New York Attorney General Letitia James has been criminally indicted on federal charges by a grand jury.

James, who led a civil fraud investigation against Trump in 2023, was indicted on charges of bank fraud in the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria, according to court documents.

Prosecutors accuse James of alleged bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution regarding a mortgage loan for a house in Norfolk, Virginia, the documents state.

In a statement, James accused the president - who recently publicly pressured prosecutors to file criminal charges against her - of a "desperate weaponization of our justice system".

"He is forcing federal law enforcement agencies to do his bidding, all because I did my job as the New York State attorney general," she said.

"These charges are baseless, and the president's own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost."

The US prosecutor assigned to the case, Lindsey Halligan, meanwhile, said the case proved that "no one is above the law".

"The charges as alleged in this case represent intentional, criminal acts and tremendous breaches of the public's trust," she said.

"The facts and the law in this case are clear, and we will continue following them to ensure that justice is served."

Trump appointed Halligan, his former personal attorney, to oversee the case after another US prosecutor, Erik Siebert, resigned. Siebert was reportedly ousted after he told the justice department he had not found sufficient evidence to charge James.

James' first court appearance is scheduled for 24 October in Norfolk.

The federal government alleges James bought a three-bedroom home in Norfolk using a mortgage loan that required her to use the property as her secondary residence and did not allow for shared ownership or "timesharing" of the home.

The indictment claims the property "was not occupied or used" by James as a secondary residence, but was instead "used as a rental investment property", which was being rented to a family of three.

The "misrepresentation" allowed James to obtain favourable loan terms that would not have been available for an investment property, prosecutors claim.

"We are deeply concerned that this case is driven by President Trump's desire for revenge," James's attorney, Abbe Lowell, said.

Trump last month called on US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who leads the justice department, in a social media post to prosecute his political opponents, including James.

"We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility," he wrote.

James was one of several Trump adversaries named in that post. He also called on Bondi to investigate former FBI Director James Comey, who was criminally charged shortly after the post. He pleaded not guilty on Wednesday after being charged with making a false statement to Congress.

The justice department has also reportedly opened investigations into Trump's ex-national security adviser John Bolton and California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff.

In the civil fraud case brought by James, Trump was found liable of falsifying records to secure better loan deals, leading to a $500m (£375m) fine. The penalty was thrown out by an appeals court, which called the fine excessive, though it upheld that Trump was liable for fraud.

During the case, Trump frequently attacked James outside of the courtroom, accusing her of carrying out a "political witch hunt" against him. James said the courts had ruled that Trump was "not above the law".

New York Attorney General Letitia James has been criminally indicted on federal charges by a grand jury.

James, who led a civil fraud investigation against Trump in 2023, was indicted on charges of bank fraud in the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria, according to court documents.

Prosecutors accuse James of alleged bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution regarding a mortgage loan for a house in Norfolk, Virginia, the documents state.

In a statement, James accused the president - who recently publicly pressured prosecutors to file criminal charges against her - of a "desperate weaponization of our justice system".

"He is forcing federal law enforcement agencies to do his bidding, all because I did my job as the New York State attorney general," she said.

"These charges are baseless, and the president's own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost."

The US prosecutor assigned to the case, Lindsey Halligan, meanwhile, said the case proved that "no one is above the law".

"The charges as alleged in this case represent intentional, criminal acts and tremendous breaches of the public's trust," she said.

"The facts and the law in this case are clear, and we will continue following them to ensure that justice is served."

Trump appointed Halligan, his former personal attorney, to oversee the case after another US prosecutor, Erik Siebert, resigned. Siebert was reportedly ousted after he told the justice department he had not found sufficient evidence to charge James.

James' first court appearance is scheduled for 24 October in Norfolk.

The federal government alleges James bought a three-bedroom home in Norfolk using a mortgage loan that required her to use the property as her secondary residence and did not allow for shared ownership or "timesharing" of the home.

The indictment claims the property "was not occupied or used" by James as a secondary residence, but was instead "used as a rental investment property", which was being rented to a family of three.

The "misrepresentation" allowed James to obtain favourable loan terms that would not have been available for an investment property, prosecutors claim.

"We are deeply concerned that this case is driven by President Trump's desire for revenge," James's attorney, Abbe Lowell, said.

Trump last month called on US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who leads the justice department, in a social media post to prosecute his political opponents, including James.

"We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility," he wrote.

James was one of several Trump adversaries named in that post. He also called on Bondi to investigate former FBI Director James Comey, who was criminally charged shortly after the post. He pleaded not guilty on Wednesday after being charged with making a false statement to Congress.

The justice department has also reportedly opened investigations into Trump's ex-national security adviser John Bolton and California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff.

In the civil fraud case brought by James, Trump was found liable of falsifying records to secure better loan deals, leading to a $500m (£375m) fine. The penalty was thrown out by an appeals court, which called the fine excessive, though it upheld that Trump was liable for fraud.

During the case, Trump frequently attacked James outside of the courtroom, accusing her of carrying out a "political witch hunt" against him. James said the courts had ruled that Trump was "not above the law".

A near-complete skeleton found on Dorset's Jurassic coast has been identified as a new species of ichthyosaur, a type of prehistoric marine reptile that once ruled the oceans.

The dolphin-sized ichthyosaur has been named Xiphodracon goldencapensis, or the "sword dragon of Dorset" and is the only known example of its kind.

Scientists say that marks on its skull suggest that the "sword dragon" may have been killed by a bite to the head, possibly inflicted by a much larger species of ichthyosaur.

First discovered by a prolific fossil hunter at Golden Cap in Dorset in 2001 the new ichthyosaur was then acquired by a museum in Canada.

It has only recently been fully analysed by experts and a paper published identifying it as a new species of ichthyosaur.

"I thought long and hard about the name," said ichthyosaur expert Dr Dean Lomax, who co-authored authored the paper identifying the skeleton as a new species.

"Xiphodracon translates to sword-like dragon and that is in reference to that very long, sword-like snout, but also the fact that ichthyosaurs have been referred to as sea dragons for about 200 years."

Ichthyosaurs are classified as marine reptiles, not dinosaurs, because they spent their lives in the water. This particular ichthyosaur is thought to have swum the seas about 185 million years ago, a period from which very few ichthyosaur fossils have been found.

"During this time ichthyosaurs are incredibly rare, and Xiphodracon is the most complete individual ever found from there, helping to fill a gap," Dr Lomax said. "It's a missing piece of the puzzle in the ichthyosaur evolution."

The "sword dragon" is thought to have been about 3m long and has several features that have not been seen in other species of ichthyosaur. Scientists say the strangest detail is a prong-like bone near its nostril. The skull has an enormous eye socket and a long sword-like snout that it used to eat fish and squid.

There are also clues as to how this particular specimen lived and died.

"The limb bones and teeth are malformed in such a way that points to serious injury or disease while the animal was still alive, " said study co-author Dr Erin Maxwell from the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart.

"The skull appears to have been bitten by a large predator - likely another much larger species of ichthyosaur - giving us a cause of death for this individual. Life in the Mesozoic oceans was a dangerous prospect."

The 'sword dragon' is one of numerous ichthyosaur fossils that have been found along Dorset's Jurassic Coast since the first discoveries of pioneering palaeontologist Mary Anning in the early 1800s.

This "sword dragon" was discovered in 2001 by fossil hunter Chris Moore and then acquired by the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada where it took more than 15 years to be fully analysed.

"I don't wish to blow my own ichthyosaur trumpet but I have found a few of them," Mr Moore said on a video call from Dorset.

The actually number he's unearthed is somewhere in the region of 15, with several of them, like the "sword dragon", turning out to be new species.

Mr Moore says he is planning to celebrate the new discovery but has yet to decide exactly how.

"Champagne or a mug of tea, I'm not sure which yet," he says.

If you've ever felt calmer after a walk in the park or a stroll through the woods, it's not your imagination - it's biology.

Being outdoors can trigger measurable changes inside your body from lowering stress hormones, easing blood pressure and even improving your gut health.

You don't have to hike for hours to feel these benefits as maximum impact happens after just 20 minutes, so even a lunchtime walk to the park and a sandwich on a bench a few times a week can benefit your body and mind.

Here are four ways that being among nature can help improve your health.

1. You unconsciously relax

When you see green trees, smell pine and hear gentle rustling leaves or the sound of birdsong, your autonomic nervous system - a network of nerves controlling unconscious processes - responds instantly.

This can happen on a visit to the local park.

"We see changes in the body such as a lowering of blood pressure and heart rate variability so your heart beats slower," says Baroness Kathy Willis, a biodiversity professor at Oxford University.

A UK study, involving nearly 20,000 people, found that those who spent at least a total of 120 minutes every week in greenery were significantly more likely to report good health and higher psychological well-being.

The evidence for the benefits of spending time in nature is compelling enough that some areas have trialled so called green social prescribing connecting people with nature to improve their phsyical and mental health, with a positive impact on happiness and wellbeing.

2. Your hormones reboot

Your body's hormonal system also joins in the relaxation act.

Willis says that spending time outdoors lowers levels of cortisol and adrenaline - the hormones that surge when you're stressed or anxious.

"A study found that people in a hotel room for three days who were breathing in Hinoki (Japanese cypress) oil saw a big drop in the adrenaline hormone and a big increase in natural killer cells."

Natural killer cells are cells that tackle viruses in the body. The participants in the study still had elevated natural killer cells in their body two weeks after inhaling the smell.

Essentially nature "calms what needs calming and strengthens what needs strengthening," is how Prof Ming Kuo from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, summed it up to the BBC.

"A three-day weekend in nature has a huge impact on our virus fighting apparatus and even a month later it can be 24% above baseline."

Studies also show smaller but still persistent effects from shorter periods spent in nature, she says.

3. Smell is a powerful sense

Smelling nature is just as powerful as seeing and hearing it.

The scent of trees and soil is full of organic compounds released by plants and "when you breathe them in, some molecules pass into the bloodstream."

Willis says pine is a good example of this as the smell of a pine forest can make you calmer within just 20 seconds and that effect lasts for about 10 minutes.

You may think that the relaxing effect of nature is all in your mind, but another study found that even very young babies with no memory associated with particular smells, still calmed down when a pine scent was diffused into the room they were in.

4. Gets good bacteria into your gut

As well as soothing your mind, nature can also help boost your microbiome as soil and plants are full of good bacteria.

"They're the same kinds of good bacteria we pay for in probiotics or drinks," Willis explains.

Prof Ming Kuo has studied the effect on factors such as infection susceptibility as well as mental health and says breathing in certain ones have the potential to boost your mood; and the antimicrobial chemicals released by plants – called phytoncides – could help fight disease.

Dr Chris van Tulleken says as an infection scientist he sees nature as a positively challenging environment that "tickles your immune system".

He gets his children to play with dirt in the forest which then enters their system through the nose or mouth.

Bring nature to you

Of course, not everyone can head into the woods on a whim but the good news is, you don't have to.

Even small touches of nature at home can make a difference, according to Willis.

Visually, flowers such as white or yellow roses have been shown to create the greatest calming effect on brain activity.

When it comes to smell, use a diffuser with essential oils like lavender which can help you relax.

And if all else fails, even a photo of a forest can help.

Research shows that looking at pictures of nature on your laptop or simply gazing out at something green can trigger the same calming brainwave changes and reduce stress.

"Every bit seems to help," says Prof Ming Kuo.

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"A new challenger has appeared."

In the fiercely competitive world of video games, it's common for new contenders to fade away as quickly as they burst on to the scene.

But Battlefield 6 is hoping to change that.

It's the latest entry in a long-running military shooter series often framed as a grittier, more realistic answer to Call of Duty.

The title's never quite managed to match its most famous rival in terms of sales or players, but there are signs the new installment could close the gap.

A preview weekend giving players a chance to try out the game earlier this year broke records, and the buzz heading into its launch has been huge.

But the project is still a big gamble for publisher Electronic Arts (EA), which has reportedly spent hundreds of millions of dollars making it.

BBC Newsbeat's spoken to some of the makers to find out how they hope it will pay off.

Four EA-owned studios have been working on the game under the Battlefield Studios banner.

They include original series developer Dice, based in Sweden, LA's Motive Studios and Ripple Effect Studios in Canada.

The fourth, Criterion, is based in Guildford, UK.

Rebecka Coutaz is the general manager of the two European studios, and tells Newsbeat that, in terms of what it's offering players, "Battlefield 6 is probably unbeatable".

The game comes off the back of the futuristic Battlefield 2042, released four years ago to a negative reception it struggled to recover from.

"We probably couldn't make and develop Battlefield 6 without the learnings we had in Battlefield 2042," Rebekah tells Newsbeat.

One of those lessons was to get fans involved early, and the team launched invite-only community playtests earlier this year.

The "feedback was explosively positive," says Rebecka.

Another missing ingredient from Battlefield 2042 was a single-player campaign, which has been restored this time around.

Criterion design director Fasahat "Fas" Salim is the one in charge of "making sure those missions are as fun and interesting as possible for the players".

Despite claims that the scale of the project had put a strain on the different studios collaborating across continents to build the game, Fas is positive about the process.

"Collaborating with different cultures, different backgrounds, it's a really interesting environment to be involved in every day," he says.

"This whole approach has been something new but something really exciting because we are working with people from all over the world."

As for the expectation on the team, Fas says: "There is pressure but also it's exciting.

"It's a big project. It's probably the biggest that most of us have ever worked on."

That's definitely true of at least one team member, lighting artist Vlad Kokhan.

The 21-year-old makes the atmospheric effects that shape the mood, tone, and direction of the single-player campaign.

He completed an internship at Criterion before getting a job there, and currently works part-time while finishing his visual effects degree at Bournemouth University.

Vlad says he's a long-time fan of the Battlefield series, and remembers playing the fourth instalment of the series at a friend's house when he was younger.

To be working on it now, as his first industry job, "doesn't feel real".

"It's really crazy seeing the marketing everywhere", he says.

"To know that I've put my own thing into the game is really surreal."

Battlefield 6's launch is expected to be a big one, with analysts predicting it could sell up to five millions copies in its first week.

But its real success in a volatile and unpredictable industry won't be clear for months, if not years.

To maintain the momentum, it will need to draw - and keep - players away from rivals including CoD, Fortnite and Roblox.

But while the signs are promising, Rebecka is cautious when asked if she is feeling confident.

"I would say yes and no, you never know," she says.

"The only thing that matters to me now - and I've been saying it for four years - is that we don't disappoint our community, our players."

Concerns for Battlefield's future were also sparked by recent news that EA had agreed to sell the company to a Saudi Arabia-led group for $55bn (£41bn).

EA has taken on $20bn (£14bn) of debt as part of the deal - known as a leveraged buyout - prompting fans to fear of cutbacks.

The company has told staff to expect "no immediate changes" to their jobs.

For Battlefield 6, Rebecka tells Newsbeat the team will continue as planned, and has already shared details for monthly updates and content additions.

"I am here to help our team members make their best work in their careers so the way hasn't changed for me, the way is still the same," she insists.

EA has been vocal about its plans to use generative AI in game development, and its prospective new owners are betting on the technology to boost profits, according to The Financial Times.

The tools are controversial, prompting concerns from developers and backlash from some fans.

Rebecka tells Newsbeat players won't see anything made by GenAI within Battlefield 6, but it is used in preparatory stages to "to allow more time and more space to be creative."

Rebecka says GenAI "is very seducing", but there isn't currently a way to incorporate it into developer's daily work.

Yet she shares EA's optimism for its potential.

"If we can break the magic with AI it will help us be more innovative and more creative," she says.

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In Fas's opinion, GenAI is "not anything to be scared of in our industry".

"Especially as we work in an environment at the bleeding edge of technology - we're kind of used to things changing," he says.

"It's just a matter of how we can incorporate that productively into our workflows, how can we leverage that to take our games to the next level."

For now, though, the team's focus is on nailing Battlefield 6's release.

"We spend a lot of time behind closed doors making these things," says Fas.

"But when it goes into the players' hands and you see them having a great time, people shouting, people excited, that's something that we worked years for.

"This is what most of us game developers look forward to. We just want to see people play the thing and then get excited about it."

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.

"This technology is our future threat," warns Serhiy Beskrestnov, who has just got his hands on a newly intercepted Russian drone.

It was no ordinary drone either, he discovered. Assisted by artificial intelligence, this unmanned aerial vehicle can find and attack targets on its own.

Beskrestnov has examined numerous drones in his role as Ukrainian defence forces consultant.

Unlike other models, it didn't send or receive any signals, so could not be jammed.

Russian and Ukrainian forces have both been testing AI in this war, and in some areas they are already using it, for finding targets, gathering intelligence and de-mining.

And for the Ukrainian army, AI has become indispensable.

"Our military gets more than 50,000 video streams [from the front line] every month which are analysed by artificial intelligence," says Ukraine's deputy defence minister, Yuriy Myronenko.

"This helps us quickly process this massive data, identify targets and place them on a map."

AI-empowered tech is seen as a tool that can enhance strategic planning, make the most of resources and ultimately save lives.

But when it comes to unmanned weapons systems, it is also transforming the battlefield.

Ukrainian troops already use AI-based software so that drones lock on a target and then fly autonomously for the last few hundred metres until the mission is over.

Jamming is impossible and shooting down such a small flying object is not easy.

Ultimately these systems are expected to evolve into fully autonomous weapons that can find and destroy targets on their own.

All a soldier will need to do is press a button on a smartphone app, explains Yaroslav Azhnyuk, chief executive of Ukrainian developer The Fourth Law.

The drone will do the rest, he says, finding the target, dropping explosives, assessing the damage and then returning to base.

"And it would not even require piloting skills from the soldier," he adds.

Interceptor drones with that kind of automation could significantly strengthen air defences against Russian long-range attack drones, such as the notorious Shaheds.

"A computer-guided autonomous system can be better than a human in so many ways," says Azhnyuk. "It can be more perceptive. It can see the target sooner than a human can. It can be more agile."

Yuriy Myronenko says that kind of system does not exist yet, but he suggests Ukraine is close to finishing its development. "We have partly implemented it in some devices," says the deputy defence minister.

There could even be thousands of such systems in place by the end of 2026, claims Azhnyuk.

But Ukrainian developers are cautious about fully making use of defence systems that rely entirely on AI, with no human involvement. The risk is that AI may fail to distinguish a Ukrainian soldier from a Russian, as they may be wearing the same uniform, says Vadym, who declined to give his surname.

His company DevDroid makes remotely controlled machine guns, that use AI to automatically detect people and track them. Because of concerns over friendly fire, he says they don't have an automatic shooting option.

"We can enable it, but we need to get more experience and more feedback from the ground forces in order to understand when it is safe to use this feature."

There are also fears that automated systems will violate the rules of war. How will they avoid harming civilians, or distinguish soldiers who want to surrender?

For the deputy defence minister, the final decision in such circumstances should rest with a human, although AI would make it "easier to decide". But there are no guarantees that states or armed groups will adhere to international humanitarian norms.

So counteracting these systems becomes even more critical.

How do you stop a "swarm of drones" when jamming or using jets, tanks or missiles is rendered ineffective?

Ukraine's highly successful "Spider Web" operation, when 100 drones targeted Russian air bases last June, was probably assisted by AI tools.

Many in Ukraine fear that Moscow will copy that tactic, not just on the front line but beyond it too.

Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky warned the UN last month that AI was contributing to "the most destructive arms race in human history".

He called for global rules for the use of AI in weapons, and said the issue was "just as urgent as preventing the spread of nuclear weapons".

At the time, Israel's air strike against the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on 9 September violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy appeared to be in ruins.

Instead it turned out to be a key moment that has led to a deal, announced by President Donald Trump, to release all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that he, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be negotiated.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed to this breakthrough.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond control of either man.

A close relationship that Biden never had

In public, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these warm words have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the position under international law.

When Israel began its air strikes against Iran in June, Trump ordered US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of support may have given Trump the room to exert more pressure on Israel behind the scenes. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

When Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, including bombing a Christian church, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

Trump exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that you're going to have to comply or else."

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Biden's relationship with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

His administration's "bear hug" strategy held that the US had to embrace Israel publicly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct in private.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Every step Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had less importance than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business history helped secure Gulf's backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have told the BBC's US partner CBS this was a turning point which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

This US president's close ties with the Gulf states are well documented. He has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also stopped in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the biggest diplomatic achievement of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula earlier this year helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where he heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

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Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Muslim leaders may have secured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to commit to the deal.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have struggled with, and he seems to do relatively successfully."

The fact that Trump is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that he used to his benefit, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, taken during the original 7 October Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the deaths of more than 67,000 Palestinians is now imaginable.

Europeans exert their influence

The global condemnation of Israel over its actions in Gaza also weighed on Trump's thinking.

Conditions on the ground are unprecedented in terms of destruction and the humanitarian catastrophe for Palestinians. Over recent months the Netanyahu government became increasingly isolated internationally.

As Israel took military control of the food supply to Palestinians and then announced a planned assault on Gaza City, several major Europeans countries, led by French President Emmanuel Macron, decided they couldn't stay aligned with Washington's position of unequivocal support for Israel.

A historic split followed between the Americans and European allies when it came to key elements of diplomacy and the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Trump administration castigated France when it said it would recognise a Palestinian state, a move followed by the UK. They were trying to keep the idea of a two-state solution on life support, but more fundamentally marginalise the extremes on both sides and revive a diplomatic path to a shared Israeli-Palestinian future.

But Macron was astute in getting the Saudis on board for his peace plan.

Ultimately Trump was faced with a European-Arab alliance versus Israeli nationalists and the far right when it came to visions for Gaza's longer term future. He chose his friends in the Gulf.

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Under a French-Saudi peace plan, Arab countries also issued an unprecedented condemnation of Hamas' October 7 attacks and called for the group to end its rule on Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority under independent statehood.

This was a diplomatic win for the Arabs and Europeans. Trump's 20-point plan drew on the France-Saudi plan in key areas, including a reference to eventual Palestinian "statehood" even if this was vague and highly conditional.

Trump, while asking Turkey, Qatar and Egypt to maintain pressure on Hamas, boxed in Netanyahu, putting unprecedented pressure on him to end the war.

No-one could be the side to say no to Trump.

Trump's unique style unlocked stalemate

Trump's unorthodox manner still has the capacity to shock. It starts with bluster or bombast but then develops into something more conventional.

In his first term, his "little rocket man" insults and "fire and fury" warnings appeared to be taking the US to the brink of war with North Korea. Instead he engaged in direct talks.

Trump kicked off his second term with an eye-popping suggestion that Palestinians should be required to relocate from Gaza as it was turned into an international oceanfront resort.

Muslim leaders were incensed. Seasoned Middle East diplomats were aghast.

Trump's 20-point peace plan, however, isn't that different from the kind of deal Biden would have struck and that America's allies had long endorsed. A blueprint for a Gaza Riviera it was not.

Trump has taken a very unconventional path to what is a conventional result. It has been messy. It may not be how they teach diplomacy in Ivy League universities. But, at least in this case and at this moment, it has proven effective.

Tomorrow the Nobel Committee will announce this year's Peace Prize winner. And while it is unlikely that Trump will be the recipient, that prospect doesn't seem nearly as unlikely as it did just a few weeks ago.

Additional reporting by Kayla Epstein

Mark Zuckerberg is said to have started work on Koolau Ranch, his sprawling 1,400-acre compound on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, as far back as 2014.

It is set to include a shelter, complete with its own energy and food supplies, though the carpenters and electricians working on the site were banned from talking about it by non-disclosure agreements, according to a report by Wired magazine. A six-foot wall blocked the project from view of a nearby road.

Asked last year if he was creating a doomsday bunker, the Facebook founder gave a flat "no". The underground space spanning some 5,000 square feet is, he explained, is "just like a little shelter, it's like a basement".

That hasn't stopped the speculation - likewise about his decision to buy 11 properties in the Crescent Park neighbourhood of Palo Alto in California, apparently adding a 7,000 square feet underground space beneath.

Though his building permits refer to basements, according to the New York Times, some of his neighbours call it a bunker. Or a billionaire's bat cave.

Then there is the speculation around other Silicon Valley billionaires, some of whom appear to have been busy buying up chunks of land with underground spaces, ripe for conversion into multi-million pound luxury bunkers.

Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, has talked about "apocalypse insurance". This is something about half of the super-wealthy have, he has previously claimed, with New Zealand a popular destination for homes.

So, could they really be preparing for war, the effects of climate change, or some other catastrophic event the rest of us have yet to know about?

In the last few years, the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has only added to that list of potential existential woes. Many are deeply worried at the sheer speed of the progression.

Ilya Sutskever, chief scientists and a co-founder of the technology company Open AI, is reported to be one them.

By mid-2023, the San Francisco-based firm had released ChatGPT - the chatbot now used by hundreds of millions of people across the world - and they were working fast on updates.

But by that summer, Mr Sutskever was becoming increasingly convinced that computer scientists were on the brink of developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) - the point at which machines match human intelligence - according to a book by journalist Karen Hao.

In a meeting, Mr Sutskever suggested to colleagues that they should dig an underground shelter for the company's top scientists before such a powerful technology was released on the world, Ms Hao reports.

"We're definitely going to build a bunker before we release AGI," he's widely reported to have said, though it's unclear who he meant by "we".

It sheds light on a strange fact: many leading computer scientists who are working hard to develop a hugely intelligent form of AI, also seem deeply afraid of what it could one day do.

So when exactly - if ever - will AGI arrive? And could it really prove transformational enough to make ordinary people afraid?

An arrival 'sooner than we think'

Tech billionaires have claimed that AGI is imminent. OpenAI boss Sam Altman said in December 2024 that it will come "sooner than most people in the world think".

Sir Demis Hassabis, the co-founder of DeepMind, has predicted in the next five to ten years, while Anthropic founder Dario Amodei wrote last year that his preferred term - "powerful AI" - could be with us as early as 2026.

Others are dubious. "They move the goalposts all the time," says Dame Wendy Hall, professor of computer science at Southampton University. "It depends who you talk to." We are on the phone but I can almost hear the eye-roll.

"The scientific community says AI technology is amazing," she adds, "but it's nowhere near human intelligence."

There would need to be a number of "fundamental breakthroughs" first, agrees Babak Hodjat, chief technology officer of the tech firm Cognizant.

What's more, it's unlikely to arrive as a single moment. Rather, AI is a rapidly advancing technology, it's on a journey and there are many companies around the world racing to develop their own versions of it.

But one reason the idea excites some in Silicon Valley is that it's thought to be a pre-cursor to something even more advanced: ASI, or artificial super intelligence - tech that surpasses human intelligence.

It was back in 1958 that the concept of "the singularity" was attributed posthumously to Hungarian-born mathematician John von Neumann. It refers to the moment when computer intelligence advances beyond human understanding.

More recently, the 2024 book Genesis, written by Eric Schmidt, Craig Mundy and the late Henry Kissinger, explores the idea of a super-powerful technology that becomes so efficient at decision-making and leadership we end up handing control to it completely.

It's a matter of when, not if, they argue.

Money for all, without needing a job?

Those in favour of AGI and ASI are almost evangelical about its benefits. It will find new cures for deadly diseases, solve climate change and invent an inexhaustible supply of clean energy, they argue.

Elon Musk has even claimed that super-intelligent AI could usher in an era of "universal high income".

He recently endorsed the idea that AI will become so cheap and widespread that virtually anyone will want their "own personal R2-D2 and C-3PO" (referencing the droids from Star Wars).

"Everyone will have the best medical care, food, home transport and everything else. Sustainable abundance," he enthused.

There is a scary side, of course. Could the tech be hijacked by terrorists and used as an enormous weapon, or what if it decides for itself that humanity is the cause of the world's problems and destroys us?

"If it's smarter than you, then we have to keep it contained," warned Tim Berners Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, talking to the BBC earlier this month.

"We have to be able to switch it off."

Governments are taking some protective steps. In the US, where many leading AI companies are based, President Biden passed an executive order in 2023 that required some firms to share safety test results with the federal government - though President Trump has since revoked some of the order, calling it a "barrier" to innovation.

Meanwhile in the UK, the AI Safety Institute - a government-funded research body - was set up two years ago to better understand the risks posed by advanced AI.

And then there are those super-rich with their own apocalypse insurance plans.

"Saying you're 'buying a house in New Zealand' is kind of a wink, wink, say no more," Reid Hoffman previously said. The same presumably goes for bunkers.

But there's a distinctly human flaw.

I once met a former bodyguard of one billionaire with his own "bunker", who told me his security team's first priority, if this really did happen, would be to eliminate said boss and get in the bunker themselves. And he didn't seem to be joking.

Is it all alarmist nonsense?

Neil Lawrence is a professor of machine learning at Cambridge University. To him, this whole debate in itself is nonsense.

"The notion of Artificial General Intelligence is as absurd as the notion of an 'Artificial General Vehicle'," he argues.

"The right vehicle is dependent on the context. I used an Airbus A350 to fly to Kenya, I use a car to get to the university each day, I walk to the cafeteria… There's no vehicle that could ever do all of this."

For him, talk about AGI is a distraction.

"The technology we have [already] built allows, for the first time, normal people to directly talk to a machine and potentially have it do what they intend. That is absolutely extraordinary… and utterly transformational.

"The big worry is that we're so drawn in to big tech's narratives about AGI that we're missing the ways in which we need to make things better for people."

Current AI tools are trained on mountains of data and are good at spotting patterns: whether tumour signs in scans or the word most likely to come after another in a particular sequence. But they do not "feel", however convincing their responses may appear.

"There are some 'cheaty' ways to make a Large Language Model (the foundation of AI chatbots) act as if it has memory and learns, but these are unsatisfying and quite inferior to humans," says Mr Hodjat.

Vince Lynch, CEO of the California-based IV.AI, is also wary of overblown declarations about AGI.

"It's great marketing," he says "If you are the company that's building the smartest thing that's ever existed, people are going to want to give you money."

He adds, "It's not a two-years-away thing. It requires so much compute, so much human creativity, so much trial and error."

Asked whether he believes AGI will ever materialise, there's a long pause.

"I really don't know."

Intelligence without consciousness

In some ways, AI has already taken the edge over human brains. A generative AI tool can be an expert in medieval history one minute and solve complex mathematical equations the next.

Some tech companies say they don't always know why their products respond the way they do. Meta says there are some signs of its AI systems improving themselves.

Ultimately, though, no matter how intelligent machines become, biologically the human brain still wins.

It has about 86 billion neurons and 600 trillion synapses, many more than the artificial equivalents. The brain doesn't need to pause between interactions, and it is constantly adapting to new information.

"If you tell a human that life has been found on an exoplanet, they will immediately learn that, and it will affect their world view going forward. For an LLM [Large Language Model], they will only know that as long as you keep repeating this to them as a fact," says Mr Hodjat.

"LLMs also do not have meta-cognition, which means they don't quite know what they know. Humans seem to have an introspective capacity, sometimes referred to as consciousness, that allows them to know what they know."

It is a fundamental part of human intelligence - and one that is yet to be replicated in a lab.

Top picture credits: The Washington Post via Getty Images/ Getty Images MASTER. Lead image shows Mark Zuckerberg (below) and a stock image of an unidentified bunker in an unknown location (above)

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Spoiler warning: This article reveals details from the second episode of the Celebrity Traitors

The second episode of Celebrity Traitors has taken place and all we're talking about is Tom Daley giving Kate Garraway a serious side-eye.

The presenter is suspect #1 for the Olympic diver, who made zero efforts to hide it during Thursday night's show.

At one point, Garraway declares she is "flabbergasted" by the first murder. Daley has no time for it, giving a major eye roll.

And he's not the only one who thinks Garraway could be a Traitor.

Throughout the episode, Garraway was accused both by her fellow contestants and by fans online of "over-acting".

For entertainment reporter Indigo Stafford, it seemed to suggest she was hiding something.

Spoiler: she was not.

Garraway explained her behaviour at the roundtable, where her name was repeatedly brought up by the other celebrities.

Apparently, that's just how she is. "I'm a massive ham," she said.

Garraway wasn't the only one struggling with her acting skills.

Alan Carr - the standout sensation of episode one - was still struggling to keep a straight face.

As the first episode of the Celebrity Traitors drew to a close on Wednesday night, we were left waiting to find out which star would be murdered by Carr in plain sight.

Would he go through with it? Our hearts, collectively as a nation, were in our mouths.

But murder, he did. And the following morning at breakfast, as the rest of the players tried to work out what had happened, he was all over the place - scratching his head nervously, biting his fingers.

"It was a stretch for my acting ability, I don't know how Meryl Streep does it," he said.

Entertainment reporter Indigo Stafford says they may be celebrities, but even so they're not immune from feeling the nerves - and that could explain their poor acting abilities.

You can see why "being in a game set around murder, betrayal and manipulation... would jangle your nerves," she explained.

Elsewhere, fans online were relieved to know that celebrities are as bad as spelling as us.

When Niko Omilana voted for Tom Daley, he spelled it the way some of us probably secretly thought it was spelled too - DAYLEE.

"Niko keeping the longstanding traitors tradition of terrible name spelling at the round table alive and well," wrote one X user, adding: "It's officially Tom Daylee now, any other spelling will not be accepted."

The show ended on a cliffhanger - again - with fans having to wait till next week to find out who has been voted out.

The Celebrity Traitors is on BBC One on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 21:00 BST and on BBC iPlayer. There will be nine episodes.

This week there was fresh hope for an end to the war in Gaza, yet another French prime minister resigned, and country legend Dolly Parton had to reassure fans that she wasn't dead.

But how much attention did you pay to what else happened in the world over the past seven days?

Quiz collated by Ben Fell.

Fancy testing your memory? Try last week's quiz, or have a go at something from the archives.

When Ruth Jones and James Corden first met in 2000, they never imagined it would lead to 22 episodes of a record-breaking TV show.

The pair were filming Fat Friends at the Crowne Plaza in Leeds and formed an unexpected friendship.

Now their book When Gavin Met Stacey is out, revealing how an argument inspired one iconic scene, and a scrapped storyline idea that would have seen Gavin have an affair.

The book is a story of love and friendship, and here are some of the things we have learned:

1. The fishing trip scene was filmed - but never made the final cut

For years, the infamous fishing trip involving Bryn and his nephew Jason has been wrapped in secrecy and speculation.

In the long-awaited finale, Gwen delivers a line that reignites the intrigue: "Their trip 30 years ago almost tore this family apart."

That's all we know, along with clues that they were on their knees, it was freezing cold, and whatever happened was "completely legal in this country".

While fans were given a glimpse of the pair's escapades, in true Gavin and Stacey fashion the secret was never revealed.

But during an event to promote their new book Jones and Corden revealed that a scene shedding light on the mystery was actually filmed.

It featured Bryn clearing out his home when he stumbles upon a camcorder tape labelled "The Fishing Trip".

Jason walks in, stunned, and asks Bryn why he still has it. He then requests to watch it, but Bryn refuses.

Jones and Corden explained that the idea was for the tape to play and just as viewers brace for the big reveal, the footage fuzzes out and jams.

The scene was dropped in the final edit due to time constraints, ultimately leaving the secret safely tucked away with Bryn, Jason… and Dave Coaches.

As for what really happened? Jones confessed: "I have completely stolen James's idea for the answer to what happened on the fishing trip. I say 'I don't know because I wasn't there'."

2. Row between Corden and Jones led to an iconic scene

Corden refers to this as the "Easter egg row", with Jones saying it is all "a little bit vague", but she was travelling up from Cardiff for a writing session for series two and was meeting Corden in London.

Jones continues that she had a message from James Thornton, Joanna Page's husband a few days earlier as he had a script idea and asked if she would mind reading it.

"So I texted back to say, 'Oh yes, by all means send me the script and I'll have a look. Don't know if I can help but I'm happy to have a look'."

She continues that instead of sending the text to James Thornton she sent it to Corden, and messaged him saying "Sorry that wasn't meant for you".

Corden asked who was it for?

"And I don't know what possessed me, but I just went 'Oh it doesn't matter, I cant tell you about it'. And for some bizarre reason you went, 'Oh my god, are you doing Doctor Who?' and I said 'I'm sorry I cant tell you because I've signed a confidentiality clause."

Jones says Corden was furious with her.

"I was basically playing a joke on you, which I rarely do because I'm not really a wind up merchant," adding that Corden is.

She adds she was enjoying teasing Corden, but then he took it badly and said "just forget it, I'm going to Benidorm".

Jones said she was really cross, but the pair made up in the hotel bar, and Jones told Corden she was just winding him up, and they went across the road and bought some Easter eggs.

Corden said they bought two giant Cadbury's Easter eggs, and lay on the hotel bed, opened them and laid there with chocolate eggs on their faces.

"It was shortly after that we wrote Dawn and Pete's vows, when she changes the words to lyrics of Michael Jackson's 'Ben'.

Jones added: "We had a sugar rush, had a sugar low, fell asleep woke up and wrote the vows scene.

"I remember getting really hysterical writing it. It was absolutely joyous, it was magic."

3. Stephen Fretwell didn't want his song to be the theme song

Corden really loves the Stephen Fretwell album Magpie and for a long time they thought about having a piece of written score as the theme.

Corden says: "A few different people like David Arnold wrote pieces, and wrote one piece with a Welsh harp, it was beautiful but didn't feel right.

"I kept saying how I really love that drum sound and the piano chords on the Stephen Fretwell song Run."

Corden continues that the The Office and The Royale Family inspired them, with both shows having simple title sequences, but Gavin and Stacey couldn't afford one.

"We went with a black card with white writing and I wouldn't change it for the world, and I kept saying 'let's have something that feels a bit like Run' and then in the end it was like 'what if it's that'," adding that on some level the lyrics in the song feel like Nessa and Smithy's relationship.

During the London event, the co-creators of the BBC show also met Fretwell for the first time, where he confessed he has initially told his agent he didn't want his song used for the programme.

4. Corden's 40th birthday in Mexico led to the 2019 special

Jones reveals it was Corden's wife Jules inviting her to Mexico for his 40th that clinched the 2019 special happening.

Corden said as soon as Jones walked in he burst into tears and was so "unbelievably happy to see you".

He says they had the "best weekend" adding the couple had always laughed about the fact that Jones had sung Wild Thing at her wedding after a few drinks, and one of his greatest regrets was he wasn't there because they didn't know each other.

At Corden's 40th, Jones got up and sang Wild Thing, improvising the lyrics to make them specific to Corden.

"I just remember singing and seeing your face. The joy on your face," she says.

Corden adds: "Harry Styles was going to you 'I cant believe you just did that'," with Jones saying: "Yeah he looked a bit in shock, I don't know if it was in a good way or bad way'."

During the trip Corden suggested it "might be time" to do more Gavin and Stacey.

"I came back from the Mexico trip in 2018 thinking 'right, lets do this'," Jones says.

As they were writing the 2019 finale, they had the idea of doing two specials, with one being a secret and storyline ideas including Gavin having an affair.

"So the first would air on Christmas Day and the second on New Year's Day, we we even thought that the BBC could put something fake in the listings," Corden says.

But the task was a "big challenge" because of the 10-year gap, and the pair thought it would not work.

5. The finale could have been a film in cinemas

The pair reveal that in August 2023 they started talking about doing one more, potentially a film to be released in cinemas - but changed their minds.

Corden says: "The fact is they've always been in the corner of your room and that where they should remain."

Jones adds: "When we started the show 20 years ago the idea it would be one of those shows that had a Christmas special was far beyond anything we hever dreamed of.

"Just the notion of BBC One on Christmas Day. That means so much to us."

Corden says they wrote with the same freedom they always had and didn't tell the BBC until they had written 65 pages.

The pair added they originally thought the 2019 would be the ending, had it not had the cliffhanger.

"We knew it our hearts that the absolute had to be that Smithy and Nessa finally got together. Got married."

Corden says without Jones passion for Gavin and Stacey he would have let the idea go by the wayside.

He says: "When I think about Gavin and Stacey I think about the word friend and what it means.

"I got to make this show with somebody who knows me better than I know myself... I just don't think I'll have a friendship like it again in my life."

But what next?

They're working on something new, and seeing where they go with it.

"Nothing may come of it. That's always a possibility. But I love it," says Jones.

A man arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences following the Manchester synagogue attack has been re-arrested.

Two people were killed after Jihad Al-Shamie, 35, drove a car at pedestrians and launched an attack outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall on 2 October.

Counter Terrorism Police said the 30-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism.

It said he had been re-arrested earlier at Manchester Airport on suspicion of failing to disclose information contrary to Section 38B of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.

Rishi Sunak has taken up senior part-time advisor roles at tech giant Microsoft and artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic.

The former prime minister has been told he must not lobby ministers on behalf of the companies by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), an independent watchdog which oversees the activities of former government figures.

Sunak - who remains the MP for Richmond and Northallerton - will donate payments for the jobs to a charity he recently founded, the watchdog said.

During his premiership, Sunak made tech regulation a significant priority, setting up an AI safety summit in 2023.

In letters of advice sent to Sunak by Acoba and published on Thursday, his role at Microsoft was described as providing "high- level strategic perspectives" on geopolitical trends.

The watchdog said it had been informed by Sunak that his advisory role at Anthropic - an AI firm seeking to compete with companies like OpenAI, Google and Meta - would be "akin to operating as an internal think tank".

Sunak was told not to advise on bidding for UK contracts, or to lobby the government for two years from his last day in ministerial office.

In addition to the two tech roles, it was previously confirmed Sunak will act as a paid advisor to the bank Goldman Sachs, where he previously worked between 2001 and 2004.

There had been speculation that Sunak, who was in No 10 between October 2022 and July 2024, would leave the Commons to take up a Silicon Valley role shortly after the election.

He previously lived in California, where he still has a home, and held a US visa until 2021.

But in his final prime minister's questions, Sunak vowed to spend more time in his constituency, which he called "the greatest place on Earth".

"If anyone needs me, I will be in Yorkshire," he said.

Earlier this year, he founded the Richmond Project, a charity which will focus on tackling numeracy problems, another area he was vocal about while in Downing Street.

They are weird, bald, subterranean rodents that look like sausages with teeth, and they have just revealed a genetic secret to long life.

A new study of the bizarre naked mole rat shows that the animals have evolved a DNA repair mechanism that could explain their longevity.

These burrow-dwelling rats have a maximum life span of nearly 40 years, making them world's the longest-lived rodent.

The new findings, published in the journal Science, could also shed light on why naked mole rats are resistant to a wide range of age-related diseases.

The animals are resistant to cancer, deterioration of the brain and spinal cord, and arthritis, so many scientists want to understand more about how their bodies work.

For this study, led by a team at Tonji University in Shanghai, China, the focus was DNA repair - a natural process in our bodies' cells. When strands of DNA - our genetic building blocks - are damaged, a mechanism is triggered whereby another undamaged strand of DNA is used as a template to repair the break.

The focus of this research was on a particular protein that is involved in that system of damage sensing and repair.

When a cell senses the damage, one of the substances it produces is a protein called c-GAS. That plays several roles, but what was of interest to these scientists is that in humans, it interferes with and hampers the process by which DNA is knitted back together.

Scientists think that this interference could promote cancer and shorten our lifespan.

In naked mole rats though, the researchers found that the exact same protein does the opposite. It helps the body mend strands of DNA and keeps the genetic code in each cell intact.

• Whale menopause linked to longer lifespan
• Mutations across species reveal clue to ageing
• BBC Future: What naked mole rats can teach us about treating cancer

Professor Gabriel Balmus studies DNA repair and ageing at the University of Cambridge. He said the discovery was exciting and "the tip of the iceberg" when it comes to understanding why these animals live such extraordinarily long lives.

"You can think of cGAS as a biological Lego piece - the same basic shape in humans and naked mole-rats, but in the mole-rat version a few connectors are flipped, allowing it to assemble an entirely different structure and function."

Over millions of years of evolution, Prof Balmus explained, naked mole-rats appear to have rewired the same pathway and "used it to their advantage".

"This finding raises fundamental questions: how did evolution reprogram the same protein to act in reverse? What changed? And is this an isolated case or part of a broader evolutionary pattern?"

Most importantly, scientists want to know what they can learn from these rodents to improve human health and extend quality of life with age.

"I think if we could reverse-engineer the naked mole-rat's biology," said Prof Balmus, "we might bring some much-needed therapies for an ageing society."

Even for Donald Trump, a president who revels in his place at the centre of world events, it was a dramatic moment.

The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio interrupted a televised meeting Trump was chairing in Washington DC on Wednesday. He handed over a message that the President needed to tell the world that they had a deal. Trump told the audience in the room – and millions more who have now seen the video – that he would have to leave.

"They're going to need me…" he said, interrupting the day's business. "I have to go now to try to solve some problems in the Middle East."

Israel and Hamas signed off the first phase of what Donald Trump intends to be a wider agreement after three days of indirect talks in Egypt.

Mediators from Qatar and Egypt went between the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators who were on separate floors of a hotel in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

To add heft to the talks, and to keep the pressure on the Israelis, Donald Trump sent his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his envoy Steve Witkoff.

The prime minister of Qatar and the intelligence chiefs of Egypt and Turkey were there to do the same job for the Hamas delegation.

The agreement is a major breakthrough. It does not mean the war is over. But for the first time since the Hamas attacks on Israel, there is a realistic chance of ending the horrors of the last two years.

One big step - but more steps are needed

The plan is that a ceasefire will be followed by the release of the remaining Israeli hostages, in return for Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

The Israeli military, the IDF, will pull back from its current positions, leaving it in 53% of Gaza according to the government spokesperson.

Israel will lift enough of its restrictions on humanitarian aid entering Gaza to allow in 400 lorry loads a day, which would be distributed by the UN and other agencies.

The controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the discredited system which Israel wanted to replace the UN, is not mentioned in Donald Trump's 20-point plan.

The deal is a big step, but more need to be taken to get to the war's end. Trump's plan is a framework, with the details left to be negotiated. Serious obstacles lie ahead.

Hamas wants Israel out of the Gaza Strip. Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that will not happen. Hamas is prepared to give up heavy weapons but wants to keep some armaments. Netanyahu wants the complete demilitarisation of Gaza.

He has defined victory for Israel as more than simply the return of the hostages. He has said many times that Hamas must be destroyed, with no chance of regenerating itself in Gaza as a danger to Israelis.

How the Biden plan measured up

In May 2024 President Joe Biden put a deal on the table that resembles Trump's plan. Then, Hamas agreed that it would release Israeli hostages if the IDF pulled out of the Gaza Strip and there were guarantees that Israel would not restart the war. Netanyahu was not prepared to agree.

Over the past two years he has said repeatedly that continuing the war was the only way to get the hostages back and to destroy Hamas.

Perhaps the Biden plan was too early for both sides. The difference between what has happened now and what didn't happen in May of last year is that Trump has used the leverage America has over Israel to bring Netanyahu to the table.

Despite expressing concern about Israel's conduct of the war, Biden never threatened to end US diplomatic, financial and military support, with the exception of one consignment of 2,000 pound bombs. Israel could not have fought the war with US help. Biden was not prepared to exploit that dependence. Netanyahu was confident he could defy him.

Trump has kept up the military and political support, but he wants much more in return.

Knock-on effect of the Doha attack

A crucial event that led to a breakthrough was Israel's failed attempt to kill the Hamas leadership in Doha on 9 September.

Its main target, the senior leader Khalil al-Hayya and his top lieutenants were discussing the latest version of Trump's peace plan when the attack happened.

They survived but his son was among the dead. Al Hayya is leading the Hamas delegation in Egypt.

The Israelis did not tell the Americans in advance that they were going to hit Doha. Trump was furious.

When Netanyahu asked to meet him in the Oval Office at the White House, he forced him to ring the Qatari prime minister to make a fulsome apology.

As Netanyahu read out the apology he had prepared, the cable from the handset was at full stretch back to a scowling Donald Trump who held the phone in his lap.

The White House released photos that looked like a headmaster making an errant pupil say sorry.

Trump also issued an executive order giving unprecedented security guarantees to Qatar if it is attacked again. He needed that apology because Qatar is an American ally, hosting the biggest US military base in the Middle East, and is a key part of the wider plan he has for peace in the region.

At its heart is a grand bargain based on Saudi Arabia normalising relations with Israel.

Instead, the Israeli raid made the Americans look like an ally that cannot protect their friends.

Other things have changed: the IDF has killed many more Palestinians and destroyed much more of Gaza. Israel is as isolated as at any time since it became independent in 1948. Netanyahu's appearance at the speaker's podium at the UN General Assembly in New York in September sparked a mass walkout of diplomats.

America remains a powerful ally, but the polls in the US show that the Israelis cannot rely any more on the support of a majority of Americans. That reduces the political jeopardy of overruling the objections of Israel's prime minister.

Israel's European allies, led by the UK and France, have recognised an independent state of Palestine. Their public statements have expressed horror over the killing and destruction in Gaza, and the starvation and in places famine caused by Israel's blockades of aid.

The 9 September attack on Doha also created a new sense of urgency among Arab and Muslim majority countries. A rare united front pressed Donald Trump to get Israel to the table.

If the Trump 20-point plan is to end the war US, pressure on Israel will have to continue.

One major question is whether Benjamin Netanyahu will find a way to resume the war after the hostages come home. His ultra-nationalist allies in the cabinet want that to happen.

The rich gulf states - that Trump admires and wants to play a big role in a relaunch and redevelopment of Gaza - will keep the pressure on the US president to try to make sure that does not happen.

Bittersweet celebrations on both sides

The breakthrough in Sharm El-Sheikh was greeted by celebrations in Israel and inside the Gaza Strip, bittersweet on both sides after so much loss.

In Israel the families of hostages and their supporters have been waging a constant campaign of pressure and demonstrations to get their people out of Gaza.

Opinion polls have shown consistently that a majority of Israelis are prepared to end the Gaza war if the hostages, living and dead, come home.

It is thought 20 hostages may be alive. Hamas has also agreed to return the bodies of around 28 others, though it is not certain that all their graves can be located.

• Israelis delight at deal to return hostages

Palestinians celebrated in the ruins of Gaza. In return for the hostages Israel has agreed to free 250 prisoners serving life sentences and 1,700 detainees who have been taken by the IDF from Gaza in the last two years.

Palestinians will welcome them as heroes.

Israel has ruled out freeing Marwan Barghouti, who was arrested in 2002 and later given five life sentences plus 40 years for orchestrating attacks on Israelis. Many Palestinians see him as their Nelson Mandela, who served 27 years in prison for planning attacks on the apartheid regime in South Africa before he was released to win a democratic election.

Hamas wants freedom for some of their most prominent commanders who Israelis regard as dangerous terrorists. Releasing them will be controversial.

Yahya Sinwar, who led the 7 October attacks before he was killed by Israel, was freed in a prisoner exchange in 2011. The Hamas list is believed to include, among others, Abbas al Sayyed who is serving 35 life sentences plus 100 years for attacks, including one in 2002 that killed 35 Israelis celebrating Passover.

Another name mentioned is Hassam Salama who was given 46 life sentences for sending suicide bombers to blow up buses in Jerusalem in 1996, killing and wounding dozens of Israelis.

Donald Trump says that the deal could be the biggest thing in the Middle East for 3,000 years. That is Trumpian hyperbole on a grand scale.

But if the exchange of Israeli hostages for jailed Palestinians is followed by progress on the other points that need agreement in the Trump plan, there is a real chance that some of the agony on both sides will end.

Despite the risks ahead in a hugely challenging negotiation, optimists are already hoping that an end of the war in Gaza might kickstart a new era in the Middle East. That would take a level of application and consistency that Trump has not yet displayed.

A short sharp negotiation in Egypt suits his brash, bullying style. Finding a way to end the conflict that is well into its second century between Israelis and Palestinians for control of the land between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean would require a wholly different set of skills.

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US President Donald Trump says Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a Gaza peace deal.

It comes two years and two days after Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.

At least 67,183 have been killed by Israeli military operations in Gaza since then, including 20,179 children, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

Here is what we know about the agreement, and what remains unclear:

What has been announced?

After intense negotiations in Egypt, Israel and Hamas have agreed to a first phase of a US peace plan, the US president said.

Announcing the deal on social media, Trump said: "This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line."

"All parties" would be treated fairly, said Trump, who called these the "first steps toward... everlasting peace".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it "a great day for Israel" and said his government would meet on Thursday to approve the agreement and "bring all our dear hostages home".

In confirming the announcement, Hamas said it would "end the war in Gaza, ensure the complete withdrawal of the occupation forces, allow the entry of humanitarian aid, and implement a prisoner exchange".

Israel and Hamas do not speak directly to each other - the negotiations were brokered by Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and mediators from Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey.

What happens next?

Israel's government is due to vote on the deal on Thursday.

If they formally approve it, Israel must withdraw its troops from Gaza to the agreed line, a senior White House official told BBC's US partner, CBS News. The withdrawal would likely happen within 24 hours, the official said.

After this happens, a 72-hour clock will begin where Hamas must release the living hostages.

The release of the hostages would likely begin on Monday, the senior White House official said.

What do we not know?

What's been announced so far is just the initial phase of Trump's 20-point peace plan, which Israel has accepted and Hamas has partly agreed to.

However the announcements did not cover some thorny issues both sides have not reached a resolution on.

Notably, no details surround the disarmament of Hamas - a key point in Trump's plan. Hamas has previously refused to lay down its weapons, saying it would only do so when a Palestinian state had been established.

The future governance of Gaza is also a sticking point. Trump's 20-point plan states Hamas will have no future role in the Strip and proposes it be temporarily governed by a "technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee", before being handed over to the Palestinian Authority.

Netanyahu appeared to push back on the Palestinian Authority's involvement last week, even as he accepted Trump's plan.

Ultranationalist hardliners within Netanyahu's ruling coalition, many of whom want to reconstruct Jewish settlements in Gaza, are also likely to object to this point.

Hamas, in response, said it still expected to have some role in governing Gaza.

In addition, as of Wednesday night, Hamas had not yet received the final list of Palestinian prisoners that Israel plans to release in exchange for the hostages in Gaza, a Palestinian source told the BBC.

The 20-point plan states that 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after 7 October 2023 will be released.

What's been the reaction?

Relatives of Israeli hostages have welcomed the deal.

Eli Sharabi, whose wife and children were killed, and whose brother Yossi's body is being held by Hamas, posted: "Great joy, can't wait to see everyone home."

The mother of hostage Nimrod Cohen posted: "My child, you are coming home."

Meanwhile in Gaza, celebrations broke out after the announcement. "Thank God for the ceasefire, the end of bloodshed and killing," Abdul Majeed abd Rabbo, a man in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

"I am not the only one happy, all of the Gaza Strip is happy, all the Arab people, all of the world is happy with the ceasefire and the end of bloodshed."

World leaders have urged parties to abide by the deal.

"The suffering must end," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said, adding that the UN would support the "full implementation" of the deal, as well as increase its delivery of aid and its reconstruction efforts in Gaza.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer welcomed the news, saying: "This is a moment of profound relief that will be felt all around the world, but particularly for the hostages, their families, and for the civilian population of Gaza, who have all endured unimaginable suffering over the last two years."

Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the agreement a "much needed step towards peace" and urged parties to "respect the terms of the plan".

Lawmakers in the US have struck a cautiously optimistic tone.

"This is a first step, and all parties need to ensure this leads to an enduring end to this war," Democrat Senator Chris Coons said in an X post.

Republican James Risch, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called it a welcome deal and said he "looks forward to learning [its] details".

With reporting by Rushdi Abualouf and Lucy Manning

Ex-BBC Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood has been charged with four counts of rape, the Metropolitan Police has said.

The 68-year-old has also been charged with nine counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault.

The charges related to seven women, with the allegations spanning from 1983 to 2016.

Westwood is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 11 November.

Lionel Idan, Chief Crown Prosecutor, said: "Our prosecutors have established that there is sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings.

"The Crown Prosecution Service reminds everyone that criminal proceedings are active, and the defendant has the right to a fair trial.

"It is extremely important that there be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings."

A court in southern France has increased by a year the jail term of the only man who challenged his conviction for raping Gisèle Pelicot.

The 72-year-old retired grandmother was drugged unconscious by her then-husband Dominique for over a decade and raped by dozens of men he recruited on the internet.

Husamettin Dogan, 44, had argued he was innocent, despite graphic video footage shown in court of him penetrating a motionless Gisèle Pelicot.

But the court of appeal in Nîmes rejected his argument and extended his original nine-year jail term to 10 years. He was convicted of aggravated rape last December, during a trial in which 50 other men were convicted.

Prosecutors had asked the court to impose a 12-year term on Dogan, who said he himself had been a victim, "trapped" by Dominique Pelicot.

Although Dogan did spent time in pre-trial detention ahead of last year's trial, he has not spent time in jail since.

Police were able to track down the men who raped Gisèle because of the videos that Dominique Pelicot filmed during the rapes.

Of the 51 men handed jail terms, 17 initially lodged appeals only to withdraw them soon after.

Husamettin Dogan - a Turkish-born married father - was the only one who decided to take his appeal to court.

Like many of the other men convicted last December, Dogan's defence was that he could not be guilty of raping Gisèle because he did not realise she had been drugged by her husband against her will.

Proceedings in Nîmes were effectively a retrial but, unlike the initial trial last December, this case was judged by a jury made up of nine members of the public and three professional judges.

• Pelicot case returns to court as French women fear nothing has changed
• Gisèle Pelicot and the trial that tore her family apart

Evidence from the first trial was shown again, including videos of the rapes in which an unconscious Gisèle could be heard snoring and having no reaction despite the abuse she was subjected to.

Nevertheless, Dogan again denied any intention to rape her even though he acknowledged she was clearly a victim of her husband.

"I performed a sexual act, I never raped anyone," he said. "For me, rape means forcing someone, tying them up, I don't know… I am a victim."

Gisèle Pelicot told the court this week "I am the only victim", denying she had ever given her consent.

In an attempt to shift the blame on to Dominique Pelicot, Dogan also said that while at one point he had "suspicions" that something about the situation was not quite right, Pelicot had put him at ease. "This guy is a manipulator," he said.

Pelicot - who was present in court as a witness - denied he had ever pretended his wife would be anything but unconscious.

All the men he recruited on chatrooms "were told she would be drugged", Pelicot said, adding he had explicitly told Dogan he was looking for "someone to abuse my sleeping wife without her knowledge".

Madeleine McCann's sister has told a court that a woman claiming to be her missing sibling "played with my emotions" and sent "creepy" messages.

Amelie McCann said Julia Wandelt had told her she had memories of playing Ring a Ring o' Roses with her and feeding her brother Sean.

The 24-year-old wanted to prove she was the missing youngster with a DNA test, but Ms McCann told Leicester Crown Court: "I always knew that she wasn't Madeleine, so I didn't need to do one."

Ms Wandelt and Karen Spragg, who the court heard met Ms Wandelt online before helping to orchestrate her approaches, deny stalking Kate and Gerry McCann - the parents of missing Madeleine, who disappeared on 3 May 2007 in Portugal.

Ms McCann said Ms Wandelt first tried to contact her in January 2024 over Facebook.

She told the court she was aware of Ms Wandelt as "she had been in the media", but as she used the name Julia Julia, Ms McCann "hadn't clocked" it was the same person.

She said: "I was used to getting messages from people about the case and was used to ignoring messages."

At first, she said she "didn't really tell anyone about it".

"I just thought I could deal with it myself and ignore it," she added.

Over the course of the first day of messages, Ms McCann said Ms Wandelt told her she had used "hypnosis sessions", and had "flashbacks" of childhood memories of being Madeleine, feeding Sean and playing with Amelie.

The defendant also talked about the night of Madeleine's disappearance, police corruption and DNA in a series of messages, prosecuting lawyer Nadia Silver said.

The witness was then asked about a line in another message, which the court heard said that Ms Wandelt recalled playing the playground game Ring a Ring o' Roses.

"Again, it makes me feel quite uncomfortable because it is quite creepy and playing with my emotions and my memories that she claims that happened," she said.

"It put a lot of stress on me."

Ms Wandelt, Ms McCann said, continued to message over Instagram and Facebook.

The court was told Ms Wandelt had asked Ms McCann to do a DNA test with her, but the witness said: "I always knew she wasn't Madeleine, so I didn't need to do one."

Ms Wandelt, the jury heard, urged Ms McCann to get her parents to respond to her messages about a DNA test, and said: "Make them believe there is still a hope. I will do whatever it takes."

Another message, sent on 29 April 2024, contained images of the pair and said: "Give me a chance to prove it."

Ms McCann said: "She'd clearly altered pictures to make me more like her, which was quite disturbing."

She said she never responded to any of Ms Wandelt's messages.

Ms Wandelt, the court heard, also sent a letter to the McCanns' family home, in Rothley, Leicestershire, addressed to Amelie McCann, which contained photos of both her and Ms Wandelt.

It said Ms McCann was "her last hope" and that she "really needed" her.

Describing the toll the alleged stalking had on the family, Ms McCann added: "My mum found it the hardest and was harassed by Julia more than the rest of us."

She also spoke of her mother being "stressed and on edge" after the defendants turned up at the family home on 7 December 2024, demanding a DNA test.

Ms McCann concluded her evidence by saying that increased security measures at the home - such as a panic alarm to alert Leicestershire Police, new CCTV and a Ring doorbell camera - were "not normal".

Meanwhile, Amelie's twin brother Sean had a statement read out in court.

He said he had been contacted over Instagram in November 2024 by two of Ms Wandelt's accounts.

He said he did not respond and blocked the accounts, but said he found it "strange and upsetting".

He changed his social media profiles following the contact to remove his surname to make him harder to find, the court heard.

The statement added: "I'm aware Julia may be suffering from some sort of mental health.

"If, however, she's fully aware she is not Madeleine, yet makes these claims she is, that will be very upsetting for me.

"I do not believe she is my sister. The fact Julia is doing this has caused me a great deal of stress and I find it deeply disturbing."

Neighbour's statement

The court also heard evidence from family friends Linda McQueen and her daughter Ellie, who both said they received messages from Ms Wandelt.

Linda said: "It's really upsetting, we've all got memories of Madeleine. It's appalling."

Ring doorbell footage from a neighbour was also played to the jury showing two women approaching and leaving the McCanns' home on 7 December 2024, the same night Mr and Mrs McCann were "accosted".

Neighbour Dr Alex Milton added, via a statement, he saw a blonde woman sitting in a car with the internal light on when he went to walk his dog, and later when he went to pick up a curry.

When he returned with his takeaway, the car was there but the woman was not.

The trial of Ms Wandelt, of Jana Kochanowskiego in Lubin, Poland, and Mrs Spragg, 61, of Caerau Court Road, Cardiff, continues.

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

Tesla is being investigated by the US government after reports the firm's self-driving cars had broken traffic laws, including driving on the wrong side of the road and not stopping for red lights.

It said it was aware of 58 reports where the electric cars had committed such violations, according to a filing from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

An estimated 2.9 million cars equipped with full self-driving tech will fall under the investigation.

Tesla, whose boss Elon Musk recently became the world's first half-trillionaire, has been approached for comment.

The NHTSA's preliminary evaluation will "assess the scope, frequency, and potential safety consequences" of the "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)" mode.

In this mode - which costs extra for Tesla owners - the cars can make lane changes and turns, but drivers must always be alert to take over at any time.

According to the NHTSA report, there were six crashes caused by cars stopping at a traffic light before setting off while the light was still red.

Four of the crashes resulted in injuries.

The traffic authority said Tesla had taken action "to address the issue" of cars going through red lights at a particular intersection in Maryland, where the problem repeatedly occurred.

The agency will also investigate reports of vehicles going into the opposite lane when making a turn.

It said some of the reported incidents gave "little notice to a driver or opportunity to intervene".

Tesla is already facing an investigation from the NHTSA over the cars' door locking mechanisms, after cases where children were reportedly trapped inside Model Y cars.

In some instances, car owners chose to smash the windows to let them out.

Tesla recently unveiled cheaper models of two of its most popular cars, as it tries to compete with cheaper electric vehicles often made by Chinese companies.

Its boss Elon Musk was formerly a close ally of President Donald Trump before a public falling-out earlier in the year.

In July, he announced the formation of a new political party, the America Party, in an attempt to rival the Republicans and Democrats.

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Ten Met Police officers based at Charing Cross station are facing accelerated misconduct hearings, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IPOC) said.

The watchdog's investigation into the officers' conduct was sparked after a BBC report laid out behaviour that included calling for immigrants to be shot, revelling in the use of force and being dismissive of rape claims.

Investigators say they have sufficient evidence to show the officers breached police standards of professional behaviour.

The IOPC director general said she was "appalled" at the actions revealed in the report, adding that "immediate action" to enable the officers' dismissal would be taken at the "earliest opportunity".

The 10 officers facing disciplinary proceedings are: Eight serving Met officers, a former Met Police constable, and a police constable who moved from London to serve with Gloucestershire Police, the IOPC said.

One of the officers, a police constable, remains under criminal investigation for the potential offence of perverting the course of justice, they added.

An investigation into the conduct of an 11th individual - a designated detention officer - is ongoing, the IOPC said.

There is also a separate ongoing investigation into the conduct of a serving Met Police sergeant, also based at Charing Cross, which follows a referral after the officer was arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.

The sergeant was arrested by the Met's directorate of professional standards, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Valentine, who said in a statement that the force would be "unrelenting" in "tackling issues at Charing and anywhere else across the Met".

"Internal reporting mechanisms" brought the "fresh matter" to light, he added.

After Panorama concluded its investigation, the BBC sent a detailed list of allegations to the Met before the report was broadcast. The force then suspended eight officers and one staff member, and took two more officers off front-line duties.

Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley previously said the behaviour outlined by the programme was "disgraceful, totally unacceptable and contrary to the values and standards" of the force.

When Ruth Jones and James Corden first met in 2000, they never imagined it would lead to 22 episodes of a record-breaking TV show.

The pair were filming Fat Friends at the Crowne Plaza in Leeds and formed an unexpected friendship.

Now their book When Gavin Met Stacey is out, revealing how an argument inspired one iconic scene, and a scrapped storyline idea that would have seen Gavin have an affair.

The book is a story of love and friendship, and here are some of the things we have learned:

1. The fishing trip scene was filmed - but never made the final cut

For years, the infamous fishing trip involving Bryn and his nephew Jason has been wrapped in secrecy and speculation.

In the long-awaited finale, Gwen delivers a line that reignites the intrigue: "Their trip 30 years ago almost tore this family apart."

That's all we know, along with clues that they were on their knees, it was freezing cold, and whatever happened was "completely legal in this country".

While fans were given a glimpse of the pair's escapades, in true Gavin and Stacey fashion the secret was never revealed.

But during an event to promote their new book Jones and Corden revealed that a scene shedding light on the mystery was actually filmed.

It featured Bryn clearing out his home when he stumbles upon a camcorder tape labelled "The Fishing Trip".

Jason walks in, stunned, and asks Bryn why he still has it. He then requests to watch it, but Bryn refuses.

Jones and Corden explained that the idea was for the tape to play and just as viewers brace for the big reveal, the footage fuzzes out and jams.

The scene was dropped in the final edit due to time constraints, ultimately leaving the secret safely tucked away with Bryn, Jason… and Dave Coaches.

As for what really happened? Jones confessed: "I have completely stolen James's idea for the answer to what happened on the fishing trip. I say 'I don't know because I wasn't there'."

2. Row between Corden and Jones led to an iconic scene

Corden refers to this as the "Easter egg row", with Jones saying it is all "a little bit vague", but she was travelling up from Cardiff for a writing session for series two and was meeting Corden in London.

Jones continues that she had a message from James Thornton, Joanna Page's husband a few days earlier as he had a script idea and asked if she would mind reading it.

"So I texted back to say, 'Oh yes, by all means send me the script and I'll have a look. Don't know if I can help but I'm happy to have a look'."

She continues that instead of sending the text to James Thornton she sent it to Corden, and messaged him saying "Sorry that wasn't meant for you".

Corden asked who was it for?

"And I don't know what possessed me, but I just went 'Oh it doesn't matter, I cant tell you about it'. And for some bizarre reason you went, 'Oh my god, are you doing Doctor Who?' and I said 'I'm sorry I cant tell you because I've signed a confidentiality clause."

Jones says Corden was furious with her.

"I was basically playing a joke on you, which I rarely do because I'm not really a wind up merchant," adding that Corden is.

She adds she was enjoying teasing Corden, but then he took it badly and said "just forget it, I'm going to Benidorm".

Jones said she was really cross, but the pair made up in the hotel bar, and Jones told Corden she was just winding him up, and they went across the road and bought some Easter eggs.

Corden said they bought two giant Cadbury's Easter eggs, and lay on the hotel bed, opened them and laid there with chocolate eggs on their faces.

"It was shortly after that we wrote Dawn and Pete's vows, when she changes the words to lyrics of Michael Jackson's 'Ben'.

Jones added: "We had a sugar rush, had a sugar low, fell asleep woke up and wrote the vows scene.

"I remember getting really hysterical writing it. It was absolutely joyous, it was magic."

3. Stephen Fretwell didn't want his song to be the theme song

Corden really loves the Stephen Fretwell album Magpie and for a long time they thought about having a piece of written score as the theme.

Corden says: "A few different people like David Arnold wrote pieces, and wrote one piece with a Welsh harp, it was beautiful but didn't feel right.

"I kept saying how I really love that drum sound and the piano chords on the Stephen Fretwell song Run."

Corden continues that the The Office and The Royale Family inspired them, with both shows having simple title sequences, but Gavin and Stacey couldn't afford one.

"We went with a black card with white writing and I wouldn't change it for the world, and I kept saying 'let's have something that feels a bit like Run' and then in the end it was like 'what if it's that'," adding that on some level the lyrics in the song feel like Nessa and Smithy's relationship.

During the London event, the co-creators of the BBC show also met Fretwell for the first time, where he confessed he has initially told his agent he didn't want his song used for the programme.

4. Corden's 40th birthday in Mexico led to the 2019 special

Jones reveals it was Corden's wife Jules inviting her to Mexico for his 40th that clinched the 2019 special happening.

Corden said as soon as Jones walked in he burst into tears and was so "unbelievably happy to see you".

He says they had the "best weekend" adding the couple had always laughed about the fact that Jones had sung Wild Thing at her wedding after a few drinks, and one of his greatest regrets was he wasn't there because they didn't know each other.

At Corden's 40th, Jones got up and sang Wild Thing, improvising the lyrics to make them specific to Corden.

"I just remember singing and seeing your face. The joy on your face," she says.

Corden adds: "Harry Styles was going to you 'I cant believe you just did that'," with Jones saying: "Yeah he looked a bit in shock, I don't know if it was in a good way or bad way'."

During the trip Corden suggested it "might be time" to do more Gavin and Stacey.

"I came back from the Mexico trip in 2018 thinking 'right, lets do this'," Jones says.

As they were writing the 2019 finale, they had the idea of doing two specials, with one being a secret and storyline ideas including Gavin having an affair.

"So the first would air on Christmas Day and the second on New Year's Day, we we even thought that the BBC could put something fake in the listings," Corden says.

But the task was a "big challenge" because of the 10-year gap, and the pair thought it would not work.

5. The finale could have been a film in cinemas

The pair reveal that in August 2023 they started talking about doing one more, potentially a film to be released in cinemas - but changed their minds.

Corden says: "The fact is they've always been in the corner of your room and that where they should remain."

Jones adds: "When we started the show 20 years ago the idea it would be one of those shows that had a Christmas special was far beyond anything we hever dreamed of.

"Just the notion of BBC One on Christmas Day. That means so much to us."

Corden says they wrote with the same freedom they always had and didn't tell the BBC until they had written 65 pages.

The pair added they originally thought the 2019 would be the ending, had it not had the cliffhanger.

"We knew it our hearts that the absolute had to be that Smithy and Nessa finally got together. Got married."

Corden says without Jones passion for Gavin and Stacey he would have let the idea go by the wayside.

He says: "When I think about Gavin and Stacey I think about the word friend and what it means.

"I got to make this show with somebody who knows me better than I know myself... I just don't think I'll have a friendship like it again in my life."

But what next?

They're working on something new, and seeing where they go with it.

"Nothing may come of it. That's always a possibility. But I love it," says Jones.

Ex-BBC Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood has been charged with four counts of rape, the Metropolitan Police has said.

The 68-year-old has also been charged with nine counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault.

The charges related to seven women, with the allegations spanning from 1983 to 2016.

Westwood is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 11 November.

Lionel Idan, Chief Crown Prosecutor, said: "Our prosecutors have established that there is sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings.

"The Crown Prosecution Service reminds everyone that criminal proceedings are active, and the defendant has the right to a fair trial.

"It is extremely important that there be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings."

Madeleine McCann's sister has told a court that a woman claiming to be her missing sibling "played with my emotions" and sent "creepy" messages.

Amelie McCann said Julia Wandelt had told her she had memories of playing Ring a Ring o' Roses with her and feeding her brother Sean.

The 24-year-old wanted to prove she was the missing youngster with a DNA test, but Ms McCann told Leicester Crown Court: "I always knew that she wasn't Madeleine, so I didn't need to do one."

Ms Wandelt and Karen Spragg, who the court heard met Ms Wandelt online before helping to orchestrate her approaches, deny stalking Kate and Gerry McCann - the parents of missing Madeleine, who disappeared on 3 May 2007 in Portugal.

Ms McCann said Ms Wandelt first tried to contact her in January 2024 over Facebook.

She told the court she was aware of Ms Wandelt as "she had been in the media", but as she used the name Julia Julia, Ms McCann "hadn't clocked" it was the same person.

She said: "I was used to getting messages from people about the case and was used to ignoring messages."

At first, she said she "didn't really tell anyone about it".

"I just thought I could deal with it myself and ignore it," she added.

Over the course of the first day of messages, Ms McCann said Ms Wandelt told her she had used "hypnosis sessions", and had "flashbacks" of childhood memories of being Madeleine, feeding Sean and playing with Amelie.

The defendant also talked about the night of Madeleine's disappearance, police corruption and DNA in a series of messages, prosecuting lawyer Nadia Silver said.

The witness was then asked about a line in another message, which the court heard said that Ms Wandelt recalled playing the playground game Ring a Ring o' Roses.

"Again, it makes me feel quite uncomfortable because it is quite creepy and playing with my emotions and my memories that she claims that happened," she said.

"It put a lot of stress on me."

Ms Wandelt, Ms McCann said, continued to message over Instagram and Facebook.

The court was told Ms Wandelt had asked Ms McCann to do a DNA test with her, but the witness said: "I always knew she wasn't Madeleine, so I didn't need to do one."

Ms Wandelt, the jury heard, urged Ms McCann to get her parents to respond to her messages about a DNA test, and said: "Make them believe there is still a hope. I will do whatever it takes."

Another message, sent on 29 April 2024, contained images of the pair and said: "Give me a chance to prove it."

Ms McCann said: "She'd clearly altered pictures to make me more like her, which was quite disturbing."

She said she never responded to any of Ms Wandelt's messages.

Ms Wandelt, the court heard, also sent a letter to the McCanns' family home, in Rothley, Leicestershire, addressed to Amelie McCann, which contained photos of both her and Ms Wandelt.

It said Ms McCann was "her last hope" and that she "really needed" her.

Describing the toll the alleged stalking had on the family, Ms McCann added: "My mum found it the hardest and was harassed by Julia more than the rest of us."

She also spoke of her mother being "stressed and on edge" after the defendants turned up at the family home on 7 December 2024, demanding a DNA test.

Ms McCann concluded her evidence by saying that increased security measures at the home - such as a panic alarm to alert Leicestershire Police, new CCTV and a Ring doorbell camera - were "not normal".

Meanwhile, Amelie's twin brother Sean had a statement read out in court.

He said he had been contacted over Instagram in November 2024 by two of Ms Wandelt's accounts.

He said he did not respond and blocked the accounts, but said he found it "strange and upsetting".

He changed his social media profiles following the contact to remove his surname to make him harder to find, the court heard.

The statement added: "I'm aware Julia may be suffering from some sort of mental health.

"If, however, she's fully aware she is not Madeleine, yet makes these claims she is, that will be very upsetting for me.

"I do not believe she is my sister. The fact Julia is doing this has caused me a great deal of stress and I find it deeply disturbing."

Neighbour's statement

The court also heard evidence from family friends Linda McQueen and her daughter Ellie, who both said they received messages from Ms Wandelt.

Linda said: "It's really upsetting, we've all got memories of Madeleine. It's appalling."

Ring doorbell footage from a neighbour was also played to the jury showing two women approaching and leaving the McCanns' home on 7 December 2024, the same night Mr and Mrs McCann were "accosted".

Neighbour Dr Alex Milton added, via a statement, he saw a blonde woman sitting in a car with the internal light on when he went to walk his dog, and later when he went to pick up a curry.

When he returned with his takeaway, the car was there but the woman was not.

The trial of Ms Wandelt, of Jana Kochanowskiego in Lubin, Poland, and Mrs Spragg, 61, of Caerau Court Road, Cardiff, continues.

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

Ten Met Police officers based at Charing Cross station are facing accelerated misconduct hearings, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IPOC) said.

The watchdog's investigation into the officers' conduct was sparked after a BBC report laid out behaviour that included calling for immigrants to be shot, revelling in the use of force and being dismissive of rape claims.

Investigators say they have sufficient evidence to show the officers breached police standards of professional behaviour.

The IOPC director general said she was "appalled" at the actions revealed in the report, adding that "immediate action" to enable the officers' dismissal would be taken at the "earliest opportunity".

The 10 officers facing disciplinary proceedings are: Eight serving Met officers, a former Met Police constable, and a police constable who moved from London to serve with Gloucestershire Police, the IOPC said.

One of the officers, a police constable, remains under criminal investigation for the potential offence of perverting the course of justice, they added.

An investigation into the conduct of an 11th individual - a designated detention officer - is ongoing, the IOPC said.

There is also a separate ongoing investigation into the conduct of a serving Met Police sergeant, also based at Charing Cross, which follows a referral after the officer was arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.

The sergeant was arrested by the Met's directorate of professional standards, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Valentine, who said in a statement that the force would be "unrelenting" in "tackling issues at Charing and anywhere else across the Met".

"Internal reporting mechanisms" brought the "fresh matter" to light, he added.

After Panorama concluded its investigation, the BBC sent a detailed list of allegations to the Met before the report was broadcast. The force then suspended eight officers and one staff member, and took two more officers off front-line duties.

Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley previously said the behaviour outlined by the programme was "disgraceful, totally unacceptable and contrary to the values and standards" of the force.

The debate around stamp duty is intensifying. When Kemi Badenoch said a future Conservative government would abolish it on the purchase of main homes, it went down well at the Tory Party conference.

There has also been speculation that the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is considering replacing it.

Scrapping stamp duty would be popular among some home buyers, including first-time buyers.

But, analysts say there would be some significant consequences of scrapping stamp duty for primary residences, affecting buyers, sellers and the wider UK economy.

1. House prices might rise

Whenever there has been a temporary easing of stamp duty, such as in the immediate aftermath of the Covid lockdowns, house prices have then risen.

It is more difficult to judge whether a permanent abolition would have the same long-term impact on prices as the short-term sweetener of a stamp duty holiday.

However, greater demand is likely to feed through to asking prices.

"If, and this is a big if, it is a simple tax giveaway, the likelihood is that the current stamp duty bill simply passes through into prices," says Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills.

In turn, that could mean first-time buyers paying less in stamp duty, but having to find a bigger deposit.

"Given the way stamp duty works, this would be unevenly distributed across the country," Mr Cook added.

The most obvious point here is that the government in Westminster can only control stamp duty in England and Northern Ireland. Scotland and Wales have their own land and transaction taxes overseen by the devolved administrations.

2. Tax cut for the wealthy

A swathe of first-time buyers do not pay stamp duty. That's because, in England and Northern Ireland, they are exempt when buying properties of up to £300,000.

"For them, the enormous challenge is raising a deposit," says Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown.

Data from property portal Rightmove suggests that 40% of homes for sale in England are stamp duty free for first-time buyers.

While the vast majority of movers pay stamp duty, the rate increases at certain price thresholds.

So, the bigger the home, the bigger the benefit, if stamp duty was scrapped.

This will also mean a big regional difference in the impact of such a policy.

At the moment, 76% of properties on sale in the North East of England are free of stamp duty for first-time buyers, according to Rightmove's figures. In London, it is only 11%.

Richard Donnell, from Zoopla, points out that 60% of all stamp duty is paid in southern England - so the majority of the benefit of abolition would be felt in the south.

3. Easier to find somewhere to move to

One of the great selling points of stamp duty abolition is the extra mobility it should provide for workers, buyers, sellers and downsizers, according to experts.

"Homeownership is the foundation of a fairer and more secure society - but stamp duty has denied that opportunity to too many for too long," says Paula Higgins, chief executive of the Homeowners Alliance.

"Our research shows over 800,000 homeowners have shelved moving plans in the past two years, and stamp duty is a major barrier."

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), an independent economic think tank, says the winners will be those who want to move frequently, to more or less expensive homes.

It should, for example, clear an obstacle for older homeowners, who want to sell a family home but are discouraged by stamp duty. If they are more likely to move, then their homes become available to younger families and the whole market becomes more fluid.

However, others suggest the influence of stamp duty could be overblown.

"Take someone downsizing, from a £750,000 property to a £300,000 one. In England and Northern Ireland, they'd pay £5,000 in stamp duty. It's a fraction of what they're likely to pay in estate agency fees, and sits along a huge range of costs from conveyancing to removals," Ms Coles from Hargreaves Lansdown says.

"It begs the question of whether removing the cost of the tax is a gamechanger."

4. Potential tax rises elsewhere

Stamp duty raises a lot of money for the Treasury, so scrapping it would leave a gap in the public finances.

The IFS said that the direct cost of the Conservative policy might be around £10.5bn to £11bn in 2029-30, although the Tories' own estimate is about £9bn.

The question for any administration tempted to scrap or reduce stamp duty is how else it finds the money.

The Conservatives say they will make savings elsewhere. The other option is to raise other taxes.

As some analysts have said, the main consideration is not what is scrapped, but what replaces it.

5. Bad news for renters

The idea of scrapping stamp duty for primary residences could end up meaning less choice for renters.

The IFS suggests it could discourage the purchase of rental properties by landlords, as they would still have to pay stamp duty.

The think tank says it would increase the more favourable tax treatment of owner-occupation relative to renting.

Sally Wainwright has said she aimed to create a "uplifting" portrayal of midlife, including menopause, through the story of a female rock band in her new TV series Riot Women.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour on Thursday, the Happy Valley writer said the show, which starts on Sunday, draws from her own midlife experiences.

"It's very personal for me this," she said. "It's a lot about what I was going through at what [actress] Tamsin (Greig) very eloquently called 'the middle squeeze'."

She added: "It's just about midlife - menopause is just an aspect of that - and I wanted to find a way of writing about this part of your life in a way that was uplifting and engaging and interesting."

She continued: "It's about women who find something very creative and very engaging to do together and how it changes their lives."

Riot Women tells the tale of five menopausal women who form a punk rock band to take part in a local talent contest.

It features stage and screen star Rosalie Craig as the chaotic Kitty Eckerson, alongside an ensemble cast of bandmates including Friday Night Dinner star Grieg, Gentleman Jack's Amelia Bullmore, Lorraine Ashbourne from Alma's Not Normal and The Thick of It comic actress Joanna Scanlan.

Together the women foster a sense of solidarity and address their experiences candidly.

Wainwright, the Bafta-winning writer from Huddersfield, said she'd always wanted to write something as a sort of tribute to the 1970s musical drama Rock Follies.

She started to think about it properly about 10 years ago when she working on the one-off BBC drama To Walk Invisible, about the lives and literary achievements of the Brontë sisters.

"At around that time, my mum started to develop dementia, and I felt I was being pulled in so many different directions," she explained to presenter Anita Rani.

"I still had two boys at home, one just about to go to university, the other one thinking about what he was going to do, education wise."

She added: "You know that adage about if something needs doing, ask a busy woman?... I was that woman who just was being expected lots of - in a good way. You're often at the height of your career.

"And so you've been pulled in all sorts of directions and balancing a huge amount of things, and in the middle of that the menopause started."

She noted how along with hot flushes, brain fog and a low mood, it had brought with it a kind of "low self esteem that you don't expect".

"It just seemed well worth writing about," she said, noting how it had been like "therapy" to do so.

The writer felt it was neccessary and useful for the cast to learn to play their instruments live for the series, on songs such as Just Like Your Mother and Seeing Red.

Craig - who starred in Stephen Sondheim's Company on the West End - told the same programme it was "phenomenal" to be asked to portray the carefree and at-times shameless frontwoman, Kitty.

"She's constructed somebody who doesn't have a filter, and that's partly because of what she's been through in life, and being the victim of aggression," said Craig.

"She faces the world like that, with two fists," she went on. "She exorcises herself through the use of song, which was really brilliant to do."

Riot Women begins BBC One and iPlayer on Sunday 12 October at 21:00 BST.

It is a major moment in this most grievous Gaza war.

Most of all, it is a human moment. The first sparks tell this story: the dancing in the dark in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square, the eruption of joy in the dead of night in the ruined streets of Gaza.

In the coastal enclave where so much of life as they knew it has been smashed by war, Palestinians went through the streets, like medieval town criers, waking people up with shouts of "good news, the war has stopped, a ceasefire deal has been reached".

If all unfolds as it should on Thursday, the last of the Israeli hostages will be home within days and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners will also return to their loved ones. The guns will fall silent in Gaza, more aid will flow into the ravaged enclave, and Palestinians won't live each day fearing it could be their last.

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But even now some details, including the names of the Palestinian detainees to be freed, are being argued over. And there's strident opposition to this agreement inside Israel's cabinet.

Still, there is a collective sigh of relief across this region, and around a world pulled passionately into this conflagration more than any other conflict.

But this is just the beginning, it is not the end. It is a ceasefire, not a peace deal. The toughest of issues are still on the table.

Will Hamas agree to give up its guns? Will Israel eventually pull its troops out of Gaza? What about the vague "political horizon" mentioned in US President Donald Trump's 20-point plan, which much of the world translates as the establishment of a Palestinian state and which Israel's government still firmly rejects?

And, more immediately, will both sides implement their side of this agreement?

Those are issues for tomorrow.

President Trump likes to take credit and this time credit is due. It's already been announced that he will travel to Israel this weekend. Never has the first phase of what is certain to be a tortuous process of negotiations, of breakthroughs and breakdowns, been marked by such fanfare.

But never has a US president wielded such pressure on allies and enemies – and the list is long of leaders who tried to clinch a deal to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East.

Former state department official Aaron David Miller, who worked on this file with both Republican and Democratic presidents, marvelled at this moment when he spoke to the BBC in the early hours of Thursday.

Only weeks ago, as President Trump backed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's insistence on the need to intensify Israel's military operations, this Gaza war of unprecedented human cost was expected to drag on until the end of this year, even into the next one.

Only weeks ago, when I asked a senior Arab official "who has President Trump's ear?", the answer was "no one".

Then the emboldened Israeli leader took a step too far in early September when he authorised an attack on Hamas leaders living in the Gulf state of Qatar.

It infuriated Qatar, which has played a pivotal role in trying to mediate an end to this crisis. It infuriated President Trump who cherishes his strong, many-faceted relationship, including colossal investment deals and close personal friendships, with the leaders of Qatar, as well as many other Arab states.

His meeting in New York in mid-September with Arab and Islamic leaders accelerated this momentum as the US leader finally focused on ending this fight.

And, crucially, the families of Israeli hostages finally got his full attention too.

By early October, President Trump was posting photographs on social media of Tel Aviv's Hostages Square packed with people and impassioned pleas to him personally to bring every hostage home, alive or dead. "Now or never" was their rallying cry. And he heard it.

Much has been said too of his burning desire to be awarded the top prize for peacemakers, the Nobel Peace Prize. He doesn't hide it and has even called Norwegian leaders, including the former Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, about it. Such is the shape of our world today.

Behind the scenes of ceasefire talks, others working in the shadows made a major difference too. Qatar, Egypt and Turkey exerted huge pressure on Hamas, persuading even the most hard-line commanders in its ranks that there was more to be gained now in freeing the hostages, than in holding on to them. Keeping them would only keep a war going which has significantly weakened them in every way even if it has not destroyed their movement.

This moment is also bittersweet.

There is grumbling that this first phase is roughly the same plan US President Joe Biden had put on the table last May. How many lives could have been saved, including the lives of Israeli hostages? How much suffering of the Palestinians could have been avoided had all sides come to the table last year instead of this year?

What matters now is the October 7th war, in the week of its terrible two-year mark, has reached a major turning point. It may still falter and even fail in the months to come. Palestinians will agonise, in the rubble of their homes, over how long it will take to build what is left of their lives.

Those living in the occupied West Bank fear for their future too. And Israeli politicians are already plotting over the next elections and arguing over the next stages of this deal to ensure there is never another October 7th.

But long-awaited serious negotiations over how to move forward, not further back, have started, and are succeeding.

This is a moment to celebrate.