The Princess of Wales has joined the rest of the royal family at a major Remembrance Weekend event in London.

Catherine is gradually returning to public duties following her cancer chemotheraphy treatment - she made her first official public engagement in October.

She joined the rest of the Royal Family as well as senior politicians at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday night.

Queen Camilla was not able to attend as she was recovering from a chest infection, the palace said in a statement earlier on Saturday.

The Festival of Remembrance - an evening featuring music performances and storytelling - is being held to pay respect to serving personnel, veterans and their families.

You’re probably used to politicians telling you we’re living in the most dangerous times for decades.

But who’s going to pay for our protection?

Donald Trump is a lot less willing than the current president to pay for other countries’ defence.

As one UK source told me, “it doesn’t make sense for Europe’s defence interests to be dependent on a few thousand votes in Pennsylvania.”

So Trump's return puts this question right to the top of the list.

The UK government does plan, eventually, to hit the target the Conservatives committed to - of spending 2.5% of the size of the economy on defence, a level last hit back in 2010.

But there’s a defence review underway, and a spending review of every penny spent in Whitehall to get through first.

They’re expected to come one after the other, next spring.

John Healey, the defence secretary, was granted an extra £3bn in the Budget, which is a chunky sum of money - but in terms of defence spending, not a transformative amount of cash.

And it’s only a top-up for a year, with no certainty over long-term funding.

A former minister said: “It’s very hard to order for the years ahead - how long can we be talking, when the need is now?”

The government will not say when they expect to hit the 2.5% target - and won’t commit to hitting it before the end of the Parliament in 2029 - causing frustration in some quarters.

A senior source said “you either believe it is the most dangerous time in decades and you fund it properly, or you just don’t really believe it, so you don’t.”

And earlier on the Today programme, former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace accused Labour of making an effective “cut in our defence budget” by including £3bn of Ukraine funding in it.

If Labour reach the 2.5% target, he said he’d welcome it, “but it’s got to be real money with a timetable”.

There is little disagreement that more resources are needed.

John Healey himself has acknowledged the military “are not ready to fight”. A squeeze on funding over many years had made money tight – the forces “hollowed out”, according to Wallace.

The UK’s support for Ukraine, which has almost universal political support at home, has added to pressure.

According to the National Audit Office, the UK has committed nearly £8 billion to Ukraine - air defence missiles, drones, cruise missiles, tanks and ships, as well as clothing and personal equipment.

Another former minister told me that funding “is absolutely urgent – it is urgent to help Ukraine but the most urgent is where our forces are in danger – it’s not hypothetical, in the Red Sea the Houthis are firing at our ships.”

And shortly before the election, the government’s new national security adviser Jonathan Powell wrote that a new administration would need to reinforce the UK’s defence and security “within the bounds allowed by a struggling economy”.

Some insiders argue rising threats around the world mean the UK should spend way more than 2.5% in any case.

Another former minister told me, “by any measure we are underspending – if you don’t buy the insurance policy you end up having to pay yourself and the cost of real conflicts would be immense in comparison”.

A defence source told me, “we are going to have to make a move on spending or we can put our fingers in our ears and hope we get through it – the Treasury has to do the maths on this – the way to stop spending 5 percent of GDP in the future is to spend now.”

How it's spent

But it’s not just about how much money goes to defence - it’s also about how it’s spent.

Recent history is littered with examples of Ministry of Defence projects that overrun and overspend, some in eye-watering proportions.

One insider told me, “the worst thing we could do is spend more and spend it badly … the number needs to go up but we absolutely need to get a proper grip of procurement.”

Several sources mentioned with some pride, and indeed surprise, the way the MoD had worked effectively and quickly with Ukraine to get the right kit into their hands quickly.

One said the MoD had “proved it can spend cash well but it needs to show it can do it consistently”.

Another said the British military had to shed its culture where “only the most exquisitely perfect products may be bought”.

The MoD reckons it can crack down on waste and improve the way things are bought and paid for with new more centralised methods – even hiring a new national armaments director to manage this.

As methods of warfare evolve on the battlefield, so too do the ways militaries respond with kit.

A former minister said: “forget your big new fantasy regiment – we can make what we have more lethal” instead.

The government says it wants to shake up and sort out the mess that defence procurement has become. But there is no doubt that is easier said than done.

Power era

While as a political party, Labour is instinctively uncomfortable with Donald Trump’s re-election, when it comes to defence there is some sympathy with his attitude towards European defence funding.

One insider said, “put on your incontinence pants, don’t listen to the rest of his politics, it’s none of our business.”

Another source told me, “Trump set challenge to Europe last time and he was in part right to,” pointing out that after his term in office the number of NATO countries who did hit the target of spending at least 2% of their GDP on defence did go up.

Twenty-three now meet the 2% target, up from just six countries in 2021.

Rather than worrying about what Trump might do in office, they said, “a precondition for Trump to take European defence seriously is for Europe to take its own defence seriously.”

It’s hard to see how that does not mean more countries on the continent spending more of their own cash.

“Let’s not kid ourselves, NATO does deter Russia, and we have to make sure that happens,” said a defence source.

America’s role in our security is vital. But sources in government acknowledge that Europe, with conflict on its fringes, must play a vigorous financial part.

Eager to be seen as the leader in Nato, the UK is taking steps to boost defence cooperation across the continent – leaders recently signed a “landmark defence agreement” with Germany.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House sets nerves jangling across the Atlantic about what it will mean for Nato, what it will mean for the US committment to support for Ukraine in terms of diplomacy and cold hard cash.

There is instinctive political unease here with his behaviour, his attitude to the law, convention, and the truth. But perhaps in the words of one source “it’s not a rule of law era, it’s a power era”.

Before the Trump victory, there were already profound questions for our politicians about how they protect our interests.

The imperative to answer them is stronger now the unpredictable president is on his way back.

Perhaps the UK and the rest of Europe may need to display and pay for more of its own power to have a chance of getting the Trump White House on board.

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Senior US officials have reportedly said Washington will no longer accept the presence of Hamas representatives in Qatar, accusing the Palestinian group of rejecting the latest proposals to achieve a Gaza ceasefire and a hostage deal.

In anonymous briefings to the Reuters news agency, the officials said the Qatari government had agreed to tell Hamas to close its political office 10 days ago.

Hamas have had a political base in Doha since 2012, reportedly at the request of the Obama administration, to allow communication with the group.

The reports have been denied to the BBC by Hamas officials; Qatar has yet to comment.

The small but influential gulf state is a key US ally in the region. It hosts a major American air base and has handled many delicate political negotiations, including with Iran, the Taliban and Russia. Alongside the US and Egypt, the Qataris have also played a major role in rounds of so-far unsuccessful talks to broker a ceasefire in the year-long war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The latest round of talks in mid-October failed to produce a deal, with Hamas rejecting a short-term ceasefire proposal. They have always called for a complete end to the war and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Israel has also been accused of rejecting deals. Days after being fired earlier this week, former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of rejecting a peace deal against the advice of his security chiefs.

Dr H A Hellyer, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), thinks the reports are credible. “I think we’re in the last phase before Hamas is forced to relocate,” he told me. “The writing on the wall has been there for months.”

The call for Hamas to be expelled from Qatar appears to be an attempt by the outgoing Biden administration to force some sort of peace deal before the end of his term in January.

Were Hamas to be forced to leave Doha, it is unclear where they would base their political office. Key ally Iran would be an option, although the assassination of former leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July suggests they may be at risk from Israel if based there. It would also not give them anything close to the same diplomatic channels to the West.

A more likely option would be Turkey. As a Nato member but also a Sunni majority state, it would give the group a base from which to operate in relative safety. Last April President Erdogan hosted then Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh and his delegation in Istanbul, where they talked about “what needs to be done to ensure adequate and uninterrupted delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and a fair and lasting peace process in the region".

The move would also most likely be welcomed by Ankara, which has often sought to position itself as a broker between east and west.

It is thought the personal safety of Hamas leadership is now a major concern for the group, which saw two leaders killed in less than four months. As well as Haniyeh’s death in July, in October Israel killed Yahya Sinwar in Gaza - he was the mastermind behind the 7 October Hamas attack on southern Israel.

According to the European Council of Foreign Relations, “Hamas has adopted a temporary model of collective leadership to mitigate the effect of future Israeli assassinations”.

Dr Hellyer thinks that nowhere “will give them protection from Israeli assassination attempts in the same way that being in Doha, where America has its largest military base in the region, did”.

The latest move comes as US officials appear increasingly frustrated with the approach the Israeli government has taken to ending the war. In October, the US Secretaries of State and Defense said if Israel did not allow more humanitarian aid into the territory within 30 days, they would face unspecified policy “implications”.

Last weekend a number of UN officials warned the situation in northern Gaza was “apocalyptic”. On Saturday the independent Famine Review Committee said there was a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas”.

The relationship between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu has deteriorated over the course of the war in Gaza, with increasing pressure from Washington to improve the humanitarian situation for the Palestinians and find some sort of negotiated settlement.

But, according to Dr Hellyer, US attempts at negotiation have been fatally flawed.

“By setting red lines and allowing Netanyahu to cross them without consequence, the Biden administration effectively encouraged further impunity. I don’t think any of this will change in the next 10 weeks,” he said.

Any overtures have been repeatedly rejected by Mr Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition, who will now also feel emboldened by the prospect of an incoming Donald Trump presidency.

While exactly what approach Donald Trump will take to the region remains uncertain, he is thought to be more likely to allow Israel to act on its terms.

He has previously said Israel should “finish what they started” in Gaza. During his last term in the White House, he took a number of steps deemed highly favourable to Israel, including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.

It has also been reported, however, that Trump told Netanyahu that he wants to see an end to the fighting by the time he takes office.

Either way, it seems likely that the current US administration will have less influence over the government in Jerusalem.

They may therefore believe the best way to force some sort of deal is to apply pressure on Hamas. Whether it pays off may depend on whether Qatar, so long a reliable ally, decides to go along with it.

A family has paid tribute to their son who has been killed in Ukraine, saying they "begged him not to go" but he wanted to help.

Callum Tindal-Draper's family said they were informed by the 4th International Legion that the 22-year-old from Cornwall had been killed in action while the foreign volunteer platoon defended an observation point on 5 November.

His father Steven Draper said the family were proud of their "brave" son, who had told them before going to Ukraine in June he knew the risks he would face and the chances of him coming home were slim.

The BBC has contacted the Foreign Office for further information.

Foreign Office advice has urged people not to travel to Ukraine while the country is in conflict with Russia.

Mr Draper said the family, who live in Gunnislake in Cornwall, had tried to convince his son not to travel out to Ukraine, but they understood it was something he was passionate about doing because he wanted to help.

"We begged and begged and begged him not to go," Mr Draper said.

"But Callum said 'dad, I'm not frightened of bullies and what's going on in Ukraine is awful and someone needs to stand up for these people'."

His mother Caroline Tindal said the family were all "so proud" of Mr Tindal-Draper, who had previously worked at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth and as a carer in the community.

She went out to visit her son in Ukraine in September and said she noticed he had matured as a person.

"It was such a transformation and he said to me 'mum, coming out here was the best thing that ever happened to me, I've found who I was meant to be'," Ms Tindal said.

"He found who he was meant to be, he became that person and he lived it."

'Overwhelming love'

She added Mr Tindal-Draper's battalion had told the family in video messages and handwritten letters they held him in high-esteem and he was an inspiration to them in Ukraine.

Ms Tindal said: "When we found out he'd died, there was just this hole which I can't describe and it's always going to be there.

"But to know that they are saying he inspired them and they called him their little brother because he was the youngest one out there, they really were a family unit, and that is helping heal us and helping us get by.

"Already that hole I thought could not be mended is being filled with overwhelming love from his family out there and it means so much."

Mr Draper said the hole left by his son's death was "crushing", but he was filling it with pride from listening to what his comrades had said to the family.

He added: "It's inspiring me to go out and think what can I do and how can I be as brave and courageous in the things that I do.

"I've got the bravest of the brave as a son as an inspiration and that's really powerful."

Ms Tindal said the family have not had Mr Tindal-Draper's body back yet, but the family have plans to bury him in Ukraine.

She said: "He wanted to stay in Ukraine and live in Ukraine, so I think even if we had the body we would bury him in Ukraine - that's where he found his home."

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The Roman archaeological site of Pompeii will limit the number of daily visitors to the site to 20,000 a day after a steep rise in visitors.

A record high 36,000 tourists visited the site on the first Sunday of October, when entry was free, local media reported.

The park’s management said on Friday that the site would cap its daily visitor number from 15 November.

Pompeii, the Roman city buried in an eruption from nearby Mount Vesuvius in AD79, is one of the best-preserved Roman sites anywhere in the world.

Nearly 4 million people visited the main Pompeii site in 2023, a third more than the previous year. Visitor counts had been climbing in the run up to the pandemic and in 2023 were above pre-Covid levels.

More than 480,000 people visited in October 2024.

In October 2024, there were more than 480,000 visitors, putting the average at about 15,500 a day. The busiest month so far this year was May, when about 517,000 people visited, or some 16,700 a day.

The 20,000 cap is likely to only lead to tourists being turned away on a handful of occasions. A spokesperson for the park told Reuters that it had only exceeded 20,000 visitors when entry is free on the first Sunday of the month, as well as three or four fee-paying days.

Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the park's director, said that reducing the effects of human visitors at Pompeii was important for conservation and safety reasons.

The city was devastated by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which preserved swathes of it almost intact under a layer of ash for over 1,000 years.

About a third of the site has yet to be excavated. It continues to be of huge interest to archaeologists, providing the most complete picture of daily Roman life anywhere in the world.

Earlier this year, archaeologists revealed frescos of mythical Greek figures including Helen of Troy and Apollo. The artworks were found in a banqueting hall with dramatic black walls and a mosaic floor made of more than 1 million white tiles.

Entry tickets to Pompeii start at €18 (£14.90; $19.30).

The 12:40 bus has just driven past Janette Ward’s stop seven minutes early as she watches from the other side of the road, waiting to cross. There won’t be another for two hours.

“It makes it very difficult when you’re going for an appointment or you’re connecting to a rail service or other bus service,” says Ms Ward, 74.

There’s also been further changes to make her journey more complicated, she says. Janette now has to take four buses to see her daughter in Stroud, Gloucestershire. Before, she only needed to change buses once.

Her situation is by no means unique.

The frequency of rural bus services in England has reached a historic low, according to a report by the County Councils Network. They found more than a quarter of rural routes had been lost over the decade to 2023.

And last week's UK Budget revealed that the £2 cap on bus fares in much of England will increase by £1. It could mean an extra £40 a month for someone who gets a return five days a week.

Since then dozens of people have got in touch with BBC News, many saying that buses remain fundamentally unreliable.

Some passengers say there's a lack of digital screens at bus stops and live app updates for some routes outside of cities, unlike trains and Ubers where many are used to tracking journeys in real time.

And even where tracking exists, it can sometimes be out of date.

Take Leeds, for example, where some locals claim they've had to endure “ghost buses” - they’re advertised as coming on live displays at bus stops, but never do.

“For people who rely on the bus as their only means of getting to work it’s impossibly frustrating,” says Cllr Eleanor Thomson, who runs a Facebook group for bus passengers in the Yorkshire city.

“Some people in the area have moved because they’re that fed up of it, or they’ve bought a car, which is costing them a lot of money.”

Bus operators told the local authority in January they’re installing 4G technology to improve tracking, but Cllr Thomson says it “doesn’t seem to be getting any better”.

'Poor technology'

Janette has similar experiences of unreliable service updates in Hereford.

“On bank holidays, sometimes the tracking service doesn’t know if a bus is coming at all,” she says.

Campaigners think bringing the entire bus network into the 21st Century would give people more confidence in the service and make them more likely to use it.

“If you know that your bus is coming in five minutes, then you know you have that certainty,” says Silviya Barrett, director of policy and research from the Campaign for Better Transport.

“Whereas in some bus stops there isn't even the basic timetable, let alone the live arrival updates.”

Cost concerns

Doreen Gower, who doesn’t drive, uses the bus regularly to attend hospital appointments in Hereford.

Now that her service only runs once every two hours, she feels she sometimes has to find alternatives because of the inconvenience.

“If you’re not feeling very well, you don’t particularly want to have to wait for another two hours for a bus. It means that I maybe have to pay £25 for a taxi to get me home,” she tells us.

She also relies on volunteers, who provide a ring-and-ride service, to bring her to and from her local GP surgery in a neighbouring village around 20 minutes away.

As well as passengers, poor rural bus services are costing employers.

“It’s pretty grim, some businesses are completely cut off from public transport,” says Natalie Fryer, who has been appointed by Cumbria’s tourism board to improve the situation.

“Employees are walking down dark roads from their closest bus stops or train stations, with employers concerned for their safety. Some businesses say they put up staff in their own homes just so they can stay open.”

In an attempt to work around the problem, Gilpin Hotel, which lies in the heart of the Lake District, spends £8,000 per month on taxis bringing some of its 137 staff to and from work. Many don't drive, a common occurrence in the hospitality sector.

Helen Tappenden, who oversees personnel at the hotel, says the business has to "put our hand in our pocket" to avoid recruitment and retention problems.

“For our staff it can feel very isolating because, while they might love working here, without a bus route they struggle to have some normality - like popping to a coffee shop or a cinema," she tells the BBC.

And 40 miles away at Muncaster Castle - which is popular with visitors and wedding guests - Ewan Frost-Pennington lets some staff stay in a house on the grounds because of the lack of transport connections.

"That's got six young people living in it, of which I think two can drive," says Ewan, whose family have lived in the castle for 800 years.

A franchised solution?

The UK Government insists it recognises the current service offered by bus operators is unsatisfactory for many passengers - particularly in rural areas and it will introduce a new law to address that.

Officials say the forthcoming buses bill will allow councils in England to deliver better services as they could choose to take control of them.

Under this franchising system, councils could be able to decide routes, timetables and fares - with operators bidding to run services for a fixed fee.

In London and Greater Manchester, where this system is active, bus fares will remain capped at £1.75 and £2 respectively after the new England-wide cap rise - and some passengers told the BBC they felt this risked widening regional inequality.

But experts warn this kind of system is not suitable for all communities and that it works best when a council area includes both urban and rural parts.

“The benefit is that if you have both of these, the more profitable ones in urban areas can pay for the services in rural areas,” says Silviya.

She adds that another reason why some councils may choose not to operate a franchised bus system is that they no longer have the expertise. ”They haven't managed buses to this extent since privatisation,” she says.

In 1986, services outside of London were deregulated and privatised. Before then most bus services were operated by publicly owned companies, which were often run by councils.

Some experts say bus services would also be made better if the way they are funded was made simpler - as currently there are six separate pots councils can apply to for money.

“Streamlining bus funding into a single, long-term pot would give councils greater control over services and spending and residents more long-term certainty over future services," says Cllr Adam Hug, transport spokesman for the Local Government Association.

Graham Vidler, from the Confederation of Passenger Transport, which represents bus operators, tells us: "We accept that passengers face a mixed picture depending on where they live."

He said better technology at bus stops was the responsibility of local councils but that many would struggle to find the money to upgrade them given their tight budgets and the fact there are so many.

"In contrast to the rail network, where there is a manageable number of stations, there are tens and tens of thousands of bus stops across the country."

Louis Dyson, managing director of DRM Buses, which operates the route in Herefordshire that Janette and Doreen use, says the company had cut the route from hourly to two-hourly because of a drop in passenger numbers.

“If as much funding was given to support rural services, rather than making city buses run every 15 minutes, then perhaps there would be more options for the public,” he says.

Dyson says that when buses were running late it was usually caused by bad traffic, roadworks, bad weather and a lack of bus lanes - factors outside of drivers’ control.

And in response to claims that passengers can’t always view accurate information about when DRM’s buses are arriving, he says vehicles have ticket machine tracking software but that the rural location of services interfered with their connectivity.

Dyson says the service that Janette and Doreen regularly take would be changing to hourly “in the next month or two” if it gets approval from officials.

For people like Janette and Doreen, that can’t come soon enough. For them buses are what give them their independence and a chance to see family and friends.

“We’re only asking for the service we had before to be reinstated,” says Janette. “Nothing more.”

Additional reporting by Jennie Dennett, David Spereall and Grace Dean.

Senior US officials have reportedly said Washington will no longer accept the presence of Hamas representatives in Qatar, accusing the Palestinian group of rejecting the latest proposals to achieve a Gaza ceasefire and a hostage deal.

In anonymous briefings to the Reuters news agency, the officials said the Qatari government had agreed to tell Hamas to close its political office 10 days ago.

Hamas have had a political base in Doha since 2012, reportedly at the request of the Obama administration, to allow communication with the group.

The reports have been denied to the BBC by Hamas officials; Qatar has yet to comment.

The small but influential gulf state is a key US ally in the region. It hosts a major American air base and has handled many delicate political negotiations, including with Iran, the Taliban and Russia. Alongside the US and Egypt, the Qataris have also played a major role in rounds of so-far unsuccessful talks to broker a ceasefire in the year-long war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The latest round of talks in mid-October failed to produce a deal, with Hamas rejecting a short-term ceasefire proposal. They have always called for a complete end to the war and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Israel has also been accused of rejecting deals. Days after being fired earlier this week, former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of rejecting a peace deal against the advice of his security chiefs.

Dr H A Hellyer, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), thinks the reports are credible. “I think we’re in the last phase before Hamas is forced to relocate,” he told me. “The writing on the wall has been there for months.”

The call for Hamas to be expelled from Qatar appears to be an attempt by the outgoing Biden administration to force some sort of peace deal before the end of his term in January.

Were Hamas to be forced to leave Doha, it is unclear where they would base their political office. Key ally Iran would be an option, although the assassination of former leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July suggests they may be at risk from Israel if based there. It would also not give them anything close to the same diplomatic channels to the West.

A more likely option would be Turkey. As a Nato member but also a Sunni majority state, it would give the group a base from which to operate in relative safety. Last April President Erdogan hosted then Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh and his delegation in Istanbul, where they talked about “what needs to be done to ensure adequate and uninterrupted delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and a fair and lasting peace process in the region".

The move would also most likely be welcomed by Ankara, which has often sought to position itself as a broker between east and west.

It is thought the personal safety of Hamas leadership is now a major concern for the group, which saw two leaders killed in less than four months. As well as Haniyeh’s death in July, in October Israel killed Yahya Sinwar in Gaza - he was the mastermind behind the 7 October Hamas attack on southern Israel.

According to the European Council of Foreign Relations, “Hamas has adopted a temporary model of collective leadership to mitigate the effect of future Israeli assassinations”.

Dr Hellyer thinks that nowhere “will give them protection from Israeli assassination attempts in the same way that being in Doha, where America has its largest military base in the region, did”.

The latest move comes as US officials appear increasingly frustrated with the approach the Israeli government has taken to ending the war. In October, the US Secretaries of State and Defense said if Israel did not allow more humanitarian aid into the territory within 30 days, they would face unspecified policy “implications”.

Last weekend a number of UN officials warned the situation in northern Gaza was “apocalyptic”. On Saturday the independent Famine Review Committee said there was a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas”.

The relationship between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu has deteriorated over the course of the war in Gaza, with increasing pressure from Washington to improve the humanitarian situation for the Palestinians and find some sort of negotiated settlement.

But, according to Dr Hellyer, US attempts at negotiation have been fatally flawed.

“By setting red lines and allowing Netanyahu to cross them without consequence, the Biden administration effectively encouraged further impunity. I don’t think any of this will change in the next 10 weeks,” he said.

Any overtures have been repeatedly rejected by Mr Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition, who will now also feel emboldened by the prospect of an incoming Donald Trump presidency.

While exactly what approach Donald Trump will take to the region remains uncertain, he is thought to be more likely to allow Israel to act on its terms.

He has previously said Israel should “finish what they started” in Gaza. During his last term in the White House, he took a number of steps deemed highly favourable to Israel, including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.

It has also been reported, however, that Trump told Netanyahu that he wants to see an end to the fighting by the time he takes office.

Either way, it seems likely that the current US administration will have less influence over the government in Jerusalem.

They may therefore believe the best way to force some sort of deal is to apply pressure on Hamas. Whether it pays off may depend on whether Qatar, so long a reliable ally, decides to go along with it.

You’re probably used to politicians telling you we’re living in the most dangerous times for decades.

But who’s going to pay for our protection?

Donald Trump is a lot less willing than the current president to pay for other countries’ defence.

As one UK source told me, “it doesn’t make sense for Europe’s defence interests to be dependent on a few thousand votes in Pennsylvania.”

So Trump's return puts this question right to the top of the list.

The UK government does plan, eventually, to hit the target the Conservatives committed to - of spending 2.5% of the size of the economy on defence, a level last hit back in 2010.

But there’s a defence review underway, and a spending review of every penny spent in Whitehall to get through first.

They’re expected to come one after the other, next spring.

John Healey, the defence secretary, was granted an extra £3bn in the Budget, which is a chunky sum of money - but in terms of defence spending, not a transformative amount of cash.

And it’s only a top-up for a year, with no certainty over long-term funding.

A former minister said: “It’s very hard to order for the years ahead - how long can we be talking, when the need is now?”

The government will not say when they expect to hit the 2.5% target - and won’t commit to hitting it before the end of the Parliament in 2029 - causing frustration in some quarters.

A senior source said “you either believe it is the most dangerous time in decades and you fund it properly, or you just don’t really believe it, so you don’t.”

And earlier on the Today programme, former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace accused Labour of making an effective “cut in our defence budget” by including £3bn of Ukraine funding in it.

If Labour reach the 2.5% target, he said he’d welcome it, “but it’s got to be real money with a timetable”.

There is little disagreement that more resources are needed.

John Healey himself has acknowledged the military “are not ready to fight”. A squeeze on funding over many years had made money tight – the forces “hollowed out”, according to Wallace.

The UK’s support for Ukraine, which has almost universal political support at home, has added to pressure.

According to the National Audit Office, the UK has committed nearly £8 billion to Ukraine - air defence missiles, drones, cruise missiles, tanks and ships, as well as clothing and personal equipment.

Another former minister told me that funding “is absolutely urgent – it is urgent to help Ukraine but the most urgent is where our forces are in danger – it’s not hypothetical, in the Red Sea the Houthis are firing at our ships.”

And shortly before the election, the government’s new national security adviser Jonathan Powell wrote that a new administration would need to reinforce the UK’s defence and security “within the bounds allowed by a struggling economy”.

Some insiders argue rising threats around the world mean the UK should spend way more than 2.5% in any case.

Another former minister told me, “by any measure we are underspending – if you don’t buy the insurance policy you end up having to pay yourself and the cost of real conflicts would be immense in comparison”.

A defence source told me, “we are going to have to make a move on spending or we can put our fingers in our ears and hope we get through it – the Treasury has to do the maths on this – the way to stop spending 5 percent of GDP in the future is to spend now.”

How it's spent

But it’s not just about how much money goes to defence - it’s also about how it’s spent.

Recent history is littered with examples of Ministry of Defence projects that overrun and overspend, some in eye-watering proportions.

One insider told me, “the worst thing we could do is spend more and spend it badly … the number needs to go up but we absolutely need to get a proper grip of procurement.”

Several sources mentioned with some pride, and indeed surprise, the way the MoD had worked effectively and quickly with Ukraine to get the right kit into their hands quickly.

One said the MoD had “proved it can spend cash well but it needs to show it can do it consistently”.

Another said the British military had to shed its culture where “only the most exquisitely perfect products may be bought”.

The MoD reckons it can crack down on waste and improve the way things are bought and paid for with new more centralised methods – even hiring a new national armaments director to manage this.

As methods of warfare evolve on the battlefield, so too do the ways militaries respond with kit.

A former minister said: “forget your big new fantasy regiment – we can make what we have more lethal” instead.

The government says it wants to shake up and sort out the mess that defence procurement has become. But there is no doubt that is easier said than done.

Power era

While as a political party, Labour is instinctively uncomfortable with Donald Trump’s re-election, when it comes to defence there is some sympathy with his attitude towards European defence funding.

One insider said, “put on your incontinence pants, don’t listen to the rest of his politics, it’s none of our business.”

Another source told me, “Trump set challenge to Europe last time and he was in part right to,” pointing out that after his term in office the number of NATO countries who did hit the target of spending at least 2% of their GDP on defence did go up.

Twenty-three now meet the 2% target, up from just six countries in 2021.

Rather than worrying about what Trump might do in office, they said, “a precondition for Trump to take European defence seriously is for Europe to take its own defence seriously.”

It’s hard to see how that does not mean more countries on the continent spending more of their own cash.

“Let’s not kid ourselves, NATO does deter Russia, and we have to make sure that happens,” said a defence source.

America’s role in our security is vital. But sources in government acknowledge that Europe, with conflict on its fringes, must play a vigorous financial part.

Eager to be seen as the leader in Nato, the UK is taking steps to boost defence cooperation across the continent – leaders recently signed a “landmark defence agreement” with Germany.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House sets nerves jangling across the Atlantic about what it will mean for Nato, what it will mean for the US committment to support for Ukraine in terms of diplomacy and cold hard cash.

There is instinctive political unease here with his behaviour, his attitude to the law, convention, and the truth. But perhaps in the words of one source “it’s not a rule of law era, it’s a power era”.

Before the Trump victory, there were already profound questions for our politicians about how they protect our interests.

The imperative to answer them is stronger now the unpredictable president is on his way back.

Perhaps the UK and the rest of Europe may need to display and pay for more of its own power to have a chance of getting the Trump White House on board.

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The Roman archaeological site of Pompeii will limit the number of daily visitors to the site to 20,000 a day after a steep rise in visitors.

A record high 36,000 tourists visited the site on the first Sunday of October, when entry was free, local media reported.

The park’s management said on Friday that the site would cap its daily visitor number from 15 November.

Pompeii, the Roman city buried in an eruption from nearby Mount Vesuvius in AD79, is one of the best-preserved Roman sites anywhere in the world.

Nearly 4 million people visited the main Pompeii site in 2023, a third more than the previous year. Visitor counts had been climbing in the run up to the pandemic and in 2023 were above pre-Covid levels.

More than 480,000 people visited in October 2024.

In October 2024, there were more than 480,000 visitors, putting the average at about 15,500 a day. The busiest month so far this year was May, when about 517,000 people visited, or some 16,700 a day.

The 20,000 cap is likely to only lead to tourists being turned away on a handful of occasions. A spokesperson for the park told Reuters that it had only exceeded 20,000 visitors when entry is free on the first Sunday of the month, as well as three or four fee-paying days.

Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the park's director, said that reducing the effects of human visitors at Pompeii was important for conservation and safety reasons.

The city was devastated by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which preserved swathes of it almost intact under a layer of ash for over 1,000 years.

About a third of the site has yet to be excavated. It continues to be of huge interest to archaeologists, providing the most complete picture of daily Roman life anywhere in the world.

Earlier this year, archaeologists revealed frescos of mythical Greek figures including Helen of Troy and Apollo. The artworks were found in a banqueting hall with dramatic black walls and a mosaic floor made of more than 1 million white tiles.

Entry tickets to Pompeii start at €18 (£14.90; $19.30).

A senior adviser to president-elect Donald Trump says the incoming administration will focus on achieving peace in the war in Ukraine rather than winning back territory.

Bryan Lanza, a Republican party strategist, told the BBC the Trump administration would ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his version of a "realistic vision for peace".

"And if President Zelensky comes to the table and says, well we can only have peace if we have Crimea, he shows to us that he's not serious," he said.

Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula in 2014. Eight years later, it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has occupied territory in the country's east.

Trump has already spoken to Zelensky since winning the US election - the pair held a phone call on Wednesday with billionaire Elon Musk also taking part.

“It was a short chat with Musk, but it was a good lengthy conversation with Trump, it lasted about half an hour,” a source in Ukraine's presidential office told the BBC.

“It was not really a conversation to talk about very substantial things, but overall it was very warm and pleasant.”

Trump has consistently said his priority is to end the war and stem the drain on US resources.

His Democrat opponents have accused him of cosying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and say his approach to the war amounts to surrender for Ukraine and will endanger all of Europe.

Last month, Zelensky presented a "victory plan" to the Ukrainian parliament that included a refusal to trade Ukraine’s territories and sovereignty.

During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in a day”, but gave no details. A paper written by two of his former national security chiefs in May said the US should continue supplying weapons, but make the support conditional on Kyiv entering peace talks with Russia.

Ukraine should not give up its hopes of getting all of its territory back from Russian occupation, the paper said, but it should negotiate based on current front lines.

Mr Lanza did not mention areas of eastern Ukraine, but he said regaining Crimea from Russia was unrealistic and "not the goal of the United States".

"When Zelensky says we will only stop this fighting, there will only be peace once Crimea is returned, we've got news for President Zelensky: Crimea is gone," he told the BBC World Service’s Weekend programme.

"And if that is your priority of getting Crimea back and having American soldiers fight to get Crimea back, you're on your own."

Mr Lanza said he had tremendous respect for the Ukrainian people, describing them as having the hearts of lions. But he said the US priority was "peace and to stop the killing".

"What we're going to say to Ukraine is, you know what you see? What do you see as a realistic vision for peace. It's not a vision for winning, but it's a vision for peace. And let's start having the honest conversation," he said.

Earlier this week, Putin congratulated Trump on his election victory and said Trump's claim that he can help end the war in Ukraine "deserves attention at least".

Mr Lanza also criticised the support the Biden-Harris administration and European countries have given to Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

"The reality on the ground is that the European nation states and President Biden did not give Ukraine the ability and the arms to win this war at the very beginning and they failed to lift the restrictions for Ukraine to win," he said.

Earlier this year, the US House of Representatives approved a $61bn (£49bn) package in military aid for Ukraine to help combat Russia's invasion.

The US has been the biggest arms supplier to Ukraine - between February 2022 and the end of June 2024, it delivered or committed weapons and equipment worth $55.5bn (£41.5bn), according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research organisation.

The Roman archaeological site of Pompeii will limit the number of daily visitors to the site to 20,000 a day after a steep rise in visitors.

A record high 36,000 tourists visited the site on the first Sunday of October, when entry was free, local media reported.

The park’s management said on Friday that the site would cap its daily visitor number from 15 November.

Pompeii, the Roman city buried in an eruption from nearby Mount Vesuvius in AD79, is one of the best-preserved Roman sites anywhere in the world.

Nearly 4 million people visited the main Pompeii site in 2023, a third more than the previous year. Visitor counts had been climbing in the run up to the pandemic and in 2023 were above pre-Covid levels.

More than 480,000 people visited in October 2024.

In October 2024, there were more than 480,000 visitors, putting the average at about 15,500 a day. The busiest month so far this year was May, when about 517,000 people visited, or some 16,700 a day.

The 20,000 cap is likely to only lead to tourists being turned away on a handful of occasions. A spokesperson for the park told Reuters that it had only exceeded 20,000 visitors when entry is free on the first Sunday of the month, as well as three or four fee-paying days.

Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the park's director, said that reducing the effects of human visitors at Pompeii was important for conservation and safety reasons.

The city was devastated by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which preserved swathes of it almost intact under a layer of ash for over 1,000 years.

About a third of the site has yet to be excavated. It continues to be of huge interest to archaeologists, providing the most complete picture of daily Roman life anywhere in the world.

Earlier this year, archaeologists revealed frescos of mythical Greek figures including Helen of Troy and Apollo. The artworks were found in a banqueting hall with dramatic black walls and a mosaic floor made of more than 1 million white tiles.

Entry tickets to Pompeii start at €18 (£14.90; $19.30).

The Queen will miss Remembrance events this weekend while she recovers from a chest infection, Buckingham Palace says.

A statement said Queen Camilla was "following doctors’ guidance to ensure a full recovery from a seasonal chest infection, and to protect others from any potential risk".

"While this is a source of great disappointment to the Queen, she will mark the occasion privately at home and hopes to return to public duties early next week," the statement said.

On Friday, it was confirmed the Princess of Wales would attend Remembrance events in London this weekend as she gradually returns to public duties following her cancer treatment.

The Queen, who is 77, had withdrawn from events earlier in the week.

She missed the annual opening of the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey on Thursday, where she was instead represented by the Duchess of Gloucester.

The Queen returned to the UK last Wednesday after a trip with the King to Australia and Samoa, which included a stopover in India on the way back.

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A number of bus passengers have been taken to hospital after two buses crashed close to a city centre.

Two Bee Network buses crashed on Rochdale Road off Livesey Street, Manchester, but no-one was seriously injured, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said.

Images show debris strewn across the highway as one of the vehicles appeared to have hit the back of the other.

A GMP spokesman said the road remained shut while emergency services were at the scene.

Police were called to the incident at about 08:30 GMT.

Manchester councillor Pat Karney, who was at the site, posted on X to say there had been "unbelievable damage" to the front of the bus.

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

University graduates across the UK are being urged by a campaign group to check whether they are due a refund on their student loan repayment after it was revealed that nearly £200m was overpaid last year.

Save the Student's comments come after figures were published which show that hundreds of thousands of people currently paying off their loans are eligible for a share of £184m in refunds.

It is easy to check whether a refund is owed by logging on to the government's Student Loan Company portal, where individual refunds could range from tens of pounds to more than £1,000.

Tom Allingham from Save the Student said for many getting a refund could make a world of difference.

Charlotte Gill is one such former student who was eligible for a refund on her loan payments, to the tune of £68.

She said it did not make a huge difference "but every little helps when you are a student".

"At the end of the day, it's your money, it’s not the government's money, so if you've got any entitlement to a refund then absolutely take it," she said.

Martin De'Ath received £396 in his refund and says the substantial payment made him question how he could have used it in the 10 months he was without it.

"I was definitely pleased to get it back at least," he said.

There are four reasons people may be eligible for refunds.

The main reason, behind £146m of the total, is that repayments were taken from people despite them not earning above the annual threshold at which point repayments automatically kick in.

This can happen when someone earns above the monthly threshold which triggers the beginning of loan repayments, due to things like to taking extra shifts, getting a new job or receiving a bonus, but their annual earnings might still fall below the yearly threshold.

Since May, those who fall into this category have been able to use a new service offered by the SLC to request refunds online. In the first six months of the service, 418,000 people have done so.

Other reasons may be that former students are charged repayments before they are required to pay, which is generally in the April after they finish studying.

Some people may have been put on the wrong payment plans by their employer, while others may have continued making payments after their loan had been paid off in full.

Any money overpaid does count towards the full repayment of the loan, and may save graduates money in the long run on interest.

However, as Mr Allingham said, many university graduates may need the cash for their day-to-day expenses.

"It is definitely worth doing, particularly even with the cost of living crisis still lingering on a little bit, having that extra boost of cash right now could make a world of difference," Mr Allingham said.

In the build-up to Tuesday’s US election, claims of voter fraud flooded social media - but as Donald Trump’s victory crystallised, the chatter largely subsided.

The claims didn’t stop entirely, however. A number of right-wing influencers and organisations pushing stories about “cheating” and a “rigged” vote pointed to incomplete vote totals and continued to repeat discredited theories about the 2020 election.

And disappointed Democratic Party supporters developed their own unsubstantiated voter fraud theories, some of which went viral on X, formerly Twitter, and other platforms.

The reach of the posts is nowhere near the deluge of content that circulated after Trump lost the 2020 election.

And with no support from losing candidate Kamala Harris or other Democratic Party officials, the chances seem slim of a large-scale movement developing along the lines of the “Stop the Steal” drive four years ago, which culminated in a riot at the US Capitol.

How did fraud claims develop on election day?

The BBC tracked a huge wave of pre-election fraud claims that carried through election day and into the evening.

These included claims of the vote being “stolen” in some key swing states, with exaggerated takes on real events being used in some cases to bolster the allegations.

Early on election day in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, a Republican stronghold, there were problems with voting machines malfunctioning. The issues were fixed and voting hours in the affected areas were extended.

However, many online immediately used the story to suggest nefarious activities were taking place.

One post at 08:45 local time on Tuesday said: “The election steal is happening!”

Other rumours were spread in posts that popped up throughout the day, including one at around 14:00, which claimed ballots in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, had been pre-marked for Kamala Harris.

In Milwaukee, the biggest city in the swing state of Wisconsin, elections officials made a decision to re-run around 30,000 ballots out of an “abundance of caution”, after doors on the back of voting machines were left open.

Once the count was completed, it showed that support for Harris had dropped compared with Joe Biden's four years earlier.

Like many of the pro-Trump posters, Harris supporters pointed to real but isolated events - fires at ballot drop boxes in Washington and Oregon, and a series of fake bomb threats that disrupted voting at several polling locations on election day - as evidence of widespread voter fraud.

However, there’s no evidence that the incidents significantly altered the vote or changed the outcome.

Several posts from Democratic Party activists questioning the result went viral and were seen by millions on X and other platforms.

Pam Keith, a Harris supporter in Florida, posted: “Is it possible that the machines were hacked to switch the tallies from Harris to Trump?” Her message was seen more than one million times on X, according to the site’s metrics. The BBC has reached out to her for comment.

Unlike Trump’s campaign in 2020, however, the Harris campaign and top Democratic Party officials have not endorsed allegations of cheating or voter fraud.

On election day, fraud rumours also came from President-elect Trump himself, who has repeatedly argued from the outset of his political career that the voting system is unfairly stacked against him.

Just after 16:30 Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social: “A lot of talk about massive CHEATING in Philadelphia. Law Enforcement coming!!!”

The now president-elect did not give any details and the Philadelphia Police Department told BBC Verify they were not aware of what Trump was referring to.

Seth Bluestein, the Republican City Commissioner in Philadelphia, posted on X: "There is absolutely no truth to this allegation. It is yet another example of disinformation. Voting in Philadelphia has been safe and secure."

Trump has not repeated the fraud allegations since election day.

We have contacted several hugely influential accounts that regularly posted about election fraud claims in the build-up to the vote, but none of them replied.

With data firm NodeXL, the BBC tracked accounts that engaged with Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump, Lara Trump and Elon Musk on X around election day.

Posts mentioning vote fraud peaked at 15:00 EST on 5 November - but then dropped off significantly that evening and into the next day as polls closed and results came in.

Claims continue to circulate

However, some organisations and activists who promoted voter fraud allegations in the past continued to repeat debunked rumours even after the results became clear.

Emerald Robinson, a former reporter with right-wing TV networks and a pro-Trump influencer with more than 750,000 followers on X, insisted that Democrats were “cheating right now” and posted: “I always told people the voting machines were rigged!”

More generally, reaction from pro-Trump groups and influencers who previously hyped up vote fraud claims varied - from silence on the issue, to continued insistence that the 2020 vote was marred by fraud.

The BBC contacted Ms Robinson for comment.

Conspiracy theories based on vote numbers

In another case, a chart that was widely circulating online claimed to show a sharp drop-off in vote totals in 2024 compared to 2020.

Many are pointing to the figures as “proof” of fraud.

Conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza, a Trump supporter who has pushed voter fraud theories, posted the day after the election: "Kamala got 60 million votes in 2024. Does anyone really believe Biden got 80 million in 2020? Where did those 20 million Democratic voters go? The truth is, they never existed."

However, the chart and the figures circulating online were based on preliminary vote totals, which continue to go up as final results are still being tabulated.

Already, Harris has more than 69 million votes in her column - with Trump on more than 73 million. As of Friday, fewer than two million ballots have yet to be counted nationally, in states including Arizona and California, according to Reuters.

The BBC contacted Mr D'Souza for comment.

Those same numbers are also fuelling conspiracy theories from supporters of Harris, who are wondering where their “missing” voters are - and ignoring the fact that turnouts and preferences frequently shift, often dramatically, between elections.

Partisans on both sides are also pointing to differences in vote tallies for Harris and other Democrats running for Senate seats.

But there is no requirement for US voters to support candidates from just one party, and “ticket-splitting” - voting for candidates from different parties in different races - although becoming rarer, is fairly common in American politics.

The University of Florida’s Election Lab turnout tracker is showing slightly lower turnout in 2024 as compared to 2020 - 62.5% v just over 66%.

Additional reporting by Shayan Sardarizadeh and Merlyn Thomas

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

A day after her husband’s big election night win, Melania Trump took to social media to address the nation.

“The majority of Americans have entrusted us with this important responsibility,” Mrs Trump said.

“We will safeguard the heart of the republic – freedom,” she vowed, and urged Americans to rise above ideology for the sake of the country.

It was a brief message, but suggested a shift in how the former first lady will approach the role this second time around.

When Trump won his first presidency in 2016, his wife was initially absent from the White House, instead staying in New York with their young son. She appeared reticent, at times, with the traditions set out by first ladies that preceded her.

But experts say that this time, Mrs Trump will likely be more deliberate with her approach to the largely undefined role of being America’s First Lady.

Born Melania Knauss, the 54-year-old Slovenian-American former fashion model eventually traded a glamorous life in the gilded walls of Manhattan’s Trump Tower for the confines of political life that came with the Oval Office, during a presidency that was often mired in controversy.

Described by some as an “enigma”, Mrs Trump has preferred to be less public than her predecessors, giving fewer speeches both in the White House and on the campaign trail.

“She’s been unique among modern first ladies,” said Tammy Vigil, an associate professor of communications at Boston University and author of a book on Michelle Obama and Melania Trump.

“She does things the way she wants to do them, as opposed to the way she has to do them. But she fulfils the base expectations.”

In recent years, she avoided the spotlight as her husband challenged several legal cases against him while he campaigned for a second term.

Her absence inspired several news articles this summer asking: “Where is Melania?”

Mrs Trump did appear on key occasions, like when her husband announced in late 2022 that he would be running again.

She also attended the Republican National Convention in July wearing a bright red Christian Dior suit, but did not deliver a speech - another break from tradition.

When she does speak, her words appear carefully chosen, offering hints to her point of view.

At her husband’s Madison Square Garden rally just weeks before Election Day, she delivered short but pointed remarks in line with the Trump campaign's law and order messaging, painting New York City as a “great metropolis” in decline due to rampant crime.

She also spoke after the first assassination attempt on her husband, calling for unity and labelling the perpetrator a “monster”.

In a rare interview on Fox, she later accused his political opponents and the media of “fuelling a toxic atmosphere” that led to the attack.

Mrs Trump declared her pro-choice stance in her recent memoir, putting her at odds with anti-abortion activists within the Republican Party - though the remarks prompted speculation due to their timing, as her husband was struggling to campaign on the issue after the overturning of Roe v Wade.

• Melania Trump is latest Republican First Lady to back abortion

Mrs Trump wrote about her modelling career, her admiration for her husband and their past political disagreements, but chose to keep details of those disputes private.

She has, however, publicly stood by Trump on controversial stances like his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

"I am not the only person who questions the results," she wrote in her book. On the Capitol Riots on 6 January, 2021, she wrote that she "wasn't aware" of what was taking place because she was preoccupied with her duties.

Her former press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, wrote in her own memoir that Mrs Trump refused to issue a statement condemning the violence, leading Ms Grisham to resign.

Some commentators have questioned whether she enjoyed the role of first lady at all.

One of her biographers, former CNN reporter Kate Bennett, maintains she did despite her early reluctance.

“She liked all the accoutrements that go with being first lady and living in the White House,” Ms Bennett told People magazine in 2021. “I think she actually really enjoyed it.”

In her memoir, Mrs Trump wrote that she has a “strong sense of duty to use the platform as First Lady for good”.

And she said in a 1999 interview that if her then-boyfriend Trump ever ran for president, she would use former first ladies Jacqueline Kennedy and Betty Ford as role models, calling them "very traditional".

• Five takeaways from Melania Trump's new book

Mrs Kennedy was a fashion icon who was dedicated to the preservation of the White House, while Mrs Ford was known as a trailblazer who advocated for abortion rights and women's rights.

After relocating to Washington, Mrs Trump started taking on first lady duties, such as hosting luncheons and state dinners for visiting world leaders. She also focused on White House aesthetics, ordering extensive renovations and overseeing ambitious Christmas decorations (and was once secretly recorded complaining about that last task).

Her clothing was the subject of media fascination and controversy, particularly after she was spotted wearing a jacket with the phrase “I really don’t care, do you?” during a trip to a migrant child detention centre in 2018.

She said the jacket was a message for “the people and the left-wing media” who were criticising her.

Mrs Trump came under fire again after being secretly recorded by her former friend and senior advisor. She was heard expressing her frustration at being criticised for her husband’s policy to separate migrant children from their families.

She later revealed that she had been blindsided by the policy, and had told Trump privately that she did not support it. The policy was dropped by the president in June 2018 after a firestorm of controversy.

Prof Vigil says one of the biggest challenges that Mrs Trump faced in her first term was her political inexperience as well as a revolving door of staff, who were equally inexperienced and at times disloyal.

But Mrs Trump kept quietly busy regardless, Prof Vigil adds, advocating for issues like children’s welfare through her Be Best campaign against online bullying.

She was forced to defend that campaign given her own husband's aggressive use of social media, telling CBS in 2016 that how he conducted himself online got him in trouble - and boosted his followers.

She also advocated for children affected by the opioid crisis, and has since started a foundation that raises education funds for children in foster care.

Many expect for that work to continue once she moves back to Washington, though it remains unclear if she will live there full-time.

Prof Vigil says the role of first lady has evolved over the years and Mrs Trump will "make choices about how active in public she wants to be".

"And I think she'll do that much more intentionally."

Someone moved the UK's oldest satellite and there appears to be no record of exactly who, when or why.

Launched in 1969, just a few months after humans first set foot on the Moon, Skynet-1A was put high above Africa's east coast to relay communications for British forces.

When the spacecraft ceased working a few years later, gravity might have been expected to pull it even further to the east, out over the Indian Ocean.

But today, curiously, Skynet-1A is actually half a planet away, in a position 22,369 miles (36,000km) above the Americas.

Orbital mechanics mean it's unlikely the half-tonne military spacecraft simply drifted to its current location.

Almost certainly, it was commanded to fire its thrusters in the mid-1970s to take it westwards. The question is who that was and with what authority and purpose?

It's intriguing that key information about a once vital national security asset can just evaporate. But, fascination aside, you might also reasonably ask why it still matters. After all, we're talking about some discarded space junk from 50 years ago.

"It's still relevant because whoever did move Skynet-1A did us few favours," says space consultant Dr Stuart Eves.

"It's now in what we call a 'gravity well' at 105 degrees West longitude, wandering backwards and forwards like a marble at the bottom of a bowl. And unfortunately this brings it close to other satellite traffic on a regular basis.

"Because it's dead, the risk is it might bump into something, and because it's 'our' satellite we're still responsible for it," he explains.

Dr Eves has looked through old satellite catalogues, the National Archives and spoken to satellite experts worldwide, but he can find no clues to the end-of-life behaviour of Britain's oldest spacecraft.

It might be tempting to reach for a conspiracy theory or two, not least because it's hard to hear the name "Skynet" without thinking of the malevolent, self-aware artificial intelligence (AI) system in The Terminator movie franchise.

But there's no connection other than the name and, in any case, real life is always more prosaic.

What we do know is that Skynet-1A was manufactured in the US by the now defunct Philco Ford aerospace company and put in space by a US Air Force Delta rocket.

"The first Skynet satellite revolutionised UK telecommunications capacity, permitting London to securely communicate with British forces as far away as Singapore. However, from a technological standpoint, Skynet-1A was more American than British since the United States both built and launched it," remarked Dr Aaron Bateman in a recent paper on the history of the Skynet programme, which is now on its fifth generation.

This view is confirmed by Graham Davison who flew Skynet-1A in the early 70s from its UK operations centre at RAF Oakhanger in Hampshire.

"The Americans originally controlled the satellite in orbit. They tested all of our software against theirs, before then eventually handing over control to the RAF," the long-retired engineer told me.

"In essence, there was dual control, but when or why Skynet-1A might have been handed back to the Americans, which seems likely - I'm afraid I can't remember," says Mr Davison, who is now in his 80s.

Rachel Hill, a PhD student from University College London, has also been scouring the National Archives.

Her readings have led her to one very reasonable possibility.

"A Skynet team from Oakhanger would go to the USAF satellite facility in Sunnyvale (colloquially known as the Blue Cube) and operate Skynet during 'Oakout'. This was when control was temporarily transferred to the US while Oakhanger was down for essential maintenance. Perhaps the move could have happened then?” Ms Hill speculated.

The official, though incomplete, logs of Skynet-1A’s status suggest final commanding was left in the hands of the Americans when Oakhanger lost sight of the satellite in June 1977.

But however Skynet-1A then got shifted to its present position, it was ultimately allowed to die in an awkward place when really it should have been put in an "orbital graveyard".

This refers to a region even higher in the sky where old space junk runs zero risk of running into active telecommunications satellites.

Graveyarding is now standard practice, but back in the 1970s no-one gave much thought to space sustainability.

Attitudes have since changed because the space domain is getting congested.

At 105 degrees West longitude, an active satellite might see a piece of junk come within 50km of its position up to four times a day.

That might sound like they’re nowhere near each other, but at the velocities these defunct objects move it’s starting to get a little too close for comfort.

The Ministry of Defence said Skynet-1A was constantly monitored by the UK's National Space Operations Centre. Other satellite operators are informed if there's likely to be a particularly close conjunction, in case they need to take evasive action.

Ultimately, though, the British government may have to think about removing the old satellite to a safer location.

Technologies are being developed to grab junk left in space.

Already, the UK Space Agency is funding efforts to do this at lower altitudes, and the Americans and the Chinese have shown it's possible to snare ageing hardware even in the kind of high orbit occupied by Skynet-1A.

"Pieces of space junk are like ticking time bombs," observed Moriba Jah, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

"We need to avoid what I call super-spreader events. When these things explode or something collides with them, it generates thousands of pieces of debris that then become a hazard to something else that we care about."

I can feel the anger rising. How am I facing this abuse again after 20 years?

My name is Alex. But increasingly young people shout “Timmy” at me in the street. This isn’t mistaken identity - it‘s mockery because I use a wheelchair.

I should ignore it, but this time, I react. I turn to see a group of young teenage boys smirking in front of me. “I heard you,” I tell them. “I know exactly who Timmy is.”

I know this because although we do not share a name, I have felt the shadow of Timmy since childhood - never through choice.

A disabled character from dark-humoured satire cartoon series South Park, he uses a wheelchair and can only shout his name, mainly loudly and uncontrollably.

Growing up at the show’s initial peak during the turn of the millennium, Timmy followed me through school corridors, classrooms and playgrounds - no matter my friends, sociability or relatively good grades.

Now, in my 30s, he’s back. For the third time in a year, this time heading to my local train station in my wheelchair, I hear the familiar, brutish drawl: “Timmaaah.”

A laugh. A snigger. An assumption I either won’t hear or be unable to understand.

When I confront the group of boys, one feigns innocence, claiming he’d been speaking to his friend.

“You weren’t,” I say. “I was watching the show before you were born.”

Initially I was baffled as to how this phenomenon had returned to a new young generation, 24 years after the character first appeared.

The answer lies in social media, particularly TikTok, where hundreds of short user-edited clips of Timmy and audio of him saying his name are sparking the revival.

TikTok users often take part in trends by using the audio of popular videos and overlaying it with their own clips.

That’s what many have done with Timmy, where the name is used as a punchline, or played on top of unrelated clips of wheelchair users, reinforcing harmful and dehumanising stereotypes.

The irony is that the character Timmy is presented with warmth in South Park and given character depth by co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

An equal in the show’s unflinching satire, his disability isn’t necessarily the brunt of the joke.

Timmy is an accepted member of the class: he fails to complete homework, faces adversity and causes trouble with his disabled best friend Jimmy. His personality is conveyed through the different intonations in which he delivers his name.

One episode, Timmy 2000, sees him win a battle of the bands as frontman for a metal group. The adult characters are shown to respond in an over-protective and condescending way - a striking criticism of the way society often treats disabled people.

Nearly 20 years ago, a poll by Ouch! - the former name of the BBC’s disability section - crowned Timmy as the most popular disabled TV character.

Seattle Times’ late disabled critic Jeff Shannon described Timmy as the most “progressive, provocative and socially relevant disability humour ever presented on American television”.

“Without telling viewers what to think, South Park challenges [the audience’s] own fears and foibles regarding disability, and Timmy emerges triumphant,” he wrote in 2005.

In interviews Stone and Parker have spoken of how carefully and purposefully they integrated him into the show.

But two decades later, the fact remains that on meeting Timmy, certainly at first glance, many find him outrageously offensive.

South Park has always worked on multiple levels - offering outrageous forbidden shock value for schoolchildren while delivering crunching adult satire.

None of this nuance is reflected in the TikTok trend, which reduces Timmy, and by extension wheelchair users and disability, to one-dimensional ridicule.

This warped revival parallels the case of Joey Deacon, a man with cerebral palsy whose appearance on Blue Peter in the 1980s backfired to spark playground mockery, with kids shouting “you're a Joey!”, and “do the Joey face”.

TikTok says its community guidelines strictly prohibit hate speech and content promoting discrimination, violence or harm based on disability.

It removed the videos flagged by the BBC for violating this policy. But it didn’t remove the Timmy sound used on several other videos - meaning it can be used again.

TikTok didn’t respond to a specific question about removing offensive audio.

Ciaran O’Connor, from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a think tank focusing on online hate, says that sounds are a “blind spot in TikTok’s content moderation practices”.

Even if a video with an “original sound” is removed by the platform, the audio usually isn’t, he says.

This makes it a common way of bypassing TikTok’s content moderation guidelines - including for harassment and abuse.

Bullying and trolling of disabled people is still common online. Three in 10 said they’d experienced it in a survey of 4,000 disabled people carried out by charity Scope.

My last experience of having the name hurled at me on the street shocked me not so much in the name-calling, but the absolute lack of contrition shown even when challenged.

It mirrored an experience last year when teenagers, again taunting me, rode off shouting “Timmy is going to run us over.”

Ross Hovey, a wheelchair user and Liverpool fan, recently posted on LinkedIn about a near-identical experience.

He was heading to a Liverpool match with his 79-year-old father and care assistant when a group of young men shouted "Timmy" at him. When Ross challenged them with “I heard you,” they too tried to claim innocence.

The abuse raises questions about what role platforms should take in providing context to young users.

“Brief, contextless clips and participatory trends are at the heart of TikTok’s popularity,” says O’Connor.

“That’s normally good and positive and funny … but when these dynamics are being used to demean, mock or stigmatise others, it does raise the question of whether TikTok should be doing more to inform or educate users.”

Alison Kerry, head of communications at Scope, told the BBC "these kinds of ableist trends are deeply harmful. They don’t exist in a vacuum, so a social media trend can quickly turn into someone facing abuse in their everyday life.”

The real-world impact is certainly becoming more noticeable.

Disabled TikTokers have been posting about their experiences, and a teacher recently wrote a Reddit thread titled “Getting real sick of this Timmy trend”, expressing frustration at students' lack of awareness.

This is why I challenged the teens at the station - I felt a duty not only to my 12-year-old self, who once burst into tears feeling helpless at similar taunts, but also to disabled students today.

I returned a second time when the boys called out “Timmy” again after I turned to leave.

“Why?” I asked forcefully. Silence. One of the group eventually apologised, admitting the behaviour was wrong.

“Speak to your friends,” I pleaded, sensing a glimmer of hope. “Maybe then they’ll listen.”

Like every parent in Valencia that day, Victor Matías had quickly changed his plans, fearing what could be on the way.

The rain was still thundering down, but by now - early evening - he had managed to leave work early, safely pick up his boys from nursery and was about to make their favourite dinner – croquetas.

The crispy fried rolls of mashed potatoes, stuffed full of cheese and ham, would be a treat for Izan, 5, and Rubén, 3, while their mum Marta finished her late shift at the supermarket in town.

We have pieced together the tragic chronology of what happened next.

Our picture emerges from the testimony of neighbours and relatives we spoke to, as well as what Victor was able to recall himself along with other first-hand accounts given to local media.

The crushing story of the Matías family has generated huge attention in Spain. Many have followed updates on “Los niños desaparecidosas” – the missing children - as they have been frequently described.

But this one family’s grief is many people’s grief as it’s a nightmare replicated across the Valencia region which was hammered by flash flooding nearly two weeks ago, killing at least 219 people.

More than 90 are still missing.

Utter devastation

When we arrived at the family home, a few days after the deluge, it was languishing in a sea of destruction.

That startling statistic - a year’s worth of rain had been dumped on some parts of Valencia in a matter of hours – became easy to believe as you took all this in.

Huge metal containers – broken free from their articulated lorries – rested at unfathomable angles amid a jumble of cars, crumpled furniture and treacherous mud.

One of the few things still intact was the door to what had been the boys’ bedroom; the bright, white individual letters spelling their names standing out in a sea of brown.

Picking his way through this mess was Jonathan Perez, their next-door neighbour, who began to relive the terrifying sequence of events. “It was madness” he said. “I’ve never seen such force.”

Jonathan explained to us how the raging torrent had scooped up trucks parked next door to the Matías family home with one smashing through an external wall.

He said that Victor had explained to him how he’d grabbed his sons in his arms as the water dragged them all outside.

Then – despite his desperate efforts to keep hold of them - they were gone.

Victor was found around four hours later, more than 200 metres away.

He had been clinging to a tree.

His mother – the boys' grandma – revealed that Victor had been ready to throw himself into the torrent and surrender to his fate, but then stopped.

He told himself he could not leave his wife alone.

Family paradise shattered

For 5 year old Izan and 3 year old Rubén, few places felt safer than the playground that was their house and garden.

Their aunt, Barbara Sastre, told us they were like little bugs - “bichetes” - an endearing description to convey how they buzzed around, that is, when they weren’t absorbed by their cartoons.

“They were such happy kids” she told us.

Izan and Rubén’s parents had bought the property from a man called Francisco Javier Arona.

Javi – as he’s known - told EFE, the Spanish news agency, that the home had become “a paradise" for the Matías family.

He said he himself had lovingly constructed the house in La Curra, a neighbourhood of Mas del Jutge, in a colonial style over three years.

Javi said he’d affixed ornamental amphoras and delicate clay stars beneath a sweeping arch.

Outside, there was little traffic in the cul-de-sac, meaning the boys could run around carefree with little perceptible danger.

Family house surrounded by trucks

The impending storm gathering overheard on 29 October was a very big danger, and so Victor closed his business early and picked up his boys from the nursey so that he could keep them safe and dry at home, as the rain fell harder and harder.

The force of the downpour became incredible, and soon the power was cut.

The brothers’ grandma, Antonia María Matías, a 72 year old cancer patient, told ABC Sevilla that she had called her son Victor at around 6pm and heard the brothers crying.

The water around them was rising all the time. But still, they were safe for now.

It may have been their haven, but the family home was also next to a lorry park.

Jonathan Perez, their next door neighbour, explained to us how this played a deadly role.

He said, “The father told us that there was a truck that hit the back of the house and the force of the water tore away everything.”

“Victor regained his footing and carried the boys in his arms. But then he realized he no longer had them. The water took everything in its path,” he explained.

Barbara Sastre, the boy’s aunt also told us at least one truck had sliced open the house in a blow that precipitated the boys and their dad being swept towards the nearby ravine.

The unnamed owner of the parking lot from where the trucks came told one newspaper they had not hit the family house. He insisted it was the strength of the water that did the fatal damage.

Jonathan, the neighbour, encapsulated the seething anger millions of Spaniards are feeling. Particularly, at the fact the official red alert sent to mobile phones came at 8pm - far too late.

“They were loving life and they hadn’t even started being people, they were three and five years old”, he said.

“With better coordination, better management, and an earlier alarm – even half an hour earlier – those kids could have been saved and those parents would not be going through hell.”

The frantic search for the boys

The whole neighbourhood in La Curra, stunned and shattered by the violence of the flooding, immediately began to search for the missing Izan and Rubén.

At least they did once the water had receded sufficiently for them to climb down from trees and clamber off their cars and try to re-orientate themselves.

They were helped by police officers from nearby Alicante, including a friend of Victor’s, who quickly arrived and began a desperate search.

But where to start?

Cars, bricks, bed frames had been carried hundreds of meters from where they once stood.

A team of firefighters from Mallorca and then Civil Protection volunteers from the island of Ibiza also came and scoured the most hard-to-reach areas.

Despite nearly two weeks of intensive daily searches, the brothers have not been found.

Life 'turned to dust'

In the hours before everything changed, Marta - the mother of the boys - had started her late shift at the shop, safe in the knowledge their dad would be picking them up from school and taking them home.

In the early hours of the next morning, she was told her boys were gone.

Relatives say they can’t describe what Marta is experiencing.

The boy’s grandma, Antonia María, said her son Victor’s life had been destroyed - in her own words “turned to dust”.

As he was recovering in hospital, Victor took to sleeping with his boys’ blankets - salvaged from the ruins of their family home - resting on his face.

It is the closest he can be to them now.

Actor Tony Todd, best known for starring in the Candyman horror films, has died aged 69.

The American actor died at his home in Los Angeles on Wednesday night, according to reports.

He starred as the title character in the horror series, depicting the ghostly Candyman character with a hook for a hand, summoned by saying his name five times in front of a mirror.

Todd continued as Candyman from the first film in 1992 through follow-ups in 1995 and 1999, and reprised the role in 2021 for a fourth film serving as a direct sequel to the original.

Throughout his 40-year career, Todd also featured in hundreds of films, stage productions and television dramas, including roles in the Transformers and Final Destination films.

In Candyman, Todd's titular character is the ghost of artist Daniel Robitaille, a black man who was lynched in the 19th Century.

The 1992 film sees Todd's character accidentally summoned to the real world by a graduate student in Chicago intrigued by the urban legend of the Candyman, setting off a chain of murderous events.

Speaking to the Guardian in 2019, Todd recalled the film's famous scene that sees Candyman swarmed with bees, during which he was stung 23 times and apparently paid a $1,000 bonus each time.

"Everything that’s worth making has to involve some sort of pain," he remarked.

On his Candyman character, he told the same interview: "I’ve done 200 movies, this is the one that stays in people’s minds. It affects people of all races. I’ve used it as an introductory tool in gang-intervention work: what frightens you? What horrible things have you experienced?"

Paying tribute, actor Virginia Madsen, who starred as student Helen Lyle in Candyman, said Todd "now is an angel. As he was in life".

She called him a "truly poetic man" with "a deep knowledge of the arts".

"I will miss him so much and hope he haunts me once in a while," she added. "But I will not summon him in the mirror!"

The original film's sequel - Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh - set three years later sees Todd's iconic lead appear again in New Orleans, encountering a descendant of his daughter.

The third film - Candyman: Day of the Dead - was released in 1999, but set in 2020 Los Angeles.

Todd, and others from the 1992 film, reprised their roles in the 2021 film.

In 2020, Todd called that version "brilliant", crediting the film's director Nia DaCosta as "a fan of body horror".

As part of her tribute, Madsen praised the "gift" that the film's co-writer Jordan Peele had given herself and Todd to "let us live again as lovers".

Before Candyman, one of Todd's earliest roles in film was in 1986 as Sgt Warren in war drama Platoon.

A number of bus passengers have been taken to hospital after two buses crashed close to a city centre.

Two Bee Network buses crashed on Rochdale Road off Livesey Street, Manchester, but no-one was seriously injured, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said.

Images show debris strewn across the highway as one of the vehicles appeared to have hit the back of the other.

A GMP spokesman said the road remained shut while emergency services were at the scene.

Police were called to the incident at about 08:30 GMT.

Manchester councillor Pat Karney, who was at the site, posted on X to say there had been "unbelievable damage" to the front of the bus.

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

A DNA-testing firm appears to have ceased trading - without telling its customers what has happened to the highly sensitive data they shared with it.

Atlas Biomed, which has offices in London, offered to provide insights into people's genetic make up as well as their predisposition to certain illnesses.

However, users are no longer able to access their personalised reports online and the company has not responded to the BBC's requests for comment.

Customers of the firm describe the situation as "very alarming" and say they want answers about what has happened to their "most personal information".

The regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), has confirmed it has received a complaint about Atlas Biomed.

"People have the right to expect that organisations will handle their personal information securely and responsibly," it said in a statement.

Experts say it shows how users of DNA-testing services can find themselves "completely at the mercy" of such companies when it comes to protecting very sensitive data.

Disappearing DNA reports

Lisa Topping, from Saffron Walden, Essex, sent a saliva sample to Atlas Biomed several years ago, paying around £100 for a personalised genetic report.

As well as telling her about her DNA profile, it claimed to also inform her about her predisposition to diseases and even injuries, taking into account information she had provided in an accompanying questionnaire.

She could access her report online - which she checked from time to time – until one day the website disappeared. She got no reply when she contacted them to ask what had happened.

"I don’t know what someone else could do with [the data] but it’s the most personal information… I don’t know how comfortable I feel that they have just disappeared," Lisa told me.

In 2023, Kate Lake from Tonbridge, Kent, paid Atlas Biomed £139 for a report it never delivered.

It promised her a refund - then went silent, despite her trying every means of contact she could find.

"I just never heard back from anyone, it’s like no-one was at home," she said.

She describes the situation as "very alarming."

"What happens now to that information they have got? I would like to hear some answers," she said.

The BBC was also unable to contact Atlas Biomed.

A phone number listed for the company is dead. The BBC visited its offices in London, but there was no sign of Atlas Biomed there.

The firm’s Instagram account, with over 11,000 followers, was last updated in March 2022. Its final post on X was in August the same year.

It shared a post on Facebook in June 2023, but did not respond to any of the comments – which were full of people complaining about being unable to contact it or access their profiles.

Russia links

The apparent disappearance of Atlas Biomed is a mystery - but it appears to have links with Russia.

It is still listed as an active company with Companies House, where all UK-based businesses must register. However, it has not filed any accounts since December 2022.

It lists eight official positions - though four of its officers have resigned.

Two of the apparently remaining officers are listed at the same address in Moscow - as is a Russian billionaire, who is described as a now resigned director.

Atlas Biomed's registered office is near London's so-called Silicon Roundabout, one of the prime locations in the UK for tech firms.

When the BBC visited, there was no sign of Atlas Biomed itself, but a company registration firm based in the building confirmed that it was a client of theirs, and legitimately used the address as its own.

This firm, in an email, claimed that it could not put the BBC in touch with Atlas Biomed "for security purposes".

"We highly suggest that you contact them directly," it said.

No-one from Atlas Biomed has responded to the BBC's attempts to contact it.

Cybersecurity expert Prof Alan Woodward said the apparent links to Russia were "odd."

"If people knew the provenance of this company and how it operates they might not be quite so ready to trust them with their DNA," he told the BBC.

'At their mercy'

None of this explains where Atlas Biomed’s database of customer DNA has ended up - and the BBC has seen no evidence it is being misused.

But Prof Carissa Veliz - author of Privacy is Power - points out that DNA is arguably the most valuable personal data you have. It is uniquely yours, you can’t change it, and it reveals your – and by extension, your family’s - biological strengths and weaknesses.

Biometric data is given special protection under the UK’s version of GDPR, the data protection law.

"When you give your data to a company you are completely at their mercy and you have to be able to trust them," Prof Veliz said.

"We shouldn’t have to wait until something happens."

Additional reporting by Graham Fraser

Like every parent in Valencia that day, Victor Matías had quickly changed his plans, fearing what could be on the way.

The rain was still thundering down, but by now - early evening - he had managed to leave work early, safely pick up his boys from nursery and was about to make their favourite dinner – croquetas.

The crispy fried rolls of mashed potatoes, stuffed full of cheese and ham, would be a treat for Izan, 5, and Rubén, 3, while their mum Marta finished her late shift at the supermarket in town.

We have pieced together the tragic chronology of what happened next.

Our picture emerges from the testimony of neighbours and relatives we spoke to, as well as what Victor was able to recall himself along with other first-hand accounts given to local media.

The crushing story of the Matías family has generated huge attention in Spain. Many have followed updates on “Los niños desaparecidosas” – the missing children - as they have been frequently described.

But this one family’s grief is many people’s grief as it’s a nightmare replicated across the Valencia region which was hammered by flash flooding nearly two weeks ago, killing at least 219 people.

More than 90 are still missing.

Utter devastation

When we arrived at the family home, a few days after the deluge, it was languishing in a sea of destruction.

That startling statistic - a year’s worth of rain had been dumped on some parts of Valencia in a matter of hours – became easy to believe as you took all this in.

Huge metal containers – broken free from their articulated lorries – rested at unfathomable angles amid a jumble of cars, crumpled furniture and treacherous mud.

One of the few things still intact was the door to what had been the boys’ bedroom; the bright, white individual letters spelling their names standing out in a sea of brown.

Picking his way through this mess was Jonathan Perez, their next-door neighbour, who began to relive the terrifying sequence of events. “It was madness” he said. “I’ve never seen such force.”

Jonathan explained to us how the raging torrent had scooped up trucks parked next door to the Matías family home with one smashing through an external wall.

He said that Victor had explained to him how he’d grabbed his sons in his arms as the water dragged them all outside.

Then – despite his desperate efforts to keep hold of them - they were gone.

Victor was found around four hours later, more than 200 metres away.

He had been clinging to a tree.

His mother – the boys' grandma – revealed that Victor had been ready to throw himself into the torrent and surrender to his fate, but then stopped.

He told himself he could not leave his wife alone.

Family paradise shattered

For 5 year old Izan and 3 year old Rubén, few places felt safer than the playground that was their house and garden.

Their aunt, Barbara Sastre, told us they were like little bugs - “bichetes” - an endearing description to convey how they buzzed around, that is, when they weren’t absorbed by their cartoons.

“They were such happy kids” she told us.

Izan and Rubén’s parents had bought the property from a man called Francisco Javier Arona.

Javi – as he’s known - told EFE, the Spanish news agency, that the home had become “a paradise" for the Matías family.

He said he himself had lovingly constructed the house in La Curra, a neighbourhood of Mas del Jutge, in a colonial style over three years.

Javi said he’d affixed ornamental amphoras and delicate clay stars beneath a sweeping arch.

Outside, there was little traffic in the cul-de-sac, meaning the boys could run around carefree with little perceptible danger.

Family house surrounded by trucks

The impending storm gathering overheard on 29 October was a very big danger, and so Victor closed his business early and picked up his boys from the nursey so that he could keep them safe and dry at home, as the rain fell harder and harder.

The force of the downpour became incredible, and soon the power was cut.

The brothers’ grandma, Antonia María Matías, a 72 year old cancer patient, told ABC Sevilla that she had called her son Victor at around 6pm and heard the brothers crying.

The water around them was rising all the time. But still, they were safe for now.

It may have been their haven, but the family home was also next to a lorry park.

Jonathan Perez, their next door neighbour, explained to us how this played a deadly role.

He said, “The father told us that there was a truck that hit the back of the house and the force of the water tore away everything.”

“Victor regained his footing and carried the boys in his arms. But then he realized he no longer had them. The water took everything in its path,” he explained.

Barbara Sastre, the boy’s aunt also told us at least one truck had sliced open the house in a blow that precipitated the boys and their dad being swept towards the nearby ravine.

The unnamed owner of the parking lot from where the trucks came told one newspaper they had not hit the family house. He insisted it was the strength of the water that did the fatal damage.

Jonathan, the neighbour, encapsulated the seething anger millions of Spaniards are feeling. Particularly, at the fact the official red alert sent to mobile phones came at 8pm - far too late.

“They were loving life and they hadn’t even started being people, they were three and five years old”, he said.

“With better coordination, better management, and an earlier alarm – even half an hour earlier – those kids could have been saved and those parents would not be going through hell.”

The frantic search for the boys

The whole neighbourhood in La Curra, stunned and shattered by the violence of the flooding, immediately began to search for the missing Izan and Rubén.

At least they did once the water had receded sufficiently for them to climb down from trees and clamber off their cars and try to re-orientate themselves.

They were helped by police officers from nearby Alicante, including a friend of Victor’s, who quickly arrived and began a desperate search.

But where to start?

Cars, bricks, bed frames had been carried hundreds of meters from where they once stood.

A team of firefighters from Mallorca and then Civil Protection volunteers from the island of Ibiza also came and scoured the most hard-to-reach areas.

Despite nearly two weeks of intensive daily searches, the brothers have not been found.

Life 'turned to dust'

In the hours before everything changed, Marta - the mother of the boys - had started her late shift at the shop, safe in the knowledge their dad would be picking them up from school and taking them home.

In the early hours of the next morning, she was told her boys were gone.

Relatives say they can’t describe what Marta is experiencing.

The boy’s grandma, Antonia María, said her son Victor’s life had been destroyed - in her own words “turned to dust”.

As he was recovering in hospital, Victor took to sleeping with his boys’ blankets - salvaged from the ruins of their family home - resting on his face.

It is the closest he can be to them now.

Authorities say at least 24 people have been killed after a bomb exploded at a railway station in Pakistan's Balochistan province.

Dozens of others were injured in the blast, which happened as a popular morning train was about to leave Quetta station in southwestern Pakistan for Peshawar.

A militant group, the Balochistan Liberation Army, said it carried out the bombing in what police are deeming a suicide attack.

There has been a recent surge in deadly attacks in the province, driven by demands for independence and control over local resources.

The city’s commissioner has said that 24 people were killed and about 50 injured in the blast.

Senior police official Muhammad Baloch said the explosion was thought to have been caused by a suicide bomber carrying 6-8kg of explosives. Among the dead and injured were both civilian and military, he told the BBC.

Videos shared on social media appear to show the moment the explosion happened on Saturday morning, with dozens of people visible at the platform.

There is also footage circulating of the aftermath, showing a number of injured people and debris spread across the station.

Abdul Jabbar was among the injured brought to the Civil Hospital. He said that he was entering the station, having purchased a ticket from the booking office, when the explosion happened.

"I can't describe the horror I faced today, it was like a judgement day has come," he said.

Muhammad Sohail arrived soon after the explosion had happened to catch his train to Multan.

"Everything was destroyed at the station, and people were laying down on the ground screaming for help," he said.

A separatist militant group, the Baloch Liberation Army, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

In a statement released on social media, the group said it targeted a Pakistan military unit that was returning from Quetta after completing a training course.

The chief minister of Balochistan called the act deplorable and the perpetrators "worse than animals". He said the authorities would pursue them and "bring them to their logical end".

The speaker of Pakistan's National Assembly, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, condemned the blast, saying those responsible were the "enemies of humanity".

Balochistan is Pakistan's largest province and the richest in terms of natural resources, but it is the least developed.

The region shares a volatile border with Iran and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and also boasts a vast coastline along the Arabian Sea.

Someone moved the UK's oldest satellite and there appears to be no record of exactly who, when or why.

Launched in 1969, just a few months after humans first set foot on the Moon, Skynet-1A was put high above Africa's east coast to relay communications for British forces.

When the spacecraft ceased working a few years later, gravity might have been expected to pull it even further to the east, out over the Indian Ocean.

But today, curiously, Skynet-1A is actually half a planet away, in a position 22,369 miles (36,000km) above the Americas.

Orbital mechanics mean it's unlikely the half-tonne military spacecraft simply drifted to its current location.

Almost certainly, it was commanded to fire its thrusters in the mid-1970s to take it westwards. The question is who that was and with what authority and purpose?

It's intriguing that key information about a once vital national security asset can just evaporate. But, fascination aside, you might also reasonably ask why it still matters. After all, we're talking about some discarded space junk from 50 years ago.

"It's still relevant because whoever did move Skynet-1A did us few favours," says space consultant Dr Stuart Eves.

"It's now in what we call a 'gravity well' at 105 degrees West longitude, wandering backwards and forwards like a marble at the bottom of a bowl. And unfortunately this brings it close to other satellite traffic on a regular basis.

"Because it's dead, the risk is it might bump into something, and because it's 'our' satellite we're still responsible for it," he explains.

Dr Eves has looked through old satellite catalogues, the National Archives and spoken to satellite experts worldwide, but he can find no clues to the end-of-life behaviour of Britain's oldest spacecraft.

It might be tempting to reach for a conspiracy theory or two, not least because it's hard to hear the name "Skynet" without thinking of the malevolent, self-aware artificial intelligence (AI) system in The Terminator movie franchise.

But there's no connection other than the name and, in any case, real life is always more prosaic.

What we do know is that Skynet-1A was manufactured in the US by the now defunct Philco Ford aerospace company and put in space by a US Air Force Delta rocket.

"The first Skynet satellite revolutionised UK telecommunications capacity, permitting London to securely communicate with British forces as far away as Singapore. However, from a technological standpoint, Skynet-1A was more American than British since the United States both built and launched it," remarked Dr Aaron Bateman in a recent paper on the history of the Skynet programme, which is now on its fifth generation.

This view is confirmed by Graham Davison who flew Skynet-1A in the early 70s from its UK operations centre at RAF Oakhanger in Hampshire.

"The Americans originally controlled the satellite in orbit. They tested all of our software against theirs, before then eventually handing over control to the RAF," the long-retired engineer told me.

"In essence, there was dual control, but when or why Skynet-1A might have been handed back to the Americans, which seems likely - I'm afraid I can't remember," says Mr Davison, who is now in his 80s.

Rachel Hill, a PhD student from University College London, has also been scouring the National Archives.

Her readings have led her to one very reasonable possibility.

"A Skynet team from Oakhanger would go to the USAF satellite facility in Sunnyvale (colloquially known as the Blue Cube) and operate Skynet during 'Oakout'. This was when control was temporarily transferred to the US while Oakhanger was down for essential maintenance. Perhaps the move could have happened then?” Ms Hill speculated.

The official, though incomplete, logs of Skynet-1A’s status suggest final commanding was left in the hands of the Americans when Oakhanger lost sight of the satellite in June 1977.

But however Skynet-1A then got shifted to its present position, it was ultimately allowed to die in an awkward place when really it should have been put in an "orbital graveyard".

This refers to a region even higher in the sky where old space junk runs zero risk of running into active telecommunications satellites.

Graveyarding is now standard practice, but back in the 1970s no-one gave much thought to space sustainability.

Attitudes have since changed because the space domain is getting congested.

At 105 degrees West longitude, an active satellite might see a piece of junk come within 50km of its position up to four times a day.

That might sound like they’re nowhere near each other, but at the velocities these defunct objects move it’s starting to get a little too close for comfort.

The Ministry of Defence said Skynet-1A was constantly monitored by the UK's National Space Operations Centre. Other satellite operators are informed if there's likely to be a particularly close conjunction, in case they need to take evasive action.

Ultimately, though, the British government may have to think about removing the old satellite to a safer location.

Technologies are being developed to grab junk left in space.

Already, the UK Space Agency is funding efforts to do this at lower altitudes, and the Americans and the Chinese have shown it's possible to snare ageing hardware even in the kind of high orbit occupied by Skynet-1A.

"Pieces of space junk are like ticking time bombs," observed Moriba Jah, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

"We need to avoid what I call super-spreader events. When these things explode or something collides with them, it generates thousands of pieces of debris that then become a hazard to something else that we care about."

A boy left blind and brain-damaged after being attacked as a baby by his father has died in hospital, prompting a fresh police investigation.

Bradley Nelson, nine, was left severely disabled and unable to walk after being assaulted by Darren Spreadbury in April 2016, when he was seven months old.

Despite being born "fit and well" Bradley was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy and epilepsy.

Nearly nine years later, Bradley, from Whitby, died at Scarborough General Hospital in last month after going into cardiac arrest.

In May 2018, Spreadbury was sentenced to four years in prison, after scans found Bradley’s brain injuries had been caused by shaken baby syndrome.

"Bradley was blind because he shook him that hard, he snapped his optic nerve and he had a can of Coke’s worth of blood between his brain and his skull," Bradley's mum, Sharon Boocock, said.

Doctors later determined he had suffered a brain injury that was "unexplained and non-accidental", leading to the arrest of Spreadbury.

He pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent and was handed a 10-year restraining order, as well as being sent to prison.

In the years following the attack, Bradley needed "24-hour care" and was unable to walk, talk or feed himself, according to his mum.

He underwent several operations and suffered complications and infections.

Ms Boocock said her life at the time was devoted to staying in to look after Bradley.

"I couldn’t go anywhere after 17:00 because Bradley would come home from school and that was me housebound," she said.

She explained how she had juggled her job as a bartender to earn "whatever money she could" and said she was "learning to live again".

Last month, Bradley was sent home from school after complaining about feeling sleepy.

He was taken in to hospital and Ms Boocock and her partner, Jonny Nelson, were told he had suffered a seizure after falling unconscious.

Bradley died on 22 October after going into cardiac arrest.

Sharon said, despite everything, Bradley had been "always smiling and happy".

Last week, police informed her they were investigating the cause of his death.

A North Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: "We have been made aware of the death of a nine-year-old boy from the Whitby area, who sadly passed away in hospital on October 22.

"The child had complex medical needs and an investigation into the cause of his death is currently under way, reflecting due process in such circumstances."

A fundraiser has been launched on GoFundMe by Sharon’s friends to help cover Bradley’s funeral costs.

It has raised almost £4,000 – where donors have described him as the "bravest little boy".

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.

Someone moved the UK's oldest satellite and there appears to be no record of exactly who, when or why.

Launched in 1969, just a few months after humans first set foot on the Moon, Skynet-1A was put high above Africa's east coast to relay communications for British forces.

When the spacecraft ceased working a few years later, gravity might have been expected to pull it even further to the east, out over the Indian Ocean.

But today, curiously, Skynet-1A is actually half a planet away, in a position 22,369 miles (36,000km) above the Americas.

Orbital mechanics mean it's unlikely the half-tonne military spacecraft simply drifted to its current location.

Almost certainly, it was commanded to fire its thrusters in the mid-1970s to take it westwards. The question is who that was and with what authority and purpose?

It's intriguing that key information about a once vital national security asset can just evaporate. But, fascination aside, you might also reasonably ask why it still matters. After all, we're talking about some discarded space junk from 50 years ago.

"It's still relevant because whoever did move Skynet-1A did us few favours," says space consultant Dr Stuart Eves.

"It's now in what we call a 'gravity well' at 105 degrees West longitude, wandering backwards and forwards like a marble at the bottom of a bowl. And unfortunately this brings it close to other satellite traffic on a regular basis.

"Because it's dead, the risk is it might bump into something, and because it's 'our' satellite we're still responsible for it," he explains.

Dr Eves has looked through old satellite catalogues, the National Archives and spoken to satellite experts worldwide, but he can find no clues to the end-of-life behaviour of Britain's oldest spacecraft.

It might be tempting to reach for a conspiracy theory or two, not least because it's hard to hear the name "Skynet" without thinking of the malevolent, self-aware artificial intelligence (AI) system in The Terminator movie franchise.

But there's no connection other than the name and, in any case, real life is always more prosaic.

What we do know is that Skynet-1A was manufactured in the US by the now defunct Philco Ford aerospace company and put in space by a US Air Force Delta rocket.

"The first Skynet satellite revolutionised UK telecommunications capacity, permitting London to securely communicate with British forces as far away as Singapore. However, from a technological standpoint, Skynet-1A was more American than British since the United States both built and launched it," remarked Dr Aaron Bateman in a recent paper on the history of the Skynet programme, which is now on its fifth generation.

This view is confirmed by Graham Davison who flew Skynet-1A in the early 70s from its UK operations centre at RAF Oakhanger in Hampshire.

"The Americans originally controlled the satellite in orbit. They tested all of our software against theirs, before then eventually handing over control to the RAF," the long-retired engineer told me.

"In essence, there was dual control, but when or why Skynet-1A might have been handed back to the Americans, which seems likely - I'm afraid I can't remember," says Mr Davison, who is now in his 80s.

Rachel Hill, a PhD student from University College London, has also been scouring the National Archives.

Her readings have led her to one very reasonable possibility.

"A Skynet team from Oakhanger would go to the USAF satellite facility in Sunnyvale (colloquially known as the Blue Cube) and operate Skynet during 'Oakout'. This was when control was temporarily transferred to the US while Oakhanger was down for essential maintenance. Perhaps the move could have happened then?” Ms Hill speculated.

The official, though incomplete, logs of Skynet-1A’s status suggest final commanding was left in the hands of the Americans when Oakhanger lost sight of the satellite in June 1977.

But however Skynet-1A then got shifted to its present position, it was ultimately allowed to die in an awkward place when really it should have been put in an "orbital graveyard".

This refers to a region even higher in the sky where old space junk runs zero risk of running into active telecommunications satellites.

Graveyarding is now standard practice, but back in the 1970s no-one gave much thought to space sustainability.

Attitudes have since changed because the space domain is getting congested.

At 105 degrees West longitude, an active satellite might see a piece of junk come within 50km of its position up to four times a day.

That might sound like they’re nowhere near each other, but at the velocities these defunct objects move it’s starting to get a little too close for comfort.

The Ministry of Defence said Skynet-1A was constantly monitored by the UK's National Space Operations Centre. Other satellite operators are informed if there's likely to be a particularly close conjunction, in case they need to take evasive action.

Ultimately, though, the British government may have to think about removing the old satellite to a safer location.

Technologies are being developed to grab junk left in space.

Already, the UK Space Agency is funding efforts to do this at lower altitudes, and the Americans and the Chinese have shown it's possible to snare ageing hardware even in the kind of high orbit occupied by Skynet-1A.

"Pieces of space junk are like ticking time bombs," observed Moriba Jah, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

"We need to avoid what I call super-spreader events. When these things explode or something collides with them, it generates thousands of pieces of debris that then become a hazard to something else that we care about."

Olympic sailor Sir Ben Ainslie and his wife Georgie have revealed in an interview with the Daily Telegraph that they used a surrogate to have their second child.

They described how after years of struggling to conceive, they had used an agency to find a mother in California, where commercial surrogacy is legal.

Their son Fox was born in 2021, five years after their daughter Bellatrix, who they had via IVF.

After the ordeal of their conception attempts, which Georgie described as a journey "to hell and back", Sir Ben called for surrogacy to be "professionalised as much as possible" as they praised the process in the US as "so well-regulated".

In the UK, commercial surrogacy is illegal, so a third party cannot profit from matching people, though it is not illegal for a surrogate to be paid expenses.

High-profile feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Julie Bindel argue that surrogacy commodifies a woman's body, leaving surrogates, who are often from poorer backgrounds, open to exploitation.

IVF - or in vitro fertilisation - is when an egg is removed from a woman's ovaries and fertilised with sperm in a laboratory. The fertilised egg is then returned to the woman's womb to develop.

In the words of the Telegraph, the couple chose to tell their story now primarily because they "want to help get rid of some of the stigma surrounding surrogacy, and to educate others in a similar situation".

Sir Ben, 47, a four-time Olympic champion who led a British crew in the America's Cup last month, met his wife in 2011 when she was a Sky Sports presenter.

They married in December 2014, when Georgie was 37.

"Like everyone you think 'Oh, it will be easy to go from doing whatever you were doing in your working life to, you know, making a family work,'" she told the paper.

"But pretty soon we were like, 'Actually, this is proving to be harder than we realised.' That was when we went on our first IVF journey with Bellatrix."

The 30 or so eggs initially harvested from Georgie resulted in a single embryo that became their first baby in 2016, she recalled.

However, when they tried for a second child, they went through seven further rounds of IVF, the last of them using a donor egg. None worked.

"It was an incredibly difficult period," said Sir Ben. "We had three miscarriages during that time - at eight weeks, 12 weeks and 14 weeks."

Both admit, the Telegraph says, that had it been up to him, they would have stopped after the last miscarriage but they had two donor eggs left that were viable.

"I persisted and eventually we did get there," said Georgie.

The couple accept that the financial costs of surrogacy are "prohibitive - tens of thousands of pounds".

As for ethical concerns, Georgie said, surrogacy "felt like the last step" in their IVF journey using "Ben's sperm, a donor egg and a surrogate carrier".

"It's the hardest thing we've ever done," said Sir Ben. "But in the end it was one of the most rewarding."