences" and offered assistance.

He said the situation is "all too common - not just in Minnesota, but across the country", adding that he hoped no community or school ever had to go through a day like this.

Trump later said the US flag would be flown at half-mast at the White House as a show of respect to the victims.

Two women who reported being drugged and raped by prolific sex offender Zhenhao Zou said they were attacked within 24 hours of each other, the BBC has established.

The first woman who says she was raped told us she was shocked to learn about the second attack and had since felt guilt for not reporting her rape sooner.

Metropolitan Police detectives investigating Zou's offences initially questioned whether the two women might be the same person, because the two attacks sounded identical and happened in such a short space of time.

This timing showed Zou was confident, a source familiar with the investigation told the BBC World Service. "He was getting away with it, so he wanted to do it more and more," they said.

Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual violence

Zou was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 24 years, in June.

The Chinese national was convicted for drugging and raping 10 women - three in the UK and seven in China - between September 2019 and May 2023. All victims appear to have been Chinese.

But after his trial, detectives - having described Zou as one of the UK's "most prolific predators" - said they feared he may have attacked 50 more women.

Since Zou's trial, 24 women have come forward in both the UK and China, including the victims of these two attacks.

The first woman, who we are calling Rachel, says she met Zou for drinks in late October 2022. He drove her to his waterside villa in Zhupingsha village, near the Chinese city of Dongguan, where he gave her a whisky cocktail that left her so dizzy that she says she could barely move. After she lay down upstairs to recover, she says he raped her.

Phone records and messages shared with the BBC reveal Rachel had tried to call a friend for help afterwards, but Zou had grabbed her phone from her and spoke to the friend himself.

Zou did not return Rachel's phone to her until the following afternoon. In a series of frantic messages on the Chinese app WeChat, Rachel told her friend she was still in Zou's house and asked why she hadn't been able to come and get her.

Her friend explained that she had heard Rachel crying out for help on the phone, but that Zou wouldn't reveal his address.

"My friend was afraid that if she kept asking, he'd go to extremes and hurt me," Rachel later told the BBC. She says Zou ended up dropping her home just before 14:00. "The man treated me as a toy," she said.

Rachel said she didn't report her rape to police in China because she feared she did not have sufficient evidence and was worried about people finding out.

We do not know exactly what else was in the cocktail that Rachel drank, but when UK police raided Zou's London apartment they found a substance called butanediol - which converts into date-rape drug GHB in the body.

Butanediol is a controlled substance in the UK, but it can be easily bought without a prescription in China to treat insomnia, where it costs as little as $3 (£2.22) per 500ml, the BBC has found.

Zou had also repeatedly searched online for information around the sleeping drug triazolam, which is a banned substance in the UK but available on prescription in China, according to evidence shown at his trial.

A screenshot of WeChat messages circulating among Zou's former classmates, seen by the BBC, shows Zou had begun researching prescription sleeping pills in China in January 2020, asking a friend there if he knew anyone who had been prescribed them from whom he could "buy from directly".

• Student who raped 10 women jailed for 24 years
• Chinese victims tell BBC about serial rapist

The second victim who was attacked on the same day in October 2022 is referred to as Female D, because her identity was not known to UK police at the time of Zou's trial. He was, however, convicted of raping her using video evidence from his devices. She contacted UK police shortly after his trial ended in March 2025, having learned of his conviction.

Through documents shown at his trial, we have established that Zou met Female D for a date just a few hours after he had driven Rachel home. He drugged and raped her, filming the attack. In a victim impact statement read at Zou's sentencing in June, Female D said that she had been unable to escape until 04:00 the following day.

Rachel - the first victim from late October 2022 - also decided to report her experiences to the Met Police in March 2025. With the help of an independent translator, she submitted an anonymous statement over email.

Responding to her report, a police officer sought more information on Rachel's identity, saying it "seemed we may have already had contact with this person" and that the account sounded "very much identical to one we already have from this time period".

Rachel said she clarified that she had never reported the case to Chinese or British police.

The BBC has verified that initials shared by the Met in the correspondence to check Rachel's identity with her, in fact belonged to Female D.

The Met Police told us its investigation into Zou continued, including liaising with the Crown Prosecution Service around potential further charges.

Det Ch Insp Tariq Farooqi said: "The scale of his offending – which spanned two continents – makes him one of the most dangerous sexual offenders the Met has ever brought to justice."

In her victim impact statement, Female D said she had been haunted by nightmares after the attack and "couldn't be alone after dark".

Rachel says she feels if she had called the police the next day, Female D might not have become a victim. "I know everyone will say this is his fault, not mine, but I still feel sorry."

Since his conviction, former schoolfriends of Zou in China have revealed how he asked them for advice about assembling spy cameras that may have helped him keep a record of his crimes - including just before UK police first arrested him.

A series of messages, shared with the BBC, appear to show Zou asking one friend for advice about building mini cameras on 21 December 2023. Documents submitted to court during Zou's trial show he searched online for "hidden camera" and "electric alarm clock camera" on the same day and made purchases on eBay of surveillance equipment.

Zou messaged the same friend once again on 17 January 2024.

He was arrested by police seven days later.

During a search of his London apartment, police later found a spy camera in a box alongside a memory card containing video evidence of his rapes.

• Details of help and support with sexual violence are available at BBC Action Line

If you have information about this story that you would like to share with us please get in touch.

You can speak to BBC journalist wanqing.zhang@bbc.co.uk in Chinese or English - please include contact details if you are willing to speak to her.

Jacqueline Wilson has been writing for more than five decades and has published hundreds of books. She describes her new novel Picture Imperfect - her adult sequel to the The Illustrated Mum - as "the easiest and the hardest thing" she's ever written.

Published in 1999, The Illustrated Mum tells the story of two sisters - Dolphin and Star - who struggle to cope with their unstable and heavily tattooed mother Marigold, whose bipolar disorder threatens to pull their family apart.

The sequel focuses on Dolphin, 33, still looking after her mum and feeling dejected with life living in a bedsit and working at a tattoo parlour.

"It was easy because I loved that book," Wilson tells me over a cup of coffee in a room at the Penguin Random House office, piled high with her books.

"But it was hard because people carry their own ideas of what might have happened to those characters.

"Some wanted Marigold to have recovered, or Dolphin to have a wonderful career, or Star to be the perfect big sister but real life doesn't always work that way and I've always wanted my books to be true to life."

Truth, even when uncomfortable, has always been Wilson's trademark. From Tracy Beaker to Dustbin Baby to The Illustrated Mum, she has written about messy families, mental illness, poverty and the resilience of children navigating it all.

The much-loved author, who was made a dame in 2008, admits she has long felt a particular affection for The Illustrated Mum and it "is one of my favourite books".

"It's upsetting in some ways, but I had so many letters from children saying, 'that's just like my mum or my dad'," she says.

"Recently at a concert, a woman hugged me and said 'thank you for helping me deal with my mum' and it almost made me cry. To think a book could matter like that all these years later, that's why I wanted to revisit them."

The three women's lives have unfolded in ways both expected and painfully believable - Marigold is still not managing to take her medication or settle into stability. Star has qualified as a doctor and lives in Edinburgh, detached from Marigold's mental health problems.

And then there is Dolphin, who Wilson sympathises with most as "she's always the go-to person, the one holding things together when Marigold gets into bizarre scrapes".

"She's caring but resentful, struggling with relationships and not fulfilled," she explains. "In this book, I wanted to give her choices in love and in work so she could figure out what she really wants."

Too Stark for Children?

When The Illustrated Mum was first published, Wilson was warned that a particular scene - where Marigold covers herself in toxic white paint to hide her tattoos - might be "too stark" for children.

"I was told it was scary, maybe too much," Wilson recalls. "But I thought, no, that moment was what would push Dolphin to finally get help. It had to be there and luckily, I got my way."

Wilson insists she has no regrets about the tougher themes in her books, despite occasional criticism that she was going too far.

What makes her laugh, though, is remembering a complaint from a furious mum who accused her of ruining her daughter's childhood because one of her books implied that 11-year-olds no longer believe in Father Christmas.

"You can't please everyone," Wilson chuckles.

Yet, for all her boundary-pushing, she is clear about where she draws the line.

She acknowledges young people now are exposed to far more than readers were in the 1990s or 2000s, with conversations about misogyny, online abuse and even incel culture filtering down into classrooms.

But she says those darker realities belong in her adult fiction rather than her children's books.

"If I were to put something as troubling as the whole incel thing into a children's book, it would only ever be implied," she explains. "With adult books, you can more or less write what you want. With children, you have to balance being honest without overwhelming them."

Wilson's commitment to honesty - sometimes shocking, but never gratuitous - remains intact in Picture Imperfect.

"It's not a self-help book," she says. "I'm not saying if you're Dolphin, this is what you should do, but I wanted to show the reality of being the child of a parent with mental illness.

"Often one sibling ends up carrying the burden - sometimes you feel it's your duty, sometimes you feel bitterly resentful. There are no easy answers."

The author knows a thing or two about life's imperfections herself. Having married young, she speaks frankly about the mismatch with her ex-husband and the lonely years that followed.

"I remember a day when my marriage had just broken up, my boiler nearly caught fire, I had no food in the fridge and I was up at dawn to do four school visits. A teacher said to me that she envied my glamorous life and I thought: 'If only you knew'."

For the past 23 years, the 79-year-old has been happily partnered with a woman, and last year she told me she was "delighted" to be viewed as a gay icon.

One of the most touching themes in Picture Imperfect is Dolphin's attempt to understand love. Wilson says she used to be cynical about what love felt like, but that changed when she met her now partner.

"I thought the overwhelming feeling of love was a myth but when I was first dating my partner I really did get butterflies and it was just astonishing."

Given that tattoos are central to both Marigold's flamboyant character and Dolphin's chosen career, I ask Wilson if she would ever get inked herself?

She chuckles. "I thought maybe a tiny dolphin would be a nice way of advertising the book but my skin's too fragile so maybe I'll just get a henna one."

Last year, Wilson released her first adult novel, Think Again, a sequel to the Girls series. It became the bestselling adult debut hardback of 2024.

She tells me she relishes the freedom of adult fiction. "In children's books, you can't go too far - you don't want to frighten or bore kids with adult details. With adult books, you can put in whatever feels true so it's like getting two bites of the cherry and I feel very lucky."

So will more beloved characters reappear in her adult novels? Wilson is coy, but hints she is already 30,000 words into another sequel.

I spend the next ten minutes guessing which character will be the protagonist of the new novel but Wilson only laughs along, giving nothing away.

She appeases me by telling me I will be the first person to know when it's finished.

Ministry of Defence staff were warned before the Afghan data leak not to share information containing hidden tabs, according to documents released by the UK's data regulator.

Last month it emerged that the details of almost 19,000 people who had applied to move to the UK were leaked when an official emailed a spreadsheet that contained a hidden tab with the information.

Documents released by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) also show that staff there raised concerns about why the body had not issued a fine to the MoD.

The MoD said they had worked to improve data security, but an ICO spokesperson said the government had not yet done enough to learn the lessons.

According to an ICO memo, guidance in place at the time of the leak showed that the "MoD was aware of the risks of sharing data and explicitly referenced the need to remove hidden data from datasets".

Hidden tabs are a common feature in spreadsheet software and make information invisible to the user, but still easily accessible if the settings on a document are changed.

The government estimates that the 2022 leak, which led to an emergency resettlement scheme for people at risk of persecution by the Taliban, will eventually cost around £850m.

A super-injunction granted by the High Court in September 2023 prevented the incident being reported for almost two years, before the order was lifted last month.

Shortly after the MoD became aware of the data breach in 2023, they informed the UK's data regulator, the ICO. The two bodies held a number of secret meetings over the next two years and documents published by the regulator reveal some of what was discussed.

They say that government officials described the leak as likely "the most expensive email ever sent", and internal emails also show that ICO staff raised concerns about why the body had chosen not to independently investigate the MoD or issue a fine.

Data breaches by public bodies must legally be reported to the ICO, which can then decide to investigate and potentially fine the organisation responsible.

ICO staff privately discussed the potential "reputational risk" to the regulator after it chose not to take action against the MoD, despite issuing a £350k fine for a much smaller Afghan data breach in 2023.

In an email sent the afternoon before the leak became public, one ICO staff member said their justification for not fining the government was still an "imperfect answer".

The documents were published by the ICO earlier this month following a Freedom of Information request which was not submitted by the BBC.

Written notes were forbidden during the secret meetings, but an ICO memo detailing the whole timeline was drawn up after the incident became public just last month.

The memo says the MoD took "intensive measures to recover and delete data from all identified sources" and "limit loss of control" after the breach was discovered.

In a private email discussion, one ICO staff member questioned why it was "taking so long to decide whether to investigate" and said "if I was a journalist I would ask why has it taken two years to ascertain whether or not to take action".

Another said the ICO had played a "significant role" but said "the reality is that we have only been able to review information in situ and been reliant on the MoD to gather evidence under our guidance".

Documents show the ICO ultimately decided against sanctioning the MoD because it did not want to "impose additional cost to the taxpayer".

Last week, BBC News revealed there had been 49 separate data breaches in the past four years at the unit handling relocation applications from Afghans seeking safety in the UK.

An ICO spokesperson said they had "focused clearly on making sure that the causes of breaches were identified, rectified and lessons learned".

They said the government had "not yet done enough to achieve the pace of changes" required and said they had asked for "assurances that necessary improvements are being made and standards are being raised".

An MoD spokesperson said the government had worked to "improve data security across the department through better software, training and data experts".

They added: "We have worked hand-in-hand with the ICO during an internal investigation and accepted all recommendations in full to ensure a similar incident doesn't happen again."

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Apple has warned that "EU-style rules" proposed by the UK competition watchdog "are bad for users and bad for developers".

It says EU laws - which have sought to make it easier for smaller firms to compete with big tech - have resulted in some Apple features and enhancements being delayed for European users.

It argues the UK risks similar hold-ups if the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) pushes ahead with plans designed to open up markets the regulator says is too dominated by Apple and Google.

The CMA told the BBC it rejected Apple's characterisation of UK competition rules, arguing they were different from those in the EU and helped businesses innovate and grow.

Apple's intervention comes as international tech regulation was sharply criticised by President Donald Trump.

He did not specify which countries he was unhappy with, but attacked rules he claimed were "designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology" in an online post on Monday.

He demanded nations "show respect to America and our amazing Tech Companies or, consider the consequences!"

The US President wrote that all countries with digital taxes, legislation, rules, or regulations were "on notice" that unless such "discriminatory actions" were removed tariffs and restrictions on their access to US technology would follow.

The CMA, however, argues that its interventions will be good for users and UK app developers.

In July it found that "around 90-100% of UK mobile devices" ran on Apple or Google's mobile platforms, adding this meant the firms had "an effective duopoly".

As a result it said it would require Apple and Google to make changes to their services - for example permitting app makers to "steer" users to payment systems outside of Apple's own App Store.

It has now given the companies a chance to respond and will make a final decision in October.

Rivals get 'tech for free'

In its new statement, Apple argues that the CMA's approach "undermines the privacy and security protections our users have come to expect, hampers our ability to innovate, and forces us to give away our technology for free to foreign competitors."

According to Apple, the watchdog's proposed changes repeat mistakes made by the EU in its enforcement of its tech competition law the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Apple has had big fines imposed on it for breaching the DMA.

The CMA wants UK app makers to be able to use and exchange data with Apple's mobile technology - something called "interoperability"

Without it, app makers cannot create the full range of innovative products and services, it argues.

Apple claims under EU interoperability rules it has received over100 requests — some from big tech rivals — demanding access to sensitive user data, including sensitive information Apple itself cannot access.

It argues the rules are effectively allowing other firms to demand its data and intellectual property for free.

However, the CMA argues that, unlike the EU, it is focused on ensuring the interoperability of particular aspects of Apple's tech such as digital wallets and watches, so that UK developers can use them to create innovative new apps.

Apple also argues that proposals enabling App developers to steer users to rival payment systems would open the door to scams and threaten the security of users.

In response to Apple's criticisms, the CMA wrote that UK competition rules work in a fundamentally different way to the EU:

"They are designed to help UK businesses, including our thriving app developer economy, innovate and grow while ensuring UK consumers don't miss out on innovation being introduced in other countries," it said in a statement.

"Driving greater competition on mobile platforms need not undermine privacy, security or intellectual property, and as we carefully consider UK-specific steps, we will ensure it does not," it added.

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The Israeli military has told Palestinians that the evacuation of Gaza City is "inevitable", as its forces prepare to conquer it.

In a post on X on Wednesday, the military's Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee said families relocating to the south would "receive the most generous humanitarian aid".

Israeli tanks pushed into a new area of Gaza City overnight, forcing more residents to flee, witnesses said. Thousands have already moved because of recent Israeli advances - mostly to other parts of the city, where about a million Palestinians still live.

The evacuation call comes as US President Donald Trump is expected to chair a meeting on a post-war vision for Gaza at the White House.

In early August, Israel announced plans to occupy the whole Gaza Strip - including Gaza City, which it described as Hamas's last stronghold.

The UN and non-governmental organisations have warned that an Israeli offensive in Gaza City would have a "horrific humanitarian impact".

Late on Tuesday, tanks entered the Ibad al-Rahman district, in the city's northern outskirts, destroying several homes, Reuters news agency reported.

"All of a sudden, we heard that the tanks pushed into Ibad al-Rahman, the sounds of explosions became louder and louder, and we saw people escaping towards our area," Saad Abed told Reuters in a message from his home in Jala Street, about 1km (0.6 miles) away.

On Wednesday, the tanks reportedly retreated to Jabalia, an area further north where they have been operating.

Bombardment also continued in Gaza City's Shejaiya, Zeitoun and Sabra districts.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Wednesday that its troops had engaged in combat in the Jabalia area and on the outskirts of Gaza City, adding that they had eliminated a "terrorist cell" and located a weapons storage facility.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel's intention to conquer the entire Gaza Strip after indirect talks with Hamas on a ceasefire and hostage release deal broke down last month.

But Netanyahu is facing both international and domestic pressure.

On Tuesday evening, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv demanding a ceasefire deal to bring home the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Only 20 of the 50 hostages are believed to be alive.

In Washington on Tuesday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said the White House was working on "a very comprehensive plan" for post-war Gaza.

He told Fox News that the plan "for the next day" would be discussed at a "large meeting in the White House" chaired by Trump on Wednesday.

He gave no details but said he expected the conflict in Gaza to be settled "one way or another, certainly before the end of this year".

Israel's 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.

Almost 62,900 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of Gaza's population has also been displaced multiple times; more than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; and the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and UN-backed global food security experts have confirmed that there is famine in the Gaza City area.

Royal Mail is introducing 3,500 solar-powered postboxes across the UK, altering the iconic look of the red pillar boxes that have punctuated Britain's streets for nearly two centuries.

In the new design, solar panels on the top of the postboxes power a digitally-activated drawer, allowing customers to deposit small parcels.

Items as large as a shoebox can be posted in the pillar boxes, in what Royal Mail says is the "biggest redesign in its 175-year history".

The change comes as Royal Mail is struggling in the face of competition from other delivery companies.

The firm, bought by a Czech billionaire in December, has been fined millions after failing to meet letter delivery targets.

After a successful pilot that introduced the new boxes in Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, they will now be rolled out to other cities starting with Edinburgh, Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester.

Two designs were trialled in the pilot, including one where the entire round lid of the postbox was black. Royal Mail said the firm decided internally that keeping the top red was more in keeping with the brand.

The new design that is being rolled out is topped with a grid of dark solar panels on a white rectangle, which will be oriented "due south for optimal sunlight", the firm said.

It also features a barcode scanner, which opens a drop-down drawer that is big enough to accommodate parcels that do not fit in the traditional postbox slot.

Royal Mail said customers can use the service using the Royal Mail app, and can request proof of posting, and tracking of their parcel.

The company said it was "on a drive" to expand its parcel services and make them "as convenient as possible".

The rise of online shopping means click-and-collect services have skyrocketed in popularity, with venues from local newsagents to petrol stations offering parcel send-and-deliver services. There has also been a proliferation of self-operated lockers in convenient locations.

"We are all sending and returning more parcels than ever before," said Jack Clarkson, a managing director at Royal Mail. "This trend will only continue as online shopping shows no signs of slowing, particularly with the boom of second-hand marketplaces."

The new postboxes are being rolled out over the next few months with Royal Mail hoping it will help shore up its share of the market.

"Our message is clear, if you have a Royal Mail label on your parcel, and it fits, put it in a postbox and we'll do the rest," Mr Clarkson said.

But it may not be enough to prevent rivals like Evri and Yodel, who often offer cheaper delivery, eating further into its business.

Online communication, combined with more competition in the delivery business, has already caused its first casualty among traditional postal services: Denmark recently ended its letter deliveries service, PostNord.

Royal Mail recently said it will start to deliver second-class letters on every other weekday and not on Saturdays to help cut costs.

Some patients taking the weight-loss drug Mounjaro have told BBC News they are struggling to obtain the medicine, and are worried about the impact on their health.

There is rising demand for the drug, after the US manufacturer Eli Lilly announced a major price increase from 1 September.

The drug giant has warned against "inappropriate stockpiling of medicines" and has now asked UK distributors to stop taking orders from pharmacies from the end of today.

Pharmacies say they are prioritising patients already taking the drug, rather than those just starting it, and predict supplies will return to normal in early September.

Lynne Massey-Davis, 65, from East Yorkshire, says trying to find Mounjaro stock has been"stressful", after her last prescription order with an online provider wasn't delivered.

"I'm in a holding queue," she says. "It's a very uncertain time. I've spent a lot of time on the phone."

She's been told there will be a two-week delay on delivery. In the meantime, she paid £349 to another provider who then said they too had run out, which she describes as "unethical".

Fifteen months ago when Lynne started taking the weight-loss drug, she had a BMI of 32. Now it's down to 26 and she "feels 10 years younger", regularly doing park runs, going swimming and walking her dogs.

"I'm worried about my health but I will stay safe. There may be many others who will not."

Lynne is planning to share a friend's doses until her order arrives.

The National Pharmacy Association (NPA), which represents 60% of community pharmacies in the UK (around 6,500), said there had been "an increase in demand" for Mounjaro ahead of the planned September price hike.

Eli Lilly has announced the drug's price will rise by up to 170%, meaning a month's supply of the highest dose will go up from £122 to £330.

The company said the drug had been sold in the UK at a price that was "significantly below" that charged in other European countries. US President Donald Trump had previously complained about the high cost of drugs in the US.

"This increase in the cost of Mounjaro has caused understandable concern to patients and pharmacies alike and has resulted in short term pressures on supply," said NPA chief executive Henry Gregg.

He urged patients to avoid bulk ordering Mounjaro because "it can have a significant impact on supply and pose a potential risk to patient safety".

"We'd also urge patients to avoid unlicensed sellers, who may be selling fake medication or medication that does not meet UK safety standards," he added.

Instead, he encouraged patients to speak to their pharmacies for advice.

One provider, Chemist4U, said supplies of Mounjaro were "a bit restricted" and they were holding back stocks for existing patients who were preparing to up their dose.

"We envisage supplies to return back to normal once Eli Lilly release new stock after 1 September," said CEO James O'Loan.

Sehar Shahid, who runs 24hrpharmacy.co.uk in Paisley, said her advice to people was not to panic and start bulk buying "because that makes it worse for everyone".

She also said switching to other, alternative weight-loss drugs like Wegovy should only be done under medical supervision, and after a wash-out period because the drugs don't work in exactly the same way.

Her advice is to speak to your provider, find out all your options, keep up healthy habits like exercising and healthy eating - but warns not to turn to influencers on social media for advice.

"These drugs are not for people who want to lose a few pounds before their holiday," she adds.

Marie Cook, 49, from east London, who is prescribed Mounjaro on the NHS to treat her type 2 diabetes contacted Your Voice, Your BBC News to say she was also running out of the drug.

"I've been taking if for a year, come off insulin and lost 3.5 stones but have just got one week's injections left."

Her local chemist returned her prescription and she's tried six others, but none have the drug in stock.

"It's frustrating. We have true medical problems, we should come first," Marie says.

She's hoping a visit to her diabetic nurse on Monday will help.

Eli Lilly told BBC News it has allocations in place for pharmacies and providers that order stock from them.

"There are legal protections in place, enforced by the MHRA [UK drugs regulator], to prevent inappropriate stockpiling of medicines by providers. 

"We encourage patients to only order based on their current treatment plan, to reduce the risk of localised disruption."

Two children have been killed and at least 17 people injured after a shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis.

The attack happened at around 08:30 local time (13:30 BST) at Annunciation Church, where children had been attending a worship service during their first week of school.

Here's what the BBC knows about what happened.

The gunman

The gunman has been identified as 23-year-old Robin Westman, from suburban Minneapolis, three law enforcement sources have told BBC's US partner CBS news.

His motive is currently unknown.

He was described as being dressed in all black and carrying three weapons - a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol. A smoke bomb was also found in what the police believe is his car found in the church car park.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said he did not have an "extensive known criminal history", and that he acted alone.

"Our hearts are broken for the families who have lost their children", O'Hara said, as well as for the young lives "fighting to recover" and for "the entire community that has been so deeply traumatised by this senseless attack".

The victims

Two children, aged eight and 10, were killed. Seventeen people were also injured, 14 of whom are children.

The gunman was also dead, police said.

Ten of the injured are in critical condition in hospital, CBS News says.

Thomas Wyatt, chairman of emergency medicine at Hennepin County Medical Center, said seven children aged between six and 14 years old were brought in to his department and were in critical condition, with four needing surgery.

Non-critical patients were taken to other hospitals.

"These were Minneapolis families," Mayor Jacob Frey said during a briefing. "These were American families, and the amount of pain they are suffering right now is extraordinary."

Making a pointed reference to the typical political response to mass shootings, Frey - a Democrat - said: "Don't just say this is about 'thoughts and prayers' right now. These kids were literally praying."

The school

Annunciation Catholic Church and its faith-based school is for students from preschool (nursery-level) up to Grade 8 (aged 14 years old), according to its website.

The Catholic school's approach to teaching is one of faith-based learning, which is implemented in all classrooms.

It added that their religion "compels" them to reach out to others in the area, with other parishes and with their sister school in Haiti.

The Israeli military has told Palestinians that the evacuation of Gaza City is "inevitable", as its forces prepare to conquer it.

In a post on X on Wednesday, the military's Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee said families relocating to the south would "receive the most generous humanitarian aid".

Israeli tanks pushed into a new area of Gaza City overnight, forcing more residents to flee, witnesses said. Thousands have already moved because of recent Israeli advances - mostly to other parts of the city, where about a million Palestinians still live.

The evacuation call comes as US President Donald Trump is expected to chair a meeting on a post-war vision for Gaza at the White House.

In early August, Israel announced plans to occupy the whole Gaza Strip - including Gaza City, which it described as Hamas's last stronghold.

The UN and non-governmental organisations have warned that an Israeli offensive in Gaza City would have a "horrific humanitarian impact".

Late on Tuesday, tanks entered the Ibad al-Rahman district, in the city's northern outskirts, destroying several homes, Reuters news agency reported.

"All of a sudden, we heard that the tanks pushed into Ibad al-Rahman, the sounds of explosions became louder and louder, and we saw people escaping towards our area," Saad Abed told Reuters in a message from his home in Jala Street, about 1km (0.6 miles) away.

On Wednesday, the tanks reportedly retreated to Jabalia, an area further north where they have been operating.

Bombardment also continued in Gaza City's Shejaiya, Zeitoun and Sabra districts.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Wednesday that its troops had engaged in combat in the Jabalia area and on the outskirts of Gaza City, adding that they had eliminated a "terrorist cell" and located a weapons storage facility.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel's intention to conquer the entire Gaza Strip after indirect talks with Hamas on a ceasefire and hostage release deal broke down last month.

But Netanyahu is facing both international and domestic pressure.

On Tuesday evening, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv demanding a ceasefire deal to bring home the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Only 20 of the 50 hostages are believed to be alive.

In Washington on Tuesday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said the White House was working on "a very comprehensive plan" for post-war Gaza.

He told Fox News that the plan "for the next day" would be discussed at a "large meeting in the White House" chaired by Trump on Wednesday.

He gave no details but said he expected the conflict in Gaza to be settled "one way or another, certainly before the end of this year".

Israel's 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.

Almost 62,900 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of Gaza's population has also been displaced multiple times; more than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; and the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and UN-backed global food security experts have confirmed that there is famine in the Gaza City area.

Reform UK appears to have rowed back from the idea it could remove children from the country under its newly announced mass deportation policy.

On Tuesday, Zia Yusuf, a key architect of the party's plan, suggested it could deport unaccompanied minors in the "latter half" of the proposed five-year scheme.

But leader Nigel Farage has now said this was not currently part of Reform's plans for a potential first term in office.

The party has suggested it would be prepared to deport 600,000 people under the policy, if it wins the next general election.

Reform says the scheme would target more than 650,000 adults it estimates are currently living illegally in the UK, as well as future asylum seekers crossing the English Channel in small boats.

Central to the proposals is a plan to "disapply" international treaties restricting the government's ability to send people to unsafe countries, including the 1951 Refugee Convention.

In an interview with BBC Breakfast ahead of launching the policy alongside Farage, former party chair Yusuf said the "first phase" of the plan would target adults without children, particularly single men.

Deportation of unaccompanied children could then take place "towards the latter half" of the five-year period, he added.

At a press conference to launch the scheme, Farage said women and children arriving illegally would be among those detained, whilst acknowledging the treatment of children was a "complicated and difficult issue".

U-turn accusations

But speaking at a further news briefing on Wednesday, he said the party was "not even discussing women and children at this stage" as part of the deportation plan.

Pressed on whether this meant they would be exempt, he replied: "At this stage, it's not part of our plan for the next five years."

However, he later clarified Reform would still look to deport women coming to the UK without children.

The party still needed to "work out the best thing to do" with those who do, he added, whilst specifying that female migrants with children already in the UK were not "top of our list" for deportation.

The Liberal Democrats accused Farage of making a U-turn, adding that Reform's proposals "do not even stand up to the scrutiny of their own leader".

Speaking to reporters, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Farage hadn't "done the homework" ahead of his announcement, adding it vindicated her approach of taking more time to "get the policies right".

Detention plans

Reform's proposals would mark a change in the scale of deportations made by the UK. There were 10,652 asylum-related returns in the year to June, according to Home Office data.

The party, which currently has just four MPs but is riding high in national opinion polls, has promised to increase detention capacity by 24,000 within 18 months if it wins power at the next election, which must take place by 2029.

Reform has said it would build a series of new removal centres in "remote parts of the country", although it has refused to set out particular locations.

It says the new centres would be "basic but not punitive", containing prefabricated two-person rooms, on-site medical facilities, and canteen catering.

It has earmarked £2bn to persuade countries such as Afghanistan and Eritrea to take back illegal migrants, with British overseas territories such as Ascension Island used as a "fallback" if people awaiting deportation could not be sent elsewhere.

A record 28,288 people have crossed the English Channel in small boats this year so far, 46% more than by the same date in 2024.

NHS patients will lose access to new cutting-edge treatments because of skyrocketing costs, the pharmaceutical giant Novartis has claimed amid a row over a drug pricing deals.

The warning comes after talks over the cost of medicines for the UK between Heath Secretary Wes Streeting and pharma firms broke down last week.

A body assesses whether a new drug is value for money before approving it for use on the NHS, but Novartis said its methods were outdated and made it harder for innovative drugs to be approved and launched.

Norvartis's UK boss Johan Kahlstrom said costs meant the UK was "largely uninvestable", but Streeting has vowed he will not allow firms to "rip off" taxpayers.

Swiss firm Novartis said it was not considering the UK for major new investments in manufacturing, research, or advanced technology because of "systemic barriers".

As part of a so-called clawback tax, pharmaceutical firms agreed in 2023 to pay the UK government 15% of their income on sales to the NHS above a certain threshold, aimed at preventing the health service's costs from spiralling out of control.

However, the rate has risen to 23.5%, which Novartis said was more than triple the 7% rate in Germany, for example.

The firm, which employs 78,000 people globally, said patients were losing access to or missing out entirely on new treatments as a result of the current situation.

It said due to the "declining competitiveness" of the UK market, the company had "already been unable to launch several medicines" in the country "for public reimbursement - medicines that are, or soon will be, available to patients in other European countries".

"The concern is that future launches and research investment could be further deprioritised for the UK if the environment remains uncompetitive," the company added.

The UK government said it had put forward a "generous and unprecedented offer to accelerate growth" in the pharmaceutical sector.

"It would have reduced payment rates for pharmaceutical companies year-on-year, freeing approximately £1 billion over three years for new, life-changing medicines," a statement said.

Streeting previously told the Guardian that drug companies had been "short-sighted" in their approach to the talks.

He told the newspaper: "The pharmaceuticals industry signed up to the deal with the previous government.

"When it came out more expensive to industry than expected, we put forward an unprecedented offer to bring down payment rates for all future years of the scheme and accelerate growth in the sector - but the ABPI (Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry) failed to reach an agreement."

In a statement, Richard Torbett, chief executive of the ABPI, said the demand for innovative medicines had continued to grow but investment in new treatments was falling due to "uncompetitive and punitive rebates on company revenues".

He said the UK's assessment methods for new drugs had not changed "for nearly a quarter of a century".

"Without change, the UK will continue to fall down international league tables for research, investment, and patient access to medicines," he added.

He said the industry still believed a solution to the row was possible.

'UK is an outlier'

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence's (NICE) decides whether a new medicine is cost-effective. It uses a unit of measurement called the "Qaly" - the "quality-adjusted life year", which gauges drug effectiveness in terms of how much it would cost to give you a year of healthy life.

It considers medicines costing between £20,000 and £30,000 per Qaly as good value for money.

However, Norvartis claimed NICE's thresholds were outdated because the costings have remained the same since 1999 and not kept pace with rising inflation. It believes the current Qaly figure stands at £50,000.

Mr Kahlstrom, managing director of Novartis' UK and Ireland operations, told the BBC's Today programme that the UK "remains an outlier and patients still lose out and I think we have to be honest about that".

Mr Kahlstrom added the UK was under invested on medicines with "only 9% of the healthcare budget in the NHS" being spent on drugs compared to about 14% in France and 15% in Germany.