The US State Department says it has "credible reports" that Hamas is planning an "imminent" attack on civilians in Gaza, which it says would violate the ceasefire agreement.

A statement released on Saturday said a planned attack against Palestinians would be a "direct and grave" violation of the ceasefire agreement and "undermine the significant progress achieved through mediation efforts".

The state department did not not provide further details on the attack and it is unclear what reports it was citing.

The first phase of the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel is currently in progress - all living hostages have been released and bodies of the deceased are still being returned to Israel.

Also part of the agreement, Israel freed 250 Palestinian prisoners in its jails and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

Washington said it had already informed other guarantors of the Gaza peace agreement - which include Egypt, Qatar and Turkey - and demanded Hamas uphold its end of the ceasefire terms.

"Should Hamas proceed with this attack, measures will be taken to protect the people of Gaza and preserve the integrity of the ceasefire," the statement said.

Hamas has not yet commented on the statement.

President Donald Trump has previously warned Hamas against the killing of civilians.

"If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them," Trump said in a post on Truth Social earlier this week.

He later clarified that he would not be sending US troops into Gaza.

Last week, BBC Verify authenticated graphic videos that showed a public execution carried out by Hamas gunmen in Gaza.

The videos showed several men with guns line up eight people, whose arms were tied behind their backs, before killing them in a crowded square.

BBC Verify could not confirm the identity of the masked gunmen, though some appeared to be wearing the green headbands associated with Hamas.

On Saturday, Israel said it had received two more bodies from Gaza that Hamas said are hostages, though they have yet to be formally identified.

So far, the remains of 10 out of 28 deceased hostages had been returned to Israel.

Separately on Saturday, 11 members of one Palestinian family were killed by an Israeli tank shell, according to the Hamas-run civil defence ministry, in what was the deadliest single incident involving Israeli soldiers in Gaza since the start of the ceasefire.

The Israeli military said soldiers had fired at a "suspicious vehicle" that had crossed the so-called yellow line demarcating the area still occupied by Israeli forces in Gaza.

There are no physical markers of this line, and it is unclear if the bus did cross it. The BBC has asked the IDF for the coordinates of the incident.

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

At least 68,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen by the UN as reliable.

In September, a UN commission of inquiry said Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel categorically rejected the report as "distorted and false".

Republican governors in several US states have placed National Guard troops on standby in preparation for a nationwide protest to oppose Donald Trump and his policies.

The organisers of the "No Kings" protests say that gatherings will take place at more than 2,500 locations around the US. Trump allies have accused the protesters of being allied with the far-left Antifa movement.

Governors in Texas and Virginia have activated their state's National Guard troops, however it is unclear how visible the military presence will be.

Organisers say that at the last No Kings protest, held in June, more than five million people took to the streets to denounce Trump's political agenda.

The protest organisers say the protest will challenge Trump's "authoritarianism".

"The president thinks his rule is absolute," they say on their website.

"But in America, we don't have kings and we won't back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty."

Some Republicans have dubbed the protests "Hate America" rallies.

"We'll have to get the National Guard out," Kansas Senator Roger Marshall said ahead of the rallies, according to CNN.

"Hopefully it'll be peaceful. I doubt it."

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday activated the state's National Guard ahead of a protest scheduled in Austin, the state's capital.

He said the troops would be needed due to the "planned antifa-linked demonstration".

Democrats denounced the move, including the state's top Democrat Gene Wu, who argued: "Sending armed soldiers to suppress peaceful protests is what kings and dictators do — and Greg Abbott just proved he's one of them."

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also ordered the state National Guard to be activated.

"I rode away on a camel with my grandmother, along a sandy road, and I started to cry." Ayish Younis is describing the worst moment of his life – he still regards it as such, even though it was 77 years ago, and he's lived through many horrors since.

It was 1948, the first Arab-Israeli war was raging, and Ayish was 12. He and his whole extended family were fleeing their homes in the village of Barbara - famed for its grapes, wheat, corn and barley - in what had been British-ruled Palestine.

"We were scared for our lives," Ayish says. "On our own, we had no means to fight the Jews, so we all started to leave."

The camel took Ayish and his grandmother seven miles south from Barbara, to an area held by Egypt that would become known as the Gaza Strip. It was just 25 miles long and a few miles wide, and had just become occupied by Egyptian forces.

In all an estimated 700,000 Palestinians lost their homes and became refugees as a result of the war of 1948-49; around 200,000 are believed to have crowded into that tiny coastal corridor.

"We had bits of wood which we propped against the walls of a building to make a shelter," Ayish says.

Later, they moved into one of the huge tented camps established by the United Nations.

Today, aged 89, Ayish is again living in a tent in Al-Mawasi near Khan Younis.

In May last year, seven months into the two-year war between Israel and Hamas, Ayish was forced to leave his home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah after an evacuation order from the Israeli military.

The four-storey house, divided into several apartments, that he had shared with his children and their families, was destroyed by what he believes may have been Israeli tank-fire.

Now, home is a small white canvas tent just a few metres across.

Other members of the family are in neighbouring tents. They have all had to cook on an open fire. With no access to running water they wash using canned water, which is scarce and as a result expensive.

"We returned to what we started with, we returned back to tents, and we still don't know how long we will be here," he says, sitting in a plastic chair on the bare sand outside his tent, with clothes drying on a washing line nearby.

A walking frame is propped beside him, as he moves with difficulty. But he still speaks in the crystal-clear, melodious Arabic of one who studied literature, and recited the Quran daily as the imam of a local mosque.

"After we left Barbara and lived in a tent, we eventually succeeded in building a house. But now, the situation is more than a catastrophe. I don't know what the future holds, and whether we will ever be able to rebuild our house again."

"And in the end I just want to go back to Barbara, with my whole extended family, and again taste the fruit that I remember from there."

On 9 October, Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a ceasefire and hostage release deal. The remaining living 20 Hamas-held hostages were returned to Israel and Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners.

Yet despite widespread rejoicing over the ceasefire, Ayish is not optimistic about the long-term prospects for Gaza.

"I hope the peace will spread and it will be calm," he says. "But I believe the Israelis will do whatever they like."

Under the agreement for the first stage of the ceasefire, Israel will retain control of more than half the Gaza Strip, including Rafah.

One question Ayish, his family and all Gazans are pondering is whether their homeland will ever be successfully rebuilt.

My 18 children and 79 grandchildren

Back in 1948, the Egyptian army had been one of five Arab armies that had invaded the British-controlled territory of Mandate Palestine the day after the establishment of a Jewish state, Israel. But they soon withdrew, defeated, from Barbara, prompting Ayish's decision to flee.

Ayish became a teacher when he was 19, and gained a literature degree in Cairo under a scholarship programme.

The best moment of his life, he says, was when he married his wife Khadija. Together they had 18 children. That, according to a newspaper article that once featured him, is a record – the largest number of children from the same mother and father of any Palestinian family.

Today, he has 79 grandchildren, two of them born in the last few months.

The family would move from their first tent to a simple three-room cement house with an asbestos roof in the refugee camp, which they later extended to nine rooms – thanks partly to wages earned in Israel.

When the border between Israel and Gaza opened, and Ayish's eldest son Ahmed was one of many Palestinians who took advantage of that, working in an Israeli restaurant during his holidays, while studying medicine in Egypt.

"During that time, in Israel, people were paid very well. And this is the period of time where the Palestinians made most of their money," he says.

All but one of Ayish's children gained university degrees. They became engineers, nurses, teachers. Several moved abroad. Five are in Gulf countries and Ahmed, a specialist in spinal cord injuries, now lives in London. Many other Gazan families are similarly scattered.

The Younis family, like many Gazans, wanted nothing to do with politics. Ayish became an imam at a Rafah mosque – and a local headman (or mukhtar) responsible for settling disputes, just as his uncle had been years earlier in the village of Barbara.

He was not appointed by the government – but he says that both Hamas and the Fatah political movement, the dominant party in the Palestinian authority, respected him.

That didn't save the family from tragedy, though, during the street battles of 2007, when Fatah and Hamas fought for control of the Strip. Ayish's daughter Fadwa was killed in cross-fire as she sat in a car.

The rest of the family survived through wars between Hamas and Israel in 2008, 2012, 2014 – as well as the devastating war triggered by the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

Then came that evacuation order by the Israeli military who said they were carrying out operations against Hamas in the area, forcing them to leave their Rafah home and over a year spent living in makeshift tents.

Ayish's life has come full circle since 1948. But his greatest desire is to go even further back in time, to return to the village, now in Israel, which he last saw when he was 12 – even though it no longer exists.

Apart from clothes, cooking pots and a few other essentials, the only possessions he has with him in his tent are the precious title deeds to his ancestral land in Barbara.

'I don't believe Gaza has any future'

Thoughts are now turning to the reconstruction of Gaza.

But Ayish believes the extent of the destruction – of infrastructure, schools and health services – is so great that it cannot be fully repaired, even with the help of the international community.

"I don't believe Gaza has any future," he says.

He believes that his grandchildren could play a role in the reconstruction of Gaza if the ceasefire is fully implemented, but he does not believe they will be able to find jobs in the territory as good as those they have or could get abroad.

His son Haritha, a graduate in Arabic language who has four daughters and a son, is also living in a tent. "An entire generation has been destroyed by this war.

"We are unable to comprehend it," he says.

"We used to hear from our fathers and grandfathers about the 1948 war and how difficult the displacement was, but there is no comparison between 1948 and what happened in this war.

"We hope that our children will have a role in rebuilding, but as Palestinians, do we have the capacity on our own to rebuild the schools? Will donor countries play a role in that?"

"My daughter has gone through two years of war without schooling, and for two years before that schools were closed because of Covid," he continues. "I used to work in a clothing store, but it was destroyed.

"We don't know how things will unfold or how we will have a source of income. There are so many questions we have no answers for. We simply don't know what the future holds."

Another of Ayish's sons, Nizar, a trained nurse, who lives in a tent nearby, agrees. He believes Gaza's problems are so great that the youngest generation of the family will not be able to play much role, despite their high level of education.

"The situation is unbearable," he says. "We hope that life will return to how it was before the war. But the destruction is massive - total destruction of buildings and infrastructure, psychological devastation within the community, and the destruction of universities."

Ayish's eldest son Ahmed, in London, meanwhile reflects on how it took the family more than 30 years to build their former home into what it eventually became - as money was saved over the years it was expanded, he explains.

"Do I have another 30 years to work and try to help and support my family? This is really the situation all the time - every 10 to 15 years, people lose everything and they come back to square one."

And yet he still dreams of living in Rafah again when he retires. "My brothers in the Gulf bought land in Rafah to come back and settle as well. My son, and my nephews and nieces - they want to go back."

With a pause, he adds: "By nature, I'm very optimistic, because I know how determined our Gaza people are. Trust me, they will go back and start to rebuild their lives again.

"The hope is always in the new generation to rebuild."

Top picture credit: AFP via Getty Images

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The day after a body was found in his car in Hollywood, singer D4vd was belting his TikTok hit Romantic Homicide - a brooding breakup song about killing an ex with no regret - to a sold-out crowd in Minneapolis.

The US recording artist had self-launched his music career from his sister's closet while working a part-time gig at Starbucks. It led him to viral fame, millions of followers online, and a global tour.

But all of it came to an abrupt halt last month with the discovery of a severely decomposed body in the front trunk of his Tesla.

The corpse was identified as that of 15-year-old runaway Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

A month later, mystery still surrounds the teen's death, as well as her relationship to the 20-year-old singer, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke.

Deep dives into his macabre oeuvre - which is peppered with references to death, remembrance, violence and bloody motifs - have led some to question if life was imitating art and vice versa.

The young singer has yet to publicly comment on the case or the grim discovery in his car. His spokesperson has only said that that he is "fully cooperating with authorities" and he has since hired a prominent criminal defence attorney who has represented celebrities such as Mel Gibson, Lindsay Lohan, Kanye West and Britney Spears.

Representatives for the singer - including his lawyer Blair Berk, Universal Music Group, Darkroom Records and Sony Music Publishing - did not respond to the BBC's requests for comment.

Rivas Hernandez's cause of death has yet to be determined.

The county's medical examiner has said her body was "severely decomposed" when it was found and has deferred making a ruling on how she died - an investigation they say could take months.

Police have also not named a suspect or person of interest in case, even weeks after discovering her body.

The Los Angeles Police Department has not offered many details in the case or the probe, calling it an open death investigation. The department would not comment on multiple questions posed by the BBC about the case, the investigation and any connections the singer may have to Rivas Hernandez.

"It's just such a strange one," Neama Rahmani, a former prosecutor and Los Angeles attorney, told the BBC. "It keeps getting more bizarre each day that goes on without an arrest."

That lack of information has also seemed to fuel intrigue. Fans, true-crime enthusiasts and internet sleuths have launched their own inquiries, locking in on details that appear to connect the teen girl with the gamer-turned-songwriter, who was once heralded by GQ as a "Mouthpiece for Gen-Z Heartache".

A runaway teen found dead in a Tesla

Rivas Hernandez - who lived about 75 miles away from where her body was discovered - had last been reported missing by her family in April 2024, but it was not the first time she had run away from their Lake Elsinore home.

A first-generation daughter of immigrant parents from El Salvador, neighbours recognised her as a girl who would visit the corner store almost daily to buy candy and soda, according to the Los Angeles Times.

She first went missing on Valentine's Day 2024, and her family filed a missing persons report the next day.

Posters of her face were put up in her neighbourhood and her mother posted pleas on Facebook in Spanish for her return - public overtures that apparently irked the teen.

Over the next two years, her parents would file at least two more missing-persons reports.

Her family and friends told the newspaper that every time Rivas Hernandez ran away, she would eventually return and blend back into her life as a middle schooler.

When the teens' remains were found in a bag in D4vd's Tesla on 8 September, the medical examiner said that she was wearing a tube top, size small black leggings and jewellery, including a yellow metal stud earring and a yellow metal chain bracelet.

She also had a tattoo that read "Shhh…" on her index finger - a marking nearly identical to that on the pop singer's own index finger.

The decomposition of her body indicated that she had already been "deceased for several weeks", investigators said.

Her family, who described her as a beloved daughter, sister, cousin and friend, has said they are "heartbroken and devastated by this tragic loss". They have since solicited money on a crowdfunding website to pay for her funeral, which took place earlier this month.

A singer on the precipice of main-stream fame

D4vd's rise to stardom - fuelled by TikTok and online gaming - is a paradigm for his generation.

Growing up near Houston, Texas, he was home-schooled and said he exclusively listened to gospel music until he was 13. He became an avid Fortnite player in 2017 and launched his music career using pop songs to soundtrack gameplay montages that he posted on YouTube.

He started making his own music when he ran into copyright hurdles, beginning by recording songs on The BandLab app in 2021 and uploading his work on SoundCloud.

Soon, he saw his music breaking through with thousands of listens. He then released what would become his two biggest hits thus far: Romantic Homicide and Here With Me.

The songs went viral on TikTok and led to billions of streams on Spotify, where he has amassed 33 million monthly listeners.

He signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records and released his debut EP, Petals and Thorns, in 2023. That same year, he landed on Variety's Young Hollywood list and opened for SZA on her SOS tour.

Last spring, he made his Coachella debut - known as the festival for up-and-coming talent to break into mainstream fame. He was also commissioned by Fortnite - which he has said shaped his story as an artist - to create the game's first official anthem, Locked & Loaded.

A discovery that broke a family and halted a career

But this ascent to fame came to a pause when his Tesla was towed to an impoundment lot and authorities found a bag inside the front trunk that contained Rivas Hernandez's decomposing remains after someone complained about a foul smell.

His world tour was cancelled within days of the discovery, and Sony Music Publishing reportedly suspended promotion of his sophomore album.

Los Angeles police soon raided the posh Hollywood Hills mansion where the singer was living, just blocks from where his Tesla had been towed.

US retailer Hollister and footwear giant Crocs dropped D4vd from marketing campaigns and Telepatía singer Kali Uchis announced she was taking down their collaboration, Crashing.

But while his career ground to a screeching halt, authorities have been silent on the investigation into Rivas Hernandez's death.

Investigators have not released any new information in the case since 29 September.

The agency also said that it is still unclear whether there is any criminal culpability beyond the concealment of her body.

While online sleuths have been quick to speculate, legal experts say that there is still much we don't know.

"You have this connection to David that seems pretty strong," Mr Rahmani, the former prosecutor, told the BBC. "There is a lot of smoke but look, he could be absolutely innocent and it could be someone else who had access to his vehicle."

Mr Rahmani said while there are many questions in this case, the biggest for him is "what is taking the LAPD so long".

"They haven't released any real information," he said. "This isn't a good look for the LAPD and it's a terrible look for D4vd."

He added that a case like this has added pressures: it involves a teen girl's death, it has garnered global headlines, and the investigation involves a celebrity.

Mr Rahmani noted that technology and potential for video footage is likely to be a "treasure trove" for investigators. Telsa vehicles come with advanced technology that tracks vehicles, notifies users when things like the trunk is open and are also outfitted with a slew of cameras as part of its Sentry Mode systems.

On top of this, the Hollywood home where he was living also had cameras. When authorities searched the home last month, investigators took a DVR that stores video and other data from the surveillance system.

Malden Trifunovic, the owner of the Hollywood Hills home D4vd was renting, has told the BBC that he has hired a private investigator to help uncover what might have happened inside his multi-million-dollar abode.

D4vd's manager Josh Marshall, the founder of Mogul Vision, rented the home for D4vd and has distanced himself from the singer. He vehemently denied rumours that he is connected to the death investigation.

The widening mystery

In addition to the mystery surrounding the cause of Rivas Hernandez's death, it is still unclear what relationship the teenager had with the 20-year-old singer.

Rivas Hernandez would have turned 15 the day before her body was found by police.

In California, the age of consent is 18.

Family, friends and those who knew her have told local media that she had been dating someone named David and said he was a music artist.

A former middle-school science teacher blamed her last attempt to run away from home, in the spring of 2024, on her dating a music artist she'd met online.

"She's been missing since I taught her," the teacher said in a viral video after Rivas Hernandez's body was identified.

Online sleuths have also connected her to the singer in a number of ways, from their matching tattoos to photos he posted online that appear to show them together.

But D4vd has not addressed the rumours, nor have police.

Like many who don't follow indie pop music, his landlord Mr Trifunovic said he had never heard of D4vd until news broke about the discovery. He didn't even know it was D4vd who was renting his home because the lease had been signed by the singer's manager, Mr Marshall.

"I share the same anxiety and desire to understand what happened to poor Celeste as everyone else does," Mr Trifunovic told the BBC.

Although he said he trusts the LAPD to conduct a thorough investigation, he too, is anxious for information.

"There is absolutely no question that a crime was committed," he said.

"She did not place herself in the front trunk of the Tesla or move the vehicle to where it was found."

The Spanish town of Terrassa in north-eastern Catalonia has temporarily banned the adoption of black cats from animal shelters to prevent potentially sinister "rituals" during Halloween.

All requests for the fostering or adoption of the felines will be denied from 6 October to 10 November to protect them from being hurt or used as props, said the local animal welfare service.

Deputy Mayor Noel Duque told broadcaster RTVE that adoption requests for black cats usually increase around Halloween.

While black cats are often associated with witchcraft and seen as bad luck in Western culture, many other cultures, including Japan and Egypt, see them as symbols of prosperity and fortune.

Terassa's city council said there had been no record of cruelty towards black cats in the town, however there have been incidents in other areas and the decision was taken after warnings from animal welfare groups.

"We try to prevent people from adopting because it's trendy or impulsively. And in cases like these, which we know exist, to prevent any macabre practices," Duque said.

Terrassa is home to more than 9,800 cats, according to the local authorities, and the adoption centre houses around 100 of them, 12 of which are black.

The city council emphasised that the measure is "temporary and exceptional" and represents an extra precaution for animal welfare, but did not rule out repeating the ban in the future.

Exceptions during the ban period will be assessed individually by the adoption centre and normal fostering requests will resume after Halloween.

The Red Cross has received two bodies in Gaza that Hamas says are hostages, the Israeli military has said.

The remains will be transported to Israel and formally identified. Hamas earlier said the bodies had been recovered in the Palestinian territory on Saturday.

Prior to Saturday, the remains of 10 of 28 deceased hostages had been returned to Israel.

The delay has caused outrage in Israel, as the terms of last week's ceasefire deal stipulated the release from Gaza of all hostages, living and dead. Hamas says it has struggled to find the remaining bodies under rubble.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has ordered the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt to remain closed until further notice, and said its reopening would be considered based on the return of the final hostage remains and the implementation of the ceasefire agreement.

The IDF has stressed that Hamas must "uphold the agreement and take the necessary steps to return all the hostages".

But the US has downplayed suggestions that the delay amounts to a breach of the ceasefire deal, which President Donald Trump claimed as a major victory on a visit to Israel and Egypt last week.

The text of the deal has not been published, but a leaked version that was seen in Israeli media appeared to account for the possibility that not all of the bodies would be immediately accessible.

Hamas has blamed Israel for making the task difficult, as air strikes on Gaza have reduced many buildings to rubble, and Israel does not allow heavy machinery and diggers into the territory.

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the BBC News Channel that the Gaza Strip "is now a wasteland", with people picking through the rubble for bodies and trying to find their homes - many of which have been flattened.

As part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, Hamas also returned all 20 living hostages to Israel.

Israel's military confirmed the identity of the tenth deceased hostage returned by Hamas on Friday. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) named him as Eliyahu Margalit, whose body was taken from Nir Oz kibbutz after he was killed on 7 October 2023.

Also as part of the deal, Israel freed 250 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

The bodies of 15 Palestinians were handed over by Israel via the Red Cross to officials in Gaza on Saturday, the Hamas-run health ministry said, bringing the total number of bodies it has received to 135.

Separately on Saturday, 11 members of one Palestinian family were killed by an Israeli tank shell, according to the Hamas-run civil defence ministry, in what was the deadliest single incident involving Israeli soldiers in Gaza since the start of the ceasefire.

The Israeli military said soldiers had fired at a "suspicious vehicle" that had crossed the so-called yellow line demarcating the area still occupied by Israeli forces in Gaza.

There are no physical markers of this line, and it is unclear if the bus did cross it. The BBC has asked the IDF for the coordinates of the incident.

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

At least 68,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen by the UN as reliable.

In September, a UN commission of inquiry said Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel categorically rejected the report as "distorted and false".

President Donald Trump has said the US will return two people who survived a strike on what he called a "drug-carrying submarine" to their countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia.

Writing on social media, Trump said two other people were killed in the US strike on the vessel, which he said US intelligence confirmed was "loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics".

The attack on Thursday is at least the sixth US strike on ships in the Caribbean Sea in recent weeks. It is the first time survivors have been reported.

At least 27 people were killed in the prior five boat strikes in the waters off Venezuela, according to figures released by the administration.

The two survivors were rescued by a US military helicopter and then shuttled onto a US warship in the Caribbean, unnamed US officials told US media earlier.

In recent weeks, Trump has ramped up threats against Venezuela's leadership over claims that the country is sending drugs to the US. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has accused Trump of trying to make the South American nation "an American colony".

Trump has defended the ongoing boat attacks, saying they are aimed at stemming the flow of drugs from Latin America into the US, but his government has not provided evidence or details about the identities of the vessels or those on board.

"It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route," Trump said in his Truth Social post on Saturday.

"The two surviving terrorists are being returned to their Countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, for detention and prosecution."

He added that no US military personnel were injured in the attack.

On Friday, the US president had said the submarine targeting the latest attack was "built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs".

"This was not an innocent group of people. I don't know too many people who have submarines, and that was an attack on a drug-carrying, loaded submarine," he added.

UN-appointed human rights experts have described the US strikes as "extrajudicial executions".

Trump earlier told reporters that he had authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, and that he was considering launching attacks on Venezuelan soil.

Narco-subs have become a popular way to transport drugs as they can go largely undetected, and can be sunk after delivery. They are often homemade and constructed using fibreglass and plywood.

The US, as well as other coastal nations, have previously intercepted some of these subs.

Damar, one of the best surf guides on the Indonesian island of Lombok, feels right at home taking tourists out to sea.

With his fluent English and effortless banter, you would never guess what was his childhood fear: foreigners.

"When I was 10 or maybe seven, I used to cry - I used to just pee in my pants when I saw white people," Damar, now 39, tells the BBC.

That diffidence waned as the laidback island he calls home slowly found its popularity among Western travellers.

Just east of Bali, Lombok boasts the same azure beaches and stunning views as its famous neighbour, but without the exasperating crowds. Lombok's beaches are still a hidden gem among surfers, as is Mount Rinjani for hikers. Travel sites still liberally use the word "untouched" to describe the island as they offer reasons to venture beyond Bali.

So it should come as little surprise that the Indonesian government has sensed the opportunity to create another lucrative tourist haven on the sprawling archipelago.

The mission is to create more "Balis" - and Lombok will be one of them.

For islanders, this promise of "Balification" is a welcome opportunity but they are also wary of what it brings.

And the change has already begun to hit home in more ways than one.

Mandalika in the south has been chosen as the heart of the "new Bali".

Its rustic coastline has already given way to glitzy resorts, cafes and even a racetrack. Earlier this month, nearly 150,000 spectators showed up to watch the motorcycle Grand Prix.

Between 2019 and 2021, dozens of families were evicted from their village homes for the construction of the Mandalika circuit. Damar's was among them.

Confronted with what activists decried as a messy resettlement plan and unfair compensation, he and his neighbours were helpless, Damar recalls.

"I was angry, but I cannot do much. I cannot fight against the government," he says.

Since the eviction, Damar has bought a plot of land and built his own house, something that many of his neighbours haven't been able to do. As a surf guide, he estimates that he earns twice as much as a fisherman - a generational profession in his community.

"I've never really been to school, so joining the tourism industry was one of the best choices that I have ever made," Damar says. "Meeting a lot of people from many different countries… It has opened my mind."

Damar's indignation about his eviction even comes with a scrupulous caveat: "I'm not angry at the tourists. I'm just angry at my own government."

The makings of a tourist magnet

The drive to transform Lombok is part of a wider effort to lure travellers away from Bali, which has for decades played an outsized role in Indonesia's tourism industry.

The island makes up less than 1% of the country's land area and less than 2% of its 280 million-plus population. Yet last year it accounted for nearly half of all visitors to Indonesia.

But increasingly Bali's unrelenting traffic and pollution - a direct result of its success as a top tourist pick- are leaving those very tourists disappointed with what has long been touted as the "last paradise".

As it turns out, that elusive paradise lies just an hour's boat ride away.

But perhaps not for long.

More and more travellers are catching on to Lombok's appeal. Last year, 81,500 foreign tourists touched down at its airport, a 40% jump from the year before - still, a far cry from the 6.3 million foreigners who flocked to Bali.

Eager for Lombok to follow in Bali's footsteps, Indonesian authorities have secured hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, along with a $250m loan from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

This has accelerated the island's makeover.

In Kuta, a popular town in Mandalika, scrappy surfers' hostels have been replaced by a mosaic of chlorinated pools and plushy sunbeds, and an international school for the children of expats.

While authorities are hailing it as Lombok's success story, some see a cautionary tale.

The cost of paradise

A stone's throw away on the beach of Tanjung Aan, cafe owner Kartini Lumban Raja told the BBC that locals there "don't want to be 'organised' like Kuta".

"When beaches start to look like Kuta, they lose their charm. We lose opportunities. We lose natural beauty," she said.

For months, rumours of evictions had been swirling on Tanjung Aan, which was earmarked for ambitious development plans.

Days after the BBC's visit in July, they came like a rolling wave.

Security forces descended upon the beach to demolish nearly 200 stalls, including Kartini's.

Videos from that day show masked men tearing shop fences down with their bare hands as stall owners protested.

"They were banging on things, kicking plywood… it's truly inhumane," Ella Nurlaila, a stall owner, told the BBC. "My goodness, this eviction was so cruel."

The state-owned company leading Mandalika's tourism drive, InJourney Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC), has secured 2.1 trillion rupiah ($128m; £96m) to build a luxury hotel on Tanjung Aan.

Authorities said the project will create jobs and boost the local economy. But that's little consolation for stall owners like Ella and her husband Adi, who have sold coconuts and coffee on the beach for the past three years.

"Thousands of people here depend on [coastal land] for their livelihood," Adi said. "Where else are we supposed to go to earn a living?"

The couple said they had paid taxes for their stall - which, according to Adi, sat on land belonging to his parents.

But ITDC representatives told the BBC that Tanjung Aan is "state-owned land", and that the tax paid by those businesses "does not equate to legal ownership or land legitimacy".

This is just the latest bout of tensions over Mandalika's tourism push.

Just Finance International, a development finance watchdog, has repeatedly flagged "a pattern of rights violations linked to the Mandalika project" in recent years.

UN human rights experts estimate that more than 2,000 people "lost their primary means of livelihood overnight" because of the Tanjung Aan evictions. Stall owners were given neither "adequate notice" nor "suitable" resettlement plans, they said in a statement in August.

"The people of Mandalika must not be sacrificed for a project that promises economic growth at the expense of human rights," they said.

'If they want Bali, they should go to Bali'

In its quest for a remarkably different future, Lombok will also have to contend with what this means for local culture.

The predominantly Muslim island is home to thousands of mosques and the indigenous Sasak ethnic group. Compared to Bali, alcohol is not as readily available in parts of the island. On travel forums, tourists are encouraged to ditch bikinis and hot pants for more modest attire.

Such conservative sensitivities may change, or at least be driven further inland, as tourism heats up along the coastline. Travellers who have come to love Lombok are not happy about that either.

"Lombok is so special because it still has its own nature and people come to see that," said Swiss tourist Basil Berger, a sceptic of the"Bali-fication" of the island.

"If they want to see Bali, they [should] go to Bali," he said. Turning Lombok into another Bali "is the "the worst thing that they can do".

There are also environmental concerns. The motorcycle Grand Prix last year drew 120,000 spectators to Mandalika, leaving behind 30 tonnes of rubbish that authorities struggled to clear.

"Before it gets to Bali's stage of development, Lombok could learn. Because it's showing the same kind of strain," says Sekar Utami Setiastuti, who lives in Bali.

The government should ensure "tourism development brings welfare to a lot of people, instead of just bringing tourists to Lombok", she adds. "Lombok has to find its own identity - not just [become] a less crowded Bali."

No matter where that search leads, a new era has dawned on Lombok.

Andrew Irwin is among the foreign investors who have taken an early interest in Lombok's budding tourism. The American is the co-owner of LMBK Surf House, one of Mandalika's most popular surf camps.

The way he sees it, businesses like his are helping to uplift local employees and their families.

"It's giving people more opportunities to earn more money, send their kids to proper school, get proper insurance, get proper healthcare, and essentially live a better quality of life," he said.

While there's "not necessarily much one can do" about Lombok's changing landscape, he says, "we can just hope to bring a positive change to the equation".

Tourism has certainly ushered prosperity into the lives of many locals, who have decided to try their hand at entrepreneurship.

"As long you want to work, you'll make money from tourism," says Baiq Enida Kinang Lare, a homestay owner in Kuta, known to her guests as Lara. Her neighbours too have started homestays.

Lara started her business in 2014 with four rooms. She's now at 14, not counting a separate villa under construction.

As excited as she is about her prospects, she is also a little wistful as she recalled life before the hustle.

"It's difficult to find time to gather and see everyone. This is what we miss. We feel like the time flies very, very fast because we're busy," she says.

This is a feeling that would surely be shared by locals from Bali to Mykonos to Cancun, whenever tourism took off in their patch of paradise: "I miss the past, but we like the money."

Republican governors in several US states have placed National Guard troops on standby in preparation for a nationwide protest to oppose Donald Trump and his policies.

The organisers of the "No Kings" protests say that gatherings will take place at more than 2,500 locations around the US. Trump allies have accused the protesters of being allied with the far-left Antifa movement.

Governors in Texas and Virginia have activated their state's National Guard troops, however it is unclear how visible the military presence will be.

Organisers say that at the last No Kings protest, held in June, more than five million people took to the streets to denounce Trump's political agenda.

The protest organisers say the protest will challenge Trump's "authoritarianism".

"The president thinks his rule is absolute," they say on their website.

"But in America, we don't have kings and we won't back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty."

Some Republicans have dubbed the protests "Hate America" rallies.

"We'll have to get the National Guard out," Kansas Senator Roger Marshall said ahead of the rallies, according to CNN.

"Hopefully it'll be peaceful. I doubt it."

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday activated the state's National Guard ahead of a protest scheduled in Austin, the state's capital.

He said the troops would be needed due to the "planned antifa-linked demonstration".

Democrats denounced the move, including the state's top Democrat Gene Wu, who argued: "Sending armed soldiers to suppress peaceful protests is what kings and dictators do — and Greg Abbott just proved he's one of them."

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also ordered the state National Guard to be activated.

After serving 43 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, Subramanyam "Subu" Vedam was finally free.

New evidence had exonerated him earlier this month of the murder of his former roommate.

But before he could reach his family's arms, Mr Vedam was taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who want to deport him to India - a country he has not lived in since he was a baby.

Now, Mr Vedam's legal team is fighting a deportation order and his family is determined to get him out of custody, for good.

His family are now working to navigate a new and "very different" situation, his sister Saraswathi Vedam told the BBC.

Her brother has gone from a facility where he knew inmates and guards alike, where he mentored fellow inmates, and where he had his own cell, to a facility where he shares a room with 60 men and where his history of good behaviour and mentorship is unknown.

Mr Vedam has been repeating one message to his sister and other family members in the wake of the new situation: "I want us to focus on the win."

"My name has been cleared, I'm no longer a prisoner, I'm a detainee."

The 1980 murder

More than 40 years ago, Mr Vedam was convicted of murdering his once-roommate Tom Kinser, a 19-year-old college student.

Kinser's body was found nine months after he went missing in a wooded area with a bullet wound in his skull.

On the day of Kinser's disappearance, Mr Vedam had asked him for a ride. While the vehicle Kinser drove was returned to its usual spot, no one saw it being returned.

Mr Vedam was charged with Kinser's murder. He was denied bail, had his passport and green card seized by authorities and was labelled a "foreigner likely to flee".

Two years later he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 1984, he was sentenced to a separate two-and-a-half to five years for a drug offence, as part of a plea agreement. That sentence was to be served simultaneously with his life sentence.

Throughout that time, Mr Vedam maintained his innocence on the murder charges.

His supporters and family members stressed there was no physical evidence tying him to the crime.

Mr Vedam's exoneration

Mr Vedam repeatedly appealed the murder conviction and a few years ago new evidence in the case surfaced which exonerated.

Earlier this month, Centre County District Attorney Bernie Cantorna said he would not pursue a new trial against Mr Vedam.

But Mr Vedam's family knew there was one hurdle left before he was free: he still had a 1988 deportation order, based on his convictions for murder and a drug offence.

The family expected they would have to file a motion to have his immigration case reopened, Ms Vedam said.

The facts of the case are different now, she stressed.

But when they arrested him, ICE cited the immigration order as their reasoning for quickly detaining him in a different Pennsylvania facility.

While he was exonerated for the murder charge, his drug conviction still stands, they have said. The immigration agency said it acted on a lawfully issued order.

ICE did not respond to the BBC's request for comment, but told other US outlets that Mr Vedam will remain in custody pending his deportation.

Mr Vedam's family has said his decades of good behaviour, completion of three degrees and community service while behind bars should be considered when the immigration court examines his case.

"What was deeply disappointing was that we didn't even have a moment to hold him in our arms," Ms Vedam said. "He was held wrongly and one would think that he conducted himself with such honour and purpose and integrity that that should mean something."

Potential deportation to India

The family has stressed Mr Vedam's ties to India - where ICE has said they would like to deport him to - are weak at best.

While he was born there, he moved to the US at nine months old. What relatives are still alive, are distant ones, Ms Vedam told the BBC.

His community - Ms Vedam, her four daughters and other cousins - are in the US and Canada.

"He will again be robbed and miss out on the lives of the people closet to him, by being half way across the world," she said. "It's almost like having his life stolen twice."

Mr Vedam, who is a legal permanent resident, had his citizenship application accepted before he was arrested. Both of his parents were also both US citizens.

"We believe deportation from the United States now, to send him to a country where he has few connections, would represent another terrible wrong done to a man who has already endured a record-setting injustice," his lawyer, Ava Benach said in a statement to the BBC.

Republican governors in several US states have placed National Guard troops on standby in preparation for a nationwide protest to oppose Donald Trump and his policies.

The organisers of the "No Kings" protests say that gatherings will take place at more than 2,500 locations around the US. Trump allies have accused the protesters of being allied with the far-left Antifa movement.

Governors in Texas and Virginia have activated their state's National Guard troops, however it is unclear how visible the military presence will be.

Organisers say that at the last No Kings protest, held in June, more than five million people took to the streets to denounce Trump's political agenda.

The protest organisers say the protest will challenge Trump's "authoritarianism".

"The president thinks his rule is absolute," they say on their website.

"But in America, we don't have kings and we won't back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty."

Some Republicans have dubbed the protests "Hate America" rallies.

"We'll have to get the National Guard out," Kansas Senator Roger Marshall said ahead of the rallies, according to CNN.

"Hopefully it'll be peaceful. I doubt it."

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday activated the state's National Guard ahead of a protest scheduled in Austin, the state's capital.

He said the troops would be needed due to the "planned antifa-linked demonstration".

Democrats denounced the move, including the state's top Democrat Gene Wu, who argued: "Sending armed soldiers to suppress peaceful protests is what kings and dictators do — and Greg Abbott just proved he's one of them."

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also ordered the state National Guard to be activated.

Gaza's Hamas-run civil defence says 11 people were killed, all from the same family, after the bus they were in was hit by an Israeli tank shell in northern Gaza.

The family, it said, were trying to reach their home to inspect it when the incident happened in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City on Friday night.

This is the deadliest single incident involving Israeli soldiers in Gaza since the start of the ceasefire eight days ago.

The Israeli military said soldiers had fired at a "suspicious vehicle" that had crossed the so-called yellow line demarcating the area still occupied by Israeli forces in Gaza.

Israeli soldiers continue to operate in more than half of the Gaza Strip, under the terms of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP news agency the victims were members of the Abu Shaaban family and were killed while "trying to check on their home" in the area.

The dead included women and children, according to the civil defence.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said a "suspicious vehicle was identified crossing the yellow line and approaching IDF troops operating in the northern Gaza Strip" on Friday, prompting it to fire "warning shots" towards the vehicle.

It said the vehicle "continued to approach the troops in a way that caused an imminent threat to them" and "troops opened fire to remove the threat, in accordance with the agreement."

Hamas said the family had been targeted without justification.

The IDF has warned Palestinians from entering areas in Gaza still under its control.

With limited internet access, many Palestinians do not know the position of Israeli troops as the yellow demarcation line is not physically marked, and it is unclear if the area where the bus was travelling did cross it.

The BBC has asked the IDF for coordinates of the incident.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Friday the army would set up visual signs to indicate the location of the line.

In a separate development on Saturday, the Palestinian embassy in Cairo said the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza will open on Monday for Palestinian residents in Egypt to return to Gaza.

In another part of the ceasefire deal, Hamas on Friday had released the body of Israeli hostage Eliyahu Margalit to the Red Cross, which returned it to Israel.

Mr Margalit was the tenth deceased hostage to be returned from Gaza. The remains of another 18 people are yet to be repatriated.

Israel handed the bodies of 15 more Palestinians over to officials in Gaza via the Red Cross, the Hamas-run health ministry said, bringing the total number of bodies it has received to 135.

There has been anger in Israel that Hamas has not returned all of the dead hostages' bodies, in line with last week's ceasefire deal - though the US has downplayed the suggestion it amounts to a breach.

The IDF has stressed that Hamas must "uphold the agreement and take the necessary steps to return all the hostages".

Hamas has blamed Israel for making the task difficult because Israeli strikes have reduced so many buildings to rubble and it does not allow heavy machinery and diggers into Gaza to be able to search for the hostages' bodies.

As part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, Israel freed 250 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

Hamas also returned all 20 living hostages to Israel.

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

At least 67,900 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen by the UN as reliable.

Republican governors in several US states have placed National Guard troops on standby in preparation for a nationwide protest to oppose Donald Trump and his policies.

The organisers of the "No Kings" protests say that gatherings will take place at more than 2,500 locations around the US. Trump allies have accused the protesters of being allied with the far-left Antifa movement.

Governors in Texas and Virginia have activated their state's National Guard troops, however it is unclear how visible the military presence will be.

Organisers say that at the last No Kings protest, held in June, more than five million people took to the streets to denounce Trump's political agenda.

The protest organisers say the protest will challenge Trump's "authoritarianism".

"The president thinks his rule is absolute," they say on their website.

"But in America, we don't have kings and we won't back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty."

Some Republicans have dubbed the protests "Hate America" rallies.

"We'll have to get the National Guard out," Kansas Senator Roger Marshall said ahead of the rallies, according to CNN.

"Hopefully it'll be peaceful. I doubt it."

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday activated the state's National Guard ahead of a protest scheduled in Austin, the state's capital.

He said the troops would be needed due to the "planned antifa-linked demonstration".

Democrats denounced the move, including the state's top Democrat Gene Wu, who argued: "Sending armed soldiers to suppress peaceful protests is what kings and dictators do — and Greg Abbott just proved he's one of them."

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also ordered the state National Guard to be activated.

Republican governors in several US states have placed National Guard troops on standby in preparation for a nationwide protest to oppose Donald Trump and his policies.

The organisers of the "No Kings" protests say that gatherings will take place at more than 2,500 locations around the US. Trump allies have accused the protesters of being allied with the far-left Antifa movement.

Governors in Texas and Virginia have activated their state's National Guard troops, however it is unclear how visible the military presence will be.

Organisers say that at the last No Kings protest, held in June, more than five million people took to the streets to denounce Trump's political agenda.

The protest organisers say the protest will challenge Trump's "authoritarianism".

"The president thinks his rule is absolute," they say on their website.

"But in America, we don't have kings and we won't back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty."

Some Republicans have dubbed the protests "Hate America" rallies.

"We'll have to get the National Guard out," Kansas Senator Roger Marshall said ahead of the rallies, according to CNN.

"Hopefully it'll be peaceful. I doubt it."

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday activated the state's National Guard ahead of a protest scheduled in Austin, the state's capital.

He said the troops would be needed due to the "planned antifa-linked demonstration".

Democrats denounced the move, including the state's top Democrat Gene Wu, who argued: "Sending armed soldiers to suppress peaceful protests is what kings and dictators do — and Greg Abbott just proved he's one of them."

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also ordered the state National Guard to be activated.

Afghanistan will no longer take part in an upcoming cricket series after it says three players in a local tournament were killed in an air strike.

The Afghan Cricket Board (ACB) said it would withdraw from November's tri-nation T20 series out of respect for the three, who did not play for the national team, who it said were "targeted" in an "attack carried out by the Pakistani regime" on Friday evening.

The strike hit a home in Urgon district in eastern Paktika province, where the cricketers were eating dinner together after a match, eyewitnesses and local officials told the BBC.

Eight people were killed, the ACB said. Pakistan said the strike targeted militants and denied attacking civilians.

The ACB named the three players who were killed as Kabeer, Sibghatullah and Haroon, calling their deaths "a great loss for Afghanistan's sports community, its athletes, and the cricketing family".

The attack came hours after a temporary truce between Afghanistan and Pakistan was due to expire following days of deadly clashes on the border between the two nations. Dozens of casualties have been reported.

Pakistan said it had targeted Afghan militants in the air strike and that at least 70 combatants had been killed.

Pakistan's Minister of Information Attaullah Tarar said claims that the attack targeted civilians are "false and meant to generate support for terrorist groups operating from inside Afghanistan".

On Saturday, large crowds of people were seen gathering at the funeral for the strike's victims.

In a social media post, Afghan national team captain Rashid Khan paid tribute to the "aspiring young cricketers who dreamed of representing their nation on the world stage".

Other players for the Afghan national side joined the tributes, including Fazalhaq Farooqi who said the attack was a "heinous, unforgivable crime".

The strike came after Pakistani officials said seven soldiers were killed in a suicide attack near the Afghan border on Friday.

The 48-hour truce between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which began on Wednesday at 13:00 GMT, has reportedly been extended to allow for negotiations.

An Afghan delegation arrived in the Qatari capital of Doha on Saturday for peace talks with the Pakistani side.

The Taliban government said it would take part in the talks despite "Pakistani aggression", which it says was Islamabad's attempt to prolong the conflict.

Former Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai said Pakistan should "reconsider its policies, and pursue friendly and civilised relations" with Afghanistan.

Pakistan's Foreign Office said on Saturday that Defence Minister Khawaja Asif would lead the country's delegation in Doha.

It said the talks will focus on ending cross-border terrorism and restoring peace and stability on the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Tens of thousands of mourners have gathered in the Kenyan city of Kisumu to pay their respects to the late Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

The 80-year-old's body is now lying in state in at a stadium in his political heartland following his state funeral, which was held on Friday in the capital, Nairobi - two days after he died at a hospital in India.

Security forces are on high alert following the deaths of at least five people at events held in recent days to mourn Odinga.

"I have come here to mourn an icon of Africa," one mourner, Dixon Ochieng, told the BBC, while others could be heard to cry out "we are orphans" in their grief.

• Obituary: A founding father of Kenya's multi-party democracy

• How Odinga's court challenges have improved Kenya's elections

People of all ages began arriving at the Jomo Kenyatta Stadium in Kisumu before dawn on Saturday to pay their respects.

Many wore orange - the party colour of his Orange Democratic Movement - and waved branches, a traditional symbol of mourning and grief among the Luo ethnic group to which Odinga belonged.

Odinga was the country's main opposition leader for many years, losing five presidential campaigns - the most recent three years ago. He repeatedly said he was cheated of victory, citing the manipulation of votes.

Following a bloody and disputed 2007 election, he became prime minister in a unity government.

He is regarded as one of the founding fathers of Kenya's multi-party democracy and has a devotional following in the west of the country.

"I remember him for giving us democracy, for giving me our freedom - and now we can talk and we can say anything that we see is bad for us," Jacob Omondi told the BBC about Odinga's impact on the country.

Another mourner, David Ouma, said: "I learned from Raila is to be resilient, because Raila was always a very resilient leader through every election… he still rose to try again to try again."

Among the dignitaries who have paid tribute to Odinga was former US President Barack Obama, whose Kenyan family is also from the area.

"Raila Odinga was a true champion of democracy. A child of independence, he endured decades of struggle and sacrifice for the broader cause of freedom and self-governance in Kenya," Mr Obama wrote on X.

"Time and again, I personally saw him put the interests of his country ahead of his own ambitions. Like few other leaders anywhere, he was willing to choose the path of peaceful reconciliation without compromising his core values," Mr Obama said.

Odinga is expected to be laid to rest on Sunday following a private burial at his farm in Bondo, about 60km (40 miles) west of Kisumu.

According to the family, he wished to be laid to rest within the shortest time possible, ideally within 72 hours.

You may also be interested in:

• How a handshake changed Odinga's heartland
• 'They aimed to kill' - BBC identifies security forces who shot Kenya anti-tax protesters
• The ever-shifting alliances that fuelled Kenya's impeachment drama
• Behind the fallout between Kenya's president and his deputy

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 blood test for more than 50 types of cancer could help speed up diagnosis according to a new study.

Results of a trial in north America show that the test was able to identify a wide range of cancers, of which three quarters don't have any form of screening programme.

More than half the cancers were detected at an early stage, where they are easier to treat and potentially curable.

The Galleri test, made by American pharmaceutical firm Grail, can detect fragments of cancerous DNA that have broken off a tumour and are circulating in the blood.

Impressive results

The trial followed 25,000 adults from the US and Canada over a year.

Nearly one in a 100 of those tested had a positive result and in 62% of these cancer was later confirmed.

The test correctly ruled out cancer in over 99% of those who tested negative.

When combined with breast, bowel and cervical screening it increased the number of cancers detected overall seven-fold.

Crucially, three quarters of cancers detected were for those which have no screening programme such as ovarian, liver, stomach bladder and pancreas.

The blood test correctly identified the origin of the cancer in 9 out of 10 cases.

These impressive results suggest the blood test could eventually have a major role to play in diagnosing cancer earlier.

Scientists not involved in the research say more evidence is needed to show whether the blood test reduces deaths from cancer.

The topline results are to be released at the European Society for Medical Oncology congress in Berlin, but the full details have yet to be published in a peer reviewed journal.

Much will depend on the results of a three-year trial involving 140,000 NHS patients in England, which will be published next year.

The NHS has previously said that if the results are successful, it would extend the tests to a further one million people.

The lead researcher, Dr Nima Nabavizadeh, Associate Professor of Radiation Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University said the latest data show that the test could "fundamentally change our approach to cancer screening, helping to detect many types of cancer earlier, when the chance of successful treatment or even cure are the greatest".

But Clare Turnbull, Professor of Translational Cancer Genetics at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said: "Data from randomised studies, with mortality as an endpoint, will be absolutely essential to establish whether seemingly earlier-stage detection by Galleri translates into benefits in mortality."

Sir Harpal Kumar, President of Biopharma at Grail, told the BBC: "We think these results are very compelling. The opportunity in front of us is that we can find many more cancers - and many of the more aggressive cancers - at a much earlier stage when we have more effective and potentially curative treatments."

Naser Turabi of Cancer Research UK said: "Further research is needed to avoid overdiagnosing cancers that may not have caused harm. The UK National Screening Committee will play a critical role in reviewing the evidence and determining whether these tests should be adopted by the NHS."

Republican governors in several US states have placed National Guard troops on standby in preparation for a nationwide protest to oppose Donald Trump and his policies.

The organisers of the "No Kings" protests say that gatherings will take place at more than 2,500 locations around the US. Trump allies have accused the protesters of being allied with the far-left Antifa movement.

Governors in Texas and Virginia have activated their state's National Guard troops, however it is unclear how visible the military presence will be.

Organisers say that at the last No Kings protest, held in June, more than five million people took to the streets to denounce Trump's political agenda.

The protest organisers say the protest will challenge Trump's "authoritarianism".

"The president thinks his rule is absolute," they say on their website.

"But in America, we don't have kings and we won't back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty."

Some Republicans have dubbed the protests "Hate America" rallies.

"We'll have to get the National Guard out," Kansas Senator Roger Marshall said ahead of the rallies, according to CNN.

"Hopefully it'll be peaceful. I doubt it."

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday activated the state's National Guard ahead of a protest scheduled in Austin, the state's capital.

He said the troops would be needed due to the "planned antifa-linked demonstration".

Democrats denounced the move, including the state's top Democrat Gene Wu, who argued: "Sending armed soldiers to suppress peaceful protests is what kings and dictators do — and Greg Abbott just proved he's one of them."

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also ordered the state National Guard to be activated.

A weapons smuggler, who used a fishing boat to ship ballistic missile parts from Iran to Houthi rebels in Yemen, has been sentenced to 40 years in a US prison.

Pakistani national Muhammad Pahlawan was detained during a US military operation in the Arabian Sea in January 2024 - during which two US Navy Seals drowned.

Pahlawan's crew would later testify they had been duped into taking part, having believed they were working as fishermen.

The Houthis were launching sustained missile and drone attacks on Israel at the time, as well as targeting international commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, saying they were acting in support of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Iran has consistently denied arming the Houthis.

The crew's detailed testimonies to a court in the US state of Virginia provide a rare look inside a smuggling operation that helped power the attacks.

The components found on Pahlawan's boat were "some of the most sophisticated weapon systems that Iran proliferates to other terrorist groups", US federal prosecutors said after his trial.

The 49-year-old was sentenced on Thursday, having been previously convicted on five counts - including terrorism offences and transporting weapons of mass destruction.

Court documents show the sentences for two of the five counts will run concurrently for 240 months, or 20 years. The other three counts, another 20 years, will run consecutive to that - making a total of 480 months, or 40 years.

'Walking dead person'

The eight crew members who testified in court said they had no idea what was inside the large packages on board the boat, named the Yunus.

One crew member said that when he questioned Pahlawan about it, he was told to mind his own business.

Pahlawan, however, knew just how dangerous the cargo was.

He referred to himself as a "walking dead person" in text message exchanges with his wife, sent in the days before the January 2024 voyage which would get him arrested.

"Just pray that [we] come back safely", said the message, used as evidence in court.

"Why do you talk like this, 'may or may not come back'", she asked him.

Pahlawan told her: "Such is the nature of the job, my dear, such is the nature of the job."

His final words to her before sailing were: "Keep me in your prayers. May God take me there safely and bring me back safely, alright. Pray."

For this journey, Pahlawan was paid 1,400 million rials (£25,200; $33,274) - a substantial fee prosecutors at his trial described as "danger money".

The trip was "part of a larger operation" funded and co-ordinated by two Iranian brothers, Yunus and Shahab Mir'kazei, said the then-US Department of Defense (now known as the Department of War) in a statement in June.

The Mir'kazei brothers are allegedly affiliated, it added, with Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) - the most powerful armed force in Iran. The IRGC is designated as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US.

Both Shahab and Yunus Mir'kazei have been charged by the American authorities, but are still at large and believed to be in Iran.

Pahlawan made two successful smuggling voyages before he was caught - one in October 2023, and a second two months later.

The dozen men he recruited to join him were all from Pakistan and had travelled across the border into Iran looking for work.

Before setting off on the December trip - the US court heard - the crew were tasked with loading large packages onto the boat in Chabahar on Iran's south coast.

Then, after five or six days at sea, when they were close to the coast of Somalia, the crew described another boat pulling up next to them at night and them having to hand over the cargo.

Crew member Mehandi Hassan told the court there were about five men on the other boat, who spoke in a language he didn't recognise.

Their next voyage, the following month, was expected to follow the same route. As before, it began in the small port of Konarak before sailing to Chabahar, where the crew were made to load heavy boxes on board.

The packages, the US Navy would later discover, contained Iranian-made ballistic missile parts, anti-ship cruise missile components and a warhead.

Once at sea, Pahlawan kept to himself - according to crew testimony - often staying in his cabin and watching movies on his phone. Sometimes they would see Pahlawan on a second mobile - a satellite phone - but they didn't know what he was saying, said Mehandi Hassan, because he would speak in a language they didn't understand.

On 11 January, the crew said they were woken by the sound of helicopter rotors overhead and a US Navy ship pulling alongside. Pahlawan came out of his cabin to tell everyone to "keep going" and not to stop the boat, telling them the ship and helicopters belonged to pirates.

Armed US Navy Seals and Coast Guard officers attempted to board the Yunus. "There was a lot of commotion," one crew member, Aslam Hyder, told the court.

Special Warfare Officer Christopher Chambers lost his grip and fell into the water during the operation - and Special Warfare Officer First Class Nathan Gage Ingram jumped in to try to save him.

Both men were so laden with equipment that they quickly drowned, an internal report later found. Their bodies were never found and they were declared dead 10 days later.

The crew remained on the Yunus for two days before being offloaded to a US Navy ship, the court heard, where they were separated into two groups and held in windowless containers.

Pahlawan ordered the crew to lie and to say the captain had already fled. "He said, 'Don't tell them that I am the [captain], because I can do serious damage to you guys if you do that'," Aslam Hyder told the court.

"He started to threaten us… It was about the family and the children, that they will not know about you and you won't know what happened to them," he said. "Then we got very scared and we became quiet."

One by one, said crew members who gave evidence, they were taken out of the containers to be interrogated individually. Everyone on board - including Pahlawan - was asked who the captain was and, according to US prosecutors, Pahlawan "simply evaded, lied, and hid".

The American military said the packages found on board the Yunus were the first Iranian-supplied weapons to be seized by US forces since the Houthis had started attacking vessels in the Red Sea a few months earlier.

But Pahlawan had been following a common route for smugglers carrying weapons bound for Yemen.

Between 2015 and 2023, US forces and their allies seized almost 2.4 million pieces of ammunition, 365 anti-tank guided missiles, and more than 29,000 small arms and light weapons from small boats in the Arabian Sea, according to a UN report.

Typically, smugglers use dhows - a type of small boat, often for fishing - to transport cargo close to the coast of Somalia.

As with the Yunus, it is here that weapons are transferred to other, smaller boats, which then set sail to "secluded beaches off the southern coast of Yemen… where they are then smuggled across the desert to Houthi-controlled areas of the country", the UN Office on Drugs and Crime report says.

William Freer, from the UK think tank Council on Geostrategy, told BBC News that while most of the Houthi attacks have involved smaller weapons, the components found on Pahlawan's ship are "a lot more complicated and can pack a lot more punch".

"Very quickly, most shipping companies decided to redirect all their vessels, where possible, around South Africa rather than transiting through the Red Sea."

This lengthy detour adds about 10 to 12 days of sailing time to each trip, and extra fuel, which previous analysis has estimated to cost companies about an extra $1m (£748,735) per round trip.

Mr Freer added that the impact on commercial shipping has continued to this day.

"Within about two months of the initial attacks [in October 2023], shipping transiting through the Red Sea had dropped by about 60% to 70%, and it has stayed at that level ever since, even with the ceasefires," he told us.

Even though Houthi strikes are now less frequent, he added, there are still "just enough attacks to convince shipping companies it is not worth running the risk of returning" to the Red Sea route.

Iran has been accused by the US, UK, Israel and Saudi Arabia of smuggling missiles and other weapons to the Houthis by sea, in violation of a UN Security Council resolution since the armed group ousted Yemen's internationally-recognised government from much of north-western Yemen 10 years ago, sparking a devastating civil war. Iran denies this.

On 5 June this year, Pahlawan was found guilty of conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorists; providing material support to the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guard Corps' weapons of mass destruction programme; conspiring to and transporting explosive devices to the Houthis, knowing these explosives would be used to cause harm; and threatening his crew.

"Pahlawan was not only a seasoned smuggler," prosecutors said, "he knew what he was smuggling and its intended use."

In a final plea to the court for leniency, Pahlawan's lawyer wrote that life for Pahlawan's wife had long been estranged from her family because of her marriage to him, and that since his arrest, her and her child's lives had become "extremely difficult and harsh".

"Since the jury verdict, Mr Pahlawan's singular focus in their telephone conversations is the wellbeing of his family," his attorney said. "He does not talk about himself or his fate. He cries with worry over what will become of his wife and child."

But the court ruled that his high sentence was "appropriate due to the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant".

Scientists say seven skeletons found in a mass grave in Croatia were most likely Roman soldiers who lived 1,700 years ago.

The male skeletons, all with various injuries, were found "completely preserved" during excavations in 2011 at the site of the Roman city of Mursa - modern-day Osijek - in Croatia's far east, a new research paper says.

Mursa was conquered by the Romans during the first century BC and became a large settlement that was also an important centre for trade and craft.

Now, researchers from several European archaeological institutions have been able to determine not only when the men lived, but also how they may have died.

According to the paper, the men in the grave were aged between 36-50 years old, taller-than-average in height, and were "robust" individuals. Their diets were mainly vegetarian, but some had also indulged in a little meat and seafood.

All showed various healed and un-healed injuries, including those caused by blunt force trauma, and there were puncture wounds on two of their torsos, which the scientists believe were likely caused by arrows or spear tips.

All of the men were suffering from some kind of "pulmonary [affecting the lungs] disease during the final days of their lives".

DNA analysis has also revealed the men had a mix of ancestry and that none appeared to be from the local area.

The paper noted that the Roman Empire was a particularly violent era and that Mursa was involved in several conflicts.

The researchers believe the men were likely victims of the 'Crisis of the Third Century', most probably the battle of Mursa from 260 CE, when there were "numerous battles fought between various claimants to the throne".

The paper states that the pit the skeletons were found in would have originally been a water-well - several of which have been discovered in the area.

It notes that mass burials and mass graves were "not a customary way of interring the dead in the Roman Empire", and were mostly used in extreme situations and mass casualty events.

Given the various angles the skeletons now lie, the researchers say they were "most probably thrown in" the well before being covered with soil.

Mursa has been of archaeological importance for years, with various ancient civilisation sites discovered in the area.

President Volodymyr Zelensky appears to have come away empty-handed from a White House meeting after US President Donald Trump indicated he was not ready to supply sought-after Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine.

Zelensky said after the cordial bilateral that he and Trump had talked about long-range missiles, but decided not to make statements on that issue "because the United States does not want an escalation".

Following the meeting, Trump took to social media to call for Kyiv and Moscow to "stop where they are" and end the war.

The Trump-Zelensky meeting came a day after Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin and agreed to meet him in Hungary soon.

While Trump did not rule out supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine, his tone at the White House on Friday was non-committal.

"Hopefully they won't need it, hopefully we'll be able to get the war over without thinking about Tomahawks," the US president said, adding that America needed the weapons.

Trump said sending the missiles would be "an escalation, but we'll be talking about it".

Asked by the BBC if the Tomahawks had prompted Putin to meet Trump, the US president said: "The threat of that [the missiles] is good, but the threat of that is always there."

The Ukrainian leader suggested Ukraine could offer drones in exchange for the Tomahawks, prompting smiles and nodding from Trump.

Zelensky also complimented Trump on his role in securing a peace deal in the Middle East, suggesting the US leader could build on that momentum to help end Russia's war in Ukraine.

Outside afterwards, Zelensky was asked by a reporter if he thought Putin wanted a deal or was just buying time with the planned meeting with Trump in Budapest.

"I don't know," he said, adding that the prospect of Ukraine having Tomahawks had caused Russia to be "afraid because it is a strong weapon".

Asked if he was leaving Washington more optimistic that Ukraine would get the Tomahawks, he said: "I am realistic."

Zelensky believes using Tomahawks to strike at Russian oil and energy facilities would severely weaken Putin's war economy.

In recent days, Trump had shown an openness to the idea of selling the Tomahawks, although Putin warned that such a move would further strain the US-Russian relationship.

On Thursday, Trump said "great progress" was made during a phone call with Putin, with the pair agreeing to face-to-face talks soon in Hungary.

Asked whether Zelensky would be involved in those talks, Trump said before his meeting sitting alongside the Ukrainian president that there was "bad blood" between Putin and Zelenksy.

"We want to make it comfortable for everybody," he said. "We'll be involved in threes, but it may be separated." He added that the three leaders "have to get together".

Trump said his call, the first with Putin since mid-August, was "very productive", adding that teams from Washington and Moscow would meet next week.

Trump had hoped a face-to-face summit in Alaska in August would help convince Putin to enter into comprehensive peace talks to end the war, but that meeting failed to produce a decisive breakthrough.

They spoke again days later when Trump interrupted a meeting with Zelensky and European leaders to call Putin.

Back in Ukraine, the BBC spoke on Friday to a couple repairing the small store they own in a suburb of Kyiv, after it was obliterated by Russian missiles last month.

When the store-owner, Volodymyr, was asked about Trump's forthcoming summit meeting with Putin, he began to say: "We appreciate all support".

But he stepped away as tears welled up in his eyes. After a long pause, he composed himself and started again.

"Truth and democracy will win, and all the terrorism and evil will disappear," he said. "We just want to live, we don't want to give up, we just want them to leave us alone."

Israel's military says the Red Cross has retrieved a coffin of a deceased hostage in the southern Gaza Strip and is now "on the way to IDF [Israel Defence Forces] troops" in the territory.

Posting on X, the IDF urged the public to "act with sensitivity and wait for the official identification, which will first be provided to the families".

It also stressed that Hamas was required to "return all the deceased hostages" in accordance with a Gaza ceasefire agreement.

This follows an earlier statement from Hamas that it would hand over the body of an Israeli hostage to the Red Cross.

Hamas has returned the bodies of nine of the 28 dead hostages in Gaza, and freed all 20 living hostages.

Israel has freed 250 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and 1,718 detainees from Gaza as part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal.

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.

Chen Ning Yang, Nobel laureate and one of the world's most influential physicists, has died at the age of 103, according to Chinese state media.

An obituary released by CCTV cited illness as the cause of death.

Yang and fellow theoretical physicist, Lee Tsung-Dao, were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957 for their work in parity laws, which led to important discoveries regarding elementary particles - the building blocks of matter.

Yang was also a professor at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University and an honorary dean of the Institute for Advanced Study at the institution.

Born in 1922 in China's eastern Anhui province, he was the oldest of five children and raised on the campus of Tsinghua University where his father was a professor of mathematics.

As a teenager, Yang told his parents: "One day, I want to win the Nobel Prize."

He achieved that dream at the age of 35, when his work with Lee studying the law of parity earned them the honour in 1957.

The Nobel committee praised "their penetrating investigation... which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles".

Yang received his science degree in 1942 from National Southwest Associated University in Kunming, and later completed a master's degree at Tsinghua University.

At the end of the Sino-Japanese War, he travelled to the US on a fellowship from Tsinghua and studied at the University of Chicago, where he worked under Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, inventor of the world's first nuclear reactor.

Throughout a prolific career, he worked across all areas of physics, but maintained particular interest in the fields of statistical mechanics and symmetry principles.

Yang received the Albert Einstein Commemorative Award in 1957 and was also awarded an honorary doctorate by Princeton University in 1958.

Yang married his first wife Chih Li Tu in 1950, with whom he had three children.

After Tu's death in 2003, Yang married his second wife Weng Fan, who is more than 50 years his junior.

The pair had first met in 1995 when Weng was a student in a physics seminar, and later reconnected in 2004.

At the time, Yang called her his "final blessing from God".

It started with a suitcase hidden under a bed.

It was 2009, and Antony Easton's father, Peter, had recently died. As Antony started to engage with the messy business of probate, he came across a small brown leather case in his father's old flat in the Hampshire town of Lymington.

Inside were immaculate German bank notes, photo albums, envelopes full of notes recording different chapters of his life - and a birth certificate.

Peter Roderick Easton, who had prided himself on his "Englishness" (and been an Anglican) had, in fact, been born and raised in pre-war Germany as Peter Hans Rudolf Eisner, a member of one of the wealthiest Jewish families in Berlin.

Despite hints about his father's origins growing up, the contents of the suitcase shone a light into a past that Antony knew almost nothing about. The revelations would lead him on a decade-long trail, revealing a family devastated by the Holocaust, a vanished fortune worth billions of pounds and a legacy of artwork and property stolen under Nazi rule.

Black-and-white photographs gave a glimpse of Peter's early life, far removed from his son's modest upbringing in London - they showed a chauffeur-driven Mercedes, mansions staffed by servants, staircases ornately carved with angels.

More ominously, one picture showed 12-year-old Peter Eisner smiling with friends, a Nazi flag rippling in the distance.

"I felt it was a hand reaching out from the past," says Antony.

He says his father was a quiet and serious man, if prone to bouts of anger. He avoided talking about his childhood and always shut down questions about his slight German accent.

"There were clues that [he wasn't] really like other people… There was a darkness around his world," says Antony.

An immense fortune

The next big clue about Antony's family history came from a work of art.

Enlisting the help of a friend who spoke fluent German, he asked her to dig into a company called Hahn'sche Werke, references to which were peppered among the documents in the suitcase. After searching online, she sent Antony a photo of a painting, depicting the inside of a large steelworks - seemingly owned by the business

Molten metal glows hot on a conveyor belt, illuminating the faces of busy and attentive workers. It is an image of industrial power and might, from an era when Germany was hurtling towards decades of devastating war.

The 1910 painting, by the artist Hans Baluschek, was called Eisenwalzwerk (Iron Rolling Mill). It had been owned, and was likely commissioned by Heinrich Eisner, who had helped build the Hahn'sche Werke steel business into one of the most high-tech and sprawling companies in central Europe. The documents in the suitcase showed that this was Antony's great-grandfather.

More research revealed that, at the turn of the 20th Century, Heinrich was one of the wealthiest businessmen in Germany - the equivalent of a modern multi-billionaire.

His company manufactured tubular steel, with factories spread across Germany, Poland and Russia.

Heinrich, and his wife, Olga, owned several properties in and around Berlin, including an impressive six-storey property in the city centre with marble floors and a cream-white facade.

A photograph from the early 1900s shows a man with a softly rounded belly and a straight white moustache. Heinrich wears a black suit, and Olga sits next to him, crowned with a crystal tiara.

When he died in 1918, Heinrich left shares in his company - and his personal fortune - to his son Rudolf, recently returned from fighting in World War One.

The war had been a human catastrophe, but Hahn'sche Werke had prospered in that period, satisfying the German military's demand for steel. Rudolf and his family also successfully weathered the economic and political chaos which haunted their country after the fighting.

However, in a few years, all would be lost.

Everything changes

In notes found by Antony in the suitcase, Peter recalled overhearing conversations between his parents, and whispers about Nazi threats. Jews were being blamed by Adolf Hitler and his supporters for Germany's defeat in WW1, and for the economic travails that followed.

Rudolf Eisner believed he would be safe if he made his company invaluable to the Nazi regime. For a time, this seemed to work, but as anti-Jewish laws became more and more extreme, and the abuse they witnessed around them worsened, he began to reconsider.

In March 1938, the government came after Hahn'sche Werke. Under immense pressure from the authorities, the Jewish-owned company was sold at a fire-sale price to Mannesmann, an industrial conglomerate whose CEO, Wilhelm Zangen, was a Nazi supporter.

"It is almost impossible to quantify the wealth stolen and how much those assets are worth today," says David de Jong, author of the book Nazi Billionaires, which retraces the looting of Jewish businesses under the Third Reich.

In 2000, Mannesmann was taken over by Vodaphone in a deal worth more than £100bn - the largest commercial acquisition on record at the time. At least a portion of the industrial assets included in that sale would have once been part of the Eisner business empire.

The dismantling of Hahn'sche Werke, and the arrest of members of the company, made the Eisners realise they needed to flee. But by 1937, any Jewish family who tried to leave Germany was forced to surrender 92% of its wealth to the state - paying a host of levies known as the Reichsfluchtsteuer or Reich Flight Tax.

The Eisners faced losing what remained of their wealth.

The deal

At the height of this crisis, a man named Martin Hartig, an economist and tax adviser according to records in Berlin's archives, began to loom large in the Eisners' lives.

Throughout the 1930s, his name had featured repeatedly in the guest book at the Eisner country estate, thanking them for their generous hospitality.

Herr Hartig, who wasn't Jewish, appears to have offered the family a solution to the impending confiscation of their assets by the Nazis. They signed over key elements of their personal fortune to him - chiefly the multiple properties they owned and their contents - thereby sheltering them from laws targeting Jews.

Antony believes his grandparents assumed Hartig would one day give the assets back to them.

They were wrong. Instead, he permanently transferred the Eisner assets into his own name.

The BBC found copies of the original sales documents in Germany's federal archives and shared them with three independent experts. All three concluded that this deal was evidence of a "forced sale" - a term widely used to describe the dispossession of Jewish assets under the Nazis.

Despite losing the fortune they had built over generations, Antony's grandparents and father managed to escape Germany in 1938. Train tickets, luggage tags and hotel brochures preserved in Peter's suitcase allowed Antony to retrace their journey.

The family went to Czechoslovakia and then Poland, barely staying one step ahead of the Nazis, before catching one of the last ships bound for England in July 1939.

They had lost the equivalent of billions, but they were among the luckier members of the Eisner family. Most of their relatives were rounded up and killed in concentration camps. Rudolf himself died in 1945 after having spent most of the war - like many other German refugees - interned by the British on the Isle of Man.

Meeting the Hartigs

The next step for Antony was to find out what had happened to the Eisner family fortune, and to Martin Hartig.

He hired an experienced investigator, Yana Slavova, to find out what exactly had been stolen, how it had changed hands, and where it was today.

Within weeks, Yana had uncovered troves of documents about his relatives, including details of their properties and possessions.

She was able to trace the painting Antony had discovered at the beginning of his journey. Eisenwalzwerk was in the collection of the Brohan Museum in Berlin.

Early attempts to reclaim the artwork ran into problems regarding the evidence. Could Antony prove that its sale was tied to Nazi persecution? How did he know it hadn't changed hands multiple times legitimately before ending up in the museum?

A breakthrough came when Yana unearthed correspondence between the museum and an art dealer at the time of the sale.

The art dealer had sold the painting from one of the Eisners' former family homes - a property taken over by Martin Hartig in 1938. Hartig had lived the rest of his life there, meticulously restoring the building after damage during the fall of Berlin, before dying of natural causes in 1965.

After Hartig's death, the property passed to his daughter, who was now in her 80s. She had gifted the house to her own children in 2014, and had moved to a country cottage, where she arranged to meet Antony and Yana.

The elderly lady made them tea and cakes, which they ate in the living room under a portrait of her father - a man with thick-rimmed glasses and oiled hair, gaunt in the face and wearing a black suit. It had been painted in 1945, just after the end of World War Two.

Martin Hartig's daughter had a very different story to the one Antony and Yana were expecting.

She told them her father had always been opposed to the Nazis and had helped save the Eisners, who she described as great friends, from the Holocaust. She said he helped convince them to get away, urging the family: "You can't stay here. Go to Great Britain, to London."

Her father had also told her he helped them smuggle paintings out of Germany by taking them out of their frames and hiding them among clothes.

When asked about the properties her family took over from the Eisners in 1938, she said they were all legitimate purchases.

"My father bought two houses, legally," she said. "It always had to be very correct."

Other members of the family were more open to the possibility that their ancestor may have exploited the Eisners.

Vincent, Martin Hartig's great-grandson, is in his 20s and training to be a carpenter.

He admitted to feeling that his home, where Antony's grandparents once lived, may have had an uncomfortable past.

"I mean of course I was curious at some point - where does it come from that we as a family live in this nice place," he said. "I've also asked myself the question, how were the circumstances?"

After discovering what happened to Antony's Jewish family, Vincent said he thought the Eisners had little choice when they passed their property to his great-grandfather.

'It's not about the money'

Antony has no recourse for filing a restitution case for his grandparents' property.

His grandmother, Hildegard - Rudolf's widow - tried to reclaim it in the 1950s, but backed down after a legal challenge by Hartig. The statute of limitations for Jewish victims of Nazi persecution to claim properties in former West Germany has also now passed.

For the artworks taken from the Eisner family, however, there is still hope for recovering what was lost.

Earlier this year, the Brohan Museum in Berlin informed Antony that it intended to return the Eisenwalzwerk painting to the descendants of Henrich Eisner. The museum declined an interview with the BBC while the process remains ongoing.

Another painting has been returned to Antony from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and a third claim for an artwork in Austria also remains outstanding.

Among the evidence Antony's investigation has unearthed is a list made by the Gestapo, detailing specific artefacts and paintings which were seized from his relatives. There is a chance his family could find and reclaim more assets in the future.

"I've always said about restitution, it's not about objects and money and property, it's about people," says Antony. In researching his family's past, he has recovered detailed knowledge of who his father and his grandparents once were.

"All of this process has turned them into real people, who had real lives."

This knowledge has now been passed on to a new generation. The Eisner name may have disappeared when Peter sailed to Britain in 1939, but it now lives again. Antony's great-nephew, Caspian, born in August 2024, was given the middle name of Eisner.

Antony says he was deeply moved by his niece's decision to honour their long-lost family.

"You know, as long as Caspian's around, that name will still be around with him," he says. "People will say, 'that's an interesting middle name - what's the story there?'"

Donald Trump is the "only one who can force" Russian leader Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table over the war in Ukraine, Finland's president has told the BBC.

Alexander Stubb also said that Finland would never recognise occupied Crimea as part of Russia, and that he wanted to ensure Ukraine became an EU and hopefully Nato member once the war was over.

BBC Radio 4's Today programme spoke to President Stubb ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's meeting with Trump at the White House on Friday, where he told the US president: "I think we can end this war with your help."

Meanwhile, Trump said that Putin has agreed to meet face-to-face with him in Hungary.

The US leader said on Friday that Putin "wants to get it ended. I think that President Zelensky wants to get it ended. Now we have to get it done".

Zelensky said in the White House that Ukraine was ready to talk in any format and wanted peace, but argued that Putin needed to be "pressured" into ending the war.

In August, Trump and Putin met in Alaska for a summit that did not result in a breakthrough, or yield a further meeting involving Zelensky.

Stubb said Trump had once asked him - over a game of golf - whether he could trust Putin; and Stubb's answer was no.

"What we need is not so much the power of the carrot to convince Russia to the negotiating table, it's more of the stick that will bring them.

"So you have to force Russia to come to the negotiating table for peace and that's the deal President Trump is trying to make."

He said Trump "has been giving the carrot to President Putin, and the carrot was in Alaska, and of course now if you look at the language that he has put forward lately, there has been more stick".

Stubb was optimistic about Trump's ability, saying he believed peace negotiations had probably advanced more in the past eight months during Trump's second term than in the previous three years.

• In maps: The war-ravaged Ukrainian territories

Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Stubb said Finland would never recognise Crimea, or the regions of Donetsk or Luhansk, as Russian. Russia controls 70% of Donetsk and nearly all of neighbouring Luhansk.

He said "the only ones who can decide on the land issue are the Ukrainians themselves".

"I want to make sure that Ukraine, when this war is over, retains its independence, retains its sovereignty - in other words becomes an EU member state and hopefully a Nato member - and also maintains its territorial integrity. That is what we are all fighting for right now," Stubb said.

Trump said in August that there would be "no going into Nato by Ukraine" as part of a peace deal.

The US president previously floated the idea that there may be some "land swaps" in a future peace deal, but then, in September, said Kyiv could "win all of Ukraine back in its original form".

When asked why Trump had apparently changed his tune, Stubb said it was because Russia was not advancing - seizing only 1% of Ukrainian territory in the past 1,000 days. Ukraine had also been able to push back, he said.

Stubb said Russia's economy - smaller than Italy's - was suffering, with the country's reserves depleted, growth "pretty much around zero", and inflation raised to between 10% and 20%.

Stubb said economic threats should be used to bring Russia to the table, most importantly giving €200bn (£173bn) worth of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine as a loan that would stay there if Russia did not pay compensation after peace negotiations.

He also wanted to see exports of Russian oil and gas to Europe - which have dropped by 80% - cut off. Sanctions could be put on countries that buy Russian oil and gas, he said, in addition to the 19th European sanctions package targeting Russia.

Stubb said "all the strategic games of Putin have been an utter failure". Russia had been unsuccessful in trying to take over Ukraine, to divide Europe and to split Nato, with two new members - Finland and Sweden - added instead.

He said Europe's "coalition of the willing" was ready to provide security guarantees to Ukraine, with the key help in the air, on the seas and with intelligence.

But they needed a backstop from the US, specifically in air defences, intelligence and operations, he said.

Stubb said he hoped to see some results from a two-phase peace process - the first a ceasefire to stop the killing and the second an extended peace process - "in coming days and weeks".

"We'll keep on working at it. The key is to engage and try to find solutions and be pragmatic. In foreign policy you always have to deal with the world as it is, not what you would wish it to be, but let's do peace."

There are not many sports that can keep an audience enraptured through 45 minutes of ceremony before the first point is even contested.

And yet, the intricate traditions unfolding in a small clay ring - virtually unchanged in hundreds of years - managed to do just that.

Welcome, then, to the Grand Sumo Tournament - a five-day event at the Royal Albert Hall featuring 40 of the very best sumo wrestlers showcasing a sport which can date its first mention back to 23BC.

London's Victorian concert venue has been utterly transformed, complete with six-tonne Japanese temple roof suspended above the ring.

It is here the wrestlers, known as rikishi, will perform their leg stomps to drive away evil spirits, and where they will clap to get the attention of the gods.

And above all this ancient ceremony, a giant, revolving LED screen which wouldn't look out of place at an American basketball game, offering the audience all the stats and replays they could want.

Sumo may be ancient, and may have strict rules governing every aspect of a rikishi's conduct, but it still exists in a modern world.

And that modern world is helping spread sumo far beyond Japan's borders.

It was a "random video" which first caught Sian Spencer's attention a couple of years ago.

This was quickly followed by the discovery of dedicated YouTube channels for a couple of the sumo stables, where rikishi live and train, waking up early to practice, followed by a high protein stew called a chankonabe, and then an afternoon nap - all in the service of bulking up.

Then she discovered the bi-monthly, 15 day championships, known as basho, and from there, she was hooked.

The London tournament was simply a "once-in-a-lifetime", not-to-be-missed, opportunity to see it all in real life, the 35-year-old says.

Julia and her partner Cezar, who live in Edinburgh, discovered sumo through a more traditional route: a trip to Japan six years ago.

"We saw it as a very touristy activity, but we actually ended up loving the sport," says Julia, 34.

"From there on, we tried to find communities, information, just to learn more and more about it," Cezar, 36, adds.

Colleagues, friends and family, they found, could be quite taken aback by their new passion.

"It's the only sport we watch," explains Julia - so they found like-minded people on messaging apps like Telegram.

"We found Italian groups, English groups," says Julia.

"Outside of Japan, online is the only way to interact with the sport," adds Cezar.

Going to Japan is almost the only way to see a top-flight sumo tournament.

This week's event in London is only the second time the tournament has visited the city - the first time was in 1991 - while the last overseas trip was to Jakarta in 2013.

But even going to Japan isn't a guarantee of getting a seat. Last year was the first time in 24 years that all six of the bi-monthly, 15-day events had sold out in 28 years, Kyodo News reported - fueled by interest at home, and by the tourist boom which saw more than 36m foreigners visit in 2024.

So for many, the London tournament is the first time they have watched sumo in person - and it doesn't disapoint.

"Seeing it up close, you get a sense of the speed and the power which you don't get on TV. It was incredible," says Caspar Eliot, a 36-year-old fan from London. "They are so big."

To win, one man needs to push another out of the ring or to the ground using brute strength. The majority use one of two styles to achieve this, often in split seconds - pushing, or grappling.

Either way, the sound of the two rikishi colliding in the first moment of the match reverberates around the hall.

Caspar and his wife Megha Okhai had been among those lucky enough to get tickets when they visited Japan last year - only for them not to arrive in the post in time.

It didn't stop them falling head over heels, however, and they have watched every basho this year. So when it came to the London Grand Sumo Tournament, they weren't taking chances.

"I think we had four devices trying to book tickets," Caspar tells the BBC ahead of the event, displaying his sumo towels proudly - a must for diehard fans. "We got front row seats, on the cushions."

The cushions right next to the ring are of course highly prized - but also, a bit risky.

On Thursday, it was all 181kg and 191cm of Shonannoumi which went plummeting into the crowd - perhaps making those in the slightly cheaper seats breathe a sigh of relief.

Of course, the size of the rikishi is one of the first things most people think of when they think of sumo. The Albert Hall's director of programming revealed to The Guardian earlier this week that they "had to source and buy new chairs which can take up to 200kg in weight".

But sumo - for all its sell-out events - is not without its troubles behind the scenes. A series of scandals over the last couple of decades around bullying, match fixing and sexism have dented its image.

And then there is the fact that last year - while being a bumper one for ticket sales - saw the lowest number of new recruits joining the stables.

Perhaps the strict life of a rikishi doesn't look as appealing as it once might have. Its popularity among young Japanese is also being threatened by other sports, like baseball. As Thomas Fabbri, the BBC's resident sumo fan, said: "My Japanese friends think I'm mad, as they see it as a sport for old people."

Japan's falling birthrate will also not help - nor is the Japanese Sumo Association's rule which restricts each stable to just one foreign rikishi. Despite this, Mongolians have dominated for the past few years - and one of the most exciting rising stars hails from Ukraine.

Not that any of this has worried fans in London.

"Seeing all this ritual and ceremony that goes with sumo is quite special," fan Sian says. "Now, seeing it in person, you feel like you are more part of it."

Julia and Cesar agree in a message the next day.

"It's a Japanese sport but we didn't feel out of place, so many people from all around the world around us."

For Megha, the drama "made it so incredible" - as did meeting the other fans.

"Getting out of a very niche Reddit community and being able to see all these sumo fans in person and being able to chat with other people who are just as into this as we are - it was worth every penny of sumo gold."

Additonal reporting by Thomas Fabbri

Want to watch? Audiences can tune in via BBC iPlayer, the BBC Red Button, the BBC Sport website and app.

Kayla first tried fentanyl as a troubled 18-year-old, growing up in the US state of North Carolina.

"I felt like literally amazing. The voices in my head just completely went silent. I got instantly addicted," she remembers.

The little blue pills Kayla became hooked on were probably made in Mexico, and then smuggled across the border to the US - a deadly trade President Donald Trump is trying to crack down on.

But drug cartels aren't pharmacists. So, Kayla never knew how much fentanyl was in the pill she was taking. Would there be enough of the synthetic opioid to kill her?

"It's scary to think about that," Kayla says, reflecting on how she could have overdosed and died at any moment.

In 2023, there were over 110,000 drug-related deaths in the US. The march of fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin, seemed unstoppable.

But then came a staggering turnaround.

In 2024, the number of fatal overdoses across the US fell by around 25%. That's nearly 30,000 fewer deaths – dozens of lives saved every day. Kayla's state, North Carolina, is at the forefront of that trend.

Why fatal overdoses have fallen so sharply

One of the explanations is a commitment to harm reduction. This means promoting policies that prioritise drug users' health and wellbeing rather than criminalising people - a recognition that in an era of fentanyl, drug-taking too often ends with death by overdose.

In North Carolina, where Kayla still lives, and where overdose fatalities are currently down by an impressive 35%, harm reduction strategies are well-developed.

Kayla no longer takes street drugs. And she's a client of an innovative law enforcement assisted diversion (LEAD) programme in Fayetteville. It's a partnership between the town's police and the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition. Together, they work to divert substance users away from crime, and get them on the road to recovery.

"If someone's stealing from a grocery store, we run their criminal history. And often we see that the crimes they're committing appear to fund the addiction they have," says Lt Jamaal Littlejohn.

This might make them a candidate for the LEAD programme, meaning they can get support to tackle their addiction, and can start thinking about secure housing and employment.

The proponents of LEAD say it isn't about being soft on crime. Drug dealers still go to prison in Fayetteville. "But if we can get people the services they need, it gives law enforcement more time to deal with bigger crimes," argues Lt Littlejohn, who watched his own sister struggle with a substance use disorder.

• Listen to Assignment: Drugs, Overdose, Hope on The Documentary Podcast on the BBC World Service

Kayla has blossomed. She's such a long way now from the days when she used prostitution to fund her fentanyl habit. As part of the LEAD process, her criminal record has been wiped. She recently graduated as a certified nurse assistant, and is now working in a residential home.

"It's like the best thing ever. This is the longest time I've been clean," she says.

Critical to Kayla's recovery has been treatment. She's been taking methadone for nearly a year when she tells her story to the BBC. "It's keeping me from going back," she believes.

Methadone and buprenorphine are medications used to treat opioid use disorder. They stem cravings and stop painful withdrawal. Nationwide, treatment has played a role in puncturing the overdose fatality statistics.

In North Carolina, it's been a game-changer: more than 30,000 people were enrolled in a programme in 2024, with numbers climbing in 2025.

'You're still playing Russian roulette, but your odds improve'

At 09:00 at one of the Morse Clinics in the state capital of Raleigh, two or three people wait their turn in reception.

"The busiest time is 5.30am to 7am, so before work," says Dr Eric Morse, an addiction psychiatrist running nine clinics offering medication assisted treatment (MAT) in North Carolina. "Most of our folks are working - once they're sober, they show up to work on time every day."

The clinic runs a finely-tuned operation. After patients check in, they're called to a dosing window to receive their prescription. They're in and out in minutes.

They'll randomly be drug tested for illicit narcotics. Dr Morse says around half his patients are still testing positive for opioids bought on the street, but he doesn't see this as failure.

"Maybe you're using once a week and you're used to using three times a day… You're still playing Russian roulette with fentanyl but you've taken a whole bunch of bullets out of the chamber, so your survival rate goes up significantly," says Dr Morse.

This is harm reduction. So rather than be expelled from the treatment programme, patients who get a positive drug test are given extra support and counselling. Dr Morse says 80-90% will eventually stop using street drugs altogether. And in time, many will taper off their medication too.

The abstinence debate

Not everyone thinks this is the right approach.

Mark Pless is a Republican who sits in North Carolina's state House of Representatives, and used to be a full-time paramedic. He points out that illegal drug-taking starts with a choice.

And he doesn't believe in harm reduction. In particular he's against treating opioid use disorder with medications like methadone or buprenorphine.

"You're replacing an addictive product with another addictive product," he says. "If you have to take it in order to stay clean, it's still addictive. We've got to figure out how to get people to where they can do better – we can't leave them on drugs forever."

He favours abstinence treatment programmes, when drug users go "cold turkey".

But there's pushback from health professionals in North Carolina.

"I believe there are multiple paths to recovery," says Dr Morse. "I'm not pooh-poohing abstinence-based treatment - except when you look at the medical evidence."

Dr Morse references a Yale University study from 2023 analysing the risk of death for opioid users in a treatment programme compared to people not in treatment. The study suggested that someone in abstinence treatment was as likely - or more more likely - to have a fatal overdose as a person who wasn't in treatment and was continuing to use street opioids like fentanyl.

• How does fentanyl get into the US?

Treatment aside, another drug is helping.

Naloxone is widely available, and used as a nasal spray it reverses the effect of an opioid overdose, helping someone breathe again. In North Carolina in 2024, it was administered more than 16,000 times. That's potentially 16,000 lives saved – and these are only the overdose reversals that have been reported.

"This is as close to a miracle drug as we can ever imagine," says Dr Nabarun Dasgupta, a scientist specialising in street drugs at the University of North Carolina.

Many users of narcotics like cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin want to know that what they're taking won't kill them. Some people use test-strips to check for fentanyl, because they know it's been implicated in so many fatal overdoses.

But the strips don't identify all potentially harmful substances. Dr Dasgupta runs a national drugs-testing laboratory. Users send him a tiny bit of their drug supply via local non-profit organisations.

"We've analysed close to 14,000 samples from 43 states over the last three years," he says.

A generational shift

Testing drugs for potentially dangerous additives is an additional weapon in the harm reduction armoury. Dr Dasgupta believes another reason for decreasing overdose fatalities in the US is that young people are avoiding opioids like fentanyl.

"We see a demographic shift. Generation Z are dying of overdose much less frequently than their parents or their grandparents' generations were at the same age," he says.

Dr Dasgupta isn't entirely surprised 20-somethings are steering clear of opioids. A shocking four out of 10 American adults know someone whose life has been ended by an overdose.

It was this epidemic of death, set in train in the 1990s by prescription opioids, that motivated North Carolina's former attorney general - now the state governor - to move against powerful corporations benefitting from so many Americans' dark spiral down into addiction.

Josh Stein picked up the phone to his counterparts in other states, and took a leading role in co-ordinating legal action against opioid manufacturers, distributors and retailers.

"There was a Republican attorney general in Tennessee, I'm Democrat in North Carolina… But we're all caring about our people and we're all willing to fight for them," Stein reflects.

The upshot, after years of intense negotiations, was an Opioid Settlement totalling some $60bn (£45bn). This is money that huge companies have agreed to pay to US states, to be used for the "abatement of the opioid epidemic". North Carolina's share is around $1.5bn.

"It has to be spent in four ways – drug prevention, treatment, recovery, or harm reduction. I think it's transformative," says Governor Stein.

Meanwhile, funding from the national government is uncertain. The cuts to Medicaid included in President Trump's One Big, Beautiful Bill Act could have a tremendous impact on this area.

In the Morse Clinics in Raleigh, 70% of patients depend on Medicaid. If they lose health insurance, will they end treatment and become more vulnerable to death by overdose? Although North Carolina's drug fatality statistics look optimistic, thousands of people are still dying - and the state's black, indigenous and non-white populations haven't experienced the same rates of decrease.

And there remain other states that have witnessed a stubbornly slower rate of decrease in lethal overdoses - including Nevada and Arizona.

No one is complacent. Least of all Kayla.

In the grip of fentanyl for three long years, she never overdosed herself, but she did have to save her friends. Kayla's parents didn't know what to do with her.

"They kind of gave up on me - they thought I was gonna be dead," she remembers.

Kayla credits Charlton Roberson, her harm reduction mentor, as being instrumental in her recovery. Her aim now is to taper off methadone and become medication- and drug-free. She also wants to find a job in a hospital.

"I feel more alive than I ever did when I was using fentanyl," she says.

If you've been affected by the issues in this story, help and support is available via the BBC Action Line.

The waters of the north Pacific have had their warmest summer on record, according to BBC analysis of a mysterious marine heatwave that has confounded climate scientists.

Sea surface temperatures between July and September were more than 0.25C above the previous high of 2022 - a big increase across an area roughly ten times the size of the Mediterranean.

While climate change is known to make marine heatwaves more likely, scientists are struggling to explain why the north Pacific has been so hot for so long.

But all this extra heat in the so-called "warm blob" may have the opposite effect in the UK, possibly making a colder start to winter more likely, some researchers believe.

"There's definitely something unusual going on in the north Pacific," said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a research group in the US.

Such a jump in temperatures across a region so large is "quite remarkable", he added.

The BBC analysed data from the European Copernicus climate service to calculate average temperatures between July and September across a large area of the north Pacific, sometimes known as the "warm blob".

The region extends from the east coast of Asia to the west coast of North America, the same area used in previous scientific studies.

The figures show that not only has the region been warming quickly over the past couple of decades, but 2025 is markedly higher than recent years too.

That the seas are getting hotter is no surprise. Global warming, caused by humanity's emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases, has already trebled the number of days of extreme heat in oceans globally, according to research published earlier this year.

But temperatures have been even higher than most climate models - computer simulations taking into account humanity's carbon emissions - had predicted.

Analysis of these models by the Berkeley Earth group suggests that sea temperatures observed across the north Pacific in August had less than a 1% chance of occurring in any single year.

Natural weather variability is thought to be part of the reason. This summer has seen weaker-than-usual winds, for example. That means more heat from the summer sunshine can stay in the sea surface, rather than being mixed with cooler waters below.

But this can only go so far in explaining the exceptional conditions, according to Dr Hausfather.

"It certainly is not just natural variability," he said. "There's something else going on here as well."

One intriguing idea is that a recent change to shipping fuels might be contributing to the warming. Prior to 2020, dirty engine oil produced large amounts of sulphur dioxide, a gas harmful to human health.

But that sulphur also formed tiny, Sun-reflecting particles in the atmosphere, known as aerosols, which helped to keep a lid on rising temperatures.

So removing that cooling effect in shipping hotspots like the north Pacific could be revealing the full impact of human-caused warming.

"It does seem like sulphur is the primary candidate for what's driving this warming in the region," said Dr Hausfather.

Other research suggests that efforts to reduce air pollution in Chinese cities has played a role in warming the Pacific too.

That dirty air did a similar job to shipping in reflecting sunlight away, while cleaning it up could have had the unintended consequence of allowing more ocean heating.

Possible impacts for the UK?

The north Pacific's marine heatwave has already had consequences for weather on both sides of the Pacific, likely boosting very high summer temperatures in Japan and South Korea and storms in the US.

"In California, we've seen supercharged thunderstorms because the warm ocean waters in the Pacific provide heat and moisture," said Amanda Maycock, professor in climate dynamics at the University of Leeds.

"In particular, there are things we call atmospheric rivers… bands of air, which contain very high amounts of moisture that fuel themselves from the ocean waters," she added.

"So if we have warm ocean waters… they can then bring a lot of moisture onto the land, which then falls out as rain, or in the wintertime can precipitate out as snow."

Long-term weather forecasting is always challenging, but extreme heat in the north Pacific has the potential to affect the UK and Europe in the coming months too.

That's because of relationships between weather in different parts of the world known as teleconnections.

"Although the current warm conditions are located in the north Pacific, these can generate wave motions in the atmosphere that can alter our weather downstream into the north Atlantic and into Europe," said Prof Maycock.

"That can tend to favour high-pressure conditions over the continent, which brings us more of an influence from the Arctic, where we have colder air," she added.

"That can be drawn over Europe and bring us colder weather in early winter."

A colder outcome is by no means certain, as this is a complex area of science. Several other weather patterns also affect UK winters, which are typically getting milder with climate change.

And a warm north Pacific appears to have different effects later in the winter, favouring milder and wetter conditions in some parts of Europe.

Emerging La Niña in the tropical Pacific

Another factor to throw into the mix is what's happening further south in the eastern tropical Pacific.

There, surface waters are unusually cool - a classic sign of the weather phenomenon known as La Niña.

La Niña, and its warm sibling El Niño, are natural patterns, although research published this week highlighted that global warming could itself impact the swings between them.

Weak La Niña conditions are expected to persist over the next few months, according to NOAA, the US science agency.

All else being equal, La Niña generally increases the risk of a cold start to winter in the UK, but also brings a higher chance of a mild end, the Met Office says.

"These two drivers in the north and tropical Pacific will be acting together this winter," said Prof Maycock.

"But since the La Niña is quite weak this year, the extreme warmth in the north Pacific could be more important for forecasting the winter ahead."

Additional reporting by Muskeen Liddar and Libby Rogers

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