Russia says it will send a delegation to Istanbul on Monday for a second round of peace talks with Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow's conditions for a temporary truce were being developed and would be discussed in Turkey.

Ukraine has said it remains committed to dialogue but will not send a delegation until it receives details of Russia's ceasefire proposal.

The first round of talks between low-level Russian and Ukrainian delegations took place earlier this month, resulting in both sides returning hundreds of prisoners in the biggest exchange since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine had already sent its own "vision of future steps" to Russia, adding that Moscow "must accept an unconditional ceasefire" to pave the way for broader negotiations.

"We are interested in seeing these meetings continue because we want the war to end this year," Sybiha said during a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan on Friday.

If the talks do go ahead on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are not expected to attend.

But Fidan said Turkey was hoping to eventually host a high-level summit: "We sincerely think it is time to bring President Trump, President Putin and President Zelensky to the table."

Peskov said Russia would only entertain the idea of a high-level summit if meaningful progress was achieved in preliminary discussions between the two countries.

He welcomed comments made by Trump's envoy to Ukraine, retired Gen Keith Kellogg, who described Russian concerns over Nato enlargement as "fair".

Gen Kellogg said Ukraine joining the military alliance, long-hoped for by Kyiv, was not on the table.

He added that President Trump was "frustrated" by what he described as Russia's intransigence, but emphasised the need to keep negotiations alive.

On Wednesday, Germany's new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, told Ukraine's Zelensky that Berlin would help Kyiv produce long-range missiles to defend itself from future Russian attacks.

The Kremlin said any decision to end range restrictions on the missiles Ukraine could use would represent a dangerous change in policy that would harm efforts to bring an end to the war.

Moscow currently controls 20% of Ukraine's internationally-recognised territory, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

Celebrated children's author Jacqueline Wilson has said she "would feel very wary" of writing about her beloved character Tracy Beaker in an adult book because "it would seem inappropriate [as] we would learn about Tracy's sex life".

Dame Jacqueline has touched on Beaker as an adult through the eyes of the character's daughter Jess in her children's books My Mum Tracy Beaker and The Beaker Girls.

But having recently announced Picture Imperfect, an adult sequel to her 1999 children's book, The Illustrated Mum, it doesn't look like an adult book based on Beaker will follow suit.

"I don't want to go there. That's my girl [Tracy] who I made everything happen for," Dame Jacqueline told an audience at the Hay Festival.

She added that she had said "no, I would never do that" before, when planning future writing projects, but noted she had sometimes changed her mind, "so who knows?"

Dame Jaqueline's Tracy Beaker books were made into a popular TV series for the BBC. Beaker was a young girl who was placed in a children's home due to neglect and domestic violence.

The author said that she did generally enjoy returning to some of her characters once they had grown up: "I've been thinking about it over the years, because I've invented so many different girls, and it's interesting to think what happens to them when you finish writing about them."

Dame Jacqueline recently brought back Ellie, Magda and Nadine in her adult fiction book Think Again, a continuation of her Girls in Love novels.

The much-loved author, who was made a dame in 2008, is known for writing about difficult and dark issues in accessible ways.

Most of her books, some of which explore topics such as suicide, mental health and divorce, are aimed at children aged between seven and 12.

Her foray into adult books has brought a new kind of satisfaction, she explained.

"I'm an obsessive writer but worry people think I'm churning that [same] stuff out again, so it's lovely to challenge yourself."

She said she enjoyed seeing many of her audiences come along to see her at events "because they read my books as children".

"The children are still keen but it's the mums that get really excited! It's like a sort of farewell tour that hopefully will go on."

Writing in pyjamas

Despite having written more than 100 books, Dame Jacqueline said she still felt anxious when writing.

"Always about halfway through a book, even now, you think 'I've got the hang of this with all these books that I've written', but I get that terrible doubt and worry about it and and it's just something you learn. Work through it, get to the end."

One habit that must help is that she writes in her pyjamas in bed, once she's fed the cat and let the dogs out first thing in the morning.

"That's the magic time, and it just works for me. Apparently Michael Morpurgo does exactly the same!"

But it wasn't always so easy to pick and choose her times to write.

Dame Jacqueline said: "I was idiotic enough to be married at 19 and had a child at 21.

"My husband wasn't a terrible man in the slightest but it was an age [the 1960s] when men went out and did, and women did everything else."

She said she "adored" her baby daughter but she would only sleep for two hours at a time. When she did doze off, Dame Jacqueline said she wanted to sleep too but used the short window available to write.

She got a little more time when her daughter Emma went to nursery in the mornings.

"It gave me an urgency. I'd write for two hours and then concentrate on her in the afternoon."

Now the writing challenges are different, with the threat of AI looming over the writing profession. But Wilson doesn't seem too worried about it.

"I take comfort from the fact that my partner's brother-in-law... asked some AI thing to write a story for his daughter in the style of Jacqueline Wilson, and then he sent it to us. And either I've been blissfully unaware and I've been writing garbage or.... it was just unbearably awful."

A trip focused on commercial partnerships

Amorim learns what being Man Utd boss means

A woman who travelled across the South West Coastal Path with her terminally ill husband has said a film depicting their journey took her "right back" to those difficult moments.

Raynor Winn, a writer who grew up on a farm in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, said a financial dispute meant she had lost her dream home in Wales in 2013 just days after her husband Moth was diagnosed with Corticobasal Degeneration, a rare brain disease.

With nothing to lose, the couple set off on a 630-mile trek from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall.

Their journey across England's largest uninterrupted path has now been made into a film - The Salt Path - featuring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.

"As we were preparing to leave the house, and the bailiffs were knocking at the door, we were hiding under the stairs. We were not ready to go," Mrs Winn said.

"It was in those last moments that I saw a book about someone who had walked the coastal path with their dog.

"In that desperate time, it just seemed like the most obvious thing to do. All we wanted to do was pack our bags and take a walk."

Five years on from the adventure, in 2018, Mrs Winn released her memoir entitled The Salt Path.

It received nationwide acclaim and was shortlisted for the 2018 Wainwright Prize, an award that celebrates travel-based writing.

She said: "We had nowhere to go. We knew that when we stepped out of the door, we were going to be homeless.

"Moth's illness had no treatment, or no cure. I was drawn to following a line on the map. It gave us a purpose, and that's what it was all about."

Just a few months after her book was published, Mrs Winn said she was approached by a producer and filming of The Salt Path started in the summer of 2023.

"It makes no sense. I remember the day we met. There was a knock at the door, and there was Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs outside.

"They told me to put the kettle on. That's not what is supposed to happen to a girl from Melton Mowbray," she said.

Mrs Winn - who continues to fundraise alongside her husband for research into his illness - said the film had taken her "straight back to those emotions that were so difficult".

"The producer and director have created something that's sparse in dialogue.

"It's huge in emotion and it urges anyone to focus on the now. Just focus on now and all will turn out differently tomorrow," she said.

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Paul Doyle has made his first appearance in court accused of driving his car into a crowd of people after Liverpool FC's trophy parade.

The former Royal Marine, 53, faces seven charges including wounding with intent, causing grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent, attempting to cause GBH with intent and dangerous driving.

A total of 79 people were injured on Water Street in the city centre just before 18:00 BST on Monday.

The father-of-three of Burghill Road in West Derby, Liverpool, was escorted into the dock at Liverpool Magistrates' Court wearing a black suit, grey tie and white shirt.

Mr Doyle appeared visibly emotional as he spoke quietly only to confirm his date of birth and age.

For much of the hearing, the 53-year-old sat in the dock with his head down, listening to proceedings.

District Judge Paul Healey has retired to allow for legal discussions to take place. Mr Doyle has been removed from the dock.

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Trade talks between the US and China are "a bit stalled", the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said.

His comment comes less than three weeks after a temporary trade truce was agreed between the world's two largest economies, with both agreeing to reduce tit-for-tat tariffs.

Bessent told Fox News on Thursday: "I think that given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity, that this is going to require [leaders of both the countries] to weigh in with each other".

Donald Trump's global tariff regime was dealt a blow on Wednesday following a ruling that he had exceeded his authority. His plans have been temporarily reinstated after the White House appealed the decision.

Both the US and China confirmed they would reduce tariffs imposed on each other's imports earlier this month, following talks in Switzerland.

The deal involved both nations cancelling some tariffs altogether and suspending others for 90 days by 14 May.

Bessent said talks on a further deal had lost momentum, but stressed that they were continuing.

"I believe that we will be having more talks with [China] in the next few weeks and I believe we may at some point have a call between the president and [Chinese President Xi Jinping]," Bessent said on Thursday.

He added that the pair had "a very good relationship" and he was "confident that the Chinese will come to the table when President Trump makes his preferences known".

Under the deal struck earlier this month, the US lowered tariffs imposed on goods from China from 145% to 30%.

China's retaliatory tariffs on US goods dropped from 125% to 10%.

The US President has argued imposing tariffs on foreign goods would encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, bringing back manufacturing jobs while increase the amount of tax revenue raised.

They have been used by the Trump administration as leverage in negotiations as it seeks to reduce trade deficits with other nations.

A delegation from Japan are continuing trade talks with their US counterparts in Washington on Friday.

Bessent said "a couple" of US trade deals were "very close", but "a couple of them are more complicated".

Trump's tariff regime remains in the balance following the decision by the US Court of International Trade, which ruled that Trump had overstepped his power by imposing the duties.

Some analysts believe it will mean countries will be less likely to rush to secure trade deals with the US.

A federal appeals court has granted a bid from the White House to temporarily suspend the lower court's order, which Trump described as "horrific".

"Hopefully, the Supreme Court will reverse this horrible, Country [sic] threatening decision, QUICKLY and DECISIVELY," he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Taylor Swift has bought back the rights to her first six albums, ending a long-running battle over the ownership of her music.

"All of the music I've ever made now belongs to me," said the star, announcing the news on her official website. "I've been bursting into tears of joy... ever since I found out this is really happening."

The saga began in June 2019, when music manager Scooter Braun bought Swift's former record label Big Machine and, with it, all of the songs from Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and Reputation.

Swift had personal objections to the deal, blaming Braun for complicity in the "incessant, manipulative bullying" against her by Kanye West, one of his clients.

She responded by vowing to re-record those records, effectively diminishing the value of those master tapes, and putting ownership back in her hands.

To date, she has released four re-recorded albums - known as "Taylor's Versions" - with dozens of bonus tracks and supplementary material.

Braun later sold his stake in her back catalogue to Shamrock Holdings, a Los Angeles investment fund founded by the Disney family in 1978, in November 2020.

The deal was said to be worth $300 million (£222 million). It is not known how much Swift paid Shamrock to re-acquire the masters.

In the music industry, the owner of a master controls all rights to exploit the recording. That includes distributing music to streaming services, pressing new physical CDs and vinyl, creating box sets, or licensing songs to movies or video games.

The artist still earns royalties from those recordings but controlling the master offers a level of protection over how the work is used in the future.

Swift, as the writer or co-writer of her music, always maintained her publishing rights, which meant she was able to veto attempts to license songs like Shake It Off and Love Story to other companies.

"I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies. I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it," she told Billboard in 2019.

How did the sale of Taylor Swift's masters happen?

When 14-year-old Taylor Swift moved to Nashville in 2004 to chase her dream of becoming a country pop star, she signed a record deal with Big Machine.

Label boss Scott Borchetta gave the unproven singer a big cash advance in exchange for having ownership of the master recordings to her first six albums "in perpetuity".

This was fairly common practice in the era before streaming, when artists needed record label backing to get played on the radio, and for the manufacture and distribution of CDs.

Swift's deal with Big Machine expired in 2018, at which point she left and signed with Republic Records and Universal Music Group (UMG).

A year later, Borchetta sold his label to Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings.

Swift said she only learned about the deal when it was announced; characterising it as an act of aggression that "stripped me of my life's work".

She labelled Braun - who rose to prominence as the manager of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande - as "the definition of toxic male privilege in our industry".

She also expressed frustration that she had been unable to make a counter offer for her music.

"I spent 10 years of my life trying rigorously to purchase my masters outright and was then denied that opportunity," she told Billboard, adding that: "Artists should maybe have the first right of refusal to buy."

• Was Taylor Swift really banned from playing her hits?
• What is the Swift vs Braun dispute all about
• Taylor Swift's Red: The stories behind the songs
• Taylor Swift releases a 'perfect replica' of Fearless

Braun later told Variety that the dispute had "gotten out of hand" after he and his family received death threats.

When he sold the catalogue to Shamrock Holdings in 2020, Swift felt betrayed again.

"This is the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge," she said in a social media post.

While she was "open to the possibility of a partnership with Shamrock", she subsequently learnt that, under the terms of the sale, Braun would "continue to profit off my old music" for years.

"I simply cannot in good conscience bring myself to be involved in benefiting Scooter Braun's interests," she wrote in a letter to the company, which she posted on X.

She began releasing her re-recorded albums in 2021, starting with her breakthrough, coming-of-age album Fearless.

Produced with forensic attention to detail, they were often indistinguishable from the originals - albeit with slightly cleaner mixes, and greater separation between the instruments.

But the big attraction was the bonus tracks, including the unabridged, 10-minute version of her break-up ballad All Too Well - described by Variety magazine as the "holy grail" of the star's back catalogue.

The song went on to top the US charts, and made number three in the UK - where it is the longest song ever to reach the top five.

So far, four "Taylor's Version" albums have been released, with only her 2006 debut album, Taylor Swift, and 2017's Reputation still to receive the deluxe treatment.

In the meantime, the singer continued to release original material, including the Grammy Award-winning albums Folklore and Midnights.

In 2023, Forbes magazine reported that Swift had become the first musician to make $1 billion (£740,000) solely from songwriting and performing.

Half of her fortune came from music royalties and touring, while the rest came from the increasing value of her music catalogue, including her re-recordings.

Revisiting the old material also inspired Swift's career-spanning Eras tour, which made more than $2 billion (£1.48 billion) in ticket sales across 2023 and 2024.

A Royal Navy warship has swooped in on a vessel which was carrying £30m worth of illegal drugs.

HMS Lancaster, which is based in Portsmouth when not on active service, seized the one and a half tonne load of narcotics while at sea in the Middle East.

It secretly shadowed the suspect through the Arabian Sea for more than 24 hours before it struck.

It is the second bust in three months for the British frigate, which is currently in Bahrain.

A Royal Marines sniper circled overhead in a wildcat helicopter, while a boarding team of 42 Commando closed in on the drug runner in the water, in what the Royal Navy described as a pincer movement.

Peregrine drones were also deployed, providing live footage to the Lancaster's operations room.

When onboard the dhow the team discovered 80 packages containing illicit narcotics, in a haul that came to 1,000kg of heroin, 660kg of hashish and 6kg of amphetamine.

Commanding Officer Commander Chris Chew said the success was down to the work of the 210 men and women in HMS Lancaster's crew.

Minister for the Armed Forces Luke Pollard thanked the sailors and Royal Marines for their success.

"I congratulate the crew of HMS Lancaster on this significant seizure, which is keeping dangerous and illegal drugs off our streets," he said.

"This operation highlights the unique role our Royal Navy contributes, working to disrupt criminal operations around the world, keeping us secure at home and strong abroad."

HMS Lancaster is a Type 23 frigate deployed to the Middle East region on a long-term mission as part of wider efforts by the UK to provide regional maritime security and stability.

The team has even had time to rescue orphaned kittens that were found under a shipping container.

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The Treasury has announced the sale of its final shares in the NatWest Group. It means the bank will be under full private ownership, almost two decades after it was bailed out by the taxpayer amid the 2008 financial crisis.

This marks a symbolic end to a dramatic chapter in British banking history.

It was gone midnight – the early hours of Monday 13 October 2008 - when Chancellor Alistair Darling turned in for the night, leaving a team of officials, surrounded by curries and pizza boxes, finalising the detail of the biggest state intervention in the private sector since World War Two.

The next morning he announced the first instalment of a rescue that would cost the taxpayer more than the entire defence budget.

In total the government spent £45bn (£73bn in today's money), buying an 84% stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which now trades as part of the NatWest Group.

At the time, RBS's balance sheet (outstanding loans) was bigger than the entire UK economy. Its collapse would have devastated it.

The question is, why has it taken some 17 years for the Treasury to sell the last of its stake?

And given that in the decades since fresh risks have emerged - including the threat of a cyber attack from a hostile state - how vulnerable does that leave UK banks today? Are they still "too big to fail", as they were widely described in 2008 - and were Britain to face another financial crisis, would the taxpayer have to step in once again to deliver a bailout?

'It was never about saving the banks'

The current chair of NatWest group, Rick Haythornthwaite, has told the BBC that the bank and its employees remain thankful for that intervention in 2008.

"The main message to the taxpayer is one of deep gratitude," he says. "They rescued this bank. They protected the millions of businesses and home-owners and savers."

A lot has changed since 2008. Gone are £1.5 trillion in outstanding loans, gone are tens of thousands of employees in job cuts, and gone is around £10bn of taxpayers' money – never to be recouped.

The amount spent by the government looks like a poor investment, but as Baroness Shriti Vadera – former senior adviser to the government and chair of asset manager Prudential - told the BBC, this wasn't an investment, it was a rescue.

"Nationalising RBS was hardly a voluntary investment," she says. "What was important then was assessing the impact of RBS and other banks on the overall economy and in particular the ability to keep functioning – lending, putting cash in ATMs.

"It was never about saving the banks, it was about saving the economy from the banks."

The consequences of a banking collapse would have been serious. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, even talked about putting soldiers on the streets.

In a book by ex-Labour spin doctor Damian McBride, Brown is quoted as saying: "If the banks are shutting their doors, and the cash points aren't working, and people go to Tesco and their cards aren't being accepted, the whole thing will just explode.

"If you can't buy food or petrol or medicine for your kids, people will just start breaking the windows and helping themselves."

Risky mortgages and bad loans

RBS was of course not the only bank that faced collapse. A tsunami of bad loans had been triggered by an earthquake in the US mortgage market. Risky loans to borrowers with low credit ratings had been packaged up and sold to banks around the world.

By 2007, no-one knew exactly where these grenades were hidden in bank balance sheets, so they all stopped lending to each other – which saw the whole global financial system seize up.

Northern Rock relied on borrowing funds to finance its own risky mortgages and in 2007, the BBC reported that it had turned to the Bank of England for help. This prompted a "run on the bank", which finally saw it fully nationalised in February 2008.

Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, worked as the Bank's Chief Cashier during those turbulent months. He says if the state hadn't nationalised RBS, the costs would have been "incalculable".

"It would have been huge, because we were talking about the collapse of the banking system as we knew it at that time," recounts Bailey.

US Banks were also in deep distress. In March 2008, Bear Stearns was absorbed by Wall Street rival JP Morgan. In September of that year, US mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were nationalised. Here in the UK, HBOS was absorbed by Lloyds and then of course, Lehman Brothers failed – defying expectations that the US government would step in to save it.

But for the UK economy, RBS was the big one. The UK had a large banking sector, compared to the size of its economy; and within that mix, RBS was a particularly important bank.

The once sedate RBS had become in some measure the biggest bank in the world. In 2000, it bought NatWest and just a year before the crash, it had bought Dutch bank ABN Amro.

Its buccaneering boss Fred Goodwin had been knighted for his services to banking. But Mr Goodwin became a lightning rod for public outrage at the risks banks had taken and the bonuses their executives had collected.

He left with an annual pension of £700,000 but was later stripped of his knighthood.

The years following the rescue saw thousands of companies complain that the bankers RBS appointed to help them out of the crisis were driving them to the wall, forcing them into bankruptcy or selling their businesses at knock-down prices.

RBS was the poster child for banking recklessness, hubris, greed and cruelty.

Why then did it take so long for the government to sell out of RBS - at a loss of £10bn?

A mistake to hold on for so long?

At the same time the government took a stake in RBS, it also took a stake in Lloyds. But that was sold in May 2017, yielding a profit of £900m.

RBS was infinitely more complicated than Lloyds as it had a large US business which was the subject of lengthy investigations by the US Department of Justice. The prospect of heavy fines hung over the bank for many years and proved well-founded when it was fined $4.9bn (£3.6bn) in 2018 for its role in the US mortgage crisis.

RBS was also a pretty unattractive investment. It announced a £24bn loss for 2008 – the biggest loss in UK corporate history. It made losses every year until 2017.

With the shares depressed by these concerns, the government was reluctant to sell its stake at low prices as it would crystallise a politically uncomfortable loss for the taxpayer.

After all, following 2010, austerity was the name of the game and the then-Chancellor George Osborne could ill afford to be seen to be chalking up losses by selling RBS shares when he was making cuts elsewhere.

But many think that was a mistake as – chicken and egg-like – it prolonged the reluctance of private shareholders to buy stakes in a company majority-owned by the government.

As Baroness Vadera puts it: "I'm not sure it was necessary to take 17 years to reverse out of the shares."

Collapses 'less likely - but not impossible'

Mr Haythornthwaite, who took on the role of NatWest Group chairman in April last year, describes the sale of the final shares as a "symbolic" moment for the bank, its employees, investors - but also on a wider scale.

"I hope it's a symbolic moment for our nation [too]," he says. "That we can put this behind us. It allows us to truly look to the future."

But how exactly does that future look - and have lessons from the past really been learnt?

Andrew Bailey certainly thinks so. He says that if a bank faces collapse now, it's less likely the taxpayer will have to step in.

There are now alternative methods of rescuing a failing bank, he says, including buying assets and providing emergency cash.

"The big distinction is that we think we can handle [bank crises] without using public money," Bailey says. "The critical thing is that we have to preserve the continuity of their activities, because they are critical to the economy … critical to people.

"When we say we've solved 'too big to fail', to be precise, I think what we mean is we don't need public money."

It is true that the Bank of England now stress-tests banks much more rigorously to see how they would cope under pressures like a collapse in house prices, rocketing unemployment or rampant inflation.

Sir Philip Augar, a veteran of the City of London and author of multiple books on banking, agrees that British banks are in a more resilient position now than they were in 2008 - essentially because they hold more cash in their coffers, rather than just relying on debt.

"What's happened to improve things since then is that the amount of leverage in the system has come right down, and the capital cushion that banks have to hold […] has increased substantially. So it's less likely now that a bank would collapse - but it's not impossible."

Cyber risk will never go away

Today, there are also new risks to consider.

Take the series of cyber attacks that recently hit the systems of household names like Marks and Spencer, Co-op and Harrods. Should an attack take out critical banking functions like business lending, company payrolls and ATMs, it would be far more damaging.

Indeed, in what he calls the "league table" of financial risks, Andrew Bailey identifies the threat of a cyber attack as a rapidly growing one.

"Of course you have to mitigate it, but [cyber] is a risk that will never go away, because it continually evolves," he says.

"We're dealing with bad actors who will continually refine the lines of attack. And I always have to say to institutions, 'You've got to continue to work at this'."

Recent bank collapses in the US – like Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank - have highlighted another major risk. Customers don't have to queue round a block to get their money out; it can be done with the stroke of a key on a laptop or mobile in seconds.

Banks are built on trust: customers put money in, believing they can get it out again whenever they want. And a good old-fashioned bank run is now a modern digital bank run.

But banks are still not like normal companies. They are not standalone entities but interconnected, and together they form the bloodstream of the economy.

They are the arteries through which credit is extended, wages are paid, savings are stashed or withdrawn. And when those arteries get blocked, bad things happen.

That is as true today as it was in 2008.

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The attorney general has said he regrets "clumsy" remarks in which he compared calls for the UK to depart from international law and arguments made in 1930s Germany.

In a speech on Thursday, Lord Hermer criticised politicians who argue the UK should abandon "the constraints of international law in favour of raw power".

He said similar claims had been made by legal theorists in Germany in the years before the Nazis came to power.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused him of "calling people who disagree with him Nazis," and urged the prime minister to sack him.

A spokesperson for Lord Hermer said he rejected "the characterisation of his speech by the Conservatives".

But they added the Labour peer "acknowledges though that his choice of words was clumsy and regrets having used this reference".

They added that the speech was aimed at "defending international law which underpins our security, protects against threats from aggressive states like Russia and helps tackle organised immigration crime".

In a speech at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, Lord Hermer said the Labour government wanted to combine a "pragmatic approach to the UK's national interests with a principled commitment to a rules-based international order".

He said the approach was "a rejection of the siren song that can sadly now be heard in the Palace of Westminster, and in some spectrums of the media, that Britain abandons the constraints of international law in favour of raw power".

Lord Hermer added: "This is not a new song.

"The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by 'realist' jurists in Germany, most notably Carl Schmitt, whose central thesis was in essence the claim that state power is all that counts, not law.

"Because of the experience of what followed in 1933, far-sighted individuals rebuilt and transformed the institutions of international law, as well as internal constitutional law."

Adolf Hitler became German chancellor in 1933.

Carl Schmitt, a German legal scholar, was a supporter of the Nazi Party who sought to justify Hitler's policies in his writings on legal and political theory.

'Appalling judgement'

The Conservatives and Reform UK have been critical of some elements of international law and the courts that enforce it.

For example, some politicians from these parties have called for the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), an international treaty which sets out the rights and freedoms people are entitled to in signatory countries, including the UK.

Critics of the ECHR say it hampers the UK's ability to deal with migration issues, including deporting people who cross the English Channel on small boats.

Badenoch, who has previously suggested the UK would have to leave the ECHR if it stops the country from doing "what is right", said Lord Hermer had shown "appalling judgement" in his speech.

"Now he's calling people who disagree with him Nazis," she added.

"This isn't just embarrassing, it's dangerous. Hermer doesn't understand government.

"If Keir Starmer had any backbone, he'd sack him."

Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice said Lord Hermer should apologise.

"If anyone on the right of politics used his language, there would be outrage," Tice posted on social media.

"He has shown himself as unfit to be attorney general."

A search is under way for a girl who is missing in the River Thames in Kent, police have said.

Officers were called by the Port of London Authority (PLA) at 13:45 BST on Friday after concerns for for the welfare of two children who had entered the river at Royal Pier Road, Gravesend.

Emergency services including police and the ambulance service, as well as HM Coastguard and the RNLI, attended the scene, where a boy was retrieved from the water and taken to a local hospital for further medical attention.

A search continues for the girl who remains missing, police added.

The ages of the children have not been revealed.

HM Coastguard said it had responded to a report of two children in difficulty in the water.

"One child has been recovered and the search is ongoing for a second," a spokesperson said.

"Metropolitan Police boats are attending, as well as the RNLI lifeboat from Gravesend, Kent Police and a police helicopter."

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The jury hearing Gerry Adams' libel case against the BBC has reconvened to consider its findings.

The former Sinn Féin leader is seeking upwards of €200,000 (£168,000) in damages at the High Court in Dublin over a story in which an anonymous contributor alleged he sanctioned the 2006 murder of a British agent, Denis Donaldson.

Mr Adams, 76, denies any involvement.

He alleges he was defamed in a BBC NI Spotlight programme broadcast in 2016 and an accompanying online article.

The BBC has argued a defence of fair and reasonable reporting on a matter of public interest.

The 12-person jury had been sent out on Thursday morning but were unable to reach a verdict after more than six hours of deliberations.

One juror has now been excused from duty due to a holiday. There is now an 11-person jury, consisting of seven men and four women.

'Quite easy' to determine

The trial at the High Court in Dublin heard four weeks of evidence from 10 witnesses, including Mr Adams and BBC NI reporter Jennifer O'Leary.

Mr Adams brought the case in Dublin as the BBC NI Spotlight programme was able to be watched in the Republic of Ireland, where it was seen by about 16,000 people.

He was a TD (member of the Irish parliament) for Louth at the time it was broadcast.

The online article had approximately 700 hits in the Republic during a 14-month period after publication in September 2016.

The judge presiding over the case, Mr Justice Alexander Owens, completed his recap of the evidence of all witnesses on Wednesday.

He said that he did not think the jury will be deliberating for long, as the issues are "quite easy" to determine.

They have up to five questions to answer.

The judge told the jurors that if they award damages to Mr Adams, they should base it on his recent and current reputation.

The jury will consider damages only if they find Mr Adams was defamed and they reject the BBC's "fair publication" defence.

A central issue of the trial has been Mr Adams' alleged past as an IRA leader - a claim he has always rejected.

Mr Justice Owens said "a person's reputation can change" and the jury should "evaluate" it as of "2016 and now".

Who was Denis Donaldson?

Mr Donaldson was once a key figure in Sinn Féin's rise as a political force in Northern Ireland.

But he was found murdered in 2006 after it emerged he had worked for the police and MI5 inside Sinn Féin for 20 years.

In 2009, the Real IRA said it had murdered him.

Based on sources, BBC NI Spotlight claimed the killing was the work of the Provisional IRA.

Mr Donaldson was interned without trial for periods in the 1970s and, after signing the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Féin appointed him as its key administrator in the party's Stormont offices.

In 2005, Mr Donaldson confessed he was a spy for British intelligence for two decades, before disappearing from Belfast.

He was found dead in a small, rundown cottage in Glenties, County Donegal.

Who is Gerry Adams?

Mr Adams was the president of republican party Sinn Féin from 1983 until 2018.

He served as MP in his native Belfast West from 1983 to 1992 and again from 1997 until 2011 before sitting as a TD (Teachta Dála) in the Dáil (Irish parliament) between 2011 and 2020.

Mr Adams led the Sinn Féin delegation during peace talks that eventually brought an end to the Troubles after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

He was detained in the early 1970s when the government in Northern Ireland introduced internment without trial for those suspected of paramilitary involvement.

Mr Adams has consistently denied being a member of the IRA.

She has given Kaleb a run for his money and now Harriet Cowan wants to be a voice for young farmers.

The 24-year-old, from Derbyshire, has become Jeremy Clarkson's new sidekick on the latest series of his popular show Clarkson's Farm, standing in for Kaleb Cooper for three episodes while he toured.

She describes herself as both a full-time farmer and nurse, working as a community nurse in Belper when she is not on the farm.

But she says her appearance in the Amazon Prime series has given her a new opportunity to speak up on farmers' mental health, be a voice for young, female farmers and attempt to change stereotypes of farming.

The programme has proved a major hit for the streaming giant since it first aired in 2021 and is now into its fourth season.

Harriet's appearances in the show have provided a further window into the mental pressures faced by the farming community.

"It's the unknown all the time," she said.

"You don't know if the grass is going to grow, you don't know how much the fertiliser is going to cost, you don't know how much you're going to sell that cow for.

"It's hard because you're in an industry where a lot of the time you work alone, and we do. It's lonely, you don't have anyone to talk to.

"I've seen a lot of farmers shut off since Covid, and they don't want to go out and socialise anymore because they're used to being isolated.

"We lost a lot of social skills. Now, it's about building them back up and getting farmers to talk again and tell people about the challenges they're facing.

"If I can do anything, I'm going to use the platform to promote the mental health aspect in farming and if I can save one life, it's something."

Harriet says she also wants to challenge stereotypes of farming.

"I think when you talk to somebody and ask what they stereotypically think of when someone says farmer they say '60-year-old man with a checked shirt and a beer belly', and a lot of the time that is it, but us women are out here and farmers too," she said.

"Just because I'm a small, blonde that likes to curl her hair and wear make-up, it doesn't mean I can't be a farmer.

"I'm trying to change the norm of the man being the farmer and the woman being the stay-at-home wife and cook.

"When the war was on, women did all the farming, so we have always farmed - it's just changing that stereotype."

Harriet said she was approached to take part in the show by land agent Charlie Ireland – nicknamed "Cheerful Charlie" by Clarkson on the show - but admitted she had not watched a single episode before filming began.

"It worked so much better I think because I didn't know what to expect. I just went out and did what I'd do on my farm," she said.

"Every farm is slightly different but at the end of the day you all have the same goal. You're there to farm the land and look after your animals.

"Jeremy was no different. He's the same as every other farmer I know. He just wanted to achieve something with his farm and look after his animals and get the best out of it.

"Growing up, I never watched Top Gear and we don't watch a lot of TV, so he was just another farmer for me. Flat peak cap and a checked shirt.

"Genuinely, that man just wants to achieve something with his farm. He really does want to learn as well, which is the best bit for me."

'The humour's real'

Harriet says the show is truly authentic and nothing much changes when the cameras stop rolling.

"I didn't have to worry about any cameras or anything. You forgot they were even there," she said.

"We just went along, farmed and did our day-to-day stuff. Any bits that were funny were just authentically funny because that was our dynamic.

"It's nice to keep it light-hearted on a farm because it's such a serious job.

"We don't really change for the cameras coming on. We just get our heads down, farm and they do what they need to do to get the bits they need.

"There was a lot of work there with the pigs. Every day sent a new challenge. It was good fun. It was hard work but farming is hard work."

Harriet said she was pleased with the warm response to her time on the show.

"I am blown away. I can't thank people enough for how nice and positive everything's been," she said.

"I'm shocked because I didn't realise that many people were interested in me and what I do day-to-day. I've never really thought of it as anything that's exciting, it's just my little life. I get up and farm, I go to work and come back and farm.

"The way that it's blown up on social media and even walking down the street seeing people recognise us is absolutely crazy."

Harriet had a slightly frosty start to meeting Kaleb on the show but says they have become good friends since filming.

"Kaleb's amazing - me and him are so close now," she said.

"He's such a good farmer and we got on really well. He's another farmer to add to my phone list to ring.

"Everyone checks in to make sure everyone's fine. The farm is two and a bit hours away, so it's crazy to be talking to Kaleb, Jeremy, Gerald and Charlie and asking what the weather is like."

Future plans

Harriet now has to decide what to do next with her new-found platform.

"My life is going to be constantly farming. I'm never not going to farm, and I know it," she said.

"I've just got to find a way to use what platform I've got to promote women in the industry and mental health.

"You're never getting me off the farm, they'll have to take me screaming and kicking."

Harriet says the door has been left open for her to potentially appear on future seasons of the show.

She said: "We've left it very open. I'm here if he needs me, but no plans at the moment."

Follow BBC Derby on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2210.

A British woman accused of attempting to smuggle a large quantity of cannabis into Sri Lanka has appeared in court in the country.

Charlotte May Lee, 21, from south London, was arrested earlier this month after authorities allegedly found 46kg of the drug in her suitcases when she arrived on a flight from Thailand.

She has not yet been charged, but has previously denied knowing the alleged drugs were in her luggage. If found guilty, she could face up to 25 years behind bars.

Speaking to the BBC from prison before her court appearance, Ms Lee said she had travelled from Bangkok to the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo to renew her Thai visa.

The former flight attendant arrived at Negombo Magistrate's Court on Friday wearing a white knee-length dress, her long hair parted to the side.

She was making a procedural court appearance while the investigation into her alleged offences continues.

Ms Lee was held in a cell at the back of the courtroom before being brought to the witness box. She was visibly upset as she stood with her hands crossed behind her back, facing the magistrate.

Authorities wheeled in a large brown box containing the alleged 46kg of cannabis found in Ms Lee's luggage.

The narcotics division of the Sri Lanka police told the court they intend to file an update on the investigation.

Ms Lee's lawyer, Sampath Perera, asked if the alleged drugs had been examined by the relevant government authorities to ascertain if the materials were in fact an illegal substance.

The magistrate ordered it to be tested and for a report to be submitted to the court as soon as possible.

Speaking to the BBC from a prison an hour outside of Colombo, Ms Lee appeared to be in good spirits.

She described her living conditions, saying she shares a cell with five other women and sleeps on a thin mattress on the concrete floor, using whatever clothes she has as a pillow.

That is where she spends most of her day, she said, although she does get to go outside for fresh air.

"I can't compare it to anything," she said. "I have never been to prison and I've never been to Sri Lanka. This heat and just sitting on a concrete floor all of the time."

Ms Lee said she tries not to dwell too much on her current predicament.

"I am not trying to think about it. If I think, then I feel bad. I'll still rather not process it."

Ms Lee said she is concerned for the other women who are also in prison.

"There are people from so many different countries who have been here for two years, two-and-a-half years. And it's still just waiting and no-one actually knows anything."

She has managed to find other English-speaking women with whom she has developed a kinship. But she has not been able to speak with her family since her arrest.

Speaking to the BBC from outside the courthouse after the hearing, Mr Perera said the next step is to make a bail application for Ms Lee, which could take three months.

Under Sri Lankan law, people being held on remand must appear before a judge every 14 days.

Ms Lee is being held on suspicion of keeping illegal drugs in her possession and drug smuggling. Her next court appearance will be on 13 July.

Additional reporting by Charlotte Scarr

Broadcaster Wynne Evans has announced he is leaving his BBC Radio Wales show after the broadcaster "decided not to renew" his contract.

He had been taking time off his daytime show after apologising for making what he described as an "inappropriate and unacceptable" comment during the Strictly Come Dancing live tour launch in December.

"I won't be returning to my radio show. I'm gutted," he said in an Instagram post, adding that he would be launching a new online radio show.

The BBC has been asked to comment.

Evans, 52, was recorded making a sexualised remark at the Birmingham Arena as the group prepared for a photo on stage.

"My language was inappropriate and unacceptable, for which I sincerely apologise," he said in a statement.

He described his BBC Radio Wales show as not "just work", but "home".

He announced he would be launching The Wynne Evans show on a new app, a move he described as "terrifying" and "exhilarating".

Evans' behaviour during Strictly Come Dancing attracted attention from viewers over what some described as awkward incidents.

This included Katya Jones appearing to turn down a high-five from Evans and move his hand from her waist during an episode in October.

The duo later said the high-five moment was a "running joke" between them, while Jones said it was "complete nonsense" that Evans' hand on her waist "made me feel uncomfortable or offended me in any way".

Millionaires should not be getting winter fuel payments, a senior minister has said, as the government considers how to ease cuts to the allowance for pensioners.

Darren Jones, chief secretary to the Treasury, said the payments would be "targeted to those that need it the most".

It comes after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer U-turned on the withdrawal of the allowance from millions of pensioners, after a backlash over the decision.

Sir Keir said "more pensioners" would be able to claim the payments again, under changes to be made at the Budget this autumn.

But the prime minister did not specify how many pensioners would be entitled to claim the payments, when the change would take effect, or how much it would cost the government.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has also said she does not believe "millionaire" pensioners should be able to claim the winter fuel allowance.

But Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party have called for the winter fuel allowance to be restored in full.

More than 10 million pensioners lost out on payments worth up to £300 last year after the Labour government restricted eligibility to those who qualify for pension credit and other income-related benefits.

When asked on Sky News if ministers should be clearer on how they intend to change winter fuel payments, Jones said "it was right that we set out the detail and pay for those things in an orderly way".

He added: "We're sticking to the principle that millionaires shouldn't be getting subsidy for their energy bills from the government, so winter fuel payments will still be targeted to those that need it the most".

He did not provide further details of who would qualify as a millionaire, adding that the eligibility threshold would be reviewed in the "coming months".

The winter fuel payment is a lump sum of £200 a year for households with a pensioner under 80, or £300 for households with a pensioner over 80.

It was previously paid in November or December to all pensioners who claimed it, regardless of their income or wealth.

But 10.3 million pensioners lost out last year after the Labour government made changes to save an estimated £1.4bn, with ministers arguing immediate savings were needed as the Conservatives had left a "hole" in the public finances.

But pressure to change course has grown in recent weeks, with some Labour MPs and councillors blaming the policy for the party's losses at last month's local elections in parts of England.

'Hassle'

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a think tank, has suggested a number of ways the government could expand who is able to claim the payment.

The income threshold for pension credit, the main benefit to qualify to continue to receive winter fuel payments, is currently £11,800 a year for individuals and £18,023 for pensioner couples.

The IFS said a new means-test would create "hassle" for pensioners and "would no doubt result in many not claiming".

It would also "imply a lot of administrative cost for what is a fairly small benefit", the IFS said.

Resolution Foundation, a think tank, said there were "huge doubts" over how a new means-test would work, and estimated that expanding eligibility for pension credit by 10% could cost £2.5bn, more than the original winter fuel cut was meant to save.

The last hospital providing health services in the North Gaza governorate is out of service after the Israeli military ordered its immediate evacuation, the hospital's director has said.

Dr Mohammed Salha said patients were evacuated from al-Awda hospital in Jabalia on Thursday evening.

He told the BBC "we are feeling really bad about this forced evacuation" after "two weeks of siege", saying there is now "no health facility working in the north".

Israel has not yet commented, but the BBC has contacted the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

"We're really sad that we evacuated the hospital, but the Israeli occupation forces threatened us that if we didn't evacuate, they would enter and kill whoever is inside," Dr Salha said in a voice note to the BBC.

"Or they would bomb the hospital. We were thinking of the lives of patients and our staff."

Dr Salha told the BBC the hospital faced "a lot of bombing and shooting from the tanks" from around noon local time (09:00 GMT) on Thursday.

He received a call from the Israeli forces at about 13:00 to evacuate, and initially refused because there were patients in need of healthcare. He offered to stay with another 10 of his staff and evacuate the others, but the military refused, he said.

After seven hours of negotiations, the evacuation occurred at about 20:30.

Staff carried patients more than 300 metres (984 feet) to ambulances parked far away from the hospital "because the roads are totally destroyed".

A video sent by Dr Salha of the evacuation, and verified by the BBC, shows a line of ambulances with lights and sirens on driving at night.

"Due to impassable roads" the hospital's medical equipment could not be relocated, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

UN humanitarian agency OCHA said on Thursday "ongoing hostilities over the past two weeks have damaged the hospital, disrupted access, and created panic, deterring people from seeking care".

Patients were evacuated to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

Dr Salha told the BBC they would provide services through a primary health centre in Gaza City and said another might be established in a shelter.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said the closure of al-Awda meant there was no remaining functioning hospital in the North Gaza governorate, "severing a critical lifeline for the people there".

"WHO pleads for the hospital's protection and staff and patients' safety, and reiterates its call for the active protection of civilians and healthcare," he said. "Hospitals must never be attacked or militarized."

The IDF had ordered evacuations of the areas of Al-Atatra, Jabalia Al-Balad, Shujaiya, Al-Daraj and Al-Zeitoun on Thursday evening, spokesperson Avichay Adraee said at the time on social media.

"Terrorist organisations continue their subversive activity in the region, and therefore the IDF will expand its offensive activity in the areas where you are present to destroy the capabilities of the terrorist organisations," he said.

"From this moment on, the mentioned areas will be considered dangerous combat."

Al-Awda hospital was inside an evacuation zone announced last week, but had still been functioning, its director previously said.

A statement from 18 charities on Thursday said the hospital was under military besiegement "for the fourth time since October 2023 and has been struck at least 28 times".

The emergency room was hit, injuring four staff, and the desalination plant and storage unit also struck, leading to the loss of all medicine, supplies and equipment, the charities said.

The IDF told the BBC last week it was "operating in the area against terror targets", but that it was "not aware of any siege on the hospital itself".

Apart from hospitals, some primary healthcare centres are still operating in Gaza, with 61 out of 158 partially or fully functional as of 18 May, OCHA said.

Nine out of 27 UN Palestinian refugee agency health centres were also functioning.

OCHA did not report how many, if any, centres were in the north Gaza governorate.

Israel is continuing its bombardment of Gaza, which most Palestinians are not currently able to leave, after a brief ceasefire earlier this year.

Israel began to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza last week, after a nearly three-month blockade that halted the delivery of supplies including food, medicine, fuel and shelter.

Security broke down and looting took place as Palestinians searched for food in Gaza City on Thursday.

Scenes of chaos have also broken out at aid distribution centres run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation - a US-and Israeli-backed group.

The UN and many aid groups have refused to co-operate with the GHF's plans, which they say contradict humanitarian principles and appear to "weaponise aid".

Israel said it imposed the blockade on Gaza to pressurise Hamas to release the remaining hostages, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive. It has also accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.

A UN-backed assessment this month said Gaza's 2.1 million people were at a "critical risk" of famine. The UN's humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the BBC people in the territory were being subjected to "forced starvation" by Israel.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 54,249 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,986 since Israel resumed its offensive on 18 March, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Additional reporting by Naomi Scherbel-Ball and Alice Cuddy in Jerusalem

She has given Kaleb a run for his money and now Harriet Cowan wants to be a voice for young farmers.

The 24-year-old, from Derbyshire, has become Jeremy Clarkson's new sidekick on the latest series of his popular show Clarkson's Farm, standing in for Kaleb Cooper for three episodes while he toured.

She describes herself as both a full-time farmer and nurse, working as a community nurse in Belper when she is not on the farm.

But she says her appearance in the Amazon Prime series has given her a new opportunity to speak up on farmers' mental health, be a voice for young, female farmers and attempt to change stereotypes of farming.

The programme has proved a major hit for the streaming giant since it first aired in 2021 and is now into its fourth season.

Harriet's appearances in the show have provided a further window into the mental pressures faced by the farming community.

"It's the unknown all the time," she said.

"You don't know if the grass is going to grow, you don't know how much the fertiliser is going to cost, you don't know how much you're going to sell that cow for.

"It's hard because you're in an industry where a lot of the time you work alone, and we do. It's lonely, you don't have anyone to talk to.

"I've seen a lot of farmers shut off since Covid, and they don't want to go out and socialise anymore because they're used to being isolated.

"We lost a lot of social skills. Now, it's about building them back up and getting farmers to talk again and tell people about the challenges they're facing.

"If I can do anything, I'm going to use the platform to promote the mental health aspect in farming and if I can save one life, it's something."

Harriet says she also wants to challenge stereotypes of farming.

"I think when you talk to somebody and ask what they stereotypically think of when someone says farmer they say '60-year-old man with a checked shirt and a beer belly', and a lot of the time that is it, but us women are out here and farmers too," she said.

"Just because I'm a small, blonde that likes to curl her hair and wear make-up, it doesn't mean I can't be a farmer.

"I'm trying to change the norm of the man being the farmer and the woman being the stay-at-home wife and cook.

"When the war was on, women did all the farming, so we have always farmed - it's just changing that stereotype."

Harriet said she was approached to take part in the show by land agent Charlie Ireland – nicknamed "Cheerful Charlie" by Clarkson on the show - but admitted she had not watched a single episode before filming began.

"It worked so much better I think because I didn't know what to expect. I just went out and did what I'd do on my farm," she said.

"Every farm is slightly different but at the end of the day you all have the same goal. You're there to farm the land and look after your animals.

"Jeremy was no different. He's the same as every other farmer I know. He just wanted to achieve something with his farm and look after his animals and get the best out of it.

"Growing up, I never watched Top Gear and we don't watch a lot of TV, so he was just another farmer for me. Flat peak cap and a checked shirt.

"Genuinely, that man just wants to achieve something with his farm. He really does want to learn as well, which is the best bit for me."

'The humour's real'

Harriet says the show is truly authentic and nothing much changes when the cameras stop rolling.

"I didn't have to worry about any cameras or anything. You forgot they were even there," she said.

"We just went along, farmed and did our day-to-day stuff. Any bits that were funny were just authentically funny because that was our dynamic.

"It's nice to keep it light-hearted on a farm because it's such a serious job.

"We don't really change for the cameras coming on. We just get our heads down, farm and they do what they need to do to get the bits they need.

"There was a lot of work there with the pigs. Every day sent a new challenge. It was good fun. It was hard work but farming is hard work."

Harriet said she was pleased with the warm response to her time on the show.

"I am blown away. I can't thank people enough for how nice and positive everything's been," she said.

"I'm shocked because I didn't realise that many people were interested in me and what I do day-to-day. I've never really thought of it as anything that's exciting, it's just my little life. I get up and farm, I go to work and come back and farm.

"The way that it's blown up on social media and even walking down the street seeing people recognise us is absolutely crazy."

Harriet had a slightly frosty start to meeting Kaleb on the show but says they have become good friends since filming.

"Kaleb's amazing - me and him are so close now," she said.

"He's such a good farmer and we got on really well. He's another farmer to add to my phone list to ring.

"Everyone checks in to make sure everyone's fine. The farm is two and a bit hours away, so it's crazy to be talking to Kaleb, Jeremy, Gerald and Charlie and asking what the weather is like."

Future plans

Harriet now has to decide what to do next with her new-found platform.

"My life is going to be constantly farming. I'm never not going to farm, and I know it," she said.

"I've just got to find a way to use what platform I've got to promote women in the industry and mental health.

"You're never getting me off the farm, they'll have to take me screaming and kicking."

Harriet says the door has been left open for her to potentially appear on future seasons of the show.

She said: "We've left it very open. I'm here if he needs me, but no plans at the moment."

Follow BBC Derby on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2210.

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary is on track to pocket bonuses worth more than €100m in what could reportedly mark one of the biggest pay-outs in European corporate history.

It comes after shares in the budget airline closed above €21 (£17.65) for a 28th consecutive day on Thursday, meeting a key performance target.

Mr O'Leary will have the option to receive 10 million shares worth some €111.2m (£93.3m) providing he stays with the airline until the end of July 2028.

The Irish boss, known for his punchy comments, said earlier this month that Ryanair was "delivering exceptional value" to shareholders despite it reporting a fall in full-year profits.

"I think Ryanair shareholders are getting a particular value out of our share options - both mine and the rest of the management team," he said in response to being asked about the share option on an analyst call earlier this month.

"We're delivering exceptional value for Ryanair shareholders in an era when premiership footballers or the managers are getting paid 20 to 25 million a year."

Ryanair said in a statement that the share price aspect of the bonus was "on only one of two conditions", adding: "The second condition is that Michael and the rest of the management team must remain employed by Ryanair until the end of July 2028, so these share options won't vest for another three years yet.!

Mr O'Leary has indicated that he could stay on longer at the airline when his current contract expires in 2028. He has been with Ryanair since 1988.

Since becoming chief executive in 1994, He has spearheaded the airline's sharp trajectory from a relatively small regional airline into a Europe's largest low-cost carrier.

"There'll have to be some discussion I presume with the board as to how my remuneration will be fixed from 2028 onwards, if they want me to stay on after 2028," he said.

The long-term incentive scheme for Mr O'Leary was first set out in 2019, the year he became group chief executive.

Low-cost rival carrier, Wizz Air has a similar potential pay deal in place for its chief executive József Váradi.

Mr Váradi stands to earn £100m if his airline's share price hits £120 by 2028. But Wizz Air has previously conceded that this was unlikely to be met with the shares trading well below that level.

Earlier this month, Ryanair ordered some flight attendants in Spain to repay salary increases following a legal dispute with their union.

A lack of action by big tech firms is enabling the "industrial scale theft" of premium video services, especially live sport, a new report says.

The research by Enders Analysis accuses Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft of "ambivalence and inertia" over a problem it says costs broadcasters revenue and puts users at an increased risk of cyber-crime.

Gareth Sutcliffe and Ollie Meir, who authored the research, described the Amazon Fire Stick - which they argue is the device many people use to access illegal streams - as "a piracy enabler".

BBC News has contacted Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft for comment.

The piracy problem

Sports broadcasting is big business, with the total value of media rights across the world passing the $60bn (£44bn) mark last year.

The increasing cost of rights deals results in higher prices for fans at home, especially if they choose to pay for multiple services to watch their team play.

To get round this, some resort to illegal streams of big events.

Enders say there are often multiple streams of individual events - such as high profile football games - each of which can have tens of thousands of people watching them.

Bosses of big rights holders, Sky and DAZN, have previously warned piracy is causing a financial crisis in the broadcast industry.

There is a risk for users too.

The Enders report says fans watching football matches, for instance, via illegal streams are typically providing information such as credit card details and email addresses, leaving them vulnerable to malware and phishing scams.

Fire Stick in the firing line

The researchers looked at the European market and focussed on Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft.

While Meta, the owner of Facebook, was criticised for being the source of adverts for illegal streams, the technology of the other three was blamed for the increase in piracy.

The Amazon Fire Stick is a major cause of the problem, according to the report.

The device plugs into TVs and gives the viewer thousands of options to watch programmes from legitimate services including the BBC iPlayer and Netflix.

They are also being used to access illegal streams, particularly of live sport.

In November last year, a Liverpool man who sold Fire Stick devices he reconfigured to allow people to illegally stream Premier League football matches was jailed.

After uploading the unauthorised services on the Amazon product, he advertised them on Facebook.

Another man from Liverpool was given a two-year suspended sentence last year after modifying fire sticks and selling them on Facebook and WhatsApp.

According to data for the first quarter of this year, provided to Enders by Sky, 59% of people in UK who said they had watched pirated material in the last year while using a physical device said they had used a Amazon fire product.

The Enders report says the fire stick enables "billions of dollars in piracy" overall.

Depreciation of tech allows piracy to flourish

The researchers also pointed to the role played by the "continued depreciation" of Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems, particularly those from Google and Microsoft.

This technology enables high quality streaming of premium content to devices. Two of the big players are Microsoft's PlayReady and Google's Widevine.

The authors argue the architecture of the DRM is largely unchanged, and due to a lack of maintenance by the big tech companies, PlayReady and Widevine "are now compromised across various security levels".

Mr Sutcliffe and Mr Meir said this has had "a seismic impact across the industry, and ultimately given piracy the upper hand by enabling theft of the highest quality content".

They added: "Over twenty years since launch, the DRM solutions provided by Google and Microsoft are in steep decline.

"A complete overhaul of the technology architecture, licensing, and support model is needed. Lack of engagement with content owners indicates this a low priority."

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Elon Musk's time in the Trump administration is coming to an end after a tempestuous 129 days in which the world's richest man took an axe to government spending - stirring ample controversy along the way.

Earlier this week, the South African-born billionaire, on his social media platform, X, thanked President Trump for his time at the Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge.

His departure was confirmed by the White House, although Trump has yet to comment directly.

Trump announced that he will host a news conference in the Oval Office on Friday with Musk, writing: "This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way."

While Musk's time in government lasted little more than four months, his work with Doge upended the federal government and had an impact not just in the halls of power in Washington - but around the world.

Let's take a look at some of the ways Musk has left a mark.

Doge's chainsaw to federal spending

Musk took a job with the Trump White House with one mission: to cut spending from the government as much as possible.

He began with an initial target of "at least $2 trillion", which then shifted to $1tn and ultimately $150bn.

To date, Doge claims to have saved $175bn through a combination of asset sales, lease and grant cancellations, "fraud and improper payment deletion", regulatory savings and a 260,000-person reduction from the 2.3 million-strong federal workforce.

A BBC analysis of those figures, however, found that evidence is sometimes lacking.

This mission has at times caused both chaos and controversy, including some instances in which federal judges halted mass firings and ordered employees reinstated.

In other instances, the administration has been forced to backtrack on firings.

In one notable instance in February, the administration stopped the firing of hundreds of federal employees working at the National Nuclear Security Administration, including some with sensitive jobs related to the US nuclear arsenal.

Musk himself repeatedly acknowledged that mass firings would inevitably include mistakes.

"We will make mistakes," he said in February, after his department mistook a region of Mozambique for Hamas-controlled Gaza while cutting an aid programme. "But we'll act quickly to correct any mistakes."

Doge's efforts to access data also garnered controversy, particularly the department's push for access to sensitive treasury department systems that control the private information of millions of Americans.

Polls show that cuts to government spending remain popular with many Americans - even if Musk's personal popularity has waned.

Blurred lines between business and politics

The presence of Musk - an unelected "special government employee" with companies that count the US government as customers - in Trump's White House has also raised eyebrows, prompting questions about potential conflicts of interest.

His corporate empire includes large companies that do business with US and foreign governments. SpaceX has $22 billion in US government contracts, according to the company's chief executive.

Some Democrats also accused Musk of taking advantage of his position to drum up business abroad for his satellite internet services firm, Starlink.

The White House was accused of helping Musk's businesses by showcasing vehicles made by Tesla - his embattled car company - on the White House lawn in March.

Musk and Trump have both shrugged off any suggestion that his work with the government is conflicted or ethically problematic.

A nudge for US isolationism?

Around the world, Musk's work with Doge was most felt after the vast majority - over 80% - of the US Agency for International Development's (USAID's) programmes were eliminated following a six-week review by Doge. The rest were absorbed by the State Department.

The Musk and Doge-led cuts formed part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to bring overseas spending closer in line with its "America First" approach.

The cuts to the agency - tasked with work such as famine detection, vaccinations and food aid in conflict areas - quickly had an impact on projects including communal kitchens in war-torn Sudan, scholarships for young Afghan women who fled the Taliban and clinics for transgender people in India.

USAID also was a crucial instrument of US "soft power" around the world, leading some detractors pointing to its elimination as a sign of waning American influence on the global stage.

Conspiracies and misinformation

While Musk - and Trump - have for years been accused by detractors of spreading baseless conspiracy theories, Musk's presence in the White House starkly highlighted how misinformation has crept into discourse at the highest levels of the US government.

For example, Musk spread an unfounded internet theory that US gold reserves had quietly been stolen from Fort Knox in Kentucky. At one point, he floated the idea of livestreaming a visit there to ensure the gold was secured.

• Fact-checking Trump's Oval Office confrontation with Ramaphosa

More recently, Musk spread widely discredited rumours that the white Afrikaner population of South Africa is facing "genocide" in their home country.

Those rumours found their way into the Oval Office earlier in May, when a meeting aimed at soothing tensions between the US and South Africa took a drastic twist after Trump presented South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with videos and articles he said were evidence of crimes against Afrikaners.

Revealed divisions inside Trump's camp

Musk's work in government also showed that, despite public pledges of unity, there are tensions within the "Trump 2.0" administration.

While Trump publicly - and repeatedly - backed the work of Musk and Doge, Musk's tenure was marked by reports of tension between him and members of the cabinet who felt Doge cuts were impacting their agencies.

"They have a lot of respect for Elon and that he's doing this, and some disagree a little bit," Trump acknowledged in a February cabinet meeting. "If they aren't, I want them to speak up."

At one point, he was asked whether any cabinet members had expressed dissatisfaction with Musk and turned to the room to ask them. No one spoke.

The announcement of Musk's departure also came the same day CBS - BBC's US partner - publicised part of an interview during which Musk said he was "disappointed" by Trump's "big, beautiful" budget bill. The bill includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and a pledge to increase defence spending.

Musk said the bill "undermines" the work of Doge to cut spending - reflecting larger tensions within the Republican Party over the path forward.

Millionaires should not be getting winter fuel payments, a senior minister has said, as the government considers how to ease cuts to the allowance for pensioners.

Darren Jones, chief secretary to the Treasury, said the payments would be "targeted to those that need it the most".

It comes after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer U-turned on the withdrawal of the allowance from millions of pensioners, after a backlash over the decision.

Sir Keir said "more pensioners" would be able to claim the payments again, under changes to be made at the Budget this autumn.

But the prime minister did not specify how many pensioners would be entitled to claim the payments, when the change would take effect, or how much it would cost the government.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has also said she does not believe "millionaire" pensioners should be able to claim the winter fuel allowance.

But Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party have called for the winter fuel allowance to be restored in full.

More than 10 million pensioners lost out on payments worth up to £300 last year after the Labour government restricted eligibility to those who qualify for pension credit and other income-related benefits.

When asked on Sky News if ministers should be clearer on how they intend to change winter fuel payments, Jones said "it was right that we set out the detail and pay for those things in an orderly way".

He added: "We're sticking to the principle that millionaires shouldn't be getting subsidy for their energy bills from the government, so winter fuel payments will still be targeted to those that need it the most".

He did not provide further details of who would qualify as a millionaire, adding that the eligibility threshold would be reviewed in the "coming months".

The winter fuel payment is a lump sum of £200 a year for households with a pensioner under 80, or £300 for households with a pensioner over 80.

It was previously paid in November or December to all pensioners who claimed it, regardless of their income or wealth.

But 10.3 million pensioners lost out last year after the Labour government made changes to save an estimated £1.4bn, with ministers arguing immediate savings were needed as the Conservatives had left a "hole" in the public finances.

But pressure to change course has grown in recent weeks, with some Labour MPs and councillors blaming the policy for the party's losses at last month's local elections in parts of England.

'Hassle'

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a think tank, has suggested a number of ways the government could expand who is able to claim the payment.

The income threshold for pension credit, the main benefit to qualify to continue to receive winter fuel payments, is currently £11,800 a year for individuals and £18,023 for pensioner couples.

The IFS said a new means-test would create "hassle" for pensioners and "would no doubt result in many not claiming".

It would also "imply a lot of administrative cost for what is a fairly small benefit", the IFS said.

Resolution Foundation, a think tank, said there were "huge doubts" over how a new means-test would work, and estimated that expanding eligibility for pension credit by 10% could cost £2.5bn, more than the original winter fuel cut was meant to save.

Paul Doyle has made his first appearance in court accused of driving his car into a crowd of people after Liverpool FC's trophy parade.

The former Royal Marine, 53, faces seven charges including wounding with intent, causing grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent, attempting to cause GBH with intent and dangerous driving.

A total of 79 people were injured on Water Street in the city centre just before 18:00 BST on Monday.

The father-of-three of Burghill Road in West Derby, Liverpool, was escorted into the dock at Liverpool Magistrates' Court wearing a black suit, grey tie and white shirt.

Mr Doyle appeared visibly emotional as he spoke quietly only to confirm his date of birth and age.

For much of the hearing, the 53-year-old sat in the dock with his head down, listening to proceedings.

District Judge Paul Healey has retired to allow for legal discussions to take place. Mr Doyle has been removed from the dock.

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Russell Brand has arrived at court for a hearing at which he is expected to enter his plea on charges of rape, sexual assault and indecent assault.

The broadcaster, comedian and actor did not speak to reporters and looked straight ahead as he entered Southwark Crown Court wearing a dark suit and unbuttoned shirt.

He faces one allegation of rape, one of indecent assault, one of oral rape and two further counts of sexual assault. The offences are alleged to have taken place between 1999 and 2005, and relate to four women.

Friday's one-day plea and trial preparation hearing is being held in advance of a possible trial at a later date.

After being charged in April, Mr Brand, 49, released a video saying he was not a rapist and had never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity.

"I'm now going to have the opportunity to defend these charges in court and I'm incredibly grateful for that," he told followers at the time.

Mr Brand, who was born in Essex, rose to fame as a stand-up comedian and became a household name as host of TV shows like Big Brother's Big Mouth, and with his own radio programmes on stations including BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music.

He went on to establish a Hollywood career, starring in films like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him To The Greek.

Banksy's latest piece of grafitti art has been revealed to the world - but where it was painted remains a mystery for now.

Images posted on the elusive artist's Instagram depict a lighthouse stencilled on a drab, beige wall, along with the words: "I want to be what you saw in me".

A false shadow appears to have been drawn on the pavement from a nearby bollard, giving the illusion that the lighthouse is itself a silhouette of the mundane street furniture.

But unlike a lighthouse, the post gives little away as to the artwork's location. A second, wider shot showing two people walking their dogs offers little more.

Geoguessers on social media have speculated that the street art may lurk in Marseille, in the south of France, while others debate how to interpret the work's meaning.

Another image of the art circulating online shows a blurred person riding a scooter in front of the piece, with a graffiti tag seemingly reading "Yaze" further along the wall.

The tag matches that used by a Canadian graffiti artist Marco The Polo, whose Instagram account features photos of his own work but who has called Banksy an inspiration.

Banksy has kept his true identity a secret throughout his career, and it is only through the Instagram account that works are identified as genuine.

Often imbuing his works with a political message, his previous pieces have alluded to immigration, the war in Ukraine and homelessness, among other things.

The meaning of some of his works, though, is less clear - such as his motivation behind the series of animals painted in various locations across London last summer.

Prior to the lighthouse, in December, Banksy posted another piece, depicting a Madonna and child with a fixture in the wall appearing like a bullet wound in her chest.

The captain of a cargo ship that crashed into an oil tanker in the North Sea has pleaded not guilty to gross negligence manslaughter.

Vladimir Motin was captain of the Portuguese-flagged cargo ship Solong which crashed into the US tanker Stena Immaculate off the East Yorkshire coast on 10 March.

Mark Angelo Pernia, 38, a Filipino crew member on the Solong, is missing presumed dead.

Mr Motin, 59, and from Primorsky in St Petersburg, Russia, was remanded in custody until trial. A further case management hearing has been set for 10 September.

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A Cartier turquoise and diamond tiara owned by the first woman to take a seat in the House of Commons is expected to fetch more than £250,000 at auction.

American-born Nancy Astor was elected in 1919 to represent Plymouth Sutton in Parliament and held the seat until she stood down in 1945.

London Auctioneers Bonhams said the auction in June would see the tiara on the market for the first time since it was bought by her husband Lord Waldorf Astor in 1930.

Global head of jewellery at Bonhams Jean Ghika said the "exceptionally rare" tiara with "impeccable provenance" dates from when Cartier London was at the "height of its creative prowess".

The tiara features single, rose-cut and brilliant-cut diamonds and three fluted turquoise plumes set with diamond stems, according to Bonhams.

The auction house said it was worn by Lady Astor to the film premiere of City Lights at the Dominion Theatre in London in 1931.

Bonhams estimates the tiara could sell for between £250,000 and £350,000.

Ms Ghika said: "With impeccable provenance and a compelling marriage of Western and Eastern influences in the design, the tiara is exceptionally rare."

She added that the auction house felt "honoured to have the opportunity to present it for sale for the first time in nearly a century".

Nancy Astor was born Nancy Witcher Langhorne in Danville, Virginia, in 1879.

In 1905 she moved to England and met the American-born Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor, on the same voyage across the Atlantic from America.

The couple were married in 1906 and after Lord Astor relinquished his seat in the House of Commons in 1919, Nancy Astor was elected by substantial majority in his place.

During her time in government she pushed for the Intoxicating Liquor Act, known as Lady Astor's Bill, which passed in 1923, raising the legal drinking age from 14 to 18.

She also argued for the rights of women and successfully saw the female voting age lowered from 30 to 21 in 1928.

She was successfully re-elected seven times during her 26 years in the House of Commons and retired in 1945.

Campaigners have accused Lady Astor of being anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic and a Nazi sympathiser but supporters say she was a victim of misogyny and was "opposed to Nazism".

She died in Lincolnshire in 1964 at the age of 84.

The auction is due to take place at Bonhams in New Bond Street, London, on 5 June.

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A Harris's hawk which terrorised a village for at least a month has found a forever home with a local falconer.

Nicknamed Bomber Harris, the hawk was captured in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, in April, and falconer Wayne Housden has been training him.

The bird of prey was blamed for attacks on about 50 people including one incident where a man was taken to hospital.

Mr Housden said the story had reached "a happy ending".

After working with birds for about 30 years, he said his first priority was to stabilise his new feathered friend.

"He has calmed right down," said Mr Housden, who said he had spent about £1,000 building him an aviary.

The falconer said he would take Bomber Harris to the Flamstead Scarecrow Festival in August and aimed to let him loose in the autumn.

The hawk's "unusual" behaviour was likely hormonal or territorial and he was "not nasty at all", Wayne said.

"I am keeping him full-time... that wasn't the plan and that isn't why I tried to catch him," he explained.

Mr Housden said Bomber Harris - a non-native South American species - was likely a captive-bred bird that had lost its falconer. He said the dried-out leather tags on its feet suggested it had been loose for more than a year.

He had not been contacted by anyone claiming to be its owner, Mr Housden said.

"If I was to let someone else have him, I would have wanted to stay in contact with him," he added.

"He's been failed once and he is not going to be failed again and the only way that I can make sure of that is by me keeping him myself."

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