Reading view

There are new articles available, click to refresh the page.

Manhunt in Minnesota lawmaker attacks widens to nearby state

Getty/Minnesota State Senate Melissa Hortman (left) and John Hoffman (right)Getty/Minnesota State Senate
Melissa Hortman (left) and John Hoffman (right)

The manhunt for a suspect in deadly attacks on Minnesota lawmakers continued into its second day on Sunday, as police extended the search over state lines to nearby South Dakota.

Minnesota state Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed in their home early Saturday morning .

Another lawmaker, state Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were also shot multiple times and injured.

Police are searching for Vance Luther Boelter, a 57-year-old who they say impersonated a police officer while carrying out the attacks. Federal authorities announced a $50,000 reward for information.

Both lawmakers belonged to Minnesota's Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, which is affiliated with the national Democratic Party.

Senator Hoffman and his wife underwent surgery on Saturday, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said he was "cautiously optimistic they will survive this assassination attempt."

"Clearly, this is politically motivated," US Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat who represents Minnesota, told NBC News' Meet the Press on Sunday morning.

Authorities said they recovered a target list from a vehicle used by the suspect that reportedly contained the names of several Democratic politicians who supported abortion rights, as well as abortion providers. The office of Tina Smith, Minnesota's other US Senator, confirmed to BBC News she was on the list.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) added Boelter to their most wanted list, and issued a $50,000 reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

"It is really not about any of us, it is this incredible woman that we lost, Melissa Hortman," Klobuchar said. "We think about her family today."

"I just wish everyone in the world political world knew this woman like we know her in Minnesota. Loved by Democrats and Republicans," Klobuchar said.

President Donald Trump is aware of the situation, but it was not clear if he would reach out to the state's leadership about the attack.

Governor Walz, a Democrat, was presidential candidate Kamala Harris' running mate in the 2024 election.

Despite the frantic search under way across the region, the city of Brooklyn Park, where Rep. Hortman lived, was still and silent on Sunday morning as the neighbourhood came to terms with the deadly attack.

FBI Vance Luther Boelter seen in four photographs including one from the night of the attacksFBI
Police issued images of the suspect as the manhunt continued

A police car stood guard outside the Hortman's house, and bright yellow caution tape surrounded the home, now an active crime scene.

Taha Abuisnaineh, who lives across the street, said he and his wife had known the Hortmans for more than 20 years.

"They were very nice neighbours in a very quiet neighbourhood," he told the BBC. "You don't see police activity in this neighbourhood. We are very shocked."

Two other nearby residents who did not want to be named said this suburban community was reeling as news spread of the attack.

"My next-door neighbour heard the shots," said one. "We've all been texting back and forth."

She and her husband described how they received an annual Christmas card from the Hortmans - and recounted how Representative Hortman got along with local Republican politicians.

"What a big loss for Minnesota," she said.

Wait for bodies deepens pain of families after Air India crash

AFP via Getty Images A picture of the crash site of the Air India planeAFP via Getty Images
The plane crashed shortly after takeoff in a residential neighbourhood in the city of Ahmedabad

For Mistry Jignesh, 72 hours feel like an eternity.

Since Thursday evening, Mr Jignesh and his family have been doing the rounds of the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad, trying to find details of his 22-year-old niece - one of the 242 passengers that died in an Air India plane crash earlier that day.

Authorities had been telling him they would return his niece's body in the 72 hours normally required to complete DNA matching - which end on Sunday.

But on Saturday, he was told that it might take longer as officials are still searching for bodies from the site of the crash, he claimed.

"When people are still missing, how can they possibly complete the DNA process by tomorrow? What if my niece's remains have not even been found? The wait is killing us," he said.

Officials have refused to comment on Mr Jignesh's claim, but a fire department officer and a police official told the BBC on the condition of anonymity that a search for remains of the passengers is still under way.

Rajnish Patel, additional superintendent of the Civil Hospital, said on Saturday that 11 victims had been identified so far based on their DNA samples, adding that their families had been informed.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which was on its way to London's Gatwick Airport, erupted in a fireball merely seconds after it took off from Ahmedabad's main airport, in what has been India's worst aviation disaster.

Only one of the 242 passengers and crew on board survived. At least eight others were killed as the plane struck the hostel of a medical college when it came down on a densely populated residential area near the airport.

Things have moved swiftly since.

The Indian government has ordered a high-level investigation into the incident and has ordered all Boeing 787s operated by local carriers to be inspected.

While the reason of the crash remains unknown, the country's aviation authority has said it is looking into all possible causes for the accident, also bringing in foreign aviation experts to assist with the inquiry.

Back at the hospital, doctors are racing to complete the DNA sampling of the victims so that they can start returning bodies to their families.

But for families like Mr Jignesh's, time passes in dragging lulls.

Officials have talked about how the process of identifying bodies has been extremely challenging - and is being carried out in small batches - as most of the remains have been charred beyond recognition.

"There is no scope for mistakes here - we have to ensure that every family receives the right body," said HP Sanghvi, the director of Directorate of Forensic Sciences in Gandhinagar city. "But DNA identification is a time-consuming process. Besides, given the scale of the disaster, there is also a possibility that the DNA of several passengers was damaged due to the extremely high temperature of the blast."

Jaishankar Pillai, a forensic dentist at the hospital, told reporters that his team has been trying to collect dental records from charred bodies, as that might be the only source of DNA left.

The wait has been beyond agonising for the families, many of whom refused to speak to the media, saying they just want to go back home with "whatever is left of their loved ones".

"We are in no condition to say anything. Words fail us right now," a woman, who was waiting with three members of her family outside the autopsy room, told the BBC impatiently, as she quickly slipped into her car.

Meanwhile, officials at the BJ Medical College have started to vacate several wards of the hostel, near which the plane struck. So far, four wards - including the hostel canteen, the site of the crash - have been completely emptied out.

But students living in other nearby wings of the hostel have also begun to leave.

"In one of the wards, there are just three people left - everyone else has gone back to their homes for now. They will leave soon too, but until then, they are sitting there, all alone, haunted by the memory of what has happened," their friend, who is also a student at the college and wanted to stay anonymous, said.

But between the college and hospital - in the vast expanse of this city of more than seven million people - there are many others who also are reeling from the tragedy.

The last Kartik Kalawadia heard of his brother Mahesh was on Thursday, some 30 minutes before the crash.

It was a phone call Mahesh made to his wife: "I am coming home," he said to her.

She never heard from him again.

A music producer in the Gujarati film industry, Mahesh had been on his way back home from work that day and was crossing the area when the plane hurtled down and crashed into the buildings.

Mr Kalawadia told the BBC that his brother's last location before his phone became unreachable was just a few hundred metres away from BJ Medical college.

The family has since filed a police complaint and has made countless visits to the Civil Hospital. They have found nothing so far.

"The hospital told us they have no record of my brother. We also tried tracing his scooter, but nothing came of that either," Mr Kalawadia said.

"It's like he vanished into thin air."

A photo of Mahesha Kalawadiya
Mahesh Kalawadia, a music producer in the Gujarati film industry, was walking in the area where the plane crashed

At a press conference on Saturday, Civil Aviation Secretary SK Sinha admitted that the last two days had been "very hard", but assured the investigation was proceeding smoothly and in the right direction.

But Mr Kalawadia wondered if any of these inquires - into the plane crash, the victims and beyond - would help him find his brother, dead or alive.

"We don't know the answer, but we can hope it's a positive one, I guess," he said.

Back at the Civil Hospital, the wait continues to haunt families.

When the BBC last met Imtiyaz Ali Sayed over Thursday night, he was still in denial that his family - his brother Javed along with his wife and two children - could have died in the crash.

But on Saturday, he seemed closer to "accepting the truth".

"With just a few hours left, we are now trying to decide what will it be: will we bury him here, or in the UK, where his wife's family lives," he said.

"To me, it makes no difference you know?" he continued, "because he's gone, from ashes to dust and back to God."

Mass protests against Trump across US as president holds military parade

Getty Images People take part in a "No Kings" protest outside the Michigan Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, on 14 June 2025 as US President Donald Trump presides over a military parade in Washington, DC.Getty Images
A protest outside the Michigan Capitol in Lansing, Michigan

Protests against President Donald Trump have taken place in towns and cities across the US, organised by a group called "No Kings".

The demonstrations were held to counter a rare military parade hosted by Trump in Washington DC, and came after days of protests in Los Angeles and elsewhere over his immigration policies.

Lawmakers, union leaders and activists gave speeches in cities including New York, Philadelphia and Houston to crowds waving American flags and placards critical of Trump.

The military parade on Saturday evening, also Trump's birthday, was timed to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US Army. He warned that any protests at the parade would be met with "heavy force".

Watch: Patriotism or boring? Parade-goers react to Trump’s military display

Organisers said there were hundreds of protests with millions of participants.

In Philadelphia, people gathered in Love Park. "I just feel like we need to defend our democracy," Karen Van Trieste, a 61-year-old nurse, told the Associated Press.

She said Trump's staffing cuts to public health agencies were one of the reasons why she turned out.

One of the larger crowds was in Los Angeles where leaders and law enforcement have been on high alert during days of protests, sometimes violent, against a series of deportation raids.

Trump sent in the state's National Guard a week ago against the wishes of Governor Gavin Newsom and to the anger of local officials.

On Saturday, Jose Azetcla, a member of the civil rights group the Brown Berets, told the BBC in Los Angeles that it was immigration that brought him out on to the streets.

"It's not harsh, it's evil. You don't separate families," he said.

Watch: "No Kings Day" protests against Trump take place across the US

There were confrontations between protesters and National Guard soldiers near the Federal Building and tear gas was fired to disperse the crowds.

But a block or two away, hundreds of protesters continued marching peacefully.

Despite the largest outpouring of protests since Trump was re-elected, opinion polls indicate his immigration policies remain broadly popular with the public.

A CBS/YouGov survey last week found 54% of Americans approved of his policy to deport immigrants who are in the US illegally - 46% disapproved.

A plurality of Americans (42%) said Trump's programme was making them safer and 53% said he was prioritising the deportation of dangerous criminals.

The "No Kings" name of the protests refers to criticism that Trump has overstepped the limits of presidential power in his second term.

The president stood to salute as some of the thousands of uniformed soldiers taking part in the parade marched past, alongside dozens of tanks and military vehicles, plus marching bands.

Watch: Soldiers, tanks and fireworks - How Trump's military parade unfolded

He spoke briefly to thank those present for their service.

"Our soldiers never give up. Never surrender and never, ever quit. They fight, fight, fight. And they win, win, win."

Some politicians and former military leaders have criticised the event as a costly vanity project. The price tag is between $25m and $45m (£18.4m to £33.2m), according to the Army.

But many of those attending told the BBC that for them it was about celebrating the military, to which some of them held a deep connection.

When Melvin Graves returned from fighting in Vietnam, he got no parade, he said, so this was as close as he would come to one.

Mr Graves acknowledged politics played a part in the event but added: "This is about honouring these men and women who served, to thank them for their service."

Melvin Graves wears a T shirt saying 'Army veteran - still serving America'
The parade was a way to say thank you, says Melvin Graves

The last US military parade was held by President George HW Bush in June 1991, celebrating the US-led victory in the Gulf War.

A crowd of 200,000 people attended the parade to cheer on veterans, peaking at 800,000 who watched the fireworks display, the LA Times reported at the time.

The numbers at Saturday's event was well below that, partly due to wet conditions and the forecast of heavy rain.

For younger veterans, the parade was something they never saw during their time in service.

Brian Angel, a former infantryman from Virginia who served in the Army between 2014 and 2017, including a stint at the border between South and North Korea, told the BBC he wanted to see more of this.

"Every branch should get some sort of parade or recognition."

Getty Images A protester in LA throws a tear canister back towards policeGetty Images
A protester in LA throws a tear canister back towards police

Some experts saw an uneasy juxtaposition between US soldiers marching through the capital while troops had been deployed by the president to deal with protests in LA.

Security expert Barbara Starr told the BBC: "Because of that polarisation right now over this immigration debate and the use of troops in uniforms carrying weapons, I think it does overhang this parade in a way that was perhaps not originally envisioned by the army."

Some of the "No Kings" demonstrations in the state of Minnesota were cancelled by organisers after flyers for the event were found in the car of the man accused of fatally shooting a state politician and her husband.

Governor Tim Walz urged people not to attend protests until the suspect had been arrested but that did not stop thousands turning out.

Satellite imagery reveals damage to key Iran nuclear sites

Maxar / BBC Satellite image showing damage to Natanz nuclear siteMaxar / BBC

Satellite imagery shared with BBC Verify has provided a clearer picture of damage inflicted on two of Iran's key nuclear sites as well as other military targets.

Imagery from two different providers shows damage to the Natanz nuclear facility as well as a missile site south of the city of Tabriz - hit in the first round of strikes against Iran on Friday.

Other images show damage to other known missile bases.

Israel is continuing to target numerous sites across Iran, which has prompted retaliatory strikes.

Nuclear sites

Newly released optical satellite imagery from Maxar shows the clearest picture yet of what happened at key Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz and Isfahan.

At Natanz, we can see damage to the pilot fuel enrichment plant and an electrical substation, according to analysis by the Institute for Space and International Security (ISIS).

Maxar / BBC A graphic showing damage to Natanz nuclear siteMaxar / BBC

This follows on from earlier analysis of radar imagery that first showed the damage.

On Friday the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, told the UN Security Council that "the above-ground part of the pilot fuel enrichment plant, where Iran was producing uranium enriched up to 60% U-235, has been destroyed".

Uranium-235 is essential both for nuclear power stations and also for nuclear weapons.

Verified footage taken shortly after the strikes show several plumes of smoke rising from the site.

Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told BBC Verify that, while inconclusive, the pattern of explosions "would fit with penetrating bombs being used. Probably GBU-31(V)3s or even possibly more specialised penetrating GBU-28s".

Telegram Image posted on social media shows a car driving along a road with smoke rising in the distance ahead of itTelegram
Video on social media shows plumes of smoke rising from a site

These munitions, known as "bunker busters", have been used by Israel in the past to target underground facilities in both Gaza and Lebanon.

However, Mr Grossi said there is "no indication of a physical attack on the underground cascade hall containing part of the pilot fuel enrichment plant and the main fuel enrichment plant".

On Saturday, the IAEA confirmed that four "critical buildings" were damaged at Isfahan, including the Uranium conversion facility and the fuel plate fabrication plant.

BBC Verify analysis of the latest images from Maxar found visible damage to at least two structures at Isfahan and an apparent scorch mark near the periphery of the site.

Maxar Satellite imagery showing visible damage to structures at IsfahanMaxar
Satellite imagery showing visible damage to structures at Isfahan

The IAEA has said that "no increase in off-site radiation" has been recorded at either Natanz or Isfahan.

Maxar also provided imagery from two other key Iranian nuclear sites which showed no visible evidence of damage, specficially the the Arak heavy water reactor or the Fordow enrichment facility.

Iranian media had reported the latter site was targeted, but the IDF have since denied this.

Missile/Radar sites

Imagery and analysis captured on Friday by Umbra Space reveals damage to several parts of a missile complex near the city of Tabriz in north-western Iran.

The damaged sites include weapon storage areas, missile shelters and silos, according to the annotated graphic provided by Umbra with analysis by geospatial intelligence consultant Chris Biggers.

UMBRA Umbra image showing areas Israel has carried out strikes at Tabriz missile complex UMBRA

In Kermanshah, low resolution imagery from Planet Labs shows what appears to be extensive burn marks to an area near a known missile base, and possible damage to two buildings.

Footage we verified from the same site on Friday showed at least three large plumes of smoke rising from the base.

Planet Labs PBC A comparison of images taken on 7 June and 14 JunePlanet Labs PBC
A comparison of images taken on 7 June and 14 June in Kermanshah

Maxar also provided imagery showing significant damage to one structure at Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Ghadir ballistic missile base near Tehran, and considerable damage to the IRGC radar site in Piranshahr in West Azerbaijan Province.

Mass protests against Trump across US as president holds huge military parade

Getty Images People take part in a "No Kings" protest outside the Michigan Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, on 14 June 2025 as US President Donald Trump presides over a military parade in Washington, DC.Getty Images
A protest outside the Michigan Capitol in Lansing, Michigan

Protests against President Donald Trump have taken place in towns and cities across the US, organised by a group called "No Kings".

The demonstrations were held to counter a rare military parade hosted by Trump in Washington DC, and came after days of protests in Los Angeles and elsewhere over his immigration policies.

Lawmakers, union leaders and activists gave speeches in cities including New York, Philadelphia and Houston to crowds waving American flags and placards critical of Trump.

The military parade on Saturday evening, also Trump's birthday, was timed to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US Army. He warned that any protests at the parade would be met with "heavy force".

Watch: Patriotism or boring? Parade-goers react to Trump’s military display

Organisers said there were hundreds of protests with millions of participants.

In Philadelphia, people gathered in Love Park. "I just feel like we need to defend our democracy," Karen Van Trieste, a 61-year-old nurse, told the Associated Press.

She said Trump's staffing cuts to public health agencies were one of the reasons why she turned out.

One of the larger crowds was in Los Angeles where leaders and law enforcement have been on high alert during days of protests, sometimes violent, against a series of deportation raids.

Trump sent in the state's National Guard a week ago against the wishes of Governor Gavin Newsom and to the anger of local officials.

On Saturday, Jose Azetcla, a member of the civil rights group the Brown Berets, told the BBC in Los Angeles that it was immigration that brought him out on to the streets.

"It's not harsh, it's evil. You don't separate families," he said.

Watch: "No Kings Day" protests against Trump take place across the US

There were confrontations between protesters and National Guard soldiers near the Federal Building and tear gas was fired to disperse the crowds.

But a block or two away, hundreds of protesters continued marching peacefully.

Despite the largest outpouring of protests since Trump was re-elected, opinion polls indicate his immigration policies remain broadly popular with the public.

A CBS/YouGov survey last week found 54% of Americans approved of his policy to deport immigrants who are in the US illegally - 46% disapproved.

A plurality of Americans (42%) said Trump's programme was making them safer and 53% said he was prioritising the deportation of dangerous criminals.

The "No Kings" name of the protests refers to criticism that Trump has overstepped the limits of presidential power in his second term.

The president stood to salute as some of the thousands of uniformed soldiers taking part in the parade marched past, alongside dozens of tanks and military vehicles, plus marching bands.

Watch: Soldiers, tanks and fireworks - How Trump's military parade unfolded

He spoke briefly to thank those present for their service.

"Our soldiers never give up. Never surrender and never, ever quit. They fight, fight, fight. And they win, win, win."

Some politicians and former military leaders have criticised the event as a costly vanity project. The price tag is between $25m and $45m (£18.4m to £33.2m), according to the Army.

But many of those attending told the BBC that for them it was about celebrating the military, to which some of them held a deep connection.

When Melvin Graves returned from fighting in Vietnam, he got no parade, he said, so this was as close as he would come to one.

Mr Graves acknowledged politics played a part in the event but added: "This is about honouring these men and women who served, to thank them for their service."

Melvin Graves wears a T shirt saying 'Army veteran - still serving America'
The parade was a way to say thank you, says Melvin Graves

The last US military parade was held by President George HW Bush in June 1991, celebrating the US-led victory in the Gulf War.

A crowd of 200,000 people attended the parade to cheer on veterans, peaking at 800,000 who watched the fireworks display, the LA Times reported at the time.

The numbers at Saturday's event was well below that, partly due to wet conditions and the forecast of heavy rain.

For younger veterans, the parade was something they never saw during their time in service.

Brian Angel, a former infantryman from Virginia who served in the Army between 2014 and 2017, including a stint at the border between South and North Korea, told the BBC he wanted to see more of this.

"Every branch should get some sort of parade or recognition."

Getty Images A protester in LA throws a tear canister back towards policeGetty Images
A protester in LA throws a tear canister back towards police

Some experts saw an uneasy juxtaposition between US soldiers marching through the capital while troops had been deployed by the president to deal with protests in LA.

Security expert Barbara Starr told the BBC: "Because of that polarisation right now over this immigration debate and the use of troops in uniforms carrying weapons, I think it does overhang this parade in a way that was perhaps not originally envisioned by the army."

Some of the "No Kings" demonstrations in the state of Minnesota were cancelled by organisers after flyers for the event were found in the car of the man accused of fatally shooting a state politician and her husband.

Governor Tim Walz urged people not to attend protests until the suspect had been arrested but that did not stop thousands turning out.

Air India plane crash death toll rises to 270

Reuters People hold candles as they attend a vigil for the victims of an Air India plane crashReuters
Vigils honouring the dead have been taking place across the city of Ahmedabad

Doctors in India say 270 bodies have been recovered from the site of Thursday's plane crash in Ahmedabad.

The London-bound aircraft crashed into a residential area shortly after take-off killing all but one of the 242 passengers, a 40-year-old British man.

Officials have been trying to establish how many people were killed on the ground and have been continuing the slow process of matching DNA samples to confirm the victims' identities.

Vigils honouring the dead have taken place across India and the UK.

Ex-Syrian commander claims missing US journalist Austin Tice was executed

Austin Tice family Picture shows Austin Tice in Egypt circa 2012 (exact date not known)Austin Tice family

The man accused of being responsible for holding the missing American journalist Austin Tice has claimed that ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ordered his execution, security sources have told the BBC.

Major General Bassam Al Hassan is a former commander in the Republican Guards who was part of President Assad's inner circle.

He was also the Chief of Staff of the National Defence Forces (NDF), the paramilitary group that a BBC investigation uncovered was responsible for holding Mr Tice after his abduction in 2012.

The discovery was made as part of an upcoming BBC Radio 4 podcast about the disappearance of Austin Tice.

The American journalist vanished near the Syrian capital of Damascus in August 2012, just days after his 31st birthday.

He had been working as a freelance journalist and was leaving Syria when he was abducted.

The fallen regime consistently denied knowing of his whereabouts - the BBC investigation showed that was false and that Mr Tice was being held in Damascus.

Al Hassan, who is subject to UK, EU, Canadian and US sanctions, oversaw the facility where Mr Tice was held.

Earlier this year, he is said to have met with US law enforcement at least three times in Lebanon.

Sources claim that at least one of those meetings was in the US embassy complex.

During these conversations, he is said to have told investigators from the FBI and CIA that the now-ousted President Assad ordered the execution of missing American journalist Austin Tice.

Sources familiar with the conversations told the BBC that Al Hassan claims to have initially tried to dissuade President Assad from killing Mr Tice, but that he eventually passed on this order and that it was carried out.

Al Hassan is also understood to have provided possible locations for the journalist's body. Sources familiar with the FBI investigation have said that efforts to confirm the validity of Al Hassan's claims are ongoing, and that a search is intended to happen of the sites where Mr Tice's body could be.

Western intelligence sources familiar with the details of Al Hassan's claim that President Assad gave the order to kill Mr Tice are sceptical that he would directly give such an instruction, as he is known for having mechanisms for distancing himself from such actions.

The BBC accompanied Mr Tice's mother, Debra, to Beirut as the 13th anniversary of her son's disappearance approaches. Upon finding out that Bassam al Hassan had spoken to US officials, Debra Tice attempted to meet with Al Hassan herself and contacted the US embassy requesting assistance.

She told the BBC: "I just want to be able to speak to him as a mother and ask him about my son." Her attempt to meet with Al Hassan was unsuccessful.

When asked about the claims by Al Hassan, she said her feeling was that he "fed the FBI a story that they wanted to hear" to help them close the case.

Debra Tice has led a tireless and determined campaign to bring her son home and remains committed to finding him. She told the BBC: "I am his mother, I still believe that my son is alive and that he will walk free."

Separately, a former member of the NDF with intimate knowledge of Austin Tice's detention told the BBC "that Austin's value was understood" and that he was a "card" that could be played in diplomatic negotiations with the US.

Bassam Al Hassan was considered one of President Assad's most trusted advisors. After the Syrian regime's collapse in December, Mr Al Hassan had fled to Iran.

Sources close to him have told the BBC that while in Iran, Al Hassan received a phone call and was asked to come to Lebanon to meet with US officials. It is believed that he was given assurances that he would not be detained.

For years, consecutive US presidents have said that Mr Tice, a former US Marine captain, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and was a law student at the prestigious Georgetown University in Washington, was alive.

In December 2024, then President Joe Biden told reporters at the White House that "we believe he's alive," and that "we think we can get him back, but we have no direct evidence of that yet".

Race to mine metals for EV batteries threatens marine paradise

Global Witness An aerial photograph of a group of small, forested islands in turquoise blue seas. This is a view of a small section of hundreds of islands that make up the The Raja Ampat archipelago - a group of small islands in the country's Southwest Papua Province is sometimes referred to as the "Amazon of the Seas".Global Witness
The Raja Ampat archipelago in Indonesia is sometimes referred to as the 'Amazon of the Seas'

Stark images, captured from a drone by environmental campaigners and shared with the BBC, appear to show how nickel mining has stripped forests and polluted waters in one of the most biodiverse marine habitats on Earth.

The Raja Ampat archipelago - a group of small islands in Indonesia's Southwest Papua Province - has been dubbed the "Amazon of the Seas".

But mining for nickel - an ingredient in electric vehicle batteries and in stainless steel - has ramped up there in recent years, according to the organisation Global Witness.

In a move that was welcomed by campaigners, the Indonesian government this week revoked permits for four out of five mining companies operating in the region.

Global Witness A photograph taken in December 2024 shows mining activity on Kawei island, in Raja Ampat. On the island that is the main subject of the photograph, forest has been cleared to reveal brown earth, dirt roads built for mining vehicles and a pool where water from the mine collects.  Global Witness
A photograph taken in December 2024 shows mining activity on Kawei island, in Raja Ampat

In a statement published online, Indonesia's Ministry for the Environment said: "Raja Ampat's biodiversity is a world heritage that must be protected.

"We pay great attention to mining activities that occur in the area."

But photographs - taken by Global Witness as part of an investigation - appear to show environmental damage already done.

Aerial images show forest loss and sediment run-off into waters that are home to biodiverse coral reefs.

Global Witness told the BBC that land use for mining, across multiple small islands in the archipelago, increased by 500 hectares - equivalent to about 700 football pitches - between 2020 and 2024.

Global Witness A photograph of mining on Kawei island in Raja Ampat, appears to show sediment  running into the coastal water. The aerial image shows a green, verdant island from above. Mining operations just uphill of the water's edge are in contrast to the lush forest - land has been cleared and brown earth is exposed. Downhill of the mine, brown-coloured sediment appears to be running into the clear, blue water. Global Witness
A photograph of mining on Kawei island in Raja Ampat, appears to show sediment running into the coastal water

Some conservationists, including the organisation Greenpeace, are concerned that the government's decision could be reversed by legal action by the mining companies.

And one company that operates on Gag island, which has particularly rich deposits of nickel, has been allowed to continue its operations. The government said it would order the "restoration of the ecological impacts that occur" there.

Coral reef conservationist and ecologist Dr Mark Erdmann told BBC News that he was "blown away, and so happy" about the government's decision to revoke the mining permits.

"This is the global epicenter of marine biodiversity," he told BBC News.

Dr Erdmann has worked in Raja Ampat for more than two decades and is one of the founders of a shark rewilding project there called Reshark. He added: "It was a voice of outrage form Indonesian people that made the government pay attention."

But this ecological controversy is an example of how the demand for the metals needed to power battery technology - for electric cars and other low carbon energy sources - can damage the environment.

Global Witness The underwater image shows a rich, colourful coral reef. There are corals of different shades of pink, yellow and greenish blue in the foreground, with a bright orange fish seeming to nibble on one of the corals. Multiple tropical fish are swimming in bright blue water in the background. Global Witness
Because of the biodiversity of its coral reefs, the Raja Ampat is a hotspot for diving

Indonesia now accounts for more than half of the world's nickel mine production, according to a report last year by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

And while the beauty and biodiversity of the Raja Ampat has drawn attention to mining activity there, mining has been linked to ecological damage elsewhere too.

A 2024 study by Forest Watch Indonesia found a link between the loss of forests associated with mining activity and increased local flooding and landslides.

Global Witness An underwater photograph shows brown sediment covering rocks and corals on the coast of a small island in Indonesia. Campaigners say this is pollution from mining - sediment run-off that is harming marine life. The water looks brown and cloudy, in contrast to the clear blue water in the previous picture.  Global Witness
Underwater images show sediment on the reefs around the islands

Increasing demand for so-called critical minerals is shaping economic decisions around the world. It was the driving force for President Trump's recent executive order to jumpstart the mining of metallic nodules from the deep sea in international waters. It is a move that China has called illegal.

Dr Erdmann pointed out that balancing economic growth with environmental protection was a particular dilemma for Indonesia. "It has a lot of nickel - one way or the other, some of it's going to come out of the ground," he said.

Dr Michaela Guo Ying Lo from the University of Kent led a study in 2024 of the impact of mining on local communities in Sulawesi, the large Indonesian island that has most of the country's nickel deposits.

That concluded that mining activity reduced poverty slightly, but that there was significant "worsening of environmental well-being" including increased local water and air pollution.

"Indonesia is positioning itself globally in the nickel market," Dr Lo told BBC News. "But it's important not to forget what's happening locally."

Global Witness Three men, all environmental activists in Indonesia, sit in a small boat and explore the islands in Indonesia's Raja Ampat. Lush forests of the small islands can be seen in the background.Global Witness
Local activists say mining activity is harming farming and fishing livelihoods

Imam Shofwan, an environmental campaigner from an organisation called Jatam, based in Jakarta, told BBC News: "They say nickel is a solution to the climate crisis. But it's causing deforestation and destroying farmland."

He also pointed out to the BBC that low-lying coastal areas, where some nickel deposits are found, are some of the places most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels.

Dr Erdmann commented: "The nickel dilemma is a horrible one.

"Mining is always going to be environmentally impactful and we all tend to think that electrification is a good idea. But what is the acceptable damage that we're willing to see?"

The BBC contacted the Indonesian government for comment, but did not receive a reply.

Global Witness The aerial image shows dozens of tree-covered limestone peak islands in turquoise blue seas. This is Wayag, in Raja Ampat, which is a tourism hotspot.Global Witness
The limestone peaks of Wayag in Raja Ampat are a tourist hotspot

The women at the centre of Somalia's construction boom

Anthony Irungu / BBC Saadia Ahmed Omar (right) takes a photo of herself and Fathi Mohamed Abdi (left) atop a building under construction in Mogadishu. They are both wearing hard hats over their headscarves and are in high vis yellow vests. Ms Omar makes the victory sign as she takes the photo.Anthony Irungu / BBC
Fathi Mohamed Abdi (L) and Saadia Ahmed Omar (R) have overseen more than 30 multimillion-dollar projects

Construction is booming in Somalia's capital city and as Mogadishu literally rises from the ashes of its violent past it is also giving unexpected opportunities to women like Fathi Mohamed Abdi and Saadia Ahmed Omar.

The two young female engineers have been overseeing the construction of a 10-floor apartment complex in Taleh in the city's Hodan District.

Wearing hard hats they navigate their way through construction material, issuing instructions to a team of workers - all of whom are men.

"When I started, people doubted me," 24-year-old Ms Abdi, the chief operating officer of Arkan Engineering Services, a Somali-owned construction company, tells the BBC.

"They would ask, 'How can we trust a house built by a woman? How can I trust my money and property with a young female engineer?'"

She and her colleague Ms Omar have been practising engineers for the last five years.

"Mogadishu needs us," says Ms Omar, who is also 24. "When I was young, this city was in chaos. Now, we are part of its reconstruction."

Somalia, a former Italian colony, has experienced a prolonged period of civil war after the government of President Siad Barre collapsed in January 1991.

Even now, scars of decades of war are still visible - like in the central district of Shangani where there are bombed-out buildings. But the ruins are becoming hidden or replaced by tall office complexes and apartments, and a skyline dotted with cranes and scaffolding.

Both young women were born during the civil war and grew up witnessing their country fragmenting. While many Somalis chose to leave, they stayed, driven by a passion to rebuild, despite the fact that an insurgency was being waged by al-Shabab, a group linked to al-Qaeda.

"I think part of the reason women are getting more chances in this field is because there's so much work to do, and not enough professionals to do it. That creates space for us," Ms Omar says.

Mohamud Abdisamad / BBC Mogadishu's skyline showing multi-storey buildings under construction and several cranes.Mohamud Abdisamad / BBC
Over the last five years, more than 6,000 buildings have been constructed in Mogadishu

Ibrahim Abdi Heyle, chairman of the Somali Engineers Association, agrees the high demand for skilled professionals is leading to change - even if slowly in Somalia's traditionally male-dominated society.

"With numerous ongoing infrastructure, energy, and technology projects, the workload has significantly increased. As a result, the association actively encourages greater participation from women, emphasising that they are not only welcomed but also vital in filling critical gaps in the workforce," the 34-year-old says.

"The association believes that empowering women in engineering not only helps meet the growing demand but also brings diverse perspectives and innovative solutions to the industry."

According to the office of the mayor of Mogadishu, over the last five years, more than 6,000 buildings have been constructed, marking a significant change in the city's landscape.

"Security in Mogadishu has improved, leading to an increase in high-rise and commercial buildings," says Salah Hassan Omar, the mayor's spokesperson.

Nonetheless it has not been an easy path for Ms Abdi and Ms Omar as only 5% of engineers are women - and they often find opportunities for mentorship are scarce.

"When I applied for internships, most companies rejected me," Ms Omar recalls. "They didn't think a woman could handle the physical demands of engineering. I searched for three months before someone finally gave me a chance."

Today, the two are among the most recognised female engineers in Mogadishu, having overseen more than 30 multimillion-dollar projects.

"The city is now home to taller buildings and modern infrastructure, a stark contrast to the Mogadishu of the past," Ms Abdi says proudly.

AFP / Getting Images Children dive, play and swim in front of the ruins of an old building on the seashore of Hamarweyne district in MogadishuAFP / Getting Images
There are fears that the classical look of old Mogadishu will be completely lost

But not everyone is pleased with the transformation. Veteran architect Siidow Cabdulle Boolaay laments the loss of the city's historical character.

"The buildings that once graced Somalia before the war were not only beautiful but also attracted attention due to their Italian-style architecture, which was rare in Africa at that time," he tells the BBC. "The urban planning of Mogadishu was highly structured."

Mr Boolaay also has safety concerns: "The sand used in Mogadishu's buildings is salty, which undermines its effectiveness."

Sand from Somalia's long coastline is often used to make cement - a practice that is generally discouraged and, in many circumstances, restricted by international building standards because the high salt content can cause the corrosion of steel.

"These tall buildings are not designed to withstand fire or heavy rain, and safety for the tenants is not considered during development. Many of these buildings lack fire extinguishers and proper electrical installations," he adds - visibly disappointed.

He is wary of the pace at which buildings are being constructed, which he says is compromising quality control.

For years, there were no regulations, leading to concerns about their structural integrity.

Mr Omar, from the mayor's office, admits this was the case until three years ago - and says nothing can be done about those buildings.

But he insists there is now "quality control and nobody will build a building without it".

"We are [also] preparing new laws that will clearly define where high-rise buildings can be constructed and where only residential houses should be built."

Yet there are worries that while regulations are in place - there are often no follow-up checks because of the speed of the building boom.

Mohamud Abdisamad / BBC Fathi Mohamed Abdi and Saadia Ahmed Omar talk to three construction workers on a site in MogadishuMohamud Abdisamad / BBC
It is rare to see women taking charge of a construction site in Somalia

Ms Abdi and Ms Omar, who graduated from Plasma University Mogadishu's faculty of civil engineering, say under their firm all their projects have been approved by the local authorities.

The rapid growth of construction projects has been attributed to diaspora investments as well as improved security - although Islamist militants who control large swathes of southern Somalia still target the city.

According to the World Bank, remittances made up 16.7% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022 - something that has given opportunities to architects and engineers.

But the rapid urbanisation has also exposed Mogadishu to infrastructure challenges - it lacks a proper sewage system and unregulated borehole drilling risks depleting groundwater reserves.

Christophe Hodder, a UN climate security and environmental adviser, warns that the unchecked construction boom could lead to long-term environmental consequences.

"We need a co-ordinated approach to water management, or we risk a crisis in the future. Each new building is digging its own borehole... in a small space, there could be 10 or 20 boreholes," he told the BBC.

The government, in partnership with international organisations, is working on a new sewage system, but its implementation may require demolishing existing buildings - a controversial move that could displace residents and businesses.

Mr Hodder adds that there is a high population density in Mogadishu - people driven into the city by drought and conflict.

An increase in the urban population, especially in slum areas, might further increase poverty and social disparities, he says.

Despite these challenges, Mogadishu's future looks promising. The city is striving to implement urban development regulations, improve infrastructure and ensure sustainable growth.

Even the bombings by the Islamist armed group al-Shabab - whose fighters tend to target plush hotels often occupied by politicians - does not dent the enthusiasm of the Somali Engineers Association.

Mohamud Abdisamad / BBC A view from up high of Mogadishu showing a main road and lots of new multi-storey buildings and the sea seen on the horizonMohamud Abdisamad / BBC
The engineers hope Mogadishu will become a modern city and a model for post-conflict reconstruction

Mr Heyle admits it can be upsetting for architects and engineers whose buildings are destroyed but notes that Somalis have become resilient - especially those studying engineering.

"A lot of explosions happened; our dreams did not stop on that. Today we are reviving the engineering profession, which collapsed 30 years ago. That means there is hope."

And the ambition is that in five years, Mogadishu will not only be a modern city but also a model post-conflict reconstruction.

"I believe Mogadishu is a different city compared to the 1990s; the city has changed to a new style, and Mogadishu's development is in line with the new world," says Ms Omar.

"When I walk through the streets and see buildings I helped construct, I feel proud. We are not just building structures; we are building hope."

Ms Abdi agrees, adding: "We are proving that women can not only design buildings but also lead projects and shape the city."

You may also be interested in:

Getty Images/BBC A woman looking at her mobile phone and the graphic BBC News AfricaGetty Images/BBC

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica

The first trial of its kind: A Russian soldier takes the stand for an execution

BBC Dmitriy Kurashov in the dock. He has short hair and is wearing a dark long-sleeved top. Part of a Ukrainian uniform can be seen in front of him.BBC
Dmitriy Kurashov is the first Russian soldier to stand trial in Ukraine for an alleged battlefield execution

On the frozen frontline in the east of Zaporizhzhia, a Ukrainian soldier surveyed the fallout from a Russian assault. It was the middle of January 2024 and the ground was covered in ice. Two weeks earlier, an 18-strong Russian assault team had broken through the line and seized three positions, killing five Ukrainians and losing 10 Russians before ceding the thin stretch of land back to the Ukrainians just hours later. The three positions that had changed hands were each just a few foxholes in the ground –⁠ dots on a devastated landscape of craters and shredded trees.

The Ukrainian soldier filmed as he looked over the remains of his fallen comrades. "This is Vitas, the small one," he said, using the dead man's callsign. He examined another body. "A silver ring, this is Grinch," he said. With difficulty, he turned over another frozen body. It was in bad condition, but the face was recognisable. The soldier sighed. "What can I find to cover you, so that you won't get cold," he said to the dead man. He picked up a nearby helmet and placed it over the damaged face. "We have found the Penguin," he said.

A year later, in January 2025, a Russian soldier was frog-marched down the corridor of a rundown local courthouse in Zaporizhzhia flanked by five Ukrainian soldiers and a large rottweiler trained on the Russian's scent and straining at its leash to attack him. Dmitriy Kurashov, callsign 'Stalker', was about to go on trial for the alleged battlefield execution of Vitalii Hodniuk, a veteran 41-year-old Ukrainian soldier known by the callsign 'Penguin'.

Handout Vitalii Hodniuk stands in uniform in front of a military truck on a snowy street.Handout
Vitalii Hodniuk, a veteran Ukrainian soldier with the callsign 'Penguin', was killed on the frontline

The trial was to be the first of its kind. According to Ukrainian authorities, Russian troops have executed at least 124 prisoners of war on the battlefield since the full-scale invasion began, but Kurashov is the first person to be brought to trial in Ukraine for the crime. His case is one of a tiny number among the tens of thousands of open war crimes cases where a suspect has been captured and can be made to stand in the dock. Adding to the unprecedented nature of the event, three members of Kurashov's own unit had agreed to testify against him.

In the bright, boxy courtroom, Kurashov was locked in a glass-enclosed dock. Short in stature, his head often bowed, he cut a subdued figure. When he did look around, he was forced to swivel his head because he had lost one eye to a grenade at the front. It was not Kurashov's first time in the dock; he had been jailed twice before in Russia, and was among the thousands of prisoners freed by the state to take part in the war.

The prosecutor read the charges. Kurashov was accused of shooting Hodniuk execution style as the Ukrainian soldier attempted to surrender – a violation of the laws of war. Kurashov had intially pleaded not guilty, during the pre-trial phase, but now in court he switched his plea to guilty. Informally, he maintained his innocence, and was making the switch purely to speed up the process, he said.

According to the UN, battlefield executions by Russians have increased at an alarming rate over the past year. In a February report, the UN human rights mission in Ukraine said it had found evidence of 79 executions by Russian forces since August 2024, as well as evidence of three illegal killings by Ukraine using first-person drones. The UN also said it had found at least three calls by Russian public officials ordering or approving executions, and according to Ukraine there is evidence of Russian battlefield commanders ordering executions up and down the frontline.

Dmitriy Kurashov, who has short dark hair and is wearing a black jumper, stands in the dock with his arms folded, looking down, surrounded by Ukrainian guards.
Kurashov faces up to life in prison if found guilty

The assault on the front by Kurashov's unit was to be his first proper operation, just a few weeks after joining the war. The unit was part of "Storm-V", a detachment of the 127th motorised rifle division made up almost entirely of freed prisoners. The Storm-V units have been used by Russia as cannon fodder, sent to stage assaults on the worst parts of the frontline. They are a grim echo of similar units formed by Stalin, characterised principally by their extremely high rate of attrition.

The operation began early on the morning of 6 January 2024 under a dense fog. The 18-strong Storm-V team approached the frontline in two armoured vehicles and a tank and the assault began. Kurashov was directed towards the small cluster of foxholes where Hodniuk and others were hiding, following a Russian artillery barrage.

This is where Kurashov's account diverges from that of the prosecution and the Russian soldiers testifying against him. They say Kurashov called into a foxhole for those inside to surrender and Hodniuk emerged unarmed and kneeled on the ground, only for Kurashov to shoot him with a burst from his AK-47. Kurashov says that it was not him who fired the shots but another Russian, a medic with callsign "Sedoy", who was later killed.

The Russians could not hold the position for long. Overpowered by Ukrainian forces just hours later, Kurashov and the other survivors crawled out of the foxholes and surrendered. They were marched away from the front to a Ukrainian armoured vehicle and taken as prisoners of war. Ukrainian soldiers who saw Hodniuk's body told the country's state security service, the SBU, that it lay face down with no weapon nearby.

The three frontline foxholes dug in the ground and covered with sticks as seen by a Ukrainian drone filming shortly after the operation.
The three frontline foxholes where Vitalii Hodniuk was killed, as seen by a Ukrainian drone filming shortly after the operation

The SBU could not access the scene, because it was too close to the contact line, but the agency began what would become an extensive remote investigation. At an SBU location in Zaporizhzhia last month, the officer in charge – who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his work in the security service – drew a map of the scene and explained how they put Kurashov in the dock.

"The first step was interrogating the eight prisoners of war," he said. "They were questioned as witnesses and later their identities were fully confirmed via social networks, mobile phones, and partial radio intercepts that preceded the event. The entire unit in that sector was tracked."

Initially, there were two suspected executions. Another Ukrainian, callsign 'Grinch', had been beaten to death with a shovel, one witness said. But the SBU couldn't prove it. "The polygraph didn't confirm the information and when the bodies were eventually recovered from the battlefield, none of them had such injuries," the investigator said. "My opinion, after examining all the facts, is that this was made up."

It was, he said, an example of Ukraine's ability to investigate and prosecute war crimes impartially, despite being the victim and under an ongoing state of war from the aggressor. "Look, we have one suspect on trial for an execution," the SBU investigator said, referring to Kurashov. "I signed it and sent it to court because we've gathered enough evidence that points to guilt. If our goal was simply to suspect anyone and send them to court we would have ten prisoners passing through every day."

A Ukrainian soldier gives evidence on a television screen above a bench where three judges - two women and a man - are sitting
With no specialist war crimes court in Ukraine, the trial is uncharted territory for the three judges

The seriousness with which Ukraine is treating this criminal prosecution is apparent. The SBU investigation produced more than 2,000 pages of evidence. Each of the witnesses was put through filmed reconstructions of the event on a Ukrainian army shooting range. In court, all efforts have been made by the prosecutor and the judges to ensure that Kurashov understands his rights, that he can understand his translator, and is given the opportunity to cross examine witnesses against him – an opportunity he has so far declined. (Kurashov's state-appointed lawyer declined to speak to the BBC. She has spoken only briefly in court, on administrative matters and to clarify some descriptions of the event by witnesses.)

The three Russian witnesses all testified on the first day of Kurashov's trial – three former prisoners who like Kurashov had gambled on surviving the war to gain their freedom. One had been serving 25 years to life for killing two drug dealers, another nine years for grievous bodily harm for killing a man with a brick in a fight, a third eight years, also for grievous bodily harm.

They gave evidence via video link from an adjacent courtroom, so they could be locked in their own dock. Dmitry Zuev, 44, was to be the key witness. He told the court that he saw Kurashov call for the Ukrainians to come out of the foxhole and surrender, after which Hodniuk emerged and knelt with his hands up. Then there were more gunshots and explosions, Zuev said, and he saw Hodniuk fall face down into the mud. Zuev also told the court that he personally knew the medic, Sedoy, who Kurashov has accused of the killing, and Sedoy was not there.

Oleg Zamyatin, 54, testified that Hodniuk was not holding a gun when he emerged from the foxhole. Zamyatin did not see Kurashov fire the alleged shots, he said, because there were explosions at the same moment.

"But I can say that it was him," Zamyatin told the court. "Because there was no one else at that spot except him."

Konstantin Zelenin, 41, the commander of Kurashov's small assault group, told the court he was hiding in a crater when he saw Hodniuk exit the foxhole on the right side with his hands up.

"Then, just a split second later, as the shelling began again, I heard a burst from an automatic rifle," Zelenin said.

"On the right side was Stalker, and he was there alone."

Dmitriy Kurashov, who has short hair and one eye closed, sits in front of a plain wall, looking up.
Kurashov told the BBC he was told "not to take prisoners"

In the dock, Kurashov sat largely mute as his former unit mates testified against him, speaking only occasionally to his lawyer through a slim gap in the enclosure's door. It is not clear yet if he will testify on his own behalf. The day after one of his hearings, he agreed to talk to the BBC about how he had ended up on trial in Ukraine.

The interview was co-ordinated by the SBU and conducted at a derelict building in Zaporizhzhia being used as a kind of safe house by the service, which confirmed the basic facts of Kurashov's life. Kurashov appeared in good condition and said he had agreed freely to take part. The lead judge in his case permitted the interview, for which an SBU press officer was present some of the time. Kurashov's remarks to the BBC will not be admissible in court.

His journey to that miserable stretch of front where Hodniuk died – to becoming Stalker – began in an orphanage in Gremyachinsk, a decayed old coal town about a thousand miles from Moscow on the way to Siberia. Orphaned at birth, Kurashov was raised in a group home. As a teenager, he got into a fight with a police officer and was imprisoned for assault. He served four years, but on his release he had no family, friends or place to live, so he became a vagrant. He began robbing summer houses and shops for food and money, he said, resulting in another imprisonment, this time in a remote penal colony alongside men serving life sentences for the some of the most brutal crimes.

Six months into that sentence, representatives from the Russian military came to the penal colony and told the convicts they had an opportunity to turn a new page in their lives. Kurashov still had five years to serve. "They told us you can have a clean slate, become a clean person," he said. "Just sign this contract and go."

"Go" meant to the "special military operation" in Ukraine. Kurashov knew little about it, he said, but he thought anything was better than five more years in the penal colony or being turned out into the streets at the end of his sentence. So he signed, and was taken immediately to a training camp in occupied territory in Ukraine.

A drone view of the area of the frontline assaulted by Kurashov and his unit, in the eastern oblast of Zaporizhzhia.
A drone view of the area of the frontline assaulted by Kurashov and his unit, in the eastern oblast of Zaporizhzhia

Kurashov described his unit as made up entirely of "people who had been pushed down by life and rejected by society, who were outside of society". They were given 21 days training, he said, during which they were drunk almost all the time. "They did not want to study or train," he recalled. "They all said they were just there to die."

There was no training on the Geneva Convention, to which Russia and Ukraine are both signatories, and which prohibits the killing of people who have surrendered or no longer pose a threat. In fact, the trainers told them the opposite, Kurashov said. "The ones who taught us how to take positions told us not to take any prisoners," he said. His description matches accounts from his unit mates, who told Ukrainian investigators they were instructed to execute prisoners and throw grenades into dugouts even if the enemy had surrendered.

It also matches accounts from other Russian prisoners of war. "I don't recall training on international humanitarian law," a Russian POW told the UN recently. "During our military training and later, commanders told us not to take [Ukrainian soldiers] as prisoners of war. It is logistically cumbersome."

According to Kurashov, the unit were told they would be carrying out logistical operations like digging trenches, but instead found themselves headed immediately for battle. During the brief assault on the Ukrainian position, Kurashov's impression was not one of an able military unit at war. "What I saw was people who just laid down and died," he said. Within hours, 10 of the 18-strong assault team were dead and the remaining eight were in captivity.

Within a fortnight, the incident had become one of Ukraine's many thousands of war crimes cases. Ukraine has no specialist war crimes courts, so the cases generally fall to whichever court is local to the offence. In this case, the Zavodskyi District in Zaporizhzhia.

Local prosecutor Mykyta Manevskyi, who is wearing jeans, a blue suit jacket and yellow checked shirt, sits on a chair in a media room in the district prosecutor's office.
Mykyta Manevskyi is prosecuting his first execution case

Prior to the full scale invasion, 32-year-old Zavodskyi District prosecutor Mykyta Manevskyi had taken on a range of civil crimes like robbery, vandalism and fraud, plus two murder cases, but never a war crime. "When you're working with an ordinary murder case, it has difficulties but it's pretty simple," Manevskyi said. "You know where the murder took place, you can collect DNA and fingerprints, you can find the murder weapon. You have almost immediate access to the body. You can conduct forensic tests."

In this case, Manevskyi's murder scene was on the contact line. "We could not even extract the body for two months," he said. "It made it difficult to perform any kind of forensic examination. The body was too long under the sun, the rain and snow, and it was harmed by artillery strikes."

That made it difficult to ascertain anything concrete about the nature of the shots that killed Hodniuk. "This is not the level of detail, unfortunately, that we need when investigating a murder," Manevskyi said. "So we had to focus more on working with the witnesses we had."

In fact, the prosecution is relying almost totally on the testimony of the Russian soldiers. There are no other eyewitnesses, no drone footage of the actual event and the physical evidence is circumstantial, much of it badly degraded by the battlefield conditions which persisted for weeks before the bodies could be recovered.

The Zavodskyi District court house. There are trees in front of the plain building which has a Ukrainian flag flying
War crimes are being tried at ordinary local courts like the Zavodskyi District Courthouse, where Kurashov's case is being heard

But the testimony is not without its complications. The witnesses are all POWs, being held by the nation prosecuting the case. They were each interrogated up to 10 times by the Ukrainian state security service, during which time some of their stories evolved. One bore a grudge against Kurashov from their time together in training, he told investigators. Another said he resented the defendant for, in his view, getting them caught.

"It is a tricky area," said Sergey Vasiliev, a professor of international law at the Open University of the Netherlands. "POWs are a particularly vulnerable category of witnesses, any evidence they give should be taken with a grain of salt." There was nothing inherently wrong with POWs testifying, Vasiliev said, but various factors could have affected their decision to appear for the prosecution. "Maybe they are expecting better treatment in Ukrainian custody, maybe they expect to be prioritised in a prisoner swap," he said. "They could have various incentives to lie."

Kurashov maintains his story about the medic, Sedoy. He told the BBC he had pleaded guilty because he believed the sooner the trial was over the sooner he could be exchanged back to Russia.

But if Kurashov is found guilty, he is no longer a prisoner of war. He is simply a prisoner in Ukraine's civil legal system. Yuriy Belousov, the head of the war crimes department of Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General, told the BBC that Russian soldiers convicted of war crimes would go to prison in Ukraine and stay there. "We prosecute on behalf of the victims and their relatives and they should feel justice has been done," Belousov said.

In the end, it may not be that simple. Russia has captured many thousands of civilians during its full scale invasion of Ukraine and is effectively holding them hostage in Russian prisons. If the Kremlin decides it wants Kurashov back, it may have leverage to get him.

"That is less of a legal and more of an ethical issue," Belousov said. "If, let's say, 100 people would be offered to exchange for this one, then yes maybe. It is our obligation to prosecute on behalf of victims, but it is also our obligation to save our people who have been kept in Russia."

Dmitriy Kurashov, who has short hair and is wearing a dark top, sits in the dock watched over by a Ukrainian guard.
Three of Dmitriy Kurashov's former unit mates testified against him

Belousov and his colleagues are aiming at bigger fish than Kurashov. Their goal for this year and next is to bring cases against middle and higher level Russian command, he said. According to the testimony from the captured Russians in Kurashov's unit, their senior commander issued an order directly before the assault that no prisoners should be taken.

According to Belousov, similar evidence has been found up and down the frontline. Grim video evidence, sometimes shared on Russian social media, appears to bear that out. Russia has in turn accused Ukrainian troops of extra-judicial killings, and Ukraine has launched several investigations into its own forces (the exact number is unclear). But the number of allegations against Russia far outweighs that against Ukraine. Russia has previously denied committing war crimes in the conflict.

The UN has also documented several cases of Russian public figures calling for executions. Last July, after Ukraine's Azov Brigade posted a social media video showing one of its members shooting a Russian soldier in a dugout, the deputy head of Russia's Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, called for "total executions" of Ukrainian servicemen.

"No words about mercy. No humanity. No pardon. They have no right to life. Execute, execute and execute," Medvedev wrote on the Telegram social media platform.

Medvedev's words will not cost him anything. Instead they run downhill until they reach the level of Vitalii Hodniuk, Dmitry Kurashov, and all the other Russian and Ukrainian men killing each other in service of the war's obscure goals. In this case, one of those men stands accused of breaking the laws of the killing he had been sent to do – laws he may well have been ordered to disregard.

If found guilty, Kurashov faces up to life in prison. At the end of his conversation with the BBC, he said that he had no real vision for the future, other than a desire to return to Russia. "At least I will have a disability," he said, referring to the loss of his eye, and the anticipated benefits it would draw. "I won't have to be a vagrant anymore."

Vitalii Hodniuk cannot return home, of course. It was two months before his body could even be recovered. His family did not want to speak publicly about his passing, but they did assist in the SBU in its investigation. Hodniuk's record shows that he was an experienced soldier who defended Ukraine against Russian-backed forces from 2015 to 2020 and joined up to fight again in 2022.

Last May, six months after he died, the Penguin was brought back to his village to be buried. On a bright morning, just a stone's throw from where he grew up and went to school, people lined the street on their knees to watch his coffin pass by.

Kurashov's trial continues.

Daria Mitiuk contributed to this report. Photographs by Joel Gunter.

Macron visits Greenland in show of European unity and signal to Trump

Michel Euler/Pool via Reuters Emmanuel Macron, wearing a dark suit, sits behind a desk at a conference, in front of an EU and a French flagMichel Euler/Pool via Reuters
French President Emmanuel Macron is visiting Greenland to meet the prime ministers of Greenland and Denmark

In a sign of Greenland's growing importance, French President Emmanuel Macron is visiting the Arctic island today, in what experts say is a show of European unity and a signal to Donald Trump.

Stepping foot in the capital Nuuk this morning, Macron will be met with chilly and blustery weather, but despite the cold conditions, he'll be greeted warmly.

"This is big, I must say, because we never had visits from a president at all, and it's very welcomed," says veteran Greenlandic official, Kaj Kleist.

Nuuk is a small city of less than 20,000 people, and the arrival of a world leader and his entourage, is a major event.

"I think that people will be curious, just hearing about it," says consultant and podcast host Arnakkuluk Jo Kleist. "I think they'll be interested in, what his message is going to be."

"He's the president of France, but he's also an important representative of Europe. It's a message from the European countries that they're showing support, that Greenland is not for sale, and for the Kingdom of Denmark," says Arnakkuluk Jo Kleist.

"These last months have created some questions about what allies we need, and also about what allies do we need to strengthen cooperation with," she says.

France's president is the first high-profile leader to be invited by Greenland's new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen. Talks will focus on North Atlantic and Arctic security as well as climate change, economic development and critical minerals, before Macron continues to the G7 summit in Canada.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is also attending, and called the French president's visit "another concrete testimony of European unity" amid a "difficult foreign policy situation in recent months".

Roni Rekomaa/Reuters Jens-Frederik Nielsen, a man with short brown hair, is wearing a black blazer and white shirt and is stood in front of two flagsRoni Rekomaa/Reuters
Jens-Frederik Nielsen is meeting Emmanuel Macron in the capital, Nuuk

For several months Greenland, which is a semi-autonomous Danish territory with 56,000 people, has come under intense pressure as US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to acquire the vast mineral-rich island, citing American security as the primary reason and not ruling out using force.

"Macron is not coming to Greenland just for Greenland's sake, it's also part of a bigger game, among these big powers in the world," says Kleist.

France was among the first nations to speak up against Mr Trump, even floating an offer of deploying troops, which Denmark declined. Only a few days ago at the UN's Oceans conference in Nice, Macron stressed that "the ocean is not for sale, Greenland is not for sale, the Arctic and no other seas are for sale" - words which were swiftly welcomed by Nielsen.

"France has supported us since the first statements about taking our country came out," he wrote in a Facebook post. "It is both necessary and gratifying."

That Macron is coming is a strong message itself, reckons Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies.

"The vice presidential couple weren't really able to pull it off," he says, referring to JD Vance and his wife Usha's scaled-back trip in March and lack of public engagements. "That, of course, sends a message to the American public, and to Trump."

Jim Watson/Pool via Reuters JD Vance, waving, and Usha Vance, smiling, board Air Force Two. They are both wearing thick khaki coatsJim Watson/Pool via Reuters
US Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance board Air Force Two after touring the US military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland

It also highlights a shift, as Greenland's leaders consolidate relations with Denmark and the EU, "because we have to have allies in these problems," says Kaj Kleist, alluding to US pressure.

"I think it's a good time for Macron to come through here," Kleist adds. "They can talk about defence of the Arctic before the big NATO meetings… And hear what we are looking for, in terms of cooperation and investment."

However, opposition leader Pele Broberg thinks Greenland should have hosted bilateral talks with France alone. ""We welcome any world leader, anytime," he says "Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like a visit for Greenland this time. It looks like a visit for Denmark."

Relations between the US and Denmark have grown increasingly fractious. US Vice President JD Vance scolded the Nordic country for underinvesting in the territory's security during his recent trip to an American military base in the far north of Greenland. Last month Denmark's foreign minister summoned the US ambassador in Copenhagen, following a report in the Wall Street Journal alleging that US spy agencies were told to focus efforts on Greenland.

Then, at a congressional hearing on Thursday, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to suggest under tense questioning that the Pentagon had prepared "contingency" plans for taking Greenland by force "if necessary".

Denmark, however, has treaded cautiously. Last week its parliament green-lighted a controversial bill allowing US troops to be stationed on Danish soil, and is spending another $1.5bn (£1.1bn) to boost Greenland's defence. That heightened military presence was on show this weekend as a Danish naval frigate sailed around Nuuk Fjord and helicopters circled over the town.

"Denmark has been reluctant to make this shift from having a very transatlantic security strategy to a more European strategy," assesses Gad, but that's changed in recent months.

With rising tensions and increased competition between global powers in the Arctic, the EU is also stepping up its role. Earlier this month the trade bloc signed a deal investing in a Greenland graphite mine - a metal used in batteries - as it races to secure supplies of critical minerals, as well as energy resources, amid China's dominance and Russia's war in Ukraine.

Leiff Josefsen/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and then Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute B Egede stand in the snow in big winter coats and gloves to cut the ribbon for the opening of the European Commission's new office in Nuuk, GreenlandLeiff Josefsen/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen opened an EU office in Nuuk last year

For France, the visit to Greenland ties into its policy to boost European independence from the US, suggests Marc Jacobsen, associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College.

"This is about, of course, the changed security situation in North Atlantic and the Arctic," he explains. "It's a strong signal. It will show that France takes European security seriously."

Paternity leave: How much time off work do new dads get across Europe?

BBC Three dads hold their babies. The picture is overlaid on a brightly coloured orange and yellow textured background.BBC
Paternity leave policies vary across Europe - but the UK's offer is one of the least generous

The paternity leave offer for new dads in the UK is "one of the worst in the developed world", according to a new report published this week.

The government says the system needs to be "improved" and has promised to review parental leave. But how does the situation in the UK compare to elsewhere?

BBC News spoke to dads across Europe about how much time they can take off work after the birth of their children - and how that has changed fatherhood for them.

A man smiles at the camera alongside his young daughter
Jamie Fox has a three-year-old daughter and is expecting his second child

When Jamie's daughter Kiara was born three years ago, he says it was "incredibly difficult".

"I had to watch my partner struggle looking after our child," Jamie says. "The biggest thing I remember was the crying. My daughter clearly needed support and my wife was noticeably struggling and exhausted."

A few weeks after Kiara was born, Jamie's mother-in-law flew from Zimbabwe to support the family, because Jamie was only entitled to statutory paternity leave.

Rules in the UK allow new fathers and second parents in full-time employment to take up to two weeks off work. That applies to all partners, regardless of gender, after the birth, surrogacy or adoption of a baby, but not those who are self-employed or dads earning less than £123 a week.

Those eligible receive £187.18 a week, or 90% of their average earnings, whichever is lower. This works out as less than half of the National Living Wage.

Jamie, from Ashford in Kent, says the statutory pay "was frankly pennies".

He and his partner are now expecting their second child, in August - something they began saving for before Jamie's wife Zanele even fell pregnant.

Jamie says his "frustration" about paternity pay led him to attend the world's first "dad strike" earlier this week, when fathers from across the country protested outside the government's Department for Business and Trade in Westminster.

"Seeing things change relatively recently in other countries... why are we not keeping up?" Jamie says.

A man with a beard miles at the camera holding his daughter
Spain has increased the amount of time off work for new dads in recent years - Octavio had eight weeks off with his first child, and four months with his second

For Octavio, spending four months at home with his daughter Alicia has made "a tremendous difference".

He split his paternity leave into two parts - six weeks - which was mandatory -immediately after Alicia was born, and the remaining 10 weeks when his wife went back to work.

"The extended quality time with Alicia allowed us to develop a strong bond that I believe wouldn't have formed as deeply otherwise," says Octavio, a computer engineer from Seville.

Over the past few years, Spain has increased the amount of time given to new fathers. In 2019, dads were entitled to five weeks off work. But from 2021, that was extended to 16 weeks at full pay, including for those who are self-employed. There is no cap on the salary paid. It means parental leave is now equal between mums and dads in Spain.

"These changes have truly made a significant difference," says Octavio.

A man smiles a the camera next to his daughter, who is holding the side of his face
Antoine has benefitted from France's updated paternity leave laws

France has also made progressive steps on paternity leave in recent years.

Antoine is an architect who lives on the outskirts of Paris, and has benefitted from the changes. When his son Thibault was born five years ago, Antoine, who works full-time, was entitled to two weeks paternity leave.

But in September 2020 paternity leave in France doubled, meaning Antoine got four weeks off work when his second child was born in 2023.

"It allowed me to support my wife and children," he says. "Fathers should be allowed to be more present during these family life periods that enrich all relationships and allow them to fully take their place as full-time parents."

France's paternity leave rules mean dads - including those who are self-employed - must take a week off work immediately after their child is born. Pay is covered by the employer for the first three days, but after that is state-funded.

The remaining 21 days, which can be split into two chunks, are optional and can be taken anytime within the next six months. Pay is capped at €3,428 (£2,921) a month.

A man in a winter hat stands holding his baby, wrapped up in woollen clothing
André has split his paternity leave into two

André, who was born in Portugal and spent nine years living in England, says the prominent role played by dads in Denmark was one of the first things he noticed when he moved there.

"You see dads strolling around with their kids and young babies," André says. "I was like: 'Wow, I'm not used to this.'"

Dads in Denmark, including those who are self-employed, can take up to 24 weeks off work at full pay by the state.

After eleven weeks, the remaining 13 can be transferred to the birth partner if wanted, so they can use them as extra maternity leave. One of the parents can postpone up to 13 weeks of parental until their child is aged nine.

André decided to split his parental leave - taking two weeks immediately after his baby Miro was born and saving the remaining 11 weeks - so he can look after his nine-month-old son when his partner returns to work.

"In Denmark, it's expected that the partner is more present," André says. "You're not only connecting with your child, but you want to develop the family as a whole together."

Dr Kamil Janowicz A man in glasses stares off to the side of the camera and clutches a small baby to his chestDr Kamil Janowicz
Kamil, a psychologist and post-doctoral researcher at SWPS University, says paternity leave gave him confidence as a father

Dads with full-time jobs in Poland are entitled to two weeks of paternity leave. But unlike in the UK, the salary is paid at 100%, which Kamil says was "great".

Shortly after his daughter Marianna's first birthday, Kamil took another nine weeks of non-transferable parental leave, which must be taken in the first year. This is available to both parents, as long as they are employed, and is paid at 70% of a full-time salary.

"For many families, the 70% nine weeks is very low," Kamil says, "but... when I took the leave my wife started going back to work. I earned 30% less, but she started earning more, so it was beneficial for our family."

Kamil says those extra nine weeks alleviated a lot of "stress" as his wife transitioned back into work after a year off on maternity leave.

"I was confident," Kamil says. "I felt as though I was doing a good job - and my daughter felt good with me."

A man in a checked red jacket smiles at the camera and holds a small baby close to his chest
By the time he has used his full parental leave allowance, Mattias' son will be almost one

Mattias, from Stockholm, says comforting his three-month-old son is "the best feeling I've ever experienced".

Mattias is able to take advantage of one of the most generous paternity leave policies in the world. Parents in Sweden, including those who are self-employed, can share up to 480 days of parent leave, with 90 days reserved specifically for each parent.

Ringfencing time off for dads was first introduced in Sweden in 1995, with the introduction of a "daddy month" - 30 days just for fathers. This use-it-or-lose-it model increased to 60 days in 2002, and 90 days in 2016.

The first 390 days for each parent are paid at 80% by the government, up to a monthly salary cap of SEK47,750 (£3,590). After that, there's a daily statutory compensation of SEK180 (£14).

Mattias took six weeks off when Otto was born and will use another nine months of parental leave from November.

"We could share the load in the beginning when everything was new," Mattias says. "Those six weeks allowed us to be parents together - that made a huge difference. "

Paternity leave - the view from the UK

Some companies, both in the UK and abroad, pay out of their own pocket for enhanced paternity leave policies beyond the statutory minimum. But research from 2023 showed just 12% of fathers from low-income households had access to their full entitlement of employer-enhanced parental leave and pay.

Alex Lloyd-Hunter, co-founder of The Dad Shift, says "money is the single biggest barrier" to dads taking time off work and wants the government to fund better paternity leave for all dads.

A report, published this week by the Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) said statutory pay in the UK was "completely out of kilter with the cost of living". It suggested the government should consider increasing paternity pay to 90% or more and paternity leave to six weeks in a phased approach.

The report also looked at shared parental leave, introduced in 2014, which allows parents to share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay after the birth or adoption of a child. The review found many families considered it "unnecessarily complex". It is used in fewer than 2% of all births and a report from 2023 suggests almost half (45%) of dads were not even aware shared parental leave was an option.

"We know the parental leave system needs to be improved," a spokesperson for the Department for Business and Trade said, adding the government would review maternity leave, paternity leave and shared parental leave.

They also pointed to changes which mean dads will soon no longer have to be employed by a company for 26 weeks to be entitled to statutory paternity leave.

Manhunt after two Minnesota state politicians targeted, one of them killed

Star Tribune via Getty Images/Minnesota State Senate Melissa Hortman (left) and John Hoffman (right)Star Tribune via Getty Images/Minnesota State Senate

The homes of two Minnesota state lawmakers have been targeted in shootings early on Saturday morning, CBS News, the BBC's US news partner, reported.

They were the homes of State Senator John Hoffman and Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman, both from the Democratic-Farmer-Labour (DFL) Party, in Champlin and Brooklyn Park, neighbouring cities near Minneapolis.

It is unclear who was shot in the homes or their condition, CBS reported.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz earlier said "targeted shootings" had taken place.

Brooklyn Park Police Department has issued a shelter-in-place order for a three-mile (4.8 km) radius of Edinburgh Golf Course.

Zach Lindstrom, the mayor of nearby Mounds View, said elected officials had received a "safety alert".

Authorities are warning people in the area not to answer their door for a police officer unless there are two officers together, local outlet Fox 9 reported.

Mayor Lindstrom said on X that he had heard the suspect was someone impersonating an "officer and they haven't been caught".

Walz said on X that authorities are "monitoring the situation closely" and he has activated a State Emergency Operations Center - used for managing disasters or emergencies.

'It's heavy on the heart': Israelis survey damage in city hit by Iranian missile

Anadolu via Getty Images Damage homes and vehicles in Rishon LeZion, Israel, following an Iranian ballistic missile strike (14 June 2025)Anadolu via Getty Images
Two people were killed when a missile hit Rishon LeZion early on Saturday

As sirens rang out across Israel in the early hours of Saturday morning, Ifat Benhaim and her family ran into their basement.

"We closed the door, and suddenly there was such a big boom," she says. "I thought all the house fell on us."

When they emerged minutes later, they found their windows shattered and layers of dust and debris strewn across the front room.

On their quiet suburban street in Rishon LeZion, just south of Tel Aviv, the roofs of several homes had caved in. Glass littered the road. At least 30 cars were badly damaged, with smashed windows and huge dents.

The Iranian missile struck shortly after 05:00 local time (03:00 BST).

It came amid six waves of Iranian attacks overnight - launched in response to large-scale Israeli air strikes on Iran - that sent millions of people running for shelter.

Two were killed in Rishon LeZion, with one named by Israeli media as 73-year-old Israel Aloni. Around 19 others were injured.

Ifat Benhaim in her ruined home.
Ifat Benhaim and her husband Zion had lived in their home for 29 years

Ambulances and rescue crews arrived shortly after the missile struck. Sniffer dogs were used to search among the smashed concrete and warped metal for any unexploded ordnance.

Now, Ifat, her husband Zion, and six younger relatives are packing up what they can from the home they've lived in for 29 years - and trying to decide where they'll stay over the coming days.

One of their neighbours, who did not want to be named, said she had chosen to stay with her daughter that night - just in case. It may have saved her life.

Another local, 48-year-old Sally Ilan, clutched some crockery she managed to salvage from the ruins of her parents' home.

"It was the first house to be built in the neighbourhood," she says, gesturing behind her. "My father was so eager to build it."

"Forty years of memories are gone... It's heavy on the heart."

Sally Ilan stands in front of her childhood home in Rishon LeZion, Israel
Sally Ilan's childhood home was destroyed by the missile impact and explosion

A total of three people were killed across the country in the overnight strikes - two here in Rishon LeZion, one in the nearby city of Ramat Gan. About 76 were injured.

But the destruction - even in these worst-hit areas - is limited compared to what has been seen in Iran.

Israel's "Operation Rising Lion" began early Friday with the assassination of senior Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists. It has since broadened out, striking Iran's nuclear facilities, missile sites, air defences, military bases, an airport and other infrastructure.

Iran's UN envoy said on Friday night that 78 people had been killed at that point. On Saturday, an Iranian health ministry official said around 800 people had been injured.

Iranian state television reported that 60 people - including 29 children - had been killed in an Israeli strike on a block of flats in the capital, Tehran.

In Rishon LeZion, not far from the worst-hit homes, someone had written a question into a layer of dust on a car windscreen: "Until when?"

This conflict may be less than 48 hours old - but it's a question much of the world is now asking.

Museum's plea after couple break crystal-covered chair

Watch: Visitors sit on and break artwork chair in Italian museum

An Italian museum has called on patrons to "respect art" after a couple was filmed breaking a chair covered in hundreds of glittering crystals.

Footage released by the Palazzo Maffei, in Verona, shows a man and woman taking pictures of each other while pretending to sit on the so-called "Van Gogh" chair.

The man then appears to slip and fall onto the chair, crushing it underneath him.

Officials say the couple fled the museum before staff noticed what happened.

They have since notified police about the pair, who have not been identified.

"Sometimes we lose our brains to take a picture, and we don't think about the consequences," says museum director Vanessa Carlon.

"Of course it was an accident, but these two people left without speaking to us - that isn't an accident," she adds. "This is a nightmare for any museum".

Palazzo Maffei A picture of the chair with two broken legs and main seatPalazzo Maffei
Two legs and the chair's main seat were broken during the incident

The BBC understands this incident happened in April. Palazzo Maffei released the footage on 12 June.

The chair was built by Italian artist Nicola Bolla and is bejewelled with Swarovski crystals made from polished, machine-cut glass. It is named after Vincent van Gogh as a tribute to the Dutch artist's painting of a simple chair.

Bolla's piece is somewhat priceless, in that the museum declined to provide an estimate of its value when asked by the BBC.

Carlotta Menegazzo, an art historian based at the Palazzo Maffei, says that - while it looks sturdy - its frame is mostly hollow and kept together with foil.

"On the chair was a note warning people not to touch, and of course it is placed on a pedestal, so it's quite clear it's not a real chair," says Ms Menegazzo.

Two legs and the main seat were broken, but Ms Menegazzo says "a great job" has been done to restore the piece and it is now back in place.

The Palazzo Maffei opened in 2020 and has 650 pieces on display, including paintings by Picasso and ancient Egyptian art.

Ms Carlon says the majority of visitors are considerate, and she hopes this release of CCTV footage won't become a "negative episode".

Instead, she wants to highlight that "anyone should enter art places, or museums or churches, wherever art is displayed, in a more respectful way".

"Art must be respected and loved because it is very fragile," she adds.

Minnesota state lawmaker killed and another injured in targeted shootings

Star Tribune via Getty Images/Minnesota State Senate Melissa Hortman (left) and John Hoffman (right)Star Tribune via Getty Images/Minnesota State Senate

The homes of two Minnesota state lawmakers have been targeted in shootings early on Saturday morning, CBS News, the BBC's US news partner, reported.

They were the homes of State Senator John Hoffman and Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman, both from the Democratic-Farmer-Labour (DFL) Party, in Champlin and Brooklyn Park, neighbouring cities near Minneapolis.

It is unclear who was shot in the homes or their condition, CBS reported.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz earlier said "targeted shootings" had taken place.

Brooklyn Park Police Department has issued a shelter-in-place order for a three-mile (4.8 km) radius of Edinburgh Golf Course.

Zach Lindstrom, the mayor of nearby Mounds View, said elected officials had received a "safety alert".

Authorities are warning people in the area not to answer their door for a police officer unless there are two officers together, local outlet Fox 9 reported.

Mayor Lindstrom said on X that he had heard the suspect was someone impersonating an "officer and they haven't been caught".

Walz said on X that authorities are "monitoring the situation closely" and he has activated a State Emergency Operations Center - used for managing disasters or emergencies.

The terrifying moment when Air India plane crashed into a canteen

Getty Images Plates with food on them sit on a table covered in thick white dust with a pair of doctors' latex gloves lying either side - as if cast aside by a person the moment the plane struck the buildingGetty Images

It was a balmy Thursday afternoon at the residential hostel of the BJ Medical College and the canteen was teeming with students getting lunch.

The room buzzed with the sound of jokes, banter between friends, and the odd bit of academic discussion.

By 13:39 local time, there were at least 35 people in the cafeteria. Some had already collected their food and were lounging around, while others were in the queue waiting for their turn.

The students mixed with doctors and family members. Then, everything changed.

The general hum of the canteen was pierced by the sound of approaching jet engines - and then the room exploded.

Hindustan Times via Getty Images People stand amid a chaotic scene of debris within the doctors' mess hall after the crash. It is clearly dark outside, meaning it is several hours since the incidentHindustan Times via Getty Images
Rescuers searched through the wreckage and debris in the mess hall on Thursday night

Less than a minute earlier, Flight AI171 had taken off from the runway at Ahmedabad's airport, just 1.5km (4,800ft) away.

The Air India 787 Dreamliner was bound for London, carrying 242 people.

But something had gone catastrophically wrong, and mere seconds after its wheels left the ground, the plane was in trouble. A mayday call was sent before it came crashing down into a busy residential area - on top of the doctors' hostel - sending a massive fireball into the sky and killing all but one person on board.

The BBC has spoken to eyewitnesses, including students who were in the hostel, along with friends of the trainee doctors who died and their teachers, to piece together what happened in those terrifying few seconds - and the aftermath that followed.

People on the ground nearby couldn't immediately work out what had happened.

A doctor, who works with the college's kidney sciences department, says he and his colleagues were in their building, about 500 metres away, when they heard a "deafening sound" outside.

"At first, we thought it was lightning. But then we wondered, could that be possible in 40C dry heat?"

The doctors ran outside.

That's when they heard a few people screaming: "Look, come here, a plane has crashed into our building."

The next few minutes were a blur. Scenes of chaos descended on the campus as people ran around trying to escape - or find out what had happened.

Brothers Prince and Krish Patni were on their bikes just a few metres from the hostel when they heard the noise.

"Within seconds we could see something that resembled a wing of a plane," Prince, 18, told the BBC.

"We rushed to the scene, but the heat from the explosion was intense and we couldn't enter the hostel. There was a lot of debris."

AFP via Getty Images Rescuers wearing a variety of clothing - including fire officials - retrieve a body covered by a blanket, on a stretcher, from the ruins of the medical college on ThursdayAFP via Getty Images
Officials are still attempting to identify victims of Thursday's crash

The brothers, along with a few other volunteers from the local area, waited for the heat to subside before attempting to physically enter the building. They worked together with the police to move some of the debris from the entrance.

When they finally reached the canteen, they couldn't see anyone.

Dark, dense clouds of smoke had engulfed the room. The air smelled of burned metal. The brothers, who just minutes before had been heading to play cricket, began removing cooking gas cylinders to avoid any further explosions, Krish, 20, explained.

The brothers and other volunteers then spotted a pile of suitcases and went to move them. What unfolded next, they said, was gut wrenching.

Behind them, they began to make out the shapes of people.

Most were alive. Some had spoons full of food in their hand, some had plates of food in front of them, and some had glasses in their hand.

They were all badly injured.

They were also silent, in shock. Just minutes before they were having their usual afternoon. Now, they were surrounded by charred metal pieces of aircraft.

"They didn't even get a chance to react," another doctor, who was in a nearby building, said.

Graphic shows satellite image of buildings where the India Boeing 787 crashed after take-off in Ahmedabad. On the right hand side are images of pieces of the wreckage and a burned-out building. The locations of where these images were taken are highlighted on the satellite image.

A second year student, who lives in the hostel, was among those who managed to escape.

He was sitting at his usual spot - a large table at the corner of the mess, next to one of the walls - with nine others when the plane crashed.

"There was a huge bang and a horrible screeching sound. Next thing we knew, we were under huge boulders, stuck without anywhere to go," he says. "The fire and smoke of the crashed plane was close to our face and it was hard to breathe."

He received severe chest wounds in the accident and is still undergoing treatment at a local hospital. And he doesn't know what happened to his friends.

Multiple eyewitnesses told the BBC the massive wing of the plane first pierced through the roof followed by parts of the fuselage. The damage was most severe where the wing fell.

In the chaos, students began to jump from as high as the second and third floors to escape. Students later told how one of the only staircases out was blocked by debris.

It is not known how many people were killed on the ground.

Dr Minakshi Parikh, dean of the BJ Medical College and Civil Hospital, told the BBC that four of their students had died, as well as four students' relatives.

But exactly how many and who was killed may take days to establish: investigators need to rely on DNA to formally identify the bodies found in the wreckage.

And it was not just people in the canteen at that moment who were killed.

Dr Kevin Prajapati and Dr Bharat Ayar A large crowd of people pose for a photograph inside the mess hall, compared with an image of the damaged building after the plane crashedDr Kevin Prajapati and Dr Bharat Ayar
The mess hall seen in an undated photograph before the crash (above) and then after Thursday's incident

Just a few kilometres away was Ravi Thakur, who worked in the hostel kitchen. He had gone out to deliver lunch boxes in other hostels around the city. His wife and their two-year-old daughter stayed behind as usual.

When he heard the news, he rushed back but found utter chaos. Around 45 minutes had passed and the place was full of locals, firefighters, ambulance workers and Air India staff.

He tried to look for his wife and child but couldn't find them.

Back at the main hospital block, teachers are still trying make sense of the chaos.

"I used to teach these students and knew them personally. The injured students are still being treated in the hospital, and they are our priority at the moment," one professor at the college told the BBC.

Meanwhile, Ravi Thakur is still searching for his loved ones, even as his hopes fade fast.

Reuters A police officer stands in front of debris at the crash site after an Air India aircraft, bound for London's Gatwick Airport, crashed during take-off from an airport in Ahmedabad, India June 12, 2025. 

Reuters

Homes of two Minnesota state lawmakers targeted in shootings

Star Tribune via Getty Images/Minnesota State Senate Melissa Hortman (left) and John Hoffman (right)Star Tribune via Getty Images/Minnesota State Senate

The homes of two Minnesota state lawmakers have been targeted in shootings early on Saturday morning, CBS News, the BBC's US news partner, reported.

They were the homes of State Senator John Hoffman and Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman, both from the Democratic-Farmer-Labour (DFL) Party, in Champlin and Brooklyn Park, neighbouring cities near Minneapolis.

It is unclear who was shot in the homes or their condition, CBS reported.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz earlier said "targeted shootings" had taken place.

Brooklyn Park Police Department has issued a shelter-in-place order for a three-mile (4.8 km) radius of Edinburgh Golf Course.

Zach Lindstrom, the mayor of nearby Mounds View, said elected officials had received a "safety alert".

Authorities are warning people in the area not to answer their door for a police officer unless there are two officers together, local outlet Fox 9 reported.

Mayor Lindstrom said on X that he had heard the suspect was someone impersonating an "officer and they haven't been caught".

Walz said on X that authorities are "monitoring the situation closely" and he has activated a State Emergency Operations Center - used for managing disasters or emergencies.

Israel-Iran strikes: What are the worst-case scenarios?

Reuters People look at a damaged building in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran.Reuters
Friday night saw Israel and Iran exchange a barrage of air strikes

For now the fighting between Israel and Iran seems restricted to the two nations. At the United Nations and elsewhere there have been widespread calls for restraint.

But what if they fall on deaf ears? What if the fighting escalates and expands?

Here are just a few possible, worst-case scenarios.

America gets dragged in

For all the US denials, Iran clearly believes American forces endorsed and at least tacitly supported Israel's attacks.

Iran could strike US targets across the Middle East – such as special forces camps in Iraq, military bases in the Gulf, and diplomatic missions in the region. Iran's proxy forces - Hamas and Hezbollah – may be much diminished but its supportive militias in Iraq remain armed and intact.

The US feared such attacks were a possibility and withdrew some personnel. In its public messaging, the US has warned Iran firmly of the consequences of any attack on American targets.

What might happen if an American citizen were killed, say, in Tel Aviv or elsewhere?

Donald Trump might find himself forced to act. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long been accused of wanting to drag the US into helping him defeat Iran.

Military analysts say only the US has the bombers and bunker-busting bombs that can penetrate the deepest of Iranian nuclear facilities, especially that of Fordow.

Trump promised his MAGA constituency he would not start any so-called "forever wars" in the Middle East. But equally many Republicans support both Israel's government and its view that now is the time to seek regime change in Tehran.

But if America were to become an active combatant, that would represent a huge escalation with a long, potentially devastating consequential tail.

Gulf nations get dragged in

If Iran failed to damage Israel's well-protected military and other targets, then it could always aim its missiles at softer targets in the Gulf, especially countries that Iran believes aided and abetted its enemies over the years.

There are lots of energy and infrastructure targets in the region. Remember Iran was accused of striking Saudi Arabia's oil fields in 2019 and its Houthi proxies hit targets in the UAE in 2022.

Since then there has been a reconciliation of sorts between Iran and some countries in the region.

But these countries play host to US airbases. Some also – discreetly – helped defend Israel from Iranian missile attack last year.

If the Gulf were attacked, then it too might demand American warplanes come to its defence as well as Israel's.

Reuters A demonstrator holds an anti-war sign during a protest against Israeli strikes on IranReuters
A demonstrator holds a sign during a protest against Israeli strikes on Iran in New York

Israel fails to destroy Iran's nuclear capability

What if the Israeli attack fails? What if Iran's nuclear facilities are too deep, too well protected? What if its 400kg of 60% enriched uranium – the nuclear fuel that is just a small step away from being fully weapons-grade, enough for ten bombs or so – is not destroyed?

It's thought it may be hidden deep in secret mines. Israel may have killed some nuclear scientists but no bombs can destroy Iran's knowhow and expertise.

What if Israel's attack convinces Iran's leadership that its only way of deterring further attacks is to race for nuclear capability as fast as it can?

What if those new military leaders round the table are more headstrong and less cautious than their dead predecessors?

At the very least, this could force Israel to further attacks, potentially binding the region into a continual round of strike and counter-strike. Israelis have a brutal phrase for this strategy; they call it "mowing the grass".

There's a global economic shock

The price of oil is already soaring.

What if Iran tried to close the Strait of Hormuz, further restricting the movement of oil?

What if – on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula - the Houthis in Yemen redouble their efforts to attack shipping in the Red Sea? They are Iran's last remaining so-called proxy ally with a track record of unpredictability and high risk appetite.

Many countries around the world are already suffering a cost of living crisis. A rising price of oil would add to inflation on a global economic system already creaking under the weight of Trump's tariff war.

And let's not forget, the one man who benefits from rising oil prices is President Putin of Russia who would suddenly see billions more dollars flood into Kremlin coffers to pay for his war against Ukraine.

Iran's regime falls, leaving a vacuum

What if Israel succeeded in its long term aim of forcing the collapse of the Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran?

Netanyahu claims his primary aim is to destroy Iran's nuclear capability. But he made clear in his statement yesterday that his broader aim involves regime change.

He told "the proud people of Iran" that his attack was "clearing the path for you to achieve your freedom" from what he called their "evil and oppressive regime".

Bringing down Iran's government might appeal to some in the region, especially some Israelis. But what vacuum might it leave? What unforeseen consequences would there be? What would civil conflict in Iran look like?

Many can remember what happened to both Iraq and Libya when strong centralised government was removed.

So, much depends on how this war progresses in coming days.

How - and how hard - will Iran retaliate? And what restraint – if any - can the US exert on Israel?

On the answer to those two questions much will depend.

School killings leave stunned Austria and France searching for answers

Matej Povse/Getty Images Two women in white T-shirts comfort each other amid a group of people and candles on the groundMatej Povse/Getty Images
The attacks within two hours of each other in Graz and Nogent have left two countries in shock

Two shocking attacks within two hours of each other, in France and Austria, have left parents and governments reeling and at a loss how to protect school students from random, deadly violence.

At about 08:15 on Tuesday, a 14-year-old boy from an ordinary family in Nogent, eastern France, drew out a kitchen knife during a school bag check and fatally stabbed a school assistant.

Not long afterwards in south-east Austria, a 21-year-old who had dropped out of school three years earlier, walked into Dreierschützengasse high school in Graz at 09:43, and shot dead nine students and a teacher with a Glock 19 handgun and a sawn-off shotgun.

In both countries there is a demand for solutions and for a greater focus on young people who resort to such violence.

Austria has never seen a school attack on this scale, but the French stabbing took place during a government programme aimed at tackling the growth in knife crime.

Austrians ask about gun laws and a failed system

The Graz shooter, named by Austrian media as Arthur A, has been described by police as a very introverted person, who had retreated to the virtual world.

His "great passion" was online first-person shooter games, and he had social contacts with other gamers over the internet, according to Michael Lohnegger, the criminal investigation chief in Styria, the state where it happened.

A former student at the Dreierschützengasse school, Arthur A had failed to complete his studies.

Arriving at the school, he put on a headset and shooting glasses, before going on a deadly seven-minute shooting spree. He then killed himself in a school bathroom.

He owned the two guns legally, had passed a psychological test to own a licence and had several sessions of weapons training earlier this year at a Graz shooting club.

This has sparked a big debate in Austria about whether its gun laws need to be tightened – and about the level of care available for troubled young people.

It has emerged that the shooter was rejected from the country's compulsory military service in July 2021.

Defence ministry spokesman Michael Bauer told the BBC that Arthur A was found to be "psychologically unfit" for service after he underwent tests. But he said Austria's legal system prevented the army from passing on the results of such tests.

There are now calls for that law to be changed.

Map showing centre of Graz and where the school is located in relations to the railway station, which is over a lot of railway lines and about 4 blocks down.

Alex, the mother of a 17-year-old boy who survived the shooting, told the BBC that more should have been done to prevent people like Arthur A from dropping out of school in the first place.

"We know… that when people shoot each other like this, it's mostly when they feel alone and drop out and be outside. And we don't know how to get them back in, into society, into the groups, into their peer groups," she said.

"We, as grown-ups, have got the responsibility for that, and we have to take it now."

President Alexander Van der Bellen raised the possibility of tightening Austria's gun laws, on a visit to Graz after the attack: "If we come to the conclusion that Austria's gun laws need to be changed to ensure greater safety, then we will do so."

Austria has one of the most heavily armed civilian populations in Europe, with an estimated 30 firearms per 100 people.

Although there have been school shootings here before, they have been far smaller and involved far fewer casualties.

The mayor of Graz, Elke Kahr, believes no private person should be able to have weapons at all. "Weapons licences are issued too quickly," she told Austria's ORF TV. "Only the police should carry weapons, not private individuals."

French focus on mental health as well as security

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN/AFP French gendarmes control the access to a secondary school after a 31-year-old teaching assistant was stabbed with a knife by a 15-year-old pupil during a bag search in Nogent, eastern France, on June 10, 2025JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN/AFP
Security was tight at the school in Nogent and the attack took place during a bag search

Armed gendarmes were present at the entrance to the Françoise Dolto middle school in Nogent, 100km (62 miles) east of Paris, when a teenager pulled out a 20cm kitchen knife and repeatedly stabbed Mélanie G, who was 31 and had a four-year-old son.

The boy accused of carrying out the murder told police that he had been reprimanded on Friday by another school assistant for kissing his girlfriend.

As a result he had a grudge against school assistants in general, and apparently had made up his mind to kill one. Schools were closed on Monday for a bank holiday, and Tuesday was his first day back.

The state prosecutor's initial assessment was that the boy, called Quentin, came from a normal functioning family, and had no criminal or mental health record.

However, the child also appeared detached and emotionless. Adept at violent video games, he showed a "fascination with death" and an "absence of reference-points relating to the value of human life".

The Nogent attack does not fit the template of anti-social youth crime or gang violence seen in France until now.

Nor is there any suggestion of indoctrination over social media.

According to the prosecutor, the boy did little of that. He had been violent on two occasions against fellow pupils, and was suspended for a day each time.

There is no family breakdown or deprivation and school officials described him as "sociable, a pretty good student, well-integrated into the life of the establishment".

This year he had even been named the class "ambassador" on bullying.

For all the calls for greater security at schools, this crime took place literally under the noses of armed gendarmes. As Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau put it, some crimes will happen no matter how many police you deploy.

For more information on the boy's state of mind, we must wait for the full psychologist's report, and it may well be that there were signs missed, or there are family details we do not yet know about.

On the face of it, he is perhaps more a middle-class loner, and his apparent normality suggests a crime triggered by internalised mental processes, rather than by peer-driven association or emulation.

AFP A boy hangs flowers on the fence of his schoolAFP
The killing of Mélanie G in Nogent has stunned the whole of France

That is what strikes the chord in France. If an ordinary boy can turn out like this from watching too many violent videos, then who is next?

Significantly, the French government had only just approved showing the British Netflix series Adolescence as an aid in schools.

There are differences, of course.

The boy arrested for the killing of a teenage girl in the TV series yields to evil "toxic male" influences on social media – but there is the same question of teenagers being made vulnerable by isolation online.

Across the political spectrum, there are calls for action but little agreement on what should be the priority, nor hope that anything can make much difference.

Before the killing, President Emmanuel Macron had angered the right by saying they were too obsessed with crime, and not sufficiently interested in other issues like the environment.

The Nogent attack put him on the back foot, and he has repeated his pledge to ban social media to under 15-year-olds.

But there are two difficulties. One is the practicality of the measure, which in theory is being dealt with by the EU but is succumbing to endless procrastination.

The other is that, according to the prosecutor, the boy was not especially interested in social media. It was violent video games that were his thing.

Prime Minister François Bayrou has said that sales of knives to under-15s will be banned. But the boy took his from home.

Bayrou says airport-style metal-detectors should be tested at schools, but most heads are opposed.

The populist right wants tougher sentences for teenagers carrying knives, and the exclusion of disruptive pupils from regular classes.

But the boy in Nogent was not a problem child.

About the only measure everyone says is needed is more provision of school doctors, nurses and psychologists in order to detect early signs of pupils going off the rails.

That of course will require a lot of money, which is another thing France does not have a lot of.

Hiding in the fields - farm workers fearing deportation stay in California's shadows

BBC News A woman kneeling on the ground, wearing a purple bandana over her face and a hat. She hides from US immigration authoritiesBBC News

The women crouch down motionless, kneeling between endless rows of fruit bushes, almost hidden from view.

"Are you from ICE?" one of the women, a farm worker in a hat and purple bandana, asks us fearfully.

After assuring her that we're not with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has been raiding nearby farms and arresting workers over the past week, she straightens her back, rising slightly out of the dirt.

"Have you seen any ICE vans? Are there patrol cars out there?" she asks, still unsure if we can be trusted and she can emerge.

The woman, an undocumented migrant from Mexico, has been picking berries in Oxnard, California since arriving in the US two years ago. It's a town which boasts of being the "strawberry capital of the world".

As her work shift ended on Wednesday, she and her co-workers hid in the fields, waiting to be picked up by a friend and unsure whether it was safe to venture out into the parking lot.

On the previous day, nine farms in the Oxnard area were visited by ICE agents, say local activists, but without search warrants they were denied entry and instead picked up people on the nearby streets, arresting 35.

The workplace raids are part of President Donald Trump's goal of arresting 3,000 undocumented immigrants per day. On the campaign trail he had vowed to deport noncitizens accused of violent crimes, a promise that received widespread support, even among some Hispanics.

But in Los Angeles there was a public backlash and street protests that sometimes turned violent, prompting him to controversially send in the military to the second largest city in the US.

"They treat us like criminals, but we only came here to work and have a better life," says the woman, who left her children behind in Mexico two years ago and hopes to return to them next year.

"We don't want to leave the house anymore. We don't want to go to the store. We're afraid they'll catch us."

Watch: Surveillance video shows immigration raid at Westchester Hand Wash

Large-scale raids on workplaces in California's agricultural heartland haven't been seen for the last 15 years, says Lucas Zucker, a community organiser in California's Central Coast region.

But that seems to have changed this past week.

"They are just sweeping through immigrant communities like Oxnard indiscriminately, looking for anyone they can find to meet their politically-driven quotas," he says.

More than 40% of US farmworkers are undocumented immigrants, according to a 2022 report by the US Department of Agriculture. In California, more than 75% are undocumented, according to the University of California, Merced.

Raids at farms and businesses that rely on the agricultural industry throughout California, and across the entire country, have ramped up this month.

The arrests have raised fears of shortages to America's food supply, if the migrants are arrested or forced into hiding, afraid to come to work.

BBC News Farm workers bent over in a field, with palm trees in the distanceBBC News

This impact has not been lost on the White House. Despite winning the election decisively after promising mass deportations, Trump on Thursday acknowledged the tough time his crackdown is inflicting on the farming sector.

"Our farmers are being hurt badly. You know, they have very good workers. They've worked for them for 20 years. They're not citizens, but they've turned out to be, you know, great."

In April, he said that some migrants may be authorised to continue working in the US, on the condition that they have a formal recommendation from their employer and that they first leave the US.

Raquel Pérez stands next to pastries in her restaurant. There is only one customer eating, and many empty tables

The result of one raid on Tuesday in Oxnard, a municipality 60 miles (100km) from downtown Los Angeles, can be seen in a video posted to Instagram by a local flower merchant.

The short clip shows a man running in a vast field of crops, through a haze of thick morning fog, as agents give chase on foot and in trucks. He is then seen falling to the ground, among the rows of plants, as agents move to arrest him.

When the BBC visited Oxnard on Wednesday, a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) truck was seen parked outside an organic produce trucking company. A security guard insisted their visit was not related to immigration, saying: "This is not ICE. We would never let ICE in here."

Many tractors and trucks sat idle surrounded by acres of farmland, as an unknown number of workers chose to stay home.

The impact is having ripple effects on other businesses. Watching from her family's Mexican restaurant, Raquel Pérez saw masked CBP agents attempt to enter Boskovich Farms, a vegetable and herb packing facility across the street.

Now her business, Casa Grande Cafe, has only one customer during the normally busy lunch hour, because farm workers have stayed home. She estimates that at least half of her normal clientele are undocumented.

"No one came in today," says her mother, Paula Pérez. "We're all on edge."

Raquel says she's more concerned now for the future of the restaurant - serving chilaquiles, flan, and other Mexican delicacies - than she was during Covid, when her customers continued their work as usual, keeping the nation supplied with fresh foods.

"They don't realise the domino effect this is going to have," she says about the raids. Other companies around her that rely on agriculture have already been affected. The adjacent business buying and selling wooden pallets is closed, and a local car mechanic too.

"If the strawberries or vegetables aren't picked, that means there's gonna be nothing coming into the packing houses. Which means there's not gonna be no trucks to take the stuff."

A truck selling strawberries on the side of the road. There is a colourful red cartoon logo of a strawberry and the fruits sit on the bed of the pick up truck

A migrant selling strawberries from his truck on the side of the road says the raids have already had a devastating effect - on both his business and his hopes of becoming a legal resident of the US.

"Fewer people are going out for trips, and they buy less from me," says Óscar, who comes from the Mexican state of Tlaxcala and, while undocumented himself, has children who were born in the US.

"I'm scared, but I can't stop going out to work. I have to provide for my family," he says.

Óscar says he has been working to finalise his immigration status, but with ICE agents now waiting outside courthouses for migrants seeking to process paperwork, he's unsure of what to do next.

"There aren't many ways left to be here legally."

Iran is reeling from Israel's unprecedented attack - and it is only the start

BBC Treated image of a damaged building in the Iranian capital, Tehran, following an Israeli attack, on 13 June 2025.BBC

Israel's "Operation Rising Lion", as it calls its attack on Iran, is unprecedented. It is vastly more extensive and ambitious than anything that has come before, including the two missile and drone exchanges it had with Iran last year. For Iran, this is the biggest assault on its territory since the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988.

In the darkest hours before dawn the Israeli Air Force targeted not just sites linked to Iran's nuclear programme but also the country's air defences and ballistic missile bases, thereby reducing Iran's ability to retaliate.

On the ground and in the shadows, the network of operatives working for Mossad, Israel's overseas intelligence agency, reportedly helped to pinpoint the exact location of key figures in both the military command and nuclear scientists.

Those killed overnight include the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the guardians of the Islamic Revolution that overthrew the Shah's regime in 1979, as well as the head of the mainstream armed forces and the head of the IRGC air force. Iran says at least six of its scientists have been killed.

Once again, Israel's spy agency is shown to have successfully penetrated the very heart of Iran's security establishment, proving that no one there is safe.

Getty Images A view of damaged vehicles in the Iranian capital, Tehran, following an attack, on 13 June 2025.Getty Images
There will be many more potential targets on Israel's hitlist, although some may be beyond its reach

Iran's state TV reported that 78 people were killed and said that civilians, including children, were among the dead. (This is an unofficial figure and has not been independently verified.)

Mossad was reportedly able to launch drones from inside Iran as part of this attack. The primary targets of this whole operation have been the nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz and bases belonging to the IRGC. For Israeli military planners, this has been a long time coming.

Iran is reeling and this may be only the first wave. There will be many more potential targets on Israel's hitlist, although some may be beyond its reach, buried deep underground in reinforced bases beneath solid rock.

So what has led to this attack by Israel and why now?

Curbing Iran's nuclear programme

Israel, and several Western countries, suspect that Iran has been secretly working towards what is called "breakout capability", meaning the point of no return in developing a viable nuclear weapon.

Iran denies this and has always insisted that its civil nuclear programme – which has received help from Russia – is for entirely peaceful purposes.

For more than a decade Israel has been trying, with varying degrees of success, to slow down and set back Iran's nuclear progress. Iranian scientists have been mysteriously assassinated by unknown assailants, the military head of the nuclear programme, Brig-Gen Fakhrizadeh was killed by a remote-controlled machine-gun on a lonely road near Tehran in 2020.

Before that, US and Israeli cyber sleuths were able to insert a devastating computer virus, codenamed Stuxnet, into Iran's centrifuges, which caused them to spin out of control.

Getty Images A file photo dated 18 April 2019 shows Iranian Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri and then-Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attending a military parade in Tehran, Iran.Getty Images
Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of the country's armed forces (pictured left) was among those killed

This week the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), found Iran to be in breach of its non-proliferation obligations and threatened to refer it to the UN Security Council.

Many of the concerns over Iran's nuclear programme arise from its stockpiling of highly enriched uranium (HEU) that has been enriched up to 60 per cent, far beyond the level needed to generate civil nuclear power and a relatively short hop to the level needed to start building a bomb.

There was a deal to curb Iran's nuclear programme. It was concluded in 2015 during the Obama presidency, but Donald Trump called it "the worst deal in the world" and when he got into the White House he pulled the US out of it. The following year Iran stopped complying with it.

Nobody outside Iran wants the Islamic Republic to possess the nuclear bomb. Israel, a small country with much of its 9.5 million-strong population concentrated in urban areas, views a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat.

It points to the numerous statements by senior Iranian figures calling for the destruction of the State of Israel. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf Arab states don't much care for Iran's revolutionary Islamic Republic regime but they have learned to live with it as a neighbour.

Getty Images A view of a damaged building in the Iranian capital, Tehran, following an Israeli attack, on 13 June 2025.Getty Images
Mossad was reportedly able to launch drones from inside Iran as part of the attack

They will now be extremely nervous about the risks of this conflict spreading to their own shores.

For Israel, the timing was crucial. Iran has already been weakened by the effective defeat or elimination of its proxies and allies in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. Its air defences were heavily compromised after last October's attacks by Israel.

There is a sympathetic president in the White House and lastly, Israel reportedly feared that some of Iran's key uranium enrichment equipment was about to be moved deep underground.

Where does this go from here?

It is clear what Israel wants by this operation: it is aiming to, at the very least, set back Iran's nuclear programme by years. Preferably it would like to halt it altogether.

There will also be many in Israel's military, political and intelligence circles who will be hoping that this operation could even so weaken Iran's leadership that it collapses altogether, ushering in a more benign regime that no longer poses a threat in the region. That may be wishful thinking on their part.

President Trump said on Friday that Iran had "a second chance" to agree to a deal. A sixth round of US-Iran negotiations was due to take place in Muscat on Sunday but Israel does not set much store by these talks.

Getty Images Donald Trump speaks alongside Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on 7 April 2025.Getty Images
For Israel the timing was crucial, says Frank Gardner. Among other things, there is a sympathetic president in the White House

Just as Russia is accused of stringing along Trump over peace talks with Ukraine, Israel believes Iran is doing the same here.

Israel believes this is its best and possibly last chance to kill off Iran's suspected nuclear weapons programme.

"Israel's unprecedented strikes across Iran overnight were designed to kill President Trump's chances of striking a deal to contain the Iranian nuclear programme," says Ellie Geranmayeh, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

"It is clear their [the attacks] timing and large-scale nature was intended to completely derail talks."

Washington has gone to some lengths to relay to Iran that it was not involved in this attack. But if Iran decides to retaliate against any of the many US bases in the region, either directly or via its proxies, then there is a risk the US could get dragged into yet another Middle East conflict.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has vowed "harsh punishment" for Israel but Iran is in a much weaker position today than it was two years ago and its options for retaliation are limited.

Talk of a nuclear arms race

There is, however, an even bigger risk here. Israel's operation could still backfire, triggering a nuclear arms race.

Hardline hawks inside Iran's security establishment have long argued that the best deterrence against future attacks by Israel or the US would be for it to acquire the nuclear bomb. They will have taken note of the differing fates of leaders in Libya and North Korea.

Libya's Colonel Gaddafi gave up his Weapons of Mass Destruction programme in 2003; eight years later he was dead in a ditch, overthrown by the Arab Spring protests that were backed by Western air power.

By contrast, North Korea has defied all international sanctions to build up a formidable arsenal of nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles, enough to make any potential attacker think twice.

Whatever the final damage amounts to from Israel's Operation Rising Lion, if Iran's regime survives – and it has defied the odds before – then there is a risk it will now accelerate its race towards building and even testing a nuclear bomb.

If that happens then it will almost inevitably trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and possibly Egypt all deciding they need one too.

BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. And we showcase thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. You can send us your feedback on the InDepth section by clicking on the button below.

Black box found at Air India crash site as families wait for answers

EPA Image shows two officials inspecting the site of an airplane crash near Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, western IndiaEPA

A black box has been found at the site of the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad, India's civil aviation minister said on Friday.

The flight data recorder was recovered within 28 hours by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu confirmed.

All but one of the 242 people on the London-bound flight died when it crashed into a residential area less than 60 seconds after take-off on Thursday. An official told the BBC that at least eight people on the ground were also killed.

"The [recovery of the black box] marks an important step forward in the investigation" and will "significantly aid the inquiry" into the disaster, Mr Kinjarapu said.

Planes usually carry two black boxes - small but tough electronic data recorders.

One records flight data, such as altitude and speed. The other records sound from the cockpit, so investigators can hear what the pilots are saying and listen for any unusual noises.

AAIB is leading the inquiry into the cause of the crash, helped by teams from the US and UK. Boeing's chief executive, Kelly Ortberg, said the company was supporting the investigation.

Air India said there were 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft when it crashed moments after taking off from Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 13:39 local time (08:09 GMT).

It was scheduled to land at London's Gatwick airport at 18:25 BST.

On Friday, the wreckage was still scattered across the crash site, including the blackened wing of the plane, with large pieces of the aircraft stuck in buildings.

Investigators arrived at the scene and crowds were moved further away from the wreckage.

A doctor told the BBC that they are relying on DNA from relatives to identify the victims. A police official at the post-mortem room told the BBC that the remains of six people had been released to families so far, as their relatives were able to identify them based on facial features.

The sole survivor of the crash, British national Vishwashkumar Ramesh, who was in seat 11A on the flight, is still recovering in hospital.

"I still cannot believe how I made it out alive," he told India's state broadcaster DD News on Thursday.

"At first, I thought I was going to die. I managed to open my eyes, unfastened my seat belt and tried to exit the plane."

Mr Ramesh, 40, who sustained burn injuries on his left hand, said he saw the aircraft crew and its passengers die in front of his eyes.

Meanwhile, desperate families are still waiting for news of their relatives.

Imtiaz Ali, whose brother Javed and his family were on the flight, said that until he sees his brother's body, he will not believe he has died.

"If I get sad and start crying, then I'll be uncontrollable," he told the BBC.

"No-one will be able to stop me... my heart might burst."

'I don't believe it yet': Passengers' families wait for answers

The plane crashed in a residential area called Meghani Nagar and, even though it had just taken off, the impact was severe. Wreckage spread over 200m (656ft), according to responders.

It is still unclear exactly how many were killed on the ground, but the BBC has been told that at least eight people, who were not on the aircraft, have died.

Dr Minakshi Parikh, the dean of the BJ Medical College and Civil Hospital, said four of their students died as the plane crashed into buildings on the campus.

"There were also four relatives of our doctors who were on the campus when the aircraft crashed - they too were killed," Dr Parikh said.

"We are relying only on DNA matching to identify them and it is something where we simply cannot rush or afford mistakes.

"We are working with sincerity. We want relatives to understand, and be a bit patient. We want to hand over [the bodies] as soon as possible."

On Friday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spent around 20 minutes at the site of the plane crash.

He did not speak to reporters afterwards but a video posted on his YouTube channel showed him walking around the site and inspecting the debris.

Modi also visited the location of a now-viral image that shows the tail of the crashed plane lodged in a building.

EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Narendra Modi looking up at the plane's tail that is crashed into a building.EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Pictures of the plane's tail lying in a building have become some of the defining images of this disaster

Earlier on Friday, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson also went to the crash site, later describing the visit as "deeply moving".

According to data by tracking website, Flightradar24, the Boeing Dreamliner 787-8 had completed more than 700 flights in the year leading up to the Thursday's disaster.

The Air India plane was 11 years old and its most common routes included flights between Mumbai and Dubai, as well as the capital New Delhi and European destinations such as Milan, Paris and Amsterdam.

The plane had operated 25 flights from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick in the past two years.

'I walked out of rubble': Survivor on how he escaped Air India wreckage

PA Media Vishwashkumar Ramesh lying in hospital bed as he is visited by India of Home Affairs Minister Amit ShahPA Media

The British man who was the sole survivor of Thursday's Air India plane crash said he managed to escape the wreckage through an opening in the fuselage.

"I managed to unbuckle myself, used my leg to push through that opening, and crawled out," Vishwashkumar Ramesh told Indian state media DD News.

Mr Ramesh, 40, was in seat 11A on the London-bound Boeing 787 flight when it went down shortly after take off in Ahmedabad, western India on Thursday.

Air India said all other passengers and crew were killed - including 169 Indian nationals and 52 British nationals. More than 200 bodies have been recovered so far, though it is unclear how many were passengers and how many were from the ground.

Speaking from his hospital bed, Mr Ramesh said the lights inside the aircraft "started flickering" moments after take off.

Within five to 10 seconds, it felt like the plane was "stuck in the air", he said.

"The lights started flickering green and white...suddenly slammed into a building and exploded."

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed into a building used as accommodation for doctors at the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Medical College and Civil Hospital.

Mr Ramesh told the Indian broadcaster he could not believe that he came out alive.

"I saw people dying in front of my eyes - the air hostesses, and two people I saw near me," he said.

"For a moment, I felt like I was going to die too, but when I opened my eyes and looked around, I realised I was alive.

"I still can't believe how I survived. I walked out of the rubble."

'Traffic saved me': Student missed Air India crash by just 10 minutes

Bhumi Chauhan Bhoomi Chauhan missed her flight to London due arriving late at Ahmedabad Airport. Bhumi is posing for a photo next to the backdrop of a city centre landmark, next to a navy lamppost and a pelican crossingBhumi Chauhan
Bhoomi Chauhan says she missed her flight to London after arriving late at Ahmedabad airport

Bhoomi Chauhan remembers being angry and frustrated. Bumper-to-bumper traffic had delayed her car journey to Ahmedabad airport - so much so that she missed her Air India flight to London Gatwick by just 10 minutes.

Ms Chauhan, a business administration student who lives in Bristol with her husband, had been visiting western India for a holiday.

The 28-year-old was due to fly home on AI171 on Thursday, which crashed shortly after take-off, killing 241 people on board and more on the ground.

But after arriving at the airport less than an hour before departure, airline staff turned her away.

"We got very angry with our driver and left the airport in frustration," she recalls. "I was very disappointed.

"We left the airport and stood at a place to drink tea and after a while, before leaving... we were talking to the travel agent about how to get a refund for the ticket.

"There, I got a call that the plane had gone down."

Speaking to the BBC's Gujrati service, she adds: "This is totally a miracle for me."

Ms Chauhan says she arrived at the airport at 12:20 PM local time, 10 minutes after boarding was due to commence.

Her digital boarding pass, seen by BBC News, shows her assigned to economy class seat 36G.

But despite having checked in online, she says airline staff would not allow her to complete the process at the airport.

She had travelled from Ankleshwar - 201km (125 miles) south of Ahmedabad - before being held up in Ahmedabad's city centre traffic.

Ms Chauhan says: "When I missed the flight, I was dejected. Only thing that I had in mind was, 'If I had started a little early, I would have boarded the plane'.

"I requested airline staff to allow me inside as I am only 10 minutes [late]. I told them that I am the last passenger and so please allow me to board the plane, but they did not allow me."

Steady stream of ambulances, grief-struck families as bodies get identified

The Gatwick flight took off as scheduled on Thursday afternoon, but appeared to struggle to gain altitude and crashed about 30 seconds into the flight.

The plane hit a residential area, killing 241 passengers and 12 crew members. At least eight people on the ground are so far known to have died.

One passenger, British national Vishwashkumar Ramesh, survived the crash and was treated in hospital for injuries.

Indian, Portuguese and Canadian nationals were also on board.

Among the 53 Britons to have been killed were a family who lived in Gloucester, three members of the same family who lived in London, and a married couple who ran a spiritual wellness centre in the capital.

Emergency services and officials worked late into Thursday night and into Friday to clear debris and search for answers.

Additional reporting by Sajid Patel

Appeals court temporarily allows Trump to keep National Guard in LA

BBC 'Breaking' graphicBBC

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's deployment of California's National Guard to Los Angeles and called the move illegal.

The judge's order to return control of the troops to California Governor Gavin Newsom will not go into effect immediately and the administration has filed an appeal.

The state sued President Donald Trump on Monday over his order to deploy the troops without Gov Newsom's consent.

Trump said he was sending the troops - who are typically under the governor's authority - to stop LA from "burning down" in protests against his immigration crackdown. Local authorities have argued they have the situation in hand and do not need troops.

Judge Charles Breyer said the question presented by California's request was whether Trump followed the law set by Congress on the deployment of a state's National Guard.

"He did not," the judge wrote in his decision. "His actions were illegal... He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the Governor of the State of California forthwith."

Gov Newsom posted on social media after the order was filed that "the court just confirmed what we all know — the military belongs on the battlefield, not on our city streets".

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.

Major music festival pulls out of Serbia after backing student protests

Srdjan Stevanovic/Getty Images Festival goers walk around in front of the stage of the Exit festival in 2024Srdjan Stevanovic/Getty Images
Festival organisers say their support for student protests has led to funding being pulled

One of Europe's largest music festivals is pulling out of Serbia with organisers blaming "undemocratic pressures".

Exit festival will hold its 25th anniversary edition in the country between 10 and 13 July, but said it "will be the last to take place" there.

Organisers say Serbian authorities have cut off government funding for the event and some sponsors have been "forced to withdraw under state pressure".

They say this relates to the festival's support for an ongoing student-led anti-corruption protest movement in Serbia.

Provincial officials at the culture secretariat have rejected the allegations, blaming financial pressures for being "unable to provide support".

Held at Petrovaradin Fortress in Serbia's second city, Novi Sad, the festival attracted 200,000 visitors last year.

Exit has its roots in the pro-democracy protest movement which eventually led to the defeat of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia's presidential elections in 2000.

That activist tradition has continued, with each year given a theme, ranging from "Stop Human Trafficking" to "Loud and Queer".

Following last November's disaster at Novi Sad railway station – where 16 people died when a concrete canopy collapsed – students launched protests, and the festival offered its support to them.

This ranged from joining students on protest marches to providing "food, sleeping bags, and other necessities" and publishing messages of support on social media and Exit's website.

Founder Dusan Kovacevic says this has now come at a heavy financial cost for the festival, but that "freedom has no price".

In a statement about the decision to pull out of Serbia after 25 years, he calls for people to remember Exit "not for its end, but for its unity. For love. For freedom".

It is unclear whether the festival will seek to relocate to a different country, and if so where.

Srdjan Stevanovic/Getty Images Young festival goers enjoy the music at the EXIT festival in Novi SadSrdjan Stevanovic/Getty Images
Audiences have topped 200,000 at the festival in recent years

Headline acts over the years have included The White Stripes, Arctic Monkeys and The Cure.

Next month, The Prodigy are returning for their sixth appearance at the festival, alongside The Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter and French DJ and producer DJ Snake.

Exit has won two European festival of the year awards and grown to become one of the continent's largest multi-day music events.

Daryl Fidelak, who runs a Belgrade-based record label, says the festival has had an immense impact on Serbia's creative scene.

"It's opened the eyes of the international audience, bringing lots of foreigners who might have had a negative – or even no – impression of Serbia," he says.

"Exit has helped Serbia get to a good place with live music and culture, spawning a lot of other festivals, bookers and events."

Global oil prices soar after Israel attacks Iran

Getty Images A woman fills a red car with diesel from the pump.Getty Images
Rising crude oil prices can push up how much we pay at the pumps

Global oil prices jumped after Israel said it had struck Iran, in a dramatic escalation of tensions in the Middle East.

Benchmark oil contracts Brent Crude and Nymex light sweet were up by more than 10% after the news emerged.

Traders are concerned that a conflict between Iran and Israel could disrupt supplies coming from the energy-rich region.

The cost of crude oil affects everything from the price of food at the supermarket to how much it costs to fill up your car.

Analysts have told the BBC that energy traders will now be watching to see whether Iran retaliates in the coming days.

"It's an explosive situation, albeit one that could be defused quickly as we saw in April and October last year, when Israel and Iran struck each other directly," Vandana Hari of Vandana Insights told the BBC.

"It could also spiral out into a bigger war that disrupts Mideast oil supply," she added.

In an extreme scenario, Iran could disrupt supplies of millions of barrels of oil a day if it targets infrastructure or shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

The strait is one of the world's most important shipping routes, with about a fifth of the world's oil passing through it.

At any one time, there are several dozen tankers on their way to the Strait of Hormuz, or leaving it, as major oil and gas producers in the Middle East and their customers transport energy from the region.

Bounded to the north by Iran and to the south by Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Strait of Hormuz connects the Gulf with the Arabian Sea.

"What we see now is very initial risk-on reaction. But over the next day or two, the market will need to factor in where this could escalate to," Saul Kavonic, head of energy research at MST Financial said.

Additional reporting by Katie Silver

Nigeria pardons activist Ken Saro-Wiwa 30 years after execution

Tim Lambon / Greenpeace Ken Saro-Wiwa gestures, wearing a necklace and a red, patterened top.Tim Lambon / Greenpeace
The secret militrial trial of Ken Saro-Wiwa was widely seen as a sham

Nigeria's president has pardoned the late activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, 30 years after his execution sparked global outrage.

Along with eight other campaigners, Mr Saro-Wiwa was convicted of murder, then hanged in 1995 by the then-military regime.

Many believed the activists were being punished for leading protests against the operations of oil multinationals, particularly Shell, in Nigeria's Ogoniland. Shell has long denied any involvement in the executions.

Though the pardons have been welcomed, some activists and relatives say they do not go far enough.

As well as issuing the pardons on Thursday, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu bestowed national honours on Mr Saro-Wiwa and his fellow campaigners, who were known as the Ogoni Nine.

The nine men - Mr Saro-Wiwa, Barinem Kiobel, John Kpuinen, Baribor Bera, Felix Nuate, Paul Levula, Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo and Daniel Gbokoo - were among dozens who received the honours as part of Nigeria's annual Democracy Day.

Tinubu said the accolades recognised "heroes" who had made "outstanding contributions " to the nation's democracy.

Responding to the pardons for the Ogoni Nine, campaign groups said they would like the government to take further steps.

The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop), which was formerly led by Mr Saro-Wiwa, called the pardon a "courageous act".

However, Mosop also said that the pardon implies wrongdoing, while in reality "no crime ever took place".

Barinem Kiobel's widow expressed her gratitude to Tinubu for the national honour, but called on the president to "properly declare [her] husband and his compatriots innocent" because a "pardon is not granted to the innocent".

Likewise, Amnesty International said clemency falls "far short of the justice the Ogoni Nine need".

More must be done to hold oil companies to account for environmental damage currently occurring in Nigeria, the organisation added.

Mr Saro-Wiwa, who was one of Nigeria's leading authors, led the Ogoni people in peaceful demonstrations against Shell and other oil companies.

Mosop accused the multinational company of polluting the land that locals relied on for their livelihoods.

The Nigerian government responded by brutally cracking down on the protesters. The Ogoni Nine were subsequently found guilty by a secret military tribunal of the murder of four Ogoni chiefs.

Their execution sparked outrage within the international community. It was widely condemned as extrajudicial murder and became a global symbol of the struggle against environmental injustice and repression.

Nigeria was consequently suspended from the Commonwealth group of nations.

Since then, Shell has faced various lawsuits over oil spills and environmental damage in the Niger Delta, the southern region that Ogoniland is a part of.

In 2021 a Dutch court ordered Shell to compensate farmers for spills that contaminated swathes of farmland and fishing waters in the Niger Delta. The company agreed to pay more than a hundred million dollars.

Earlier this year, lawyers representing two Ogoniland communities argued in London's High Court that Shell must take responsibility for oil pollution that occurred between 1989 and 2020.

Shell denies wrongdoing and says spills in the region have been caused by sabotage, theft and illegal refining for which the company says it is not liable.

The case's full trial is set for 2026.

Additional reporting by Chris Ewokor

More BBC stories about Nigeria:

Getty Images/BBC A woman looking at her mobile phone and the graphic BBC News AfricaGetty Images/BBC

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica

❌