A fire that tore through a shopping centre in the Iraqi city of Kut has left dozens dead and injured, state media has reported.

The blaze at the mall, which had reportedly opened five days ago, broke out on Wednesday night and has since been brought under control.

"The number of victims has reached about 50 people," Wasit province governor Mohammed al-Miyahi told Iraqi news agency INA.

Most of the victims in the fire were women and children, he said, adding that legal action would be brought against the shopping centre's owner.

Videos on INA's news channel show flames ripping through several floors of a multi-storey building as firefighters try to douse them.

Other clips circulating on social media appear to show a small number of people on the roof during the fire, as well as the burned out insides of the centre.

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A fire that tore through a shopping centre in the Iraqi city of Kut has left dozens dead and injured, state media has reported.

The blaze at the mall, which had reportedly opened five days ago, broke out on Wednesday night and has since been brought under control.

"The number of victims has reached about 50 people," Wasit province governor Mohammed al-Miyahi told Iraqi news agency INA.

Most of the victims in the fire were women and children, he said, adding that legal action would be brought against the shopping centre's owner.

Videos on INA's news channel show flames ripping through several floors of a multi-storey building as firefighters try to douse them.

Other clips circulating on social media appear to show a small number of people on the roof during the fire, as well as the burned out insides of the centre.

This story is being updated.

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

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

Syria's interim president has said it is his "priority" to protect the country's Druze citizens, after Israel vowed to destroy government forces it accused of attacking members of the religious minority in Suweida province.

In his first televised statement since Israel's air strikes on Damascus on Wednesday, Ahmed al-Sharaa also warned that Syrians were not afraid of war.

Syrian state media reported that the military was withdrawing from Suweida under a ceasefire agreement with Druze leaders. But it is not clear whether that will hold.

More than 350 people are reported to have been killed since sectarian clashes between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes erupted in the province on Sunday.

The government responded by deploying its forces to the predominantly Druze city of Suweida for the first time Sharaa's Sunni Islamist group led the rebel offensive that overthrew President Bashar al-Assad in December, ending 13 years of civil war.

However, the fighting escalated and government forces were accused by residents and activists of killing Druze civilians and carrying out extrajudicial executions.

The Druze religion is an offshoot of Shia Islam with its own unique identity and beliefs. In addition to Syria, there are sizeable communities of Druze in Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.

Syrian Druze and other minorities have remained suspicious of Sharaa since he took power because of his jihadist past. His Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is a former al-Qaeda affiliate that is still designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN.

Their fears have been heightened by several outbreaks of deadly sectarian violence, including one in May between Druze militias, security forces and allied Islamist fighters that also prompted to Israel intervene militarily.

In his speech early on Thursday, Sharaa stressed that the Druze were "a fundamental part of the fabric of this nation", and that he rejected any attempt for them to be dragged into the hands of what he called "an external party".

The president said government forces deployed to Suweida had "succeeded in restoring stability and expelling outlawed factions despite the Israeli interventions", which he said caused a "significant complication of the situation" and "a large-scale escalation".

"We are not among those who fear the war. We have spent our lives facing challenges and defending our people, but we have put the interests of the Syrians before chaos and destruction," he said.

Responsibility for security in Suweida would now be handed to religious elders and some local factions "based on the supreme national interest", he added.

Sharaa ended the speech by promising that the government was "keen on holding accountable those who transgressed and abused our Druze people".

On Wednesday, Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told the country's own Druze citizens on that Israeli forces were "acting to save our Druze brothers and to eliminate the gangs of the regime".

The Israeli military said its aircraft struck the Syrian military's headquarters in Damascus and a military site near the presidential palace, as well as armoured vehicles on their way to Suweida, and firing posts and weapons storage facilities in southern Syria.

"We are acting decisively to prevent the entrenchment of hostile elements beyond the border, to protect the citizens of the State of Israel, and to prevent the harming of Druze civilians," the military's chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, said during a visit to the Golan Heights.

"We will not allow southern Syria to become a terror stronghold," he warned.

The general also said there was "no room for disorder near the border fence", after hundreds of Druze crossed the heavily fortified frontier with Syria on Wednesday.

The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said it was speaking to all of the parties involved and had "agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end".

"This will require all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made and this is what we fully expect them to do," he added, without giving any details.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, says more than 350 people have been killed since Sunday.

They include 79 Druze fighters and 55 civilians, 27 of whom were summarily killed by interior ministry and defence ministry forces, according to the group.

At least 189 members of the government forces and 18 Bedouin tribal fighters have also been killed in the clashes, it says.

It was not immediately possible to verify the SOHR's casualty figures, but Syrian security sources also said Wednesday that the death toll was close to 300.

The US Department of Justice has fired a veteran federal prosecutor who worked on the cases against sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, and hip hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs.

It is not clear why Maurene Comey was removed from her job at the Southern District of New York, but her exit was confirmed by sources to the BBC's US partner CBS.

She is the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, whom President Donald Trump fired in 2017.

The justice department has been firing lawyers who worked on cases that angered the president, including the 2021 US Capitol riot and a special prosecutor investigation of Trump.

Ms Comey - who had been a trial lawyer at the high-profile justice department office in Manhattan since 2015 - was given no explanation for her firing, a person familiar with the matter told Politico.

Her exit comes as Trump and the justice department's leader, Attorney General Pam Bondi, face backlash over the administration's handling of files relating to Epstein.

• Trump's Epstein strategy could pit him against loyal supporters

The well-connected convicted paedophile died by suicide while awaiting trial in 2019.

Bondi appeared to indicate in February she would release Epstein's client list, before saying last week there was no client list and no further files would be disclosed.

Ms Comey's firing comes after her prosecution team failed in their bid to convict Sean Combs on the most serious charges he faced of racketeering and sex-trafficking. The rapper was found guilty this month of lesser counts.

According to ABC News, Trump has privately expressed displeasure about having a Comey work in his administration.

Her father, James Comey, was recently interviewed by the US Secret Service after posting - then deleting - a seashell photo on Instagram that federal officials alleged was a call for violence against Trump.

Earlier this month it was reported that the justice department had launched an investigation into the former FBI director.

Prosecutors were said to be examining Comey's statements to Congress over an inquiry into alleged Russian attempts to influence the 2016 White House election. That probe failed to find Trump had criminally conspired with the Kremlin.

Police in India are trying to piece together the story of a Russian woman who was found living in a cave in the southern state of Karnataka with her two young daughters.

Nina Kutina was rescued on 9 July by policemen who were on a routine patrol near Ramteertha hills in the Gokarna forest, which borders the tourist paradise of Goa.

Authorities say the 40-year-old and her daughters - six and five years old - do not have valid documents to stay in India. They have been lodged in a detention centre for foreigners near Bengaluru, the state capital, and will be deported soon.

Kutina has defended her lifestyle in two video interviews to Indian news agency ANI, saying she and her children were happy living in the cave and that "nature gives good health".

But even a week after they were found, there is very little clarity on how the woman and her children came to be in a forest infested with snakes and wild animals; how long they had been living there and who they really are.

Police stumble on the cave dwelling

"The area is popular with tourists, especially foreigners. But it has a lot of snakes and it's prone to landslides, especially during the rainy season. To ensure the safety of tourists, we started patrolling the forests last year," M Narayana, superintendent of police for Uttara Kannada district, told the BBC.

A second policeman who cannot be named and was part of the patrol party that stumbled on the cave dwelling said they walked down a steep hill to investigate when they saw bright clothes that had been hung outdoors to dry.

When they got closer to the cave - the entrance to which had been curtained off with brightly coloured saris - "a little blonde girl came running out". When the shocked policemen followed her inside, they found Nina Kutina and the other child.

Their possessions were meagre - plastic mats, clothes, packets of instant noodles and some other grocery items - and the cave was leaking.

Videos shot by the police at the cave dwelling which the BBC has seen, show the children dressed in colourful Indian clothes, smiling into the camera.

"The woman and her children appeared quite comfortable in the place," Mr Narayana said. "It took us some time to convince her that it was dangerous to live there," he added.

Police said when they told her that the cave was unsafe because of the presence of snakes and wild animals in the forest, she told them: "Animals and snakes are our friends. Humans are dangerous."

Kutina and her daughters were taken to a hospital for a check-up after their rescue and were certified to be medically fit.

Who is Nina Kutina?

An official in India's Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) has told the BBC that she's Russian and that she will be repatriated once the formalities are completed.

He says they have reached out to the Russian consulate in Chennai - the BBC has also written to the Russian embassy in Delhi but they are yet to respond.

In video interviews with India's ANI and PTI news agencies, Kutina said she was born in Russia but hadn't lived there for 15 years and travelled to "a lot of countries, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Bali, Thailand, Nepal, Ukraine".

In her interviews with both agencies, Kutina said she had four children between the ages of 20 and 5 years. She talked about the eldest - "my big son" - who died in a road accident in Goa last year.

Officials say her second son is 11-years-old and is in Russia - and that they have shared the information with the consulate.

On Tuesday night, the FRRO said they had tracked down the father of the girls - Dror Goldstein - and that he was an Israeli businessman. They said he was in India at the moment and that they met him and were trying to persuade him to pay for Kutina and her daughters' repatriation.

On Wednesday, Goldstein told India's NDTV channel that Kutina had left Goa without informing him and that he had lodged a missing complaint with the police there.

He said he wanted joint custody of his daughters and would do everything to prevent the government from sending them to Russia.

When did she come to Gokarna?

There is no clarity on how and when Kutina and her daughters reached the forest in Karnataka.

Police said she told them that they had been living in the cave for a week. They added that she had bought some vegetables and groceries, including a popular brand of instant noodles, from a local store, a week ago.

They said she told them that she arrived in Karnataka from Goa where she also claimed to have lived in a cave. She also said that one of her daughters was born in a Goa cave.

In her interview to PTI on Wednesday, she complained about the detention centre where she's been lodged with her daughters saying "it is like jail".

"We lived in a very good place. But now we cannot be alone. We cannot go outside. Here it's very dirty, and there's not enough food," she added.

It's not clear when and how Kutina came to India.

Police say she told them she had lost her passport, but they were able to find an older expired passport among her belongings which showed that she had come to India on a business visa which was valid from 18 October 2016 to 17 April 2017.

But she overstayed, was caught a year later, and the Goa office of the FRRO issued her "an exit permit" to leave India. According to immigration stamps in her passport, she entered Nepal on 19 April 2018 and exited three months later.

It's not clear where she went after that, but Kutina told ANI that overall she had "travelled to at least 20 countries" - at least "four of them since leaving India in 2018".

It's also not clear when she returned to India next, although some reports say she's been back since February 2020. She told PTI that she returned because "we really love India".

Kutina admitted that her visa expired a few months back. "We don't have our visa, valid visa, our visa finished," she said, adding that the lapse happened because she was grieving for her dead son and couldn't think of anything else.

Why was Kutina living in a cave?

After an idol of Panduranga Vittala, a form of Hindu god Krishna, was found in her cave dwelling, it was reported that she had gone there to do meditation and for spiritual reasons.

But in her interview to ANI, she rejected the narrative. "It is not about spiritually. We just like nature because it gives us health... it's very big health, it's not like you live in a home."

She added she had "big experience to stay in natural, in jungle" and insisted that her daughters were happy and healthy there. The cave she had chosen was "very big and beautiful" and it was "very close to a village" so she could buy food and other necessities.

"We were not dying, and I did not bring my children, my daughters, to die in jungle. They were very happy, they swam in the waterfall, they had a very good place for sleeping, a lot of lessons in art making, we made from clay, we painted, we ate good, I was cooking very good and tasty food," she told ANI.

Kutina also rejected suggestions that living in the forest exposed her children to danger.

"For all the time we lived there, yes we saw a few snakes," she said, but added that it was similar to people reporting finding snakes in their homes, kitchens or toilets.

Samsung boss Lee Jae-yong has been cleared of fraud charges, concluding a decade-long legal battle over his role in a 2015 merger deal.

Lee, the grandson of Samsung's founder and the de facto head of the company since 2014, had been accused of using stock and accounting fraud to try and gain control of the firm.

In its final verdict, the South Korean Supreme Court upheld a not guilty verdict, after Lee was acquitted of all charges in two earlier trials.

The case drew widespread scrutiny of the technology giant, as the country grapples with corporate corruption scandals involving its powerful family-run conglomerates known as chaebols.

A fresh wave of deadly sectarian violence has rocked Syria, putting into focus the country's fragile security landscape as the new government attempts to impose its authority over the fractured territory.

On Sunday 13 July, the reported abduction of a merchant from the Druze minority sparked days of deadly clashes between Druze militias and Sunni Bedouin fighters in southern Syria.

Later on Tuesday 15 July, Israel intervened militarily, saying its forces were seeking to protect the Druze and to eliminate pro-government forces accused of attacking them in Suweida. At least 300 people are reported to have been killed in Suweida since Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The violence is the first in the Druze-majority province of Suweida since fighting in April and May between Druze fighters and Syria's new security forces killed dozens of people. Prior to this, clashes in Syria's coastal provinces in March were said to have killed hundreds of members of the Alawite minority, to which former ruler Bashar al-Assad belongs.

The deadly unrest, along with the violent Israeli strikes, have re-ignited fears of a security breakdown in Syria, as the country grapples with the fallout from over a decade of civil war, and the recent Islamist-led rebel takeover of Damascus in December 2024. Syria's current leader, former jihadist Ahmed al-Sharaa, has vowed to protect Syria's minorities.

Who are the Druze?

The Druze are an Arabic-speaking ethno-religious minority in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the occupied Golan Heights. The Druze faith is an offshoot of Shia Islam with its own unique identity and beliefs.

Half of its roughly one million followers live in Syria, where they make up about 3% of the population. The Druze community in Israel is largely considered to be loyal to the Israeli state, owing to its members' participation in military service. There are some 152,000 Druze people living in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.

They have historically occupied a precarious position in Syria's political order. During Syria's almost 14-year civil war, the Druze operated their own militias in southern Syria.

Since the fall of Assad in December, the Druze have resisted state attempts to impose authority over southern Syria. While the Druze factions in Syria are divided in their approach to the new authorities, ranging from caution to outright rejection, many object to official Syrian security presence in Suweida and have resisted integration into the Syrian army - relying instead on local militias.

Despite the Syrian government condemning the recent attacks on Druze people and vowing to restore order in southern Syria, its forces have also been accused of attacking the minority - with the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) war monitor documenting "summary executions" of Druze people by government forces. Such reports have fuelled mistrust among some members of the Druze community towards the authorities in Damascus.

After Assad's sudden fall, Israel has been reaching out to the Druze community near its northern border in a bid to forge alliances with Syria's minorities. It has increasingly positioned itself as a regional protector of minorities, including the Kurds, Druze and Alawites in Syria, while attacking military sites in Syria and government forces.

During the sectarian clashes in May, Israel carried out strikes near the presidential palace in Damascus, saying it was a warning against attacks on the Druze. However, some Druze figures in Syria and Lebanon have accused Israel of stoking sectarian divisions to advance its own expansionist aspirations in the region.

Why is Israel attacking Syria now?

The most recent strikes have primarily acted as a warning and a deterrent against the Syrian army deploying to southern Syria, with Israel seeking to create a demilitarised zone in the area. In particular, Israel fears the presence of Islamist fighters near its northern border, along the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

While the Israeli air strikes on 15 July were limited to targeting security forces and vehicles in Suweida, the Israeli military expanded the scope of its attacks on 16 July, striking the Ministry of Defence and the Syrian army headquarters in Damascus. Syria has condemned the attacks.

The strikes represented the most serious Israeli escalation in Syria since December 2024, when it obliterated hundreds of military sites across the country and seized a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Syrian Golan Heights. Israel has struck Syria multiple times, with the intention of preventing the new authorities from building its military capacities - viewed as a potential threat to Israeli security.

"The warnings in Damascus have ended - now painful blows will come," Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on social media on 16 July, shortly after Israeli strikes on Damascus began.

The targeting of the Syrian military headquarters was broadcast live by the leading Syria TV channel, from its studios located across from the building - with the presenter captured on air fleeing the studio.

How has the rest of the world reacted?

The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the US was "very concerned" about the violence and announced on 16 July: "We have agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end tonight."

Several Arab states, including Lebanon, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, and Kuwait, have condemned the Israeli strikes targeting Syrian government and security forces. Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry denounced what it described as "Israel's blatant attacks" on Syria, while Iran described the attacks as "all too predictable".

Turkey, a key stakeholder in post-Assad Syria, described the strikes as "an act of sabotage against Syria's efforts to secure peace, stability and security".

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned Israel's "escalatory" strikes in Suweida and Damascus.

What could happen next?

The violence has underlined the fragility of Syria's post-war security and political landscape, with the most recent spate of violence fuelling fears of renewed sectarian attacks across Syria.

As Sharaa attempts to establish control over Syria and to unite its various groups, it remains to be seen whether his Islamist-dominated government will be able to reconcile Syria's deep-rooted sectarian divisions, stoked by years of civil war. The sectarian clashes, along with the Israeli strikes, threaten to derail attempts at state-building and post-war recovery.

Israel, for its part, is likely to continue to perceive the new authorities, and its affiliated Islamist fighters in the south, as a significant security threat - pushing it to pursue alliances with groups that may feel alienated by the new authorities.

At least two people have been killed and a further 27 injured following a Russian air strike on a shopping centre and market in the town of Dobropillia in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, officials have said.

More than 50 shops, 300 apartments and eight cars were damaged in the attack on Wednesday evening, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram.

In his nightly address, President Volodymyr Zelensky described the strike as "simply horrific" and said there was "no military logic" to it. Russia has not commented.

It comes as the US special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, is in Kyiv on a week-long trip to discuss US-Ukrainian co-operation with Zelensky.

"The Russians have again deliberately targeted an area where there are lots of people - a shopping centre in the middle of town," governor Filashkin wrote on Telegram on Wednesday.

"This time with a 500-kg (1,100-pound) air bomb."

Filashkin said the bomb had been dropped at 17:20 local time (14:20 GMT) when the area was busy with people out shopping.

Situated 20km (12 miles) from the frontline, and north-east of the city of Pokrovsk - a focal point of Russia's slow advance through the Donetsk region - Dobropillia has been subject to other attacks since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In March, a rocket, drone and missile attack killed 11 people in the town, including five children.

Russia has escalated its drone and missile strikes across Ukraine in recent weeks, killing more than 230 civilians in June, according to the United Nations - the largest number killed in a month during the three years of war.

US President Donald Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated that his efforts to end the war have not amounted to a ceasefire or a significant breakthrough.

Following a meeting with Nato chief Mark Rutte in Washington on Monday, Trump said he was "disappointed" with Vladimir Putin and the fact that his "very nice phone calls" with the Russian president are often followed by air strikes on Ukraine.

"After that happens three or four times you say: the talk doesn't mean anything," Trump said.

He warned he would impose severe sanctions on Moscow if a peace deal was not reached within 50 days.

The US president also announced that the US would send "top-of-the-line weapons" to Kyiv via Nato countries to ensure "Ukraine can do what it wants to do."

The US Department of Justice has fired a veteran federal prosecutor who worked on the cases against sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, and hip hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs.

It is not clear why Maurene Comey was removed from her job at the Southern District of New York, but her exit was confirmed by sources to the BBC's US partner CBS.

She is the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, whom President Donald Trump fired in 2017.

The justice department has been firing lawyers who worked on cases that angered the president, including the 2021 US Capitol riot and a special prosecutor investigation of Trump.

Ms Comey - who had been a trial lawyer at the high-profile justice department office in Manhattan since 2015 - was given no explanation for her firing, a person familiar with the matter told Politico.

Her exit comes as Trump and the justice department's leader, Attorney General Pam Bondi, face backlash over the administration's handling of files relating to Epstein.

• Trump's Epstein strategy could pit him against loyal supporters

The well-connected convicted paedophile died by suicide while awaiting trial in 2019.

Bondi appeared to indicate in February she would release Epstein's client list, before saying last week there was no client list and no further files would be disclosed.

Ms Comey's firing comes after her prosecution team failed in their bid to convict Sean Combs on the most serious charges he faced of racketeering and sex-trafficking. The rapper was found guilty this month of lesser counts.

According to ABC News, Trump has privately expressed displeasure about having a Comey work in his administration.

Her father, James Comey, was recently interviewed by the US Secret Service after posting - then deleting - a seashell photo on Instagram that federal officials alleged was a call for violence against Trump.

Earlier this month it was reported that the justice department had launched an investigation into the former FBI director.

Prosecutors were said to be examining Comey's statements to Congress over an inquiry into alleged Russian attempts to influence the 2016 White House election. That probe failed to find Trump had criminally conspired with the Kremlin.

Germany is set to tighten its laws to crack down on gangs smuggling migrants to the UK by the end of the year, Downing Street has said.

The announcement comes alongside a new agreement between the UK and Germany covering areas including migration, business and defence, which will be signed during Friedrich Merz's first official visit to the UK as German chancellor on Thursday.

The changes will make it illegal in Germany to facilitate illegal migration to the UK.

Facilitating people-smuggling is not technically illegal in Germany currently, if it is to a country outside the European Union - which, following Brexit, includes the UK.

Downing Street said the move will make it easier for German authorities to investigate and take action against warehouses and storage facilities used by smugglers to conceal small boats intended for illegal Channel crossings to the UK.

Berlin agreed to tighten its legislation in December under the previous government but the new chancellor is now expected to commit to changing the law by the end of the year.

A BBC investigation last year exposed the significant German connection to small boat crossings, with the country becoming a central location for the storage of boats and engines.

Sir Keir said: "Chancellor Merz's commitment to make necessary changes to German law to disrupt the supply lines of the dangerous vessels which carry illegal migrants across the Channel is hugely welcome."

The German agreement comes a week after the UK announced a new pilot returns scheme with France, during President Emmanuel Macron's state visit.

Under the "one in, one out" deal, some small boat arrivals would be returned to France in exchange for the UK accepting an equivalent number of asylum seekers with connections to the UK.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure to tackle the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats.

More than 21,000 people have made the dangerous journey so far this year - a 56% increase on the same period in 2024.

The Conservatives' shadow home secretary Chris Philp claimed the figures showed " the crisis in the Channel continues to spiral".

"This is just more of the same tired, headline-chasing from Keir Starmer," he said.

"He's scrambling to stay relevant with yet another gimmick, but this latest press release is not a plan but a distraction...

"This government has clearly lost control of our borders and left the country exposed when they cancelled our returns deterrent."

Defence and security is also on the agenda for the visit, with the leaders set to discuss support for Ukraine.

The pair will unveil a new agreement to boost UK defence exports such as Boxer armoured vehicles and Typhoon jets, through joint export campaigns for co-produced equipment.

Downing Street said the agreement was likely to lead to billions of pounds of additional defence exports in the coming years, boosting the economy and jobs.

A cooperation treaty will also establish a new UK-Germany Business Forum to facilitate investment in the two countries.

A series of commercial investments in the UK are being announced to coincide with the visit, worth more than £200m and creating more than 600 new jobs.

Among the companies involved are defence tech firm STARK, which will create 100 jobs through a new facility in Swindon - marking the the company's first expansion outside of Germany.

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A fire has destroyed the main stage at Tomorrowland festival in Belgium, just two days before the event was set to open.

"Due to a serious incident and fire on the Tomorrowland Mainstage, our beloved Mainstage has been severely damaged," festival organisers said on Wednesday evening.

The statement said nobody was injured during the blaze, the cause of which remains unclear.

The electronic dance music festival is due to start on Friday in the town of Boom, south of Antwerp, with 400,000 people expected to attend over two weekends.

The fire started around 18:00 local time (16:00) on Wednesday. Videos posted to social media showed thick grey smoke engulfing the stage.

Firefighters are working to stop the flames reaching neighbouring homes and woods. Some residents have been evacuated.

In an update posted on the festival's website, organisers said the campsite would still open on Thursday as planned, and that the focus was "on finding solutions for the festival weekend".

An "unbelievably rare" piece of Mars - the largest ever found on Earth - has sold for $4.3m (£3.2m) at a New York auction on Wednesday.

The meteorite known as NWA 16788 weighs 54lb (24.5kg) and is nearly 15in (38.1cm) long, according to Sotheby's.

It was discovered in a remote region of Niger in November 2023 and is 70% larger than the next biggest piece of Mars that has been recovered, the auction house said.

Meteorites are the remains of rock left after an asteroid or comet passes through Earth's atmosphere.

Sotheby's auction house described the meteorite, a reddish brown rock, as "unbelievably rare". Only about 400 Martian meteorites have ever been found on Earth.

"This is the largest piece of Mars on planet Earth. The odds of this getting from there to here are astronomically small," Cassandra Hatton, vice-chairman of science and natural history at Sotheby's, said in a video posted online.

"Remember that approximately 70% of Earth's surface is covered in water. So we're incredibly lucky that this landed on dry land instead of the middle of the ocean where we could actually find it."

It remains unclear where the meteorite will end up as information about the sale will remain private.

Additional taxes and fees brought the total price of the rock up to about $5.3m, Sotheby's said.

At the Wednesday auction, which featured more than 100 items, a Ceratosaurus skeleton from the late Jurassic period sold for $26m and the skull of a Pachycephalosaurus sold for $1.4m.

Israel's military struck the Syrian defence ministry in Damascus and government forces in southern Syria on Wednesday, as deadly sectarian fighting in the mostly Druze province of Suweida continued for a fourth day.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said its forces were "working to save our Druze brothers and to eliminate the regime's gangs". The Syrian foreign ministry accused Israel of "treacherous aggression".

More than 300 people are reported to have been killed in Suweida since Sunday, when clashes between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes erupted.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was "very worried" about the violence in the south but believed it would end within hours.

"We have agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end tonight," he wrote on X on Wednesday evening.

Syria's foreign ministry said the country "welcomes the efforts made by the US and Arabian sides" to "resolve the current crisis" peacefully.

Israel has not yet commented on the ceasefire bid.

Earlier the Syrian interior ministry announced that it had reached a ceasefire agreement with Druze leaders "as part of efforts to restore security and stability". It said military operations would end immediately, police would set up checkpoints in Suweida city, and that the province would be "fully integrated" into the Syrian state.

One Druze leader, Sheikh Yousef Jarbou, confirmed the agreement. But another who supports Israel's intervention, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajri, called for Druze fighters to continue fighting until the "total liberation of our province from gangs".

The Israeli military began striking Syrian security forces and their weapons on Monday, after they were deployed to the city of Suweida for the first time since Sunni Islamist-led rebels overthrew President Bashar al-Assad in December.

Minority groups including the Druze - whose religion is an offshoot of Shia Islam with its own unique identity and beliefs - are suspicious of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and his government, despite his pledges to protect them.

Their fears have been heightened by several outbreaks of sectarian violence over the past eight months, including one in May in which dozens of people were reportedly killed in clashes between Druze, security forces, and allied Islamist fighters in Damascus and Suweida.

In the wake of that fighting, the government reached an agreement with Druze militias to hire local security forces in Suweida province from their ranks.

Netanyahu has said he is committed to preventing harm to the Druze in Syria because of their deep ties to those living in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X on Wednesday afternoon that "the warnings in Damascus" had ended and that the Israeli military would "continue to operate vigorously in Suweida to destroy the forces that attacked the Druze until they withdraw completely".

He later posted that "the painful blows have begun", above a video clip showing a TV presenter diving under a desk live on camera as an Israeli air strike hit the nearby entrance to the Syrian defence ministry in Umayyad Square, in central Damascus.

Fadi Al Halabi, a London-based Syrian filmmaker who is visiting Damascus, said he was nearby when he heard the Israeli fighter jets approach.

"People's faces were so afraid. Everyone started running [in] the street. No-one knew where to go. Suddenly the air strike[s] began, targeting some of the most crowded areas, including the ministry of defence," he told the BBC.

The Israeli military said it also struck a "military target in the area" of the presidential palace in the capital, as well as armoured vehicles loaded with heavy machine guns and weapons on their way to Suweida, and firing posts and weapons storage facilities in southern Syria.

Syria's foreign ministry said the strikes targeted government institutions and civilian facilities in Damascus and Suweida and killed "several innocent civilians".

"This flagrant assault, which forms part of a deliberate policy pursued by the Israeli entity to inflame tensions, spread chaos, and undermine security and stability in Syria, constitutes a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter and international humanitarian law," it added.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, meanwhile reported that the humanitarian situation in Suweida city had rapidly deteriorated.

It cited sources as saying there were clashes in several area of the city and that tanks had attacked the national hospital, causing panic among the scores of casualties from the fighting being treated there. They also said there were acute shortages of water and medical supplies.

Later, the Syrian health ministry said government forces had entered the hospital and found "dozens of bodies" after "outlaw groups withdrew", according to the official Sana news agency.

A man named Hosam told the BBC he was in the centre of Suweida city and had witnessed civilians coming under fire from artillery and snipers.

"I lost my neighbour today on the street. One of the snipers shot him. We tried to [get an] ambulance [to take] him to hospital, but we couldn't," he said.

The SOHR says more than 300 people have been killed since Sunday in Suweida province.

They include 69 Druze fighters and 40 civilians, 27 of whom were summarily killed by interior ministry and defence ministry forces, according to the group.

At least 165 members of the government forces and 18 Bedouin tribal fighters have also been killed in the clashes, while 10 members of government forces have been killed in Israeli strikes, it says.

The BBC is not able to verify the SOHR's casualty figures.

The fighting between Bedouin tribes and Druze militias in Suweida is said to have been sparked by the abduction of a Druze merchant on the highway to Damascus last Friday.

On Sunday, armed Druze fighters reportedly encircled and later seized a neighbourhood of Suweida city that is inhabited by Bedouin. The clashes soon spread into other parts of Suweida province, with tribesmen reportedly launching attacks on nearby Druze towns and villages.

Syria's interior ministry later announced that its forces and those of the defence ministry would intervene and impose order, saying the "dangerous escalation comes in light of the absence of relevant official institutions".

Earlier this year, Israel's prime minister demanded the complete demilitarisation of Suweida and two other southern provinces. He said Israel saw President Sharaa's Sunni Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), as a threat. HTS is a former al-Qaeda affiliate that is still designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN and UK, but no longer by the US.

The Israeli military has already carried out hundreds of strikes across Syria to destroy the country's military assets since the fall of the Assad regime.

And it has sent troops into the UN-monitored demilitarised buffer zone between the occupied Golan Heights and Syria, as well as several adjoining areas and the summit of Mount Hermon.

President Donald Trump has said it is "highly unlikley" he will fire the chair of the US Federal Reserve, hours after asking lawmakers whether he should sack Jerome Powell.

Stock markets and the dollar fell following reports Trump had broached the idea with Republicans on Tuesday.

Trump has repeatedly called on Powell to lower US interest rates in a series of highly critical outbursts.

That continued on Wednesday when Trump said Powell - who the president appointed during his first term - was "doing a lousy job" but while he said he doesn't rule anything out, "It's highly unlikely unless he has to leave for fraud".

The Federal Reserve is independent of the White House.

Powell has denied that the White House has the authority to fire him, especially over a policy disagreement, but White House officials said he can be removed for cause.

The US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has said 20 people have been killed in what it called a "tragic incident" at one of its aid distribution centres in southern Gaza.

Nineteen were trampled to death and one was stabbed "amid a chaotic and dangerous surge" at the site in the Khan Younis area, a statement said. It added that it believed the surge was "driven by agitators in the crowd" who were affiliated to Hamas.

It was not immediately possible to verify the report.

However, officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis earlier said that more than 10 people were killed and others injured due to "suffocation" after the GHF's private security contractors closed an aid site.

At least two people have been killed and a further 27 injured following a Russian air strike on a shopping centre and market in the town of Dobropillia in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, officials have said.

More than 50 shops, 300 apartments and eight cars were damaged in the attack on Wednesday evening, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram.

In his nightly address, President Volodymyr Zelensky described the strike as "simply horrific" and said there was "no military logic" to it. Russia has not commented.

It comes as the US special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, is in Kyiv on a week-long trip to discuss US-Ukrainian co-operation with Zelensky.

"The Russians have again deliberately targeted an area where there are lots of people - a shopping centre in the middle of town," governor Filashkin wrote on Telegram on Wednesday.

"This time with a 500-kg (1,100-pound) air bomb."

Filashkin said the bomb had been dropped at 17:20 local time (14:20 GMT) when the area was busy with people out shopping.

Situated 20km (12 miles) from the frontline, and north-east of the city of Pokrovsk - a focal point of Russia's slow advance through the Donetsk region - Dobropillia has been subject to other attacks since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In March, a rocket, drone and missile attack killed 11 people in the town, including five children.

Russia has escalated its drone and missile strikes across Ukraine in recent weeks, killing more than 230 civilians in June, according to the United Nations - the largest number killed in a month during the three years of war.

US President Donald Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated that his efforts to end the war have not amounted to a ceasefire or a significant breakthrough.

Following a meeting with Nato chief Mark Rutte in Washington on Monday, Trump said he was "disappointed" with Vladimir Putin and the fact that his "very nice phone calls" with the Russian president are often followed by air strikes on Ukraine.

"After that happens three or four times you say: the talk doesn't mean anything," Trump said.

He warned he would impose severe sanctions on Moscow if a peace deal was not reached within 50 days.

The US president also announced that the US would send "top-of-the-line weapons" to Kyiv via Nato countries to ensure "Ukraine can do what it wants to do."

Germany is set to tighten its laws to crack down on gangs smuggling migrants to the UK by the end of the year, Downing Street has said.

The announcement comes alongside a new agreement between the UK and Germany covering areas including migration, business and defence, which will be signed during Friedrich Merz's first official visit to the UK as German chancellor on Thursday.

The changes will make it illegal in Germany to facilitate illegal migration to the UK.

Facilitating people-smuggling is not technically illegal in Germany currently, if it is to a country outside the European Union - which, following Brexit, includes the UK.

Downing Street said the move will make it easier for German authorities to investigate and take action against warehouses and storage facilities used by smugglers to conceal small boats intended for illegal Channel crossings to the UK.

Berlin agreed to tighten its legislation in December under the previous government but the new chancellor is now expected to commit to changing the law by the end of the year.

A BBC investigation last year exposed the significant German connection to small boat crossings, with the country becoming a central location for the storage of boats and engines.

Sir Keir said: "Chancellor Merz's commitment to make necessary changes to German law to disrupt the supply lines of the dangerous vessels which carry illegal migrants across the Channel is hugely welcome."

The German agreement comes a week after the UK announced a new pilot returns scheme with France, during President Emmanuel Macron's state visit.

Under the "one in, one out" deal, some small boat arrivals would be returned to France in exchange for the UK accepting an equivalent number of asylum seekers with connections to the UK.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure to tackle the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats.

More than 21,000 people have made the dangerous journey so far this year - a 56% increase on the same period in 2024.

The Conservatives' shadow home secretary Chris Philp claimed the figures showed " the crisis in the Channel continues to spiral".

"This is just more of the same tired, headline-chasing from Keir Starmer," he said.

"He's scrambling to stay relevant with yet another gimmick, but this latest press release is not a plan but a distraction...

"This government has clearly lost control of our borders and left the country exposed when they cancelled our returns deterrent."

Defence and security is also on the agenda for the visit, with the leaders set to discuss support for Ukraine.

The pair will unveil a new agreement to boost UK defence exports such as Boxer armoured vehicles and Typhoon jets, through joint export campaigns for co-produced equipment.

Downing Street said the agreement was likely to lead to billions of pounds of additional defence exports in the coming years, boosting the economy and jobs.

A cooperation treaty will also establish a new UK-Germany Business Forum to facilitate investment in the two countries.

A series of commercial investments in the UK are being announced to coincide with the visit, worth more than £200m and creating more than 600 new jobs.

Among the companies involved are defence tech firm STARK, which will create 100 jobs through a new facility in Swindon - marking the the company's first expansion outside of Germany.

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A fire has destroyed the main stage at Tomorrowland festival in Belgium, just two days before the event was set to open.

"Due to a serious incident and fire on the Tomorrowland Mainstage, our beloved Mainstage has been severely damaged," festival organisers said on Wednesday evening.

The statement said nobody was injured during the blaze, the cause of which remains unclear.

The electronic dance music festival is due to start on Friday in the town of Boom, south of Antwerp, with 400,000 people expected to attend over two weekends.

The fire started around 18:00 local time (16:00) on Wednesday. Videos posted to social media showed thick grey smoke engulfing the stage.

Firefighters are working to stop the flames reaching neighbouring homes and woods. Some residents have been evacuated.

In an update posted on the festival's website, organisers said the campsite would still open on Thursday as planned, and that the focus was "on finding solutions for the festival weekend".

An "unbelievably rare" piece of Mars - the largest ever found on Earth - has sold for $4.3m (£3.2m) at a New York auction on Wednesday.

The meteorite known as NWA 16788 weighs 54lb (24.5kg) and is nearly 15in (38.1cm) long, according to Sotheby's.

It was discovered in a remote region of Niger in November 2023 and is 70% larger than the next biggest piece of Mars that has been recovered, the auction house said.

Meteorites are the remains of rock left after an asteroid or comet passes through Earth's atmosphere.

Sotheby's auction house described the meteorite, a reddish brown rock, as "unbelievably rare". Only about 400 Martian meteorites have ever been found on Earth.

"This is the largest piece of Mars on planet Earth. The odds of this getting from there to here are astronomically small," Cassandra Hatton, vice-chairman of science and natural history at Sotheby's, said in a video posted online.

"Remember that approximately 70% of Earth's surface is covered in water. So we're incredibly lucky that this landed on dry land instead of the middle of the ocean where we could actually find it."

It remains unclear where the meteorite will end up as information about the sale will remain private.

Additional taxes and fees brought the total price of the rock up to about $5.3m, Sotheby's said.

At the Wednesday auction, which featured more than 100 items, a Ceratosaurus skeleton from the late Jurassic period sold for $26m and the skull of a Pachycephalosaurus sold for $1.4m.

Three men in their 20s have been given long jail terms for their part in the fatal shooting of award-winning hip-hop artist C Gambino in Gothenburg last year.

C Gambino, whose real name was Karar Ramadan, had been named hip-hop artist of 2023 in Sweden's Grammis music awards a month before he was murdered, in what prosecutors described as a ruthless and premeditated shooting.

All three men were convicted of aiding and abetting murder, and two of them were cleared of murder, as the Gothenburg court ruled it could not be established beyond reasonable doubt who had fired the fatal shots.

The gun that killed C Gambino has never been found and a car used in the shooting was later found burned out.

C Gambino's murder has been linked to a local gangland conflict, although the motive remains a mystery. Prosecutors said there was no evidence to suggest that he was part of any criminal network.

For several years Sweden's biggest cities have been beset by gang violence that have claimed dozens of lives, often involving children recruited to carry out violent attacks.

The rapper, who was 26, was shot at a multistorey car park in Gothenburg in June 2024 in what the court said was a carefully planned attack and had the character of a "pure execution".

Investigators were unable to find DNA traces of the attackers but did map their movements from mobile phones around the time of the shooting.

The prosecutor also told Swedish public broadcaster SVT that police had been able to use hours of CCTV footage from the car park and elsewhere.

Videos showed the killers' vehicle entering the car park more than a week before the shooting, and then waiting for hours before the attack took place as C Gambino returned home from the gym late in the evening.

Although he was able to raise the alarm, emergency services who arrived at the scene were unable to use their communication system and had to shout to each other, SVT reported.

The artist died in hospital about an hour afterwards.

In its verdict, the court gave a 22-year-old man a life sentence in jail, while two others aged 21 and 20 were handed terms of 15 and a half years and 12 and a half years respectively,

A fourth man, aged 19, was convicted of setting fire to their car.

Another gang-related case concluded on Wednesday with a 14-year-old boy found guilty of shooting dead a man in his home on the order of one of Sweden's most notorious gangs, Foxtrot.

Two other boys were convicted: one for conspiracy and another for preparing the murder in Skurup in southern Sweden. None of the three will face punishment because they are below the age of criminal responsibility, which is 15 in Sweden.

The victim of the Skurup murder was targeted because his son had refused to carry out an attack for the Foxtrot gang.

Police in Iraqi Kurdistan have meanwhile arrested a key figure in the Foxtrot gang, according to Swedish radio.

The suspect is described as close to gang leader Rawa Majid and has been linked to a number of killings in Sweden, including the Skurup shooting.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee says he has asked Israeli authorities to "aggressively investigate" the killing of a Palestinian-American in the occupied West Bank.

Sayfollah Musallet, known as Saif - a 20-year-old dual US citizen from Florida - was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the town of Sinjil on Friday evening, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

After an initially muted official US reaction to the killing, Huckabee - a longstanding supporter of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories - described it as a "criminal and terrorist act" on Tuesday.

"There must be accountability," he wrote in a post on X. "Saif was just 20 years old."

On Friday, the Israeli military said it was investigating, claiming that a "violent confrontation developed" after "terrorists" threw stones at Israeli civilians.

Saif Musallat lived in Tampa and was visiting relatives in Sinjil, north of Ramallah, when he was killed along with his friend, Mohammed al-Shalabi.

Al-Shalabi, who lived in a town nearby, died after being shot in the chest, the Palestinian health ministry said. He was 23 years old.

Musallat's family said their relative was "protecting his family's land from settlers who were attempting to steal it".

Israeli settlers also blocked an ambulance attempting to reach Musallat, who died before he could make it to hospital, they added.

The family have called for the US state department to carry out an investigation.

Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas and evangelical Christian, has previously voiced strong support for Israeli settlements - which are seen as illegal under international law.

Huckabee has also been criticised by opposition Democrats in the US over his previous statements about the ongoing war in Gaza.

He has backed the idea of a "greater Israel" - where Israel would have permanent control of the Occupied Palestinian Territories - and used the biblical term "Judea and Samaria" to refer to the West Bank.

Last month, he criticised US allies, including the UK and Australia, for sanctioning two far-right Israeli ministers over "repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities" in the West Bank.

Prime Minister François Bayrou has put the cat among the pigeons in promising to cut two of France's national holidays in order to rescue the country's finances.

Predictably enough, his proposal on Tuesday to axe the Easter Monday and 8 May holidays triggered howls of protest from the left and the populist right – with his own centrists and the conservative right expressing at best guarded support.

In a country with such a strong tradition of worker protest, the sudden removal of two statutory days off was never going to be an easy sell.

Essentially, men and women would be made to work two extra days a year for no increase in salary. The gain in productivity would help pull the country out of its ever-deepening hole of debt.

The French are indeed very attached to their jours fériés.

The month of May is awaited with glee every year, not just because it heralds spring – but also because of the succession of long weekends that regularly occur.

If 1 May (Workers' Day) and 8 May, marking the end of World War Two, fall on a Tuesday or Thursday, then the weekends become four-day treats because the Monday and the Friday will automatically be taken as holiday too.

On top of that there is Ascension (always a Thursday) plus Easter Monday and Whit Monday (or Pentecost).

If the Church calendar obliges, an early Easter can combine with 1 or 8 May to provide not just a pont or bridge - meaning a four-day weekend spanning a Monday or Friday, but a veritable five or six-day viaduc (viaduct).

November is another feast of feasts, with All Saints' on the first of the month and Armistice on the 11th offering relief from autumn blues. And on top of that, there are the famous "RTT" days, which many get in return for working more than the legal 35 hours a week.

But before we lapse into humorous self-satisfaction about "those incredibly lazy French and their God-given right to endless downtime", we need to bear in mind a couple of other considerations.

First, far from the popular image, the French actually have fewer national holidays than the European average.

France has 11, like Germany, the Netherlands and US.

Slovakia has the most, with 15, and England, Wales, and the Netherlands have the fewest, with 8.

Ireland and Denmark have 10.

Second, according to the UK's Office for National Statistics, French productivity (output per worker) is 18% higher than the UK's, So any gloating about holidays from across the Channel is misplaced.

Third, this is not the first time in recent years that France has proposed to axe national holidays. It has happened before – and worked (kind of).

In 2003, the conservative government under President Jacques Chirac wanted to do something radical after the deadly heatwave of that summer which killed 15,000 people.

So Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin decided to turn Whit Monday into a Day of Solidarity. People would work instead of taking the day off, and the money gained by employers would be paid to the government for a fund to help the elderly and disabled.

There was an outcry, and a few years later the change was watered down so that now the Day of Solidarity is voluntary. It is all highly confusing, and no-one really understands how it functions, but non-Whit Monday still generates €3bn (£2.6bn; $3.5bn) every year in receipts.

Another precedent goes back to the 1950s and Charles de Gaulle.

Newly appointed as president, in 1959 he axed the 8 May Victory in Europe holiday, saying the country could not afford it. It was reinstated in 1981 by the Socialist François Mitterrand.

Bayrou looks to scrap two holidays in bold bid to cut debt

So when on Tuesday the Greens accused Bayrou of trying to "wipe from the collective memory the eradication of Nazism", it was quite easy for minister Benjamin Haddad to retort: "Actually, it was De Gaulle who first did this, and I seem to recall he played a certain role in eradicating Nazism."

None of this means that Bayrou is any the more likely to see his proposals become real.

The truth is that the prime minister is in a position of almost total impotence – running a government with no majority in parliament, which could fall at any minute if the opposition groups so decide.

But, in an odd way, this very powerlessness has given Bayrou the freedom to say what he thinks.

If there is little likelihood of his budget proposals getting voted through the Assembly - and the chances are virtually zero - then he might as well give the French the unsugared truth.

The economic situation is dire, he said.

Every second that passes, France has €5,000 more debt.

Today it stands at €3.3tn. In these circumstances, Bayrou believes maybe we need to re-think the way we live. And work.

There's a short sharp shout: "Launch Yemen!" The men and women in uniform sitting in front of computers all respond in unison, "Copy, launch Yemen."

In the US Space Force, they're called Guardians, not troops. Staring into their screens at a base in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, they're able to track a missile launch from anywhere in the world - and follow it from its launch site to its likely point of impact.

We're the first international journalists to be allowed inside the US Space Force's missile warning and tracking operations room at Buckley Space Force base, a nerve centre where Guardians are on alert 24/7.

They're surrounded by giant monitors which provide maps and data sent from a constellation of military satellites in space.

These Guardians are the first to detect the infra-red heat signature when a missile is launched. Moments later there's another shout – "Launch Iran" - followed by a chorus of "Copy launch Iran."

This time, it's a drill. But last month they were doing it for real – when Iran fired a salvo of missiles towards the US military base at al-Udeid in Qatar, in response to US and Israeli strikes on Iran.

Colonel Ann Hughes describes the mood on that day as "heavy". Unlike most launches, they'd been warned about that one in advance. They were able to track those Iranian missiles and then feed that information to the air defence batteries on the ground.

"Ultimately we saved the entire installation and the personnel that were there," she says, expressing relief.

Col Hughes says they've been exceptionally busy in recent years, with wars raging in both the Middle East and Europe.

When I ask her whether they've been giving warnings to Ukraine, Col Hughes says: "We provide strategic and tactical missile warnings to all US and allied forces." The US won't publicly confirm it but it seems likely they might also have given Kyiv a heads up when it was about to come under Russian attack.

Buckley Space Force base will form a key part of President Donald Trump's plans for a US missile defence shield, known as the Golden Dome.

He has earmarked $175bn (£130bn) for the ambitious programme – inspired by Israel's Iron Dome air defence system. Many believe it will cost a lot more.

But the foundations are already in place at Buckley. Its skyline is dominated by massive radomes, round covers which protect powerful satellite dishes inside. They look like giant golf balls on the horizon. These satellite arrays have detected radio frequency waves from a supernova 11,000 light years away.

Lieutenant General David Miller, the commander of the US Space Operations Command, says the development of the Golden Dome, still in its early days, is a recognition of the increasing threats to the US homeland.

He specifically mentions China and Russia.

Both have developed hypersonic missiles which can travel at more than five times the speed of sound. Both have tested Fractional Orbital Bombardment Systems which are harder to track.

"The speed and physics associated with intercepting those requires the consideration of space-based interceptors," General Miller says. He prefers to talk about "capabilities" to defend America's interests, rather than weapons in space.

The creation of the US Space Force five years ago is proof that space is now a warfighting domain. President Trump launched the force in his first term, describing space as "the world's newest war-fighting domain".

Both China and Russia have tested anti-satellite missiles, as well as ways of jamming their communications.

General Miller says Russia has "demonstrated the capability to potentially put a nuclear payload" in space. He says space is already an area "that is highly contested", adding that "we also have to be prepared for conflict in space".

Colonel Phoenix Hauser oversees the Space Forces Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance unit known as Delta 7. Their job is to find out what's happening in space.

At their base near Colorado Spring, teams monitor screens showing thousands of small dots around the globe. There are already around 12,000 satellites in space. By the end of the decade that could grow to 60,000.

Col Hauser says their primary focus is on China. "It's the pacing threat," she says. China already has about a thousand satellites, half of them military ones. Over the next decade, Col Hauser says it will have tens of thousands more in low earth orbit. Space is increasingly congested and contested.

"We're already sparring in space," she says. "We see close unprofessional and unsafe engagements from our adversaries." That includes satellites fitted with electronic jamming, lasers and even nets and grappling arms, which could be used to move another satellite off course.

Some have suggested there are already "dog fights" taking place in space.

"I don't know that we're quite there in the type of Top Gun like dog fighting perspective," Col Hauser says. "But it's something certainly that we need to be ready for."

The US Space Force is preparing for the possibility of conflict in space. Col Hauser says a year ago they "weren't able to talk about having offensive space capabilities". Now, she says their focus "is to generate options for the president so that we can gain and maintain space superiority through offensive and defensive space control".

Gen Miller says the only way to prevent conflict is "through strength and we have to have our own capabilities in order to defend our assets". He won't give detail as to what that precisely means.

But the recent US strikes on Iran's nuclear programme, Operation Midnight Hammer, gives a glimpse of what the US Space Force is already able to do. Those attacks by B-2 bombers also underline why continuing dominance in space remains crucial to the US military.

"You have to understand how much the United States military assumes the advantage that we derive from space," Gen Miller says. That includes the ability to navigate and communicate over the horizon, and to deliver precision strikes using GPS.

The BBC has been given the first details about how US Space Force Guardians were involved in the operation.

"One of the things we did was leverage our electromagnetic warfare capability in order to ensure dominance throughout the operation", Gen Miller says. The electro magnetic spectrum includes radio waves, microwaves, infra-red, and visible light.

"We knew the environment was going to be jammed," he says. The US Space Force ensured that jamming was denied so that US B-2 bombers could arrive at their target and deliver their GPS guided Massive Ordnance Bombs with precision.

Electronic warfare specialists from US Space Force Delta 3 were already operating on the ground in the region.

Their Commander, Colonel Angelo Fernandez, shows me the rows of satellite dishes and command containers they can fly to locations anywhere in the world.

The dishes, he says, can be used to intercept and then drown out the communications of enemy forces, by "broadcasting noise that's louder".

"They were able to both protect US assets and at the same time open up a flight corridor," he says.

Before, during and after the mission, US Space Force Guardians of Delta 7 were providing overwatch.

Colonel Phoenix Hauser says they were able to monitor the electro-magnetic spectrum "to understand does Iran know what's happening, do they have any tactical warning the strikes might be happening". They helped preserve the element of surprise and allowed the air crews to complete the mission undetected.

The US Space Force may be the youngest military service but it's critical to America's military might. Gen Miller says the entire US military "is dependent on space superiority".

He wants to ensure that remains the case. And he has a warning for any adversary.

"When the US military gets focused on something - God help you!"

Republicans in the US Senate have said they will spare the US-backed HIV/Aids programme Pepfar from cuts, amid a larger effort to reduce government spending.

Senators said they would end a plan to cut $400m (£300m) from the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief programme, leaving total proposed cuts at $9bn.

The proposition was made in a Senate amendment to a rescissions package - meaning a bill that allows lawmakers to cancel previous funding approved by Congress. The planned cancellations also include funds for international aid and public broadcasting.

If the Pepfar amendment is approved, the bill will go back to the House of Representatives for another vote ahead of a Friday deadline.

Multiple senators from both parties had expressed concern with cuts to Pepfar, which was launched under President George W Bush and has been credited with saving tens of millions of lives around the world.

The Republican-controlled Senate can only afford a few defectors, assuming all Democrats vote in opposition. John Thune, the Republican Senate majority leader, said there had been a "lot of interest" in keeping the Pepfar funding intact.

Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, told reporters after a White House lunch on Tuesday that she was "very pleased" that the cuts would be removed.

Prior to the amendment, Collins had been vocal against the bill. She has not said whether the changes are enough to secure her support.

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought told reporters that the White House was on board with the Senate amendment, meaning that in its current form President Donald Trump would be willing to sign it.

In his second presidency, Trump has turbo-charged an effort to reduce government spending. Most of the cuts in the rescission bill are aimed at clawing back money that was previously earmarked for the American government's main humanitarian assistance body, USAID, which recently announced its formal closure under Trump.

Trump's moves have led to drastic reductions in HIV/Aids clinics in South Africa and other countries, precipitating a shortage of life-saving medicine and care.

Other cuts in the rescission bill are aimed at the funding for public broadcasters NPR and PBS.

Cuban Minister for Labour and Social Security, Marta Elena Feitó-Cabrera, has been forced to resign from her post after she made comments in a parliamentary session which denied the existence of beggars on the Communist-run island.

The minister had said there was no such thing as "beggars" in Cuba and people going through rubbish were, in essence, doing so out of choice to make "easy money", as she put it.

Her comments were widely criticised by Cubans at home and abroad, and prompted a response from the island's president, Miguel Díaz-Canel. She resigned soon after.

Poverty levels and food shortages have worsened in Cuba as it continues to grapple with a severe economic crisis.

Feitó-Cabrera made the comments earlier this week at a session of the National Assembly, in which she spoke about people begging and rummaging through dustbins in Cuba.

She appeared to deny their existence saying: "There are no beggars in Cuba. There are people pretending to be beggars to make easy money."

Furthermore, she accused people searching through the rubbish of being "illegal participants in the recycling service".

The minister clearly misjudged the outrage and anger her comments would cause and the extent to which they portrayed the country's leadership as unfeeling, authoritarian and deeply disconnected from the dire economic struggles of ordinary Cubans.

A number of Cuban activists and intellectuals published a letter calling for her removal saying the comments were "an insult to the Cuban people".

The Cuban president then criticised Feitó-Cabrera at the parliamentary session - albeit without mentioning her by name - saying the leadership could not "act with condescension" or be "disconnected from the realities" of the people.

Cuban economist Pedro Monreal posted on X saying that there were "people disguised as ministers" in Cuba.

Feitó-Cabrera's resignation was accepted by the Cuban Communist Party and the government.

While the Cuban government does not publish official figures on the number of people begging, the rise in their number has been self-evident to most Cubans amid the island's deep economic crisis.

President Donald Trump says Coca-Cola has agreed to use real cane sugar in its drinks sold in the US.

Coca-Cola uses corn syrup in its American products, but Trump's Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has voiced concern about the ingredient's health impacts.

"I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. "I'd like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola."

"This will be a very good move by them - You'll see. It's just better." The BBC has contacted Coca-Cola for comment.

Israel's military struck the Syrian defence ministry in Damascus and government forces in southern Syria on Wednesday, as deadly sectarian fighting in the mostly Druze province of Suweida continued for a fourth day.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said its forces were "working to save our Druze brothers and to eliminate the regime's gangs". The Syrian foreign ministry accused Israel of "treacherous aggression".

More than 300 people are reported to have been killed in Suweida since Sunday, when clashes between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes erupted.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was "very worried" about the violence in the south but believed it would end within hours.

"We have agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end tonight," he wrote on X on Wednesday evening.

Syria's foreign ministry said the country "welcomes the efforts made by the US and Arabian sides" to "resolve the current crisis" peacefully.

Israel has not yet commented on the ceasefire bid.

Earlier the Syrian interior ministry announced that it had reached a ceasefire agreement with Druze leaders "as part of efforts to restore security and stability". It said military operations would end immediately, police would set up checkpoints in Suweida city, and that the province would be "fully integrated" into the Syrian state.

One Druze leader, Sheikh Yousef Jarbou, confirmed the agreement. But another who supports Israel's intervention, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajri, called for Druze fighters to continue fighting until the "total liberation of our province from gangs".

The Israeli military began striking Syrian security forces and their weapons on Monday, after they were deployed to the city of Suweida for the first time since Sunni Islamist-led rebels overthrew President Bashar al-Assad in December.

Minority groups including the Druze - whose religion is an offshoot of Shia Islam with its own unique identity and beliefs - are suspicious of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and his government, despite his pledges to protect them.

Their fears have been heightened by several outbreaks of sectarian violence over the past eight months, including one in May in which dozens of people were reportedly killed in clashes between Druze, security forces, and allied Islamist fighters in Damascus and Suweida.

In the wake of that fighting, the government reached an agreement with Druze militias to hire local security forces in Suweida province from their ranks.

Netanyahu has said he is committed to preventing harm to the Druze in Syria because of their deep ties to those living in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X on Wednesday afternoon that "the warnings in Damascus" had ended and that the Israeli military would "continue to operate vigorously in Suweida to destroy the forces that attacked the Druze until they withdraw completely".

He later posted that "the painful blows have begun", above a video clip showing a TV presenter diving under a desk live on camera as an Israeli air strike hit the nearby entrance to the Syrian defence ministry in Umayyad Square, in central Damascus.

Fadi Al Halabi, a London-based Syrian filmmaker who is visiting Damascus, said he was nearby when he heard the Israeli fighter jets approach.

"People's faces were so afraid. Everyone started running [in] the street. No-one knew where to go. Suddenly the air strike[s] began, targeting some of the most crowded areas, including the ministry of defence," he told the BBC.

The Israeli military said it also struck a "military target in the area" of the presidential palace in the capital, as well as armoured vehicles loaded with heavy machine guns and weapons on their way to Suweida, and firing posts and weapons storage facilities in southern Syria.

Syria's foreign ministry said the strikes targeted government institutions and civilian facilities in Damascus and Suweida and killed "several innocent civilians".

"This flagrant assault, which forms part of a deliberate policy pursued by the Israeli entity to inflame tensions, spread chaos, and undermine security and stability in Syria, constitutes a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter and international humanitarian law," it added.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, meanwhile reported that the humanitarian situation in Suweida city had rapidly deteriorated.

It cited sources as saying there were clashes in several area of the city and that tanks had attacked the national hospital, causing panic among the scores of casualties from the fighting being treated there. They also said there were acute shortages of water and medical supplies.

Later, the Syrian health ministry said government forces had entered the hospital and found "dozens of bodies" after "outlaw groups withdrew", according to the official Sana news agency.

A man named Hosam told the BBC he was in the centre of Suweida city and had witnessed civilians coming under fire from artillery and snipers.

"I lost my neighbour today on the street. One of the snipers shot him. We tried to [get an] ambulance [to take] him to hospital, but we couldn't," he said.

The SOHR says more than 300 people have been killed since Sunday in Suweida province.

They include 69 Druze fighters and 40 civilians, 27 of whom were summarily killed by interior ministry and defence ministry forces, according to the group.

At least 165 members of the government forces and 18 Bedouin tribal fighters have also been killed in the clashes, while 10 members of government forces have been killed in Israeli strikes, it says.

The BBC is not able to verify the SOHR's casualty figures.

The fighting between Bedouin tribes and Druze militias in Suweida is said to have been sparked by the abduction of a Druze merchant on the highway to Damascus last Friday.

On Sunday, armed Druze fighters reportedly encircled and later seized a neighbourhood of Suweida city that is inhabited by Bedouin. The clashes soon spread into other parts of Suweida province, with tribesmen reportedly launching attacks on nearby Druze towns and villages.

Syria's interior ministry later announced that its forces and those of the defence ministry would intervene and impose order, saying the "dangerous escalation comes in light of the absence of relevant official institutions".

Earlier this year, Israel's prime minister demanded the complete demilitarisation of Suweida and two other southern provinces. He said Israel saw President Sharaa's Sunni Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), as a threat. HTS is a former al-Qaeda affiliate that is still designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN and UK, but no longer by the US.

The Israeli military has already carried out hundreds of strikes across Syria to destroy the country's military assets since the fall of the Assad regime.

And it has sent troops into the UN-monitored demilitarised buffer zone between the occupied Golan Heights and Syria, as well as several adjoining areas and the summit of Mount Hermon.

President Donald Trump says Coca-Cola has agreed to use real cane sugar in its drinks sold in the US.

Coca-Cola uses corn syrup in its American products, but Trump's Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has voiced concern about the ingredient's health impacts.

"I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. "I'd like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola."

"This will be a very good move by them - You'll see. It's just better." The BBC has contacted Coca-Cola for comment.

As Donald Trump continues to be dogged by questions about his administration's handling of possible files related to deceased sex offenderJeffrey Epstein, he is relying on a tried and true strategy.

The problem for the president, however, is that his plan of attack may inadvertently pit him against some of his most loyal supporters.

In a lengthy Truth Social post on Wednesday morning, Trump began in a familiar way – by blaming the Epstein controversy on "radical left Democrats". This episode, he said, is just the latest in a long line of "hoaxes" fabricated by his political opponents to bring him down.

"These Scams and Hoaxes are all the Democrats are good at," he wrote. "They are no good at governing, no good at policy, and no good at picking winning candidates."

In the past, Trump has used this kind of us-against-them rhetoric to rally his supporters to his side – casting himself as the embattled champion of the outsiders and disaffected who faces off against the privileged and the wealthy.

The potential flaw in the president's strategy this time became apparent halfway through his post, however, as he turned to blame his own party and his own supporters for falling for what he said was a leftist scheme.

"My PAST supporters have bought into this 'bullshit,' hook, line, and sinker," he wrote. "They haven't learned their lesson, and probably never will."

During remarks later in the Oval Office, Trump continued to blame his own side, saying that "some stupid Republicans, some foolish Republicans, have fallen into the net".

The president is drawing battle lines on the Epstein issue that divides his own side. It also risks cutting through the foundations on which his political strength is built.

Trump's success has been powered by two central messages to his supporters – that he's an outsider who fights against a corrupt establishment and that he tells it like it is. At a time when many voters say they are tired of polished politicians with shifting views, Trump's base sees him as authentic – unvarnished and controversial, yes, but honest.

Trump, never one to shy away from wild conspiracy theories or those who embrace them, now finds himself arguing that there is no "credible" evidence implicating the rich and powerful in the Epstein case and that those believing otherwise are suckers or fools.

His shifting comments – that the Epstein files should be released, that there are no files, that any possible files are hoaxes – also make him seem less like a straight-shooter and more like a man with something to hide.

He's left with the problem of trying to prove a negative. And for the moment, some of his supporters aren't buying it.

In an interview with Politico, conservative firebrand Laura Loomer warned that if Trump did not change course, the Epstein story could "consume" his presidency. Her advice to appoint an independent investigator to handle the case is one Trump would be loath to follow, given how he has railed against past special counsels.

But the success of his strategy to blame political opponents may only work if Democrats take the bait.

Dan Pfeiffier, who worked as a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, recently wrote they can avoid this trap by amplifying divisions in Trump's "Make America Great Again" ranks.

"If the issue becomes too associated with a Democratic effort to hurt Trump, it will polarise the issue along party lines and push the dissatisfied Maga voters back into Trump's camp," he wrote in his most recent newsletter.

For the moment, calls for the government to share more information about Epstein is a rare source of consensus among the American public. A YouGov poll indicated that 79% of Americans want the government to release "all documents it has". That included 75% of Republican respondents and 85% of Democrats.

An internal Democratic poll obtained by Politico found 58% of respondents believed Trump "maybe was or definitely was" involved in a cover-up.

If the polls are decidedly tilted against Trump, Republican officeholders – the men and women who owe their professional livelihoods to staying in the president's good graces – mostly continue to stick by his side.

Congressional Republicans are backing the president's legislative agenda despite their narrow majorities in key votes this week. And while some have called for more transparency, conservatives in the House of Representatives have repeatedly squelched Democratic attempts to mandate the release of all remaining Epstein files.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who oversaw those efforts, walked back earlier comments calling for more Epstein files to be disclosed, saying that he was misquoted and that he only wanted the public to see "credible" information – the same language Trump has used.

For the moment, the Epstein story is a frustrating distraction for a president used to bending the news cycle, and national attention, to his will. With Republicans in control of Washington, the controversy will only consume his presidency if Trump's own allies allow it to.

If the grumbling and disaffection in Trump's faithful persist, however, it could exact a high toll on the Republican party in next year's midterm congressional elections, when voter enthusiasm typically determines which party prevails.

And if Democrats wrest control of one or both chambers of Congress - and gain their accompanying investigatory powers - the Epstein files, and Trump's connection to them, could go from a political sideshow to centre-ring spectacle.