Ukraine's capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least eight people reported injured and fires burning across the city.

Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage has hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.

Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows explosions in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine's military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.

Last night, Ukraine reported the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia, after 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities around the country in multiple waves.

In the early hours of Thursday, morning Kyiv's military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.

"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.

He urged city residents to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted.

Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.

Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.

In other developments:

• Ukraine's emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka - close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
• The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical arms

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine's capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least eight people reported injured and fires burning across the city.

Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage has hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.

Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows explosions in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine's military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.

Last night, Ukraine reported the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia, after 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities around the country in multiple waves.

In the early hours of Thursday, morning Kyiv's military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.

"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.

He urged city residents to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted.

Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.

Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.

In other developments:

• Ukraine's emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka - close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
• The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical arms

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine's capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least eight people reported injured and fires burning across the city.

Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage has hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.

Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows explosions in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine's military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.

Last night, Ukraine reported the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia, after 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities around the country in multiple waves.

In the early hours of Thursday, morning Kyiv's military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.

"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.

He urged city residents to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted.

Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.

Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.

In other developments:

• Ukraine's emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka - close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
• The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical arms

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

US President Donald Trump said he was planning to impose a 50% tax on goods made in Brazil, escalating his fight with the South American country.

He announced the plan in his latest tariff letter, shared on social media, accusing Brazil of "attacks" on US tech companies and conducting a "witch hunt" against former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing prosecution over his role trying to overturn the 2022 election.

Trump had already sparred with Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over Bolsonaro's trial earlier this week.

At the time, President Lula said Brazil would not accept "interference" from anyone and added: "No one is above the law."

Trump has posted 22 letters to countries around the world this week, including trade partners such as Japan, South Korea and Sri Lanka, outlining new tariffs on their goods he says will come into force on 1 August.

The moves have largely served to revive plans he had put forward in April but that were put on hold after financial markets recoiled at the measures.

But the message to Brazil was a far more targeted missive and threatened a significant increase from the 10% rate the White House had previously announced.

The Trump administration is imposing sanctions on the UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, an outspoken critic of Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio linked the move to her support for the International Criminal Court (ICC), some of whose judges have already been sanctioned by the US.

Rubio said the US was sanctioning Ms Albanese for directly engaging with the ICC in its efforts to prosecute American or Israeli nationals, accusing her of being unfit for service as a UN Special Rapporteur.

The sanctions are likely to prevent Ms Albanese from travelling to the US and would block any assets she has in the country.

It is the latest escalation by the Trump administration as it wages a campaign against the ICC, having already sanctioned four its judges after the court last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his then defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza, accusations they reject.

Mr Rubio also accused Ms Albanese of having "spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West."

The move is likely to provoke a fierce backlash from those who argue for accountability over the civilian death toll from Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

The special rapporteur has longed argued that Western governments are not doing enough to support the rights of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories, and with her outspoken stance has attracted significant support among those who accuse Israeli and US leaders of weaponising accusations of antisemitism in order to silence criticism of their policies.

The timing of the sanctions announcement is notable with Netanyahu currently in Washington, where he on Wednesday received an extended honour cordon at the Pentagon.

Ms Albanese has previously rejected similar claims against her, telling the BBC in October: "I don't take these remarks and the defamation they carry lightly, but at the same time, I know this is not about me, as my predecessors knew that it was not about them.

"I also know these member states [making accusations of antisemitism] have done absolutely nothing to abide by international law."

Her office has been approached for comment.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 57,575 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of Gaza's population has also been displaced multiple times. More than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and there are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.

South Korea's former president has been rearrested over last year's failed martial law bid that plunged the country into political turmoil.

Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached in April over the order, which saw military rule introduced for six-hours in December.

A senior judge at Seoul's Central District Court issued an arrest warrant for Yoon on Wednesday, citing fears he could destroy evidence.

Yoon, who was the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested, faces trial on charges of leading an insurrection over his attempt to impose martial law.

During Wednesday's seven-hour hearing, a special counsel team argued for the arrest warrant on five key charges, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

The charges include Yoon's alleged violation of the rights of cabinet members by not inviting some of them to a meeting before he declared martial law.

Yoon initially attended the hearing alongside his lawyers to deny the charges, before being taken to Seoul Detention Center to await a decision on an arrest warrant.

He was first arrested in January following a lengthy stand-off, with investigators scaling barricades and cutting through barbed wire to take him into custody from his residence in central Seoul.

Yoon was released two months later after a court overturned his arrest on technical grounds, but still faces trial.

If found guilty, he could face life in prison or the death penalty.

Prosecutors have reportedly found evidence that Yoon ordered military drones to be flown over North Korea to provoke a reaction that would justify his martial law declaration, according to reports.

Other senior officials also face charges including insurrection and abuse of authority over the martial law declaration.

Insurrection is one of a small number of criminal charges from which South Korean presidents do not have immunity, but now Yoon is no longer president he is open to other criminal charges.

South Korea's new president, Lee Jae-myung, was elected in June following a snap election after Yoon's impeachment.

Lee campaigned on the promise to strengthen the country's democracy following the crisis and appointed a special counsel team to investigate Yoon over the imposition of martial-law, as well as other criminal allegations surrounding his administration.

As Chinese authorities issue warnings for extreme heat in the country's eastern region, students are leaving their stuffy dormitories to camp in hallways and supermarkets.

Some have ditched their campuses altogether.

"We sometimes go out to stay in hotels for the air-conditioning," a 20-year-old university student in the northeastern Changchun city, who declined to be named, tells the BBC. "There are always a few days in a year where it's unbearably hot."

Hotels have become popular among students seeking to avoid sweaty nights in their dormitories, which typically house four to eight people a room and do not have air conditioning.

But for many the move is a last resort. "Checking into a hotel is a huge expense for us students," the student in Changchun says.

So on less desperate days, he perches a bowl of ice cubes in front of a small fan to cool down his dormitory room - what he calls "a homemade air-conditioner". The invention has tided him over as the semester ended this week.

The sanfu season, known to be China's "dog days", usually starts in mid-July. But it arrived early this year, with temperatures in the eastern region soaring above 40C (104F) over the past week - and catching millions of residents off guard.

Concerns about the high temperatures spiralled after reports that a dormitory guard had died in his room at Qingdao University on Sunday - from what many believed to be heatstroke.

His cause of death was "under investigation", said a statement released by the university on Monday. It said that he had been found in his room in an "abnormal condition" and pronounced dead when paramedics arrived at the scene.

Tributes quickly poured in for the man, known endearingly among students as the dormitory "uncle" who took care of stray cats on the campus.

"The kittens don't know that Uncle has gone far away. After today it met a lot of people, but never heard Uncle's voice again," a Weibo user commented.

The incident has also cast a spotlight on the living conditions of the school's staff and students. Also on Sunday, a student in the same university was sent to the hospital after suffering a heat stroke, Jimu News reported.

"The quality of a university does not lie in how many buildings it has, but rather how it treats the regular people who quietly support the school's operation," wrote another Weibo user.

In recent weeks China has been dealing with extreme weather - a worldwide phenomenon that experts have linked to climate change.

Chinese authorities issued flash flood warnings on Wednesday after a typhoon made landfall on China's eastern coast. The storm, which killed two in Taiwan this week, and has moved across the Chinese provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian.

On the other side of the country, floods swept away a bridge linking Nepal and China. At least nine died and more than a dozen- both Nepalese and Chinese nationals - remain missing.

Meanwhile, heatwaves in China have become hotter and longer.

In 2022, particularly gruelling heat caused more than 50,000 deaths, according to estimates by medical journal The Lancet. The following year saw a township in Xinjiang, northwestern China, logging 52.5C - the highest recorded temperature in China.

2024 was China's warmest year on record, with July becoming the hottest month the country has seen since it started tracking temperatures in 1961.

"It feels like global warming has really affected our world," says the university student in Changchun. "When I was young the summers in the northeast were really comfortable. But now the summers are getting hotter and hotter."

This year, high temperatures again tested the limits of residents.

Last week, a video showed a man in Zhejiang province smashing the window of a train to let air in, after the train derailed and passengers were stuck for hours in the sweltering heat.

In the neighbouring Jiangxi province, an air-conditioned restaurant has become a hotspot for elderly folks to while away their afternoons without ordering any food - to the chagrin of restaurant staff, local media reported.

In the northeastern Jilin province, university students reportedly slept in tents lining an air-conditioned hallway.

And after reports emerged of students in Shandong province squatting in supermarkets and checking into nearby hotels to escape the heat, a university arranged for its students to sleep in the library, Hongxing News reported.

Several schools in Shandong province have announced plans to make their dormitories air-conditioned - an increasingly indispensable amenity.

Air-conditioning has accounted for more than a third of the demand on the power grid in eastern China, China's energy authorities said, as nationwide electricity demand reached a record high in early July.

Qingdao University officials told local media on Monday that it also had plans to install air-conditioning in student dormitories over the summer break.

It is just what one high school student in Jinan city, 350km away, needed to hear.

The teenager, who had just completed his college entrance examinations, tells the BBC that he had been hesitant to go to Qingdao University - his top choice - because of its dormitories.

"Without air-conditioning, it's too hot to survive," he says.

Six crew members have been rescued and at least three others killed after a cargo ship was attacked by Yemen's Houthis and sank in the Red Sea, a European naval mission says.

The Liberian-flagged, Greek-operated Eternity C was carrying 25 crew when it sustained significant damage and lost all propulsion after being hit by rocket-propelled grenades fired from small boats on Monday, according to the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency.

The attack continued on Tuesday and search rescue operations commenced overnight.

The Iran-backed Houthis said they attacked the Eternity C because it was heading to Israel, and that they took an unspecified number of crew to a "safe location".

The US embassy in Yemen said the Houthis had kidnapped "many surviving crew members" and called for their immediate release.

Authorities in the Philippines said 21 of the crew were citizens. Another of them is a Russian national who was severely wounded in the attack and lost a leg.

It is the second vessel the Houthis have sunk in a week, after the group on Sunday launched missiles and drones at another Liberian-flagged, Greek-operated cargo ship, Magic Seas, which they claimed "belong[ed] to a company that violated the entry ban to the ports of occupied Palestine".

Video footage released by the Houthis on Tuesday showed armed men boarding the vessel and setting off a series of explosions which caused it to sink.

All 22 crew of Magic Seas were safely rescued by a passing merchant vessel.

Since November 2023, the Houthis have targeted around 70 merchant vessels with missiles, drones and small boat attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

They have now sunk four ships, seized a fifth, and killed at least seven crew members.

The group has said it is acting in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and have claimed - often falsely - that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK, which have carried out air strikes on Yemen in response.

On Wednesday the EU's naval mission in the Red Sea, Operation Aspides, said it was participating in the international response to the attack on the Eternity C and that "currently six castaway crew members have been recovered from the sea".

An Aspides official told AFP news agency that five were Filipinos and one was Indian, and that 19 others were still missing.

The Greece-based maritime security firm Diaplous released a video on Wednesday that showed the rescue of at least five seafarers who it said had spent more then 24 hours in the water, according to Reuters news agency.

"We will continue to search for the remaining crew until the last light," Diaplous said.

Reuters also cited maritime security firms as saying that the death toll was four.

The US state department condemned the attacks on the Magic Seas and Eternity C, which it said "demonstrate the ongoing threat that Iran-backed Houthi rebels pose to freedom of navigation and to regional economic and maritime security".

"The United States has been clear: we will continue to take necessary action to protect freedom of navigation and commercial shipping from Houthi terrorist attacks, which must be condemned by all members of the international community."

In May, the Houthis agreed a ceasefire deal with the US following seven weeks of intensified US strikes on Yemen in response to the attacks on international shipping.

However, they said the agreement did not include an end to attacks on Israel, which has conducted multiple rounds of retaliatory strikes on Yemen.

The secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) called for intensified diplomatic efforts following the new wave of attacks.

"After several months of calm, the resumption of deplorable attacks in the Red Sea constitutes a renewed violation of international law and freedom of navigation," Arsenio Dominguez said.

"Innocent seafarers and local populations are the main victims of these attacks and the pollution they cause," he warned.

Greece has suspended the processing of asylum applications from North Africa for three months after a surge in migrant numbers.

Arrivals by boat from the region will be arrested and detained, conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.

He added that Greece was "sending a message of determination... to all traffickers and all their potential customers that the money they spend may be completely wasted, because it will be difficult to reach Greece by sea."

"This emergency situation requires emergency response measures."

Mitsotakis added that the provisions would be based on the same legal reasoning Greece applied in 2020 to stop thousands of people from crossing the land border with Turkey.

Draft legislation will be put before parliament on Thursday.

"Clear message: stay where you are, we do not accept you," said migration minister Thanos Plevris on X.

Mitsotakis' announcement follows a considerable rise in migrant arrivals on the southern islands of Crete and Gavdos.

More than 2,000 migrants landed on Crete in recent days and another 520 were rescued off its coast early on Wednesday, bringing the total number since the start of 2025 to 9,000.

This was an increase of 350% since last year, said the president of the Western Crete Coast Guard Personnel Association Vasilis Katsikandarakis. "Immigration is suffocating us... Our personnel are literally on their knees," he said.

"The flows are very high," government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis told Action 24 channel on Tuesday, adding that the wave was "growing and ongoing".

According to public broadcaster ERT, authorities in Crete are under significant logistical strain as the pace and scale of arrivals continues to exceed the capacity of available accommodation infrastructure.

Several hundred people have had to temporarily be put up in a sweltering market hall, local media said, adding that among the migrants are 30 families with young children and infants.

ERT said that redistributing migrants to other areas of the country is a particularly slow process as the tourist season means fewer buses and ferries are available.

On Tuesday Greek, Italian and Maltese ministers as well as the EU's migration commissioner travelled to Libya to discuss the surge in migrant depatures.

But they had to turn back when the Government of National Stability (GNS) - a rival to the UN-recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) - blocked them from entering the country, accusing them of violating Libyan sovereignty.

Still, Mitsotakis said the Greek army was prepared to cooperate with the Libyan authorities to prevent the departure of the boats from the Libyan coast.

NGOs have repeatedly criticised attempts by European governments to forge deals with Libyan authorities to stem the flow of migrants.

The people who are intercepted by the Libyan coastguard and brought back to shore are often imprisoned in detention camps, where they are subject to inhuman treatment and dire conditions.

"Attempts to stop departures at any cost show a complete disregard for the lives and dignity of migrants and refugees," Amnesty International said.

At least 161 people are still missing in a single Texas county four days after deadly and devastating flash floods hit parts of the state last week, Governor Greg Abbott said, as hope fades for survivors to be found alive.

The missing in the hard-hit Kerr County include five campers and one counsellor from Camp Mystic, a Christian all-girls summer camp located on the banks of Guadalupe river.

At least 109 people have died in the disaster, including 94 in the Kerrville area alone, Abbott said in a news conference on Tuesday.

Texas is not alone. New Mexico saw a flash flood emergency as well, with the National Weather Service (NWS) warning of intense flooding on Tuesday night.

In Texas, frantic search and rescue efforts continue, with Abbott vowing emergency crews "will not stop until every missing person is accounted for".

Abbott added that it is very likely more missing will be added to the list in the coming days, and urged people to report anyone they think is unaccounted for.

General Thomas Suelzer from the Texas National Guard said search efforts include Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters with rescue hoists.

He said there are 13 Black Hawk helicopters helping in the search effort, including four that arrived from Arkansas. He added that authorities were also using reaper drones.

Responders from various agencies are working together on rescue efforts, including agents from border patrol, the FBI and the National Guard.

More than 250 responders from various agencies have been assigned to the Kerrville area alone to help with search and rescue.

One of those rescue volunteers, named Tim, told the BBC he has never seen any destruction at this scale before.

"I've done the floods down in East Texas and Southeast Texas, and hurricanes, and this is a nightmare," he said.

Another rescue volunteer, named Justin, compared the effort to "trying to find a single hay in a haystack".

"There's a wide trail of destruction for miles, and there's not enough cadaver dogs to go through all of it," he told the BBC.

"It's hard to access a lot of it with heavy machinery. Guys are trying to pick at it with tools and hands, and they're not even putting a dent in it – not for lack of effort."

Questions have been raised about whether authorities provided adequate flood warnings before the disaster, and why people were not evacuated earlier.

• 'Lives are at stake:' Deadly Texas storms puts spotlight on Trump's weather agency cuts
• Three key factors that made Texas floods so deadly

Experts say there were a number of factors that contributed to the tragedy in Texas, including the extreme weather, the location of the holiday homes and timing.

The governor, who had spent part of the day surveying the flood zone, said authorities had issued a storm warning and knew about a possible flash flood, but "didn't know the magnitude of the storm".

No one knew it would lead to a "30-foot high tsunami wall of water", he said.

The governor responded to a question about who was to "blame" for the enormous death toll, saying: "That's the word choice of losers."

He made a sports analogy, saying American football teams make mistakes; champion teams are the ones who don't "point fingers".

• 'Hero' dad, twin girls and riverside campers among Texas flood victims
• What early warnings did flood-hit Texas receive?

Most of the victims died in Kerr County, where the Guadalupe River was swollen by torrential downpours before daybreak on Friday, the July Fourth public holiday.

Camp Mystic had earlier confirmed at least 27 girls and staff were among the dead.

Those who survived are now focused on trying to rebuild.

Justin Brown has lived along the Guadalupe River for more than 25 years.

A week ago, he lived in his mobile home at the Blue Oak RV Park with his two young daughters and dog. Now, there is a huge puddle where his home once stood – his RV swept away in the floods.

"We were one of the few parks that got almost everybody out," Mr Brown told the BBC as he described the efforts of his landlord and emergency workers, who evacuated almost all of the park's residents.

Looking out over the empty lot where his home once stood – now just debris – he said he hopes to move back in as soon as he can.

President Donald Trump will travel to the flood-ravaged areas with First Lady Melania Trump on Friday.

Separately, in New Mexico, the NWS declared a flash flood emergency on Tuesday and told residents of Ruidoso to be on high alert for flooding.

Officials there are already working to rescue people trapped in floodwaters and houses are reportedly being washed away.

A flood wave on the Rio Ruidoso has reached 15 feet (4.5m), the NWS in Albuquerque said in a post on X.

The waters receded about two hours later, according to CBS, the BBC's US partner.

Officials had to perform some swift boat rescues and some people were unaccounted for as of Tuesday evening.

France's far-right National Rally party has accused authorities of a "new harassment campaign", after police raided its headquarters in an inquiry into its campaign finances.

Party president Jordan Bardella said the "spectacular and unprecedented operation" was a "serious attack on pluralism and democratic change".

Prosecutors said they were investigating potential acts of "fraud committed against a public figure" and alleged violations involving loans and donations during election campaigns in 2022 and 2024.

Wallerand de Saint-Just, the party's former treasurer, said National Rally (RN) had done nothing wrong.

"This process that looks completely unacceptable and outrageous. We're being persecuted on a daily basis," he told reporters outside the party's Paris headquarters.

"All our campaign accounts have been approved and reimbursed."

Despite a series of legal setbacks, RN are ahead in French opinion polls, and Bardella, its 29-year-old president, has topped one recent poll as the most popular political figure in the country.

Earlier this year, RN leader Marine Le Pen was convicted by a French court of helping to embezzle European Union funds. She was barred from running for office for five years, in a blow to her ambitions to run for the presidency for a fourth time.

She has appealed the conviction, which she has condemned as a "witch hunt", but last month accepted she may have to hand the baton to her young lieutenant ahead of the 2027 presidential vote.

Bardella was not present during the police raid as he was attending a European Parliament session in Strasbourg, but he said 20 finance brigade police had used the search as an excuse for seizing internal party documents and to raid his office.

There was no immediate comment from Le Pen.

Police also raided the head offices of several companies and their bosses.

The raids were linked by Paris prosecutors to an inquiry launched exactly a year ago into allegations of embezzlement, forgery and fraud centring on Le Pen's party.

Prosecutors said on Wednesday that the inquiry should establish whether the party's 2022 presidential and parliamentary election campaign and its 2024 European election campaign were funded by "illicit payments by individuals that benefited the National Rally party or candidates.

They said they would also investigate whether inflated or fictitious invoices had been submitted as campaign expenses to be paid back by the state.

RN said the allegations of illicit campaign financing are based on the fact that no French bank was prepared to help with funding. It previously secured loans from banks in Russia and Hungary.

In another setback for National Rally, the European Union public prosecutor's office formally launched an investigation this week into a former political grouping at the European Parliament that RN was part of.

Identity and Democracy was dissolved last year and is suspected of misusing Parliament funding. RN is now part of the Patriots for Europe group, which includes far-parties from Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain and Portugal.

Bardella said on Tuesday that the inquiry was a "new harassment operation by the European Parliament".

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine has been hit by the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia - 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles hit cities around the country in multiple waves.

Zelensky condemned the "telling attack", adding: "It comes precisely at a time when so many efforts have been made to achieve peace, to establish a ceasefire, and yet only Russia continues to rebuff them all."

The overnight strike came after President Donald Trump said the US would send more weapons to Kyiv - a reversal of last week's suspension which US media said Trump had not known about.

On Tuesday, the US leader expressed growing frustration at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth," Trump told reporters. "He's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless."

"He's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless," Trump said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was "pretty calm about this. Trump's way of talking is generally quite harsh, the phrases he uses."

The two leaders have been in regular contact but this has so far failed to translate into tangible steps towards a ceasefire in Ukraine - something Trump once said he would be able to achieve in a day.

Last week, following a phone call with the Russian president, Trump said he was "very unhappy".

"He wants to go all the way, just keep killing people, it's no good," Trump said of Putin.

The criticism came even as the Trump administration announced a suspension of military aid to Ukraine, reportedly authorised by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Elbridge Colby, the under-secretary of defence for policy.

Asked by reporters on Tuesday who had taken the decision, Trump - sitting right next to Hegseth - replied: "I don't know. Why don't you tell me?"

The reversal of the decision may now mean that 10 Patriot missiles may be sent to Ukraine, according to US outlet Axios.

Kyiv relies on the interceptors to try to counter Russia's missile and drone attacks, which continue to grow in intensity and frequency.

Although the east of the country and Kyiv come under fire on a regular basis, no corner of Ukraine has been spared by Russian strikes.

The city of Lutsk - which lies 90km (56 miles) from the Polish border and is a transit hub for military and humanitarian aid - suffered the brunt of Tuesday's overnight attack.

Explosions were also reported in the western cities of Lviv and Rivne.

Two rounds of ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine took place earlier this year but no other meetings have so far been scheduled - and neither Moscow nor Kyiv appear optimistic that diplomacy will solve the conflict, which was sparked by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Meanwhile, Russia's summer offensive in eastern Ukraine grinds on.

"We are moving forward," said Peskov on Wednesday. "Each new day the Ukrainians have to accept the new realities."

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence start-up xAI says it is working to remove "inappropriate" posts on the multi-billionaire's social network X.

The announcement came after the platform's Grok AI chatbot shared multiple comments that were widely criticised by users.

"Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X," the company said in a post.

According to media reports, Grok made multiple positive references to Hitler this week when queried about posts that appeared to celebrate the deaths of children in the recent Texas floods.

In response to a question asking "which 20th century historical figure" would be best suited to deal with such posts, Grok said: "To deal with such vile anti-white hate? Adolf Hitler, no question."

"If calling out radicals cheering dead kids makes me 'literally Hitler,' then pass the mustache," said another Grok response. "Truth hurts more than floods."

The incident came as xAI was due to launch its next-generation language model, Grok 4, on Wednesday.

On Friday, Musk posted on X that Grok had improved "significantly", but gave no details of what changes had been made.

"You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions," he added.

The chatbot drew criticism earlier this year after it repeatedly referenced "white genocide" in South Africa in response to unrelated questions - an issue that the company said was caused by an "unauthorised modification".

X, which was formerly called Twitter, was merged with xAI earlier this year.

Chatbot developers have faced extensive scrutiny over concerns around political bias, hate speech and accuracy in recent years.

Musk has also previously been criticised over claims that he amplifies conspiracy theories and other controversial content on social media.

China has disputed Germany's claim that it targeted a military plane with a laser fired from a warship, as a diplomatic spat between the two countries deepens.

Germany accused China of attempting to disrupt one of its aircraft earlier this month as it was taking part in European Union-led operations aimed at protecting ships in the Red Sea from missiles launched by Yemen's Houthi rebel group.

The German foreign ministry has summoned the Chinese ambassador and described the incident as "entirely unacceptable". China's EU envoy has also been summoned by the bloc, Reuters reports.

Beijing has pushed back, saying Germany's account was "totally inconsistent with the facts known by the Chinese side".

On Tuesday, Germany said a reconnaissance plane was targeted as it flew over the Red Sea, where several European countries have been contributing to surveillance and defensive efforts since early 2024 to protect ships from regular attacks launched from Yemen.

The laser was fired from a Chinese warship, which had been spotted several times and had made no communication with the passing aircraft, Germany said.

The plane was forced to abandon its mission and return to a military base in the East African nation of Djibouti as a precaution, according to the foreign ministry.

Berlin has reacted furiously to the incident, accusing China of "endangering German personnel and disrupting the operation".

The Chinese government responded on Wednesday, with spokesperson Mao Ning telling a press conference that its navy had been carrying out "escort operations" in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia.

She said Germany and China should "take a fact-based attitude and strengthen communication in a timely manner to avoid misunderstanding and misjudgement".

China has been accused of using lasers to target military aircraft before, primarily by the US. China has denied doing so.

Lasers can be used to blind pilots, and a new class of powerful lasers capable of disabling targets in the air are under development by militaries around the world.

China established a permanent military presence in the region in 2017 when it opened a base in Djibouti, which Beijing says is used for anti-piracy and freedom of maritime navigation operations.

Western governments have expressed concerns about China's ambitions in the region since opening the base in Djibouti, where the US, Japan, France and others also have military installations.

It is located at a strategically important pinch point leading on to the Red Sea and Suez Canal - one of the world's most important shipping routes.

The number of people killed in Monday's anti-government protests in Kenya has risen to 31, the country's human rights commission said, sparking public outage and calls for justice.

The state-run commission previously said that 11 people had died.

More than 100 people were injured and about 532 arrested in the protests which hit the capital Nairobi and other major cities, said the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KHRCR).

The UN said it was deeply troubled by the killings and criticised the Kenyan police for using "lethal ammunition" against protesters.

The Kenya police still says that 11 people died.

There has been rising tension in the country since the death of blogger Albert Ojwang in police custody last month brought people back onto the streets, a year after young protesters stormed parliament angered by a wave of tax rises.

• Kenya protests are 'coup attempt', says minister
• Are East African governments uniting to silence dissent?

Monday's protests were intended to commemorate Kenya's decades-long struggle for democracy but they quickly escalated into deadly clashes in 17 out of the country's 47 counties, local media reported.

Many of those demonstrating chanted "Ruto must go" and "wantam", meaning "one term", a popular rallying call demanding President William Ruto leave office.

In a statement issued on late Tuesday, the KHRCR said the sharp rise in the death toll was "deeply troubling".

"The KHRCR strongly condemns all human rights violations and urges accountability from all responsible parties, including police, civilians and all other stakeholders," it added.

The commission also documented widespread looting and destruction of both public and private property by unidentified individuals.

Among those killed was a 12-year-old pupil who was hit by a stray bullet while at home in Kiambu, in the outskirts of the capital, local media reported.

"It is very concerning that these latest incidents come barely two weeks after more than 15 protesters were reportedly killed and many more injured in Nairobi and other parts of Kenya on 25 June," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"Lethal ammunition, rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons were used," Shamdasani added.

At least two hospitals were damaged after unidentified attackers raided the facilities and stole medical equipment and harassed staff, Reuters news agency reported.

Religious and rights groups have demanded a prompt and independent investigation into the killings, destruction of property and arbitrary arrests.

However, Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen has praised police officers for containing the protests, which he said were infiltrated by criminals.

Opposition leaders on Tuesday accused the government of deploying unmarked police vehicles to transport armed gangs to perceived opposition strongholds during the protests.

They called for a national boycott of all businesses affiliated with President Ruto's administration, accusing his government of deploying state-sponsored violence and extrajudicial killings on Kenyans.

"This regime is hostile. It cannot be reasoned with. It must be resisted. We will not rest. We will not retreat. We will not surrender," the opposition said in a joint statement.

Kenya's Chief Justice Martha Koome has cautioned the country against the increasingly violent protests, saying they risked the nation's democratic fabric.

Monday's demonstrations were organised primarily by the so-called Gen-Z young people, demanding good governance, greater accountability, and justice for victims of police brutality, continuing the wave of anti-government protests since last year.

On 25 June, at least 19 people were killed and thousands of businesses looted and destroyed in a day of nationwide protests that were being held in honour of those killed in last year's anti-tax protests.

More than 140 people have been killed since 2023 in protests, according to a tally by The Star newspaper.

You may also be interested in:

• Why the death of a blogger has put Kenya's police on trial
• BBC identifies security forces who shot Kenya anti-tax protesters
• El Chapo & Deputy Jesus - why Kenya's president has so many nicknames
• New faces of protest - Kenya's Gen Z anti-tax revolutionaries

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

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine has been hit by the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia - 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles hit cities around the country in multiple waves.

Zelensky condemned the "telling attack", adding: "It comes precisely at a time when so many efforts have been made to achieve peace, to establish a ceasefire, and yet only Russia continues to rebuff them all."

The overnight strike came after President Donald Trump said the US would send more weapons to Kyiv - a reversal of last week's suspension which US media said Trump had not known about.

On Tuesday, the US leader expressed growing frustration at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth," Trump told reporters. "He's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless."

"He's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless," Trump said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was "pretty calm about this. Trump's way of talking is generally quite harsh, the phrases he uses."

The two leaders have been in regular contact but this has so far failed to translate into tangible steps towards a ceasefire in Ukraine - something Trump once said he would be able to achieve in a day.

Last week, following a phone call with the Russian president, Trump said he was "very unhappy".

"He wants to go all the way, just keep killing people, it's no good," Trump said of Putin.

The criticism came even as the Trump administration announced a suspension of military aid to Ukraine, reportedly authorised by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Elbridge Colby, the under-secretary of defence for policy.

Asked by reporters on Tuesday who had taken the decision, Trump - sitting right next to Hegseth - replied: "I don't know. Why don't you tell me?"

The reversal of the decision may now mean that 10 Patriot missiles may be sent to Ukraine, according to US outlet Axios.

Kyiv relies on the interceptors to try to counter Russia's missile and drone attacks, which continue to grow in intensity and frequency.

Although the east of the country and Kyiv come under fire on a regular basis, no corner of Ukraine has been spared by Russian strikes.

The city of Lutsk - which lies 90km (56 miles) from the Polish border and is a transit hub for military and humanitarian aid - suffered the brunt of Tuesday's overnight attack.

Explosions were also reported in the western cities of Lviv and Rivne.

Two rounds of ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine took place earlier this year but no other meetings have so far been scheduled - and neither Moscow nor Kyiv appear optimistic that diplomacy will solve the conflict, which was sparked by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Meanwhile, Russia's summer offensive in eastern Ukraine grinds on.

"We are moving forward," said Peskov on Wednesday. "Each new day the Ukrainians have to accept the new realities."

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Tuesday evening for the second time in as many days to discuss the ongoing war in Gaza.

The meeting came after Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff suggested Israel and Hamas had one remaining issue to agree on for a 60-day ceasefire deal.

Netanyahu arrived at the White House shortly after 17:00 EST (21:00 GMT) on Tuesday for the meeting, which was not open to members of the press.

Earlier on Tuesday, Netanyahu met with vice-president JD Vance. He also met with Trump for several hours during a dinner at the White House on Monday.

It marks Netanyahu's third state visit to the US since Trump's second term.

The meeting of the two leaders lasted around two hours.

Netanyahu also met with the Republican House of Representative Speaker Mike Johnson.

After that meeting, the Israeli Prime Minister said he did not believe Israel's military campaign in Gaza was done, but that negotiators are "certainly working" on a ceasefire.

"We still have to finish the job in Gaza, release all our hostages, eliminate and destroy Hamas' military and government capabilities," Netanyahu said.

Witkoff later said that Israel and Hamas were closing the gap on issues that previously prevented them from reaching a deal, and that he hoped a temporary, 60-day ceasefire will be agreed on this week.

"We had four issues and now we're down to one", Witkoff said of the sticking points in negotiations.

He added that the draft deal would also include the release of 10 hostages who are alive, and the bodies of nine who are deceased.

Before the Israeli Prime Minister's meeting with Trump on Monday, a Qatari delegation arrived at the White House and spoke with officials for several hours, Axios reported, citing a source with knowledge of the talks.

Trump told reporters on Monday evening that ceasefire talks are "going very well". But Qatar, which has played a mediator role in negotiations, said on Tuesday morning that more time was needed for negotiations.

"I don't think that I can give any timeline at the moment, but I can say right now that we will need time for this," Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said.

Before discussions resumed on Tuesday, a Palestinian source familiar with the talks told the BBC they have not made any headway.

The latest round of negotiations between Hamas and Israel began on Sunday.

The ongoing Gaza war began on 7 October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 57,500 in Gaza according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

The United States has announced sweeping changes to its non-immigrant visa policy for Nigeria, cutting the duration and conditions under which most Nigerian travellers can enter the country.

Staring 8 July, the US Department of State says nearly all non-immigrant and non-diplomatic visas issued to Nigerian citizens will now be single-entry and valid for only three months.

It says this is part of a global reciprocity realignment, a sharp shift from previous visa terms, which often allowed for multiple entries over two years or more.

Nigeria also offers single-entry visas valid for three months only for those planning to visit the country from the US.

The Nigerian government has not yet commented.

The State Department says visa policies remain "subject to ongoing review" and may change depending on evolving diplomatic, security, and immigration benchmarks.

In a statement, the US government said it was working closely with Nigerian authorities to ensure the country meets key international standards.

These include:

• issuing secure travel documents
• managing visa overstays
• sharing security or criminal data for public safety purposes

The US also ordered that the social media accounts of all foreigners applying for visas, including from Nigeria, would be vetted for "any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States".

Nigerians account for one of the highest number of student-visa applications to the US in the world.

More BBC stories on Nigeria:

• Big shake-up in Nigerian politics as heavyweights join forces
• Nigeria's major tax overhaul explained
• What is behind the wave of killings in central Nigeria?

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

A rapidly spreading wildfire has reached the outer edge of Marseille, France's second largest city.

"The marine firefighter battalion is waging guerrilla warfare, hoses in hand," said the city's Mayor Benoît Payan, referring to Marseille's fire and rescue service.

The prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhône area, Georges-François Leclerc, urged local residents to remain indoors and said firefighters were "defending" the city.

He said that while the situation was not static, it was "under control".

Marseille Provence airport has been closed for the rest of Tuesday.

Some residents have been advised to stay inside, close shutters and doors, and keep roads clear for emergency services.

The fire, which broke out earlier on Tuesday near Pennes-Mirabeau, north of Marseille, is said to have covered about 700 hectares (7 sq km).

Local authorities said the blaze was sparked by a car that caught fire on the motorway, and that it could continue to spread as strong winds are set to blow until late this evening.

"It's very striking - apocalyptic even," Monique Baillard, a resident of the town, told Reuters news agency. She said many of her neighbours had already left.

The local fire service said 168 firefighters had been deployed to fight the blaze, as well as fire engines and helicopters.

Marseille's mayor, Benoit Payan, asked residents to remain "extremely vigilant" and to limit their movements. Locals told French TV of dense traffic jams as people tried to evacuate the city.

Footage posted online showed huge plumes of smoke above Marseille as fire raged in a hilly area to its north.

The Bouches-du-Rhône area has not recorded a single drop of rain since 19 May, according to French broadcaster BFMTV.

Elsewhere in France, another wildfire that started near Narbonne on Monday remains active, fanned by winds of 60km (38mph) per hour. Some 2,000 hectares have burnt, local officials said.

Wildfires were also reported in other parts of Europe, including Spain's Catalonia region, where more than 18,000 people were ordered to stay at home because of a wildfire in the eastern province of Tarragona.

Emergency units were deployed alongside 300 firefighters as high winds overnight fanned the flames, which have spread across nearly 3,000 hectares (7,413 acres) of land.

Several other parts of Spain - which experienced its hottest June on record - were on high alert for wildfires.

In Greece, some 41 wildfires broke out across the country on Monday. Of those, 34 were contained early while seven remained active into Monday evening, according to the fire service.

Much of western and southern Europe was hit by a scorching early summer heatwave, sparking fires that saw thousands evacuated from their homes.

Within minutes of Erin Patterson walking into a tiny hospital in rural Victoria, doctor Chris Webster realised she was a cold-blooded killer.

"I knew," he tells the BBC.

"I thought, 'Okay, yep, you did it, you heinous individual. You've poisoned them all'."

Dr Webster had spent the morning frantically treating two of the four people a jury this week found Erin had intentionally fed toxic mushrooms - concealed in a hearty beef Wellington lunch served at her home in July 2023.

She was convicted of the murders of her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, as well as Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66. Erin was also found guilty of attempting to murder local pastor Ian Wilkinson – Heather's husband – who recovered after weeks of treatment in hospital.

But initially, when Heather and Ian presented to Leongatha Hospital with intense gastroenteritis-like symptoms, Dr Webster and his team thought they were dealing with a case of mass food poisoning.

Heather had described for him a "lovely" afternoon at Erin's house, the physician told the trial.

"I did ask Heather at one stage what the beef Wellington tasted like and she said it was delicious," Dr Webster said.

His suspicion had fallen on the meat, so the doctor took some blood samples as a precaution and sent them off for analysis in a town with better medical facilities, before hooking the Wilkinsons up with fluids.

But soon he would receive a call from the doctor treating Don and Gail at Dandenong Hospital, about a 90-minute drive away, and his stomach dropped.

It wasn't the meat, it was the mushrooms, she told him. And his patients were on the precipice of irreversible slide towards death.

He immediately changed tack, beginning treatment to try and salvage their failing livers, and preparing to transfer them to a larger hospital where they could receive specialist care.

It was at this point that someone rang the bell at the front of the hospital.

Through a Perspex security window was a woman telling him she thought she had gastro.

"I'm like, 'Oh, hang on, what's your name?' And she said, 'Erin Patterson'," Dr Webster says.

"The penny dropped… it's the chef."

He ushered Erin into the hospital and told her he suspected she and her guests were all suffering from life-threatening poisoning from toxic mushrooms. He quizzed her on the source of the fungi included in her home-cooked dish.

"Her answer was a single word: Woolworths," he says.

"And it all just suddenly coalesced in my brain."

There were two things that convinced him of her guilt in that moment, Dr Webster explains.

One, it was a far-fetched answer. Admitting she had foraged wild mushrooms, as many locals in the area do, wouldn't have set off alarm bells. Saying they came from a major grocery chain with stringent food safety standards, on the other hand, was suspicious.

And two, there was no concerned reaction from the mother-of-two – despite being metres from where Ian and Heather, relatives she said she loved, lay on beds desperately sick.

"I don't know if she even acknowledged their presence," he says.

Briefly leaving Erin with nurses to undergo some basic health checks, he went to see the Wilkinsons off to Dandenong Hospital. He recalls watching the elderly couple being loaded into an ambulance, Heather calling out to thank him for his care as the vehicle doors were closed.

"And I knew," he says, trailing off.

"It's actually quite difficult to talk about without getting emotional.

"She could have quite easily done the complete opposite and screamed… 'Thanks for nothing'.

That may have been easier to accept than her sincere gratitude, he says. "You know, I didn't catch it [the poisoning] earlier."

But he had no time to process the gravity of their last interaction, rushing back to the urgent care room only to find Erin had discharged herself against medical advice.

After desperately trying to call her on her mobile phone, gobsmacked and concerned, Dr Webster decided to call police.

"This is Dr Chris Webster from Leongatha Hospital. I have a concern about a patient who presented here earlier, but has left the building and is potentially exposed to a fatal toxin from mushroom poisoning," he can be heard saying in the call played at the trial.

He spells her name for the operator, and gives them her address.

"She just got up and left?" they ask. "She was only here for five minutes," Dr Webster replies.

At her trial, Erin said she had been caught off guard by the information and had gone home to feed her animals and pack a bag, pausing to have a "lie down" before returning to the hospital.

"After being told by medical staff you had potentially ingested a life-threatening poison, isn't it the last thing you'd do?" the prosecutor asked her in court.

"It might be the last thing you'd do, but it was something I did," Erin defiantly replied from the witness stand.

But before police reached her house, Erin had returned to hospital voluntarily. Dr Webster then tried to convince her to bring in her children – who she claimed had eaten leftovers.

"She was concerned that they were going to be frightened," he said in court.

"I said they can be scared and alive, or dead."

Erin told the jury she wasn't reluctant, rather overwhelmed by the doctor who she believed was "yelling" at her. "I've since learnt this was his inside voice," she added.

Dr Webster clocked off shortly after, but the trial heard medical tests performed on Erin and her children would return no sign of death cap poisoning, and after a precautionary 24 hours in hospital, they were sent home.

Guilty verdicts a 'relief'

Two years later, when news of the jury's verdict flashed on his phone on Monday, Dr Webster began shaking.

He was one of the prosecution's key witnesses, and had struggled with the "weight of expectation".

"If the picture is going to make sense to the jury, if a small puzzle piece is out of place, it could upset the whole outcome of the trial… I really didn't want to crack under the scrutiny."

It's a "relief" to have played his part in holding Erin Patterson – who he calls "the definition of evil" – accountable.

"It does feel like [there's] that reward of justice."

For him though, the biggest sense of closure came from seeing Ian Wilkinson – the only surviving patient – for the first time since sending him and his ailing wife off in an ambulance.

"That memory of Heather being sort of taken away in that fashion, that's now bookended by seeing Ian standing on his feet again."

"That brought some comfort."

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence start-up xAI says it is working to remove "inappropriate" posts on the multi-billionaire's social network X.

The announcement came after the platform's Grok AI chatbot shared multiple comments that were widely criticised by users.

"Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X," the company said in a post.

According to media reports, Grok made multiple positive references to Hitler this week when queried about posts that appeared to celebrate the deaths of children in the recent Texas floods.

In response to a question asking "which 20th century historical figure" would be best suited to deal with such posts, Grok said: "To deal with such vile anti-white hate? Adolf Hitler, no question."

"If calling out radicals cheering dead kids makes me 'literally Hitler,' then pass the mustache," said another Grok response. "Truth hurts more than floods."

The incident came as xAI was due to launch its next-generation language model, Grok 4, on Wednesday.

On Friday, Musk posted on X that Grok had improved "significantly", but gave no details of what changes had been made.

"You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions," he added.

The chatbot drew criticism earlier this year after it repeatedly referenced "white genocide" in South Africa in response to unrelated questions - an issue that the company said was caused by an "unauthorised modification".

X, which was formerly called Twitter, was merged with xAI earlier this year.

Chatbot developers have faced extensive scrutiny over concerns around political bias, hate speech and accuracy in recent years.

Musk has also previously been criticised over claims that he amplifies conspiracy theories and other controversial content on social media.

At least three people are dead in the village of Ruidoso, New Mexico after heavy rain caused flash flooding.

Up to 8.8cm (3.5in) of rain fell, causing the Ruidoso river to rise to an historic level. The floodwaters have now receded.

A man and two children died after being swept downstream, local officials confirmed on Tuesday evening.

Village of Ruidoso spokesperson Kerry Gladden told CBS search and rescue crews were still out in the field, and a hotline has been set up for people looking for missing family members.

Emergency crews in Ruidoso carried out at least 50 swift water rescues in the area, with residents urged to move to higher ground.

Three people had been treated for injuries at the local hospital, Ms Gladden said in a statement.

Social media footage captured by local artist Kaitlyn Carpenter showed at least one house being swept away by floodwaters, with Ruidoso Mayor Lynn Crawford unable to confirm how many homes had been lost.

Speaking on a local radio station, Mr Crawford said: "It got ugly really quick".

The NWS had warned that two 'burn scars' around Ruidoso were high risk for flash-flooding, as the charred soil left behind by last year's wildfires would be "as water-repellent as a pavement".

Southern New Mexico was hit by wildfires in June 2024. Ruidoso was evacuated as two fires burned approximately 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) of land on either side of the village.

Two people were killed and hundreds of homes were destroyed.

Subsequent reports said that the risk of flash floods would be increased for at least two years due to the fires, and the likelihood of significant flooding events in the area was "dramatically increased".

News of the flash flooding in New Mexico came just hours after Texas Governor Greg Abbott gave an update on the aftermath of last Friday's devastating flash floods in the southern state.

He said that the death toll stands at 109 people, with 161 others missing.

The number of people killed in Monday's anti-government protests in Kenya has risen to 31, the country's human rights commission said, sparking public outage and calls for justice.

The state-run commission previously said that 11 people had died.

More than 100 people were injured and about 532 arrested in the protests which hit the capital Nairobi and other major cities, said the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KHRCR).

The UN said it was deeply troubled by the killings and criticised the Kenyan police for using "lethal ammunition" against protesters.

The Kenya police still says that 11 people died.

There has been rising tension in the country since the death of blogger Albert Ojwang in police custody last month brought people back onto the streets, a year after young protesters stormed parliament angered by a wave of tax rises.

• Kenya protests are 'coup attempt', says minister
• Are East African governments uniting to silence dissent?

Monday's protests were intended to commemorate Kenya's decades-long struggle for democracy but they quickly escalated into deadly clashes in 17 out of the country's 47 counties, local media reported.

Many of those demonstrating chanted "Ruto must go" and "wantam", meaning "one term", a popular rallying call demanding President William Ruto leave office.

In a statement issued on late Tuesday, the KHRCR said the sharp rise in the death toll was "deeply troubling".

"The KHRCR strongly condemns all human rights violations and urges accountability from all responsible parties, including police, civilians and all other stakeholders," it added.

The commission also documented widespread looting and destruction of both public and private property by unidentified individuals.

Among those killed was a 12-year-old pupil who was hit by a stray bullet while at home in Kiambu, in the outskirts of the capital, local media reported.

"It is very concerning that these latest incidents come barely two weeks after more than 15 protesters were reportedly killed and many more injured in Nairobi and other parts of Kenya on 25 June," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"Lethal ammunition, rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons were used," Shamdasani added.

At least two hospitals were damaged after unidentified attackers raided the facilities and stole medical equipment and harassed staff, Reuters news agency reported.

Religious and rights groups have demanded a prompt and independent investigation into the killings, destruction of property and arbitrary arrests.

However, Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen has praised police officers for containing the protests, which he said were infiltrated by criminals.

Opposition leaders on Tuesday accused the government of deploying unmarked police vehicles to transport armed gangs to perceived opposition strongholds during the protests.

They called for a national boycott of all businesses affiliated with President Ruto's administration, accusing his government of deploying state-sponsored violence and extrajudicial killings on Kenyans.

"This regime is hostile. It cannot be reasoned with. It must be resisted. We will not rest. We will not retreat. We will not surrender," the opposition said in a joint statement.

Kenya's Chief Justice Martha Koome has cautioned the country against the increasingly violent protests, saying they risked the nation's democratic fabric.

Monday's demonstrations were organised primarily by the so-called Gen-Z young people, demanding good governance, greater accountability, and justice for victims of police brutality, continuing the wave of anti-government protests since last year.

On 25 June, at least 19 people were killed and thousands of businesses looted and destroyed in a day of nationwide protests that were being held in honour of those killed in last year's anti-tax protests.

More than 140 people have been killed since 2023 in protests, according to a tally by The Star newspaper.

You may also be interested in:

• Why the death of a blogger has put Kenya's police on trial
• BBC identifies security forces who shot Kenya anti-tax protesters
• El Chapo & Deputy Jesus - why Kenya's president has so many nicknames
• New faces of protest - Kenya's Gen Z anti-tax revolutionaries

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

A deadly crackdown on student-led protests in Bangladesh last year was authorised by then prime minister Sheikh Hasina, according to audio of one of her phone calls verified by BBC Eye.

In the audio, which was leaked online in March, Hasina says she authorised her security forces to "use lethal weapons" against protesters and that "wherever they find [them], they will shoot".

Prosecutors in Bangladesh plan to use the recording as crucial evidence against Hasina, who is being tried in absentia at a special tribunal for crimes against humanity.

Up to 1,400 people died in last summer's unrest, according to UN investigators. Hasina, who fled to India, and her party reject all charges against her.

A spokesperson for her Awami League party denied the tape showed any "unlawful intention" of "disproportionate response".

The leaked audio of Hasina's conversation with an unidentified senior government official is the most significant evidence yet that she gave direct authorisation to shoot anti-government protesters, tens of thousands of whom had taken to the streets by last summer.

The protests began against civil service job quotas for relatives of those who fought in the 1971 war of independence and escalated into a mass movement that ousted Hasina, who had been in power for 15 years. It the worst violence Bangladesh had seen since the 1971 war.

Some of the bloodiest scenes occurred on 5 August, the day Hasina fled by helicopter before crowds stormed her residence in Dhaka.

The BBC World Service investigation established previously unreported details about a police massacre of protesters in the capital - including a much higher death toll.

Hasina was at her residence in Dhaka, known as the Ganabhaban, for the duration of the call which took place on 18 July, a source with knowledge of the leaked audio told the BBC.

It was a crucial moment in the demonstrations. Security officials were responding to public outrage at police killings of protesters captured on video and shared across social media. In the days following the call, military-grade rifles were deployed and used across Dhaka, according to police documents seen by the BBC.

The recording the BBC examined is one of numerous calls involving Sheikh Hasina that were made by the National Telecommunications Monitoring Centre (NTMC), a Bangladeshi government body responsible for monitoring communications.

The audio of the call was leaked in early March this year - it's unclear by whom. Since the protests, numerous clips of Hasina's calls have appeared online, many of them unverified.

The leaked 18 July recording was voice matched by the Criminal Investigation Department in the Bangladesh Police with known audio of Sheikh Hasina's voice.

The BBC conducted its own independent verification by sharing the recording with audio forensics experts Earshot, who found no evidence the speech had been edited or manipulated and said it was highly unlikely to have been synthetically generated.

Earshot said the leaked recording was likely to have been taken in a room with the phone call played back on a speaker, due to the presence of distinctive telephonic frequencies and background sounds. Earshot identified Electric Network Frequency (ENF) throughout the recording, a frequency that's often present in audio recordings due to interference between a recording device and mains-powered equipment, an indicator that the audio has not been manipulated.

Earshot also analysed Sheikh Hasina's speech – the rhythm, intonation and breath sounds - and identified consistent noise floor levels, finding no evidence of synthetic artefacts in the audio.

"The recordings are critical for establishing her role, they are clear and have been properly authenticated, and are supported by other evidence," British international human rights barrister Toby Cadman told the BBC. He is advising Bangladesh's International Criminal Tribunal (ICT), the court hearing cases against Hasina and others.

An Awami League spokesperson said: "We cannot confirm whether the tape recording referenced by the BBC is authentic."

Alongside Sheikh Hasina, former government and police officials have been implicated in the killings of protesters. A total of 203 individuals have been indicted by the ICT, of whom 73 are in custody.

BBC Eye analysed and verified hundreds of videos, images and documents detailing police attacks against demonstrators across 36 days.

The investigation found that in one incident on 5 August in Jatrabari, a busy Dhaka neighbourhood, at least 52 people were killed by police, making it one of the worst incidents of police violence in Bangladesh's history. Initial reports at the time suggested 30 dead in Jatrabari on that day.

Outside the UK, watch on YouTube

The BBC investigation uncovered new details about how the massacre started and ended.

Gathering eyewitness footage, CCTV and drone imagery, BBC Eye established that police opened fire indiscriminately on protesters immediately after army personnel, who were separating the police from the protesters, vacated the area.

For more than 30 minutes the police shot at fleeing protesters as they tried to escape down alleyways and on the highway, before the police officers sought shelter in a nearby army camp. At least six police officers were also killed as protesters retaliated hours later, setting fire to the Jatrabari police station.

A spokesperson for the Bangladesh Police told the BBC that 60 police officers had been arrested for their role in the violence in July and August last year.

"There were regrettable incidents in which certain members of the then police force engaged in excessive use of force," said the spokesperson. "Bangladesh Police has launched thorough and impartial investigations."

Sheikh Hasina's trial began last month. She has been charged with committing crimes against humanity, including issuing orders that led to mass killings and targeted violence against civilians, as well as incitement, conspiracy and failure to prevent mass murder.

India has so far failed to comply with a Bangladeshi request for her extradition. It is unlikely that Hasina will return to the country for the trial, Mr Cadman said.

The Awami League maintains that its leaders are not liable for the force used against protesters.

"The Awami League categorically denies and rejects claims that some of its senior leaders, including the prime minister herself, were personally responsible for or directed the use of lethal force against crowds," a spokesperson for the party said.

"The decisions made by senior government officials were proportionate in nature, made in good faith and intended to minimise the loss of life."

The party has rejected the findings of United Nations investigators, who said they had found reasonable grounds to believe the actions of Hasina and her government could amount to crimes against humanity.

The BBC approached the Bangladesh army for comment but did not receive a response.

Since Hasina's fall, Bangladesh has been ruled by an interim government led by Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

His government is preparing for national elections. It's unclear if the Awami League will be allowed to contest the vote.

At least 161 people are still missing in a single Texas county four days after deadly and devastating flash floods hit parts of the state last week, Governor Greg Abbott said, as hope fades for survivors to be found alive.

The missing in the hard-hit Kerr County include five campers and one counsellor from Camp Mystic, a Christian all-girls summer camp located on the banks of Guadalupe river.

At least 109 people have died in the disaster, including 94 in the Kerrville area alone, Abbott said in a news conference on Tuesday.

Texas is not alone. New Mexico saw a flash flood emergency as well, with the National Weather Service (NWS) warning of intense flooding on Tuesday night.

In Texas, frantic search and rescue efforts continue, with Abbott vowing emergency crews "will not stop until every missing person is accounted for".

Abbott added that it is very likely more missing will be added to the list in the coming days, and urged people to report anyone they think is unaccounted for.

General Thomas Suelzer from the Texas National Guard said search efforts include Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters with rescue hoists.

He said there are 13 Black Hawk helicopters helping in the search effort, including four that arrived from Arkansas. He added that authorities were also using reaper drones.

Responders from various agencies are working together on rescue efforts, including agents from border patrol, the FBI and the National Guard.

More than 250 responders from various agencies have been assigned to the Kerrville area alone to help with search and rescue.

One of those rescue volunteers, named Tim, told the BBC he has never seen any destruction at this scale before.

"I've done the floods down in East Texas and Southeast Texas, and hurricanes, and this is a nightmare," he said.

Another rescue volunteer, named Justin, compared the effort to "trying to find a single hay in a haystack".

"There's a wide trail of destruction for miles, and there's not enough cadaver dogs to go through all of it," he told the BBC.

"It's hard to access a lot of it with heavy machinery. Guys are trying to pick at it with tools and hands, and they're not even putting a dent in it – not for lack of effort."

Questions have been raised about whether authorities provided adequate flood warnings before the disaster, and why people were not evacuated earlier.

• 'Lives are at stake:' Deadly Texas storms puts spotlight on Trump's weather agency cuts
• Three key factors that made Texas floods so deadly

Experts say there were a number of factors that contributed to the tragedy in Texas, including the extreme weather, the location of the holiday homes and timing.

The governor, who had spent part of the day surveying the flood zone, said authorities had issued a storm warning and knew about a possible flash flood, but "didn't know the magnitude of the storm".

No one knew it would lead to a "30-foot high tsunami wall of water", he said.

The governor responded to a question about who was to "blame" for the enormous death toll, saying: "That's the word choice of losers."

He made a sports analogy, saying American football teams make mistakes; champion teams are the ones who don't "point fingers".

• 'Hero' dad, twin girls and riverside campers among Texas flood victims
• What early warnings did flood-hit Texas receive?

Most of the victims died in Kerr County, where the Guadalupe River was swollen by torrential downpours before daybreak on Friday, the July Fourth public holiday.

Camp Mystic had earlier confirmed at least 27 girls and staff were among the dead.

Those who survived are now focused on trying to rebuild.

Justin Brown has lived along the Guadalupe River for more than 25 years.

A week ago, he lived in his mobile home at the Blue Oak RV Park with his two young daughters and dog. Now, there is a huge puddle where his home once stood – his RV swept away in the floods.

"We were one of the few parks that got almost everybody out," Mr Brown told the BBC as he described the efforts of his landlord and emergency workers, who evacuated almost all of the park's residents.

Looking out over the empty lot where his home once stood – now just debris – he said he hopes to move back in as soon as he can.

President Donald Trump will travel to the flood-ravaged areas with First Lady Melania Trump on Friday.

Separately, in New Mexico, the NWS declared a flash flood emergency on Tuesday and told residents of Ruidoso to be on high alert for flooding.

Officials there are already working to rescue people trapped in floodwaters and houses are reportedly being washed away.

A flood wave on the Rio Ruidoso has reached 15 feet (4.5m), the NWS in Albuquerque said in a post on X.

The waters receded about two hours later, according to CBS, the BBC's US partner.

Officials had to perform some swift boat rescues and some people were unaccounted for as of Tuesday evening.

Donald Trump's White House had grandly promised "90 deals in 90 days" after partially pausing the process of levying what the US president called "reciprocal" tariffs.

In reality, there won't even be nine deals done by the time we reach Trump's first cut-off date on 9 July.

The revealing thing here, the poker "tell" if you like, is the extension of the deadline from Wednesday until 1 August, with a possibility of further extensions - or delays - to come.

From the US perspective, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says all focus has been on the 18 countries that are responsible for 95% of America's trade deficit.

The jaunty letters being sent from the US to its trading partners this week are simply a reincarnation of that infamous White House "Liberation Day" blue board.

The rates are basically the same as were first revealed on 2 April. The infamous equation, which turned out to use a measure of the size of the deficit as a proxy for "the sum of all trade cheating" lives on, in a form.

This is all being announced without the market turmoil seen earlier this year because of this additional delay.

Financial markets believe in rolling delays, in the idea of TACO, that Trump Always Chickens Out - although they may embolden foot-dragging on all sides that lead to a renewed crisis.

However, the real takeaway here has been the Trump administration's inability to strike deals. The letters are an admission of failure.

The White House may be playing hardball, but so are most other nations.

Japan and South Korea were singled out for the first two letters, which effectively further blow up their trade deals with the US.

The Japanese have done little to hide their fury at the US approach.

Its finance minister even hinted at using its ownership of the world's biggest stockpile of US government debt - basically the biggest banker of America's debts - as a source of potential leverage.

The dynamic from April has not really changed.

The rest of the world sees that markets punish the US when a trade war looks real, when American retailers warn the White House of higher prices and empty shelves.

And there is still a plausible court case working its way through the system that could render the tariffs illegal.

But the world is now also starting to see the numerical impact of an upended global trade system.

The value of the dollar has declined 10% this year against a number of currencies.

At Bessent's confirmation hearing, he said that the likely increase in the value of the dollar would help mitigate any inflationary impact of tariffs.

The opposite has happened.

Trade numbers are starting to shift too. There was massive stockpiling before tariffs, there have been more recent significant falls.

Meanwhile, Chinese exports to the US have fallen by 9.7% so far this year.

But China's shipments to the rest of the world are up 6%. This includes a 7.4% rise in exports to the UK, a 12.2% increase to the 10 members of the ASEAN alliance and 18.9% rise to Africa.

The numbers are volatile, but consistent with what might be predicted.

Revenues from tariffs are starting to pour into the US Treasury coffers, with record receipts in May.

As the US builds a tariff wall around itself, the rest of the world is likely to trade more with each other - just look the recent economic deals between the UK and India, and the EU and Canada.

It is worth nothing that the effective tariff rate being imposed by the US on the rest of the world is now about 15%, having been between 2% and 4% for the past 40 years. This is before the further changes in these letters.

The market reaction is calm for now. It might not stay that way.