Norman Tebbit, who served as a cabinet minister in Margaret Thatcher's government, has died aged 94.

Throughout the 1980s he worked as the chairman of the Conservative Party and led departments including trade and industry and employment.

A loyal ally of Thatcher, Lord Tebbit backed her agenda, bringing in laws designed to curb union power - including making them liable for damages if they did illegal acts.

In 1984, he and his wife were injured in the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Tory Party's annual conference.

He suffered a broken shoulder blade, fractured vertebrae and a cracked collarbone, while his wife, Margaret, was left permanently disabled by the bomb.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Lord Tebbit's son William said: "At 11.15pm on 7 July 2025 Lord Tebbit died peacefully at home aged 94.

"His family ask that their privacy is respected at this time and a further statement regarding funeral arrangements will be made in due course."

Lord Tebbit served as an MP from 1970 until 1992, representing Epping for the first four years and Chingford from 1974 to 1992.

In 1981, he made a famous speech to the Conservative Party conference in which he criticised riots over unemployment, telling the audience that in the 1930s his father had not rioted but had "got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it".

In 1990, he provoked anger when he posed a 'cricket test' to help determine whether a person was truly British.

"A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test," he said.

"Which side do they cheer for? It's an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?"

Few scenes convey British pomp and soft power more than the King and Queen in a carriage procession through the picturesque streets of Windsor. They are being joined on Tuesday by Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron for the first state visit by a French president since 2008, and the first by a European Union leader since Brexit.

The Prince and Princess of Wales will be there too — a Royal Salute will be fired and Macron will inspect a guard of honour. But at a time of jeopardy in Europe, this three-day visit to Windsor and London promises much more than ceremony.

There is a genuine hope that the coming days will make a difference to both countries.

Macron will address MPs and peers at Westminster, and he and Brigitte will be treated to a state banquet back at Windsor. The trip will culminate with a UK-France summit, co-chaired by Sir Keir Starmer and Macron, during which the two governments hope to reach an agreement on the return of irregular migrants.

They will also host Ukraine's leader by video as they try to maintain arms supplies to his military.

But the wider question is how closely aligned they can really become, and whether they can put any lingering mistrust after Brexit behind them.

And, given that the trip will involve much pageantry — with the tour moving from the streets of Windsor, the quadrangle of the Castle and later to the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster — how crucial is King Charles III's role in this diplomacy?

Resetting a 'unique partnership'

It was less than two months ago that the UK and EU agreed to "reset" relations in London. Ties with France in particular had warmed considerably, driven partly by personal understanding but also strategic necessity.

The two neighbours have much in common: they are both nuclear powers and members of the United Nations Security Council.

They are also both looking to update a 15-year-old defence pact known as the Lancaster House treaties, which established a 10,000-strong Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF), and they have recently been working on broadening it to include other Nato and European countries.

"It has always been a unique partnership," says former French ambassador to the UK Sylvie Bermann. "I think this partnership will be crucial in the future."

All of this is unlikely to escape the notice of US President Donald Trump, who is also promised a state visit, his second to the UK, probably in September.

King Charles is 'more than a figurehead'

King Charles, who is 76, has already navigated some complex royal diplomacy this year.

Macron was the first European leader to visit Trump in the White House in February, but it was Sir Keir who stole the show days later, handing him a personal invitation from the King.

Then, when Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to Europe fresh from a bruising meeting with Trump at the White House in February, it was King Charles who welcomed him to Sandringham, and then met him again at Windsor in June.

He has spoken in the past of the heroism of Ukrainians in the face of "indescribable aggression".

Even before ascending the throne, King Charles amassed decades of experience in international affairs (he is also fluent in French). He was only 21 when he attended the funeral in 1970 of Charles de Gaulle, the wartime general who became the architect of France's current Fifth Republic.

He went on to become the longest-serving Prince of Wales in history, and now he is King he has weekly audiences with the prime minister. "The choreography is a strange dance, I suspect, between Number Ten and the Palace," says royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams.

"There's no doubt at all that Charles is considerably more than a figurehead."

Windsor Castle, which dates back to the first Norman king, William the Conqueror, has hosted French presidents before. But there is a quiet significance in the appearance of the Prince and Princess of Wales in welcoming Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, as Catherine recovers from treatment for cancer.

Between them, the King and Macron have played their part in resetting relations between the two neighbours, and by extension with the European Union too.

The King is a francophile, says Marc Roche, a columnist and royal commentator for French media: "He has always had a good relationship with France."

A year after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, it was France that King Charles and Queen Camilla chose for their first state visit in September 2023.

Macron had reminded the world in 2022 that the late Queen had "climbed the stairs of the Élysée Palace" six times — more than any other foreign sovereign. His words were warmly received in the UK.

The King received a standing ovation after an address in French to the Senate, and the Queen played table tennis at a sports centre with Brigitte Macron. France's first lady has since visited her in London for a cross-Channel book award.

Gentle touches they may have been, but it followed a very rough period in Franco-British relations.

Brexit negotiations soured relations

The mood had soured during negotiations over Brexit, which the French president said was based on a lie.

Then four years ago, Australia pulled out of a deal to buy 12 French submarines and signed a defence pact with the UK and US instead. The French foreign minister called it a "stab in the back".

Boris Johnson, who was prime minister at the time, told the French they should "prenez un grip" and "donnez-moi un break".

It had been Macron's idea for a European Political Community (EPC) in 2022 that brought the UK into a broad group of countries all seeking to respond to Russia's full-scale invasion.

In 2023 the then-Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, sought to turn the page on several years of frosty relations at a Franco-British summit in Paris.

British and French prime ministers have come and gone: the UK had three in 2022, and last year France had four. It was Sunak's team that organised last year's EPC summit at Blenheim, but it was Starmer as new prime minister who chaired it.

Sébastien Maillard, who helped advise the French presidency in setting up the EPC, said he believed "on both sides there is still a lack of trust… The memory of these difficult times has not vanished".

"Trust needs time to build and perhaps the Russian threat, support for Ukraine and how to handle Trump are three compelling reasons to rebuild that trust," says Maillard, who is now at the Chatham House think tank.

Susi Dennison, of the European Council on Foreign Relations in Paris, agrees relations with France are not back to pre-Brexit levels, but suggests some things the UK and France are "bickering" about were being argued over even before the Brexit vote.

For Macron, this is a chance to not only improve the relationship but also to shine on the international stage when his popularity at home has sunk, Mr Roche believes. "It's a very important visit, especially the first day, because the French are fascinated by the Royal Family."

After eight years in power, Macron's second term still has almost two years to run, but he has paid the price politically for calling snap elections last year and losing his government's majority. His prime minister, François Bayrou, faces a monumental task in the coming months in steering next year's budget past France's left-wing and far-right parties.

As president, Macron's powers - his domaine réservé - cover foreign policy, defence and security, but traditionally France's prime minister does not travel with the head of state, so Macron comes to the UK with a team of ministers who will handle far more than international affairs.

The difficult question of migration

During the summit, the two teams will also work on nuclear energy, artificial intelligence and cultural ties. Differences still have to be sorted over "post-Brexit mobility" for students and other young people, and France is expected to push the Starmer government on that.

But most of the headlines on Thursday's UK-France summit will cover the two main issues: defence and migration.

Defending Ukraine will take pride of place. An Élysée Palace source said it would discuss "how to seriously maintain Ukraine's combat capability" and regenerate its military.

"On defence our relationship is closer than any other countries," says former ambassador Sylvie Bermann. "We have to prepare for the future… to strengthen the deterrence of Europe."

And if a ceasefire were agreed in Ukraine, the two countries could provide the backbone of the "reassurance force" being proposed by the "coalition of the willing". Sir Keir and Macron have played a prominent part in forming this coalition, but so too have the military chiefs of staff of both countries.

Migration is the stickiest problem the two countries face, however. How they deal with their differences on it — particularly on small boats — is crucial to their future relationship.

They are especially keen to sign an agreement on migrant returns and on French police stopping people boarding "taxi boats" to cross the Channel.

France has long argued that the UK has to address the "pull factors" that drive people to want to risk their lives on the boats — the UK, for its part, already pays for many of the 1,200 French gendarmes to patrol France's long northern coastline to stop the smugglers' boats.

The countries are believed to have been working on the terms of a "one-in, one-out" agreement, so that for every small-boat arrival in the UK that France takes back, the UK would allow in one asylum seeker from France seeking family reunification.

Several countries on the southern coasts of Europe are unimpressed because it could mean France sending those asylum seekers handed back by the UK on to their country of entry into the EU, bordering the Mediterranean.

In the UK, the opposition Conservatives have branded the idea "pathetic", accusing the government of a "national record - for failure" on curbing small-boat crossings.

And yet every country in Europe is looking for a way to cut illegal border crossings. Meghan Benton, of the Migration Policy Institute, believes a Franco-British deal could work as a possible pilot for the rest of Europe: "What works for the Channel could also work for the Mediterranean."

Any agreement on this tricky issue could also signal a real, practical improvement in the countries' political relationship. France's right-wing Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, has already been working with Labour's Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to try to find a workable solution.

How far they get, and its wider impact on Europe, is still to be decided, but it does reflect a new willingness between the two neighbours to tackle the divisions between them.

Boris Johnson once accused France of wanting to punish the UK for Brexit. That difficult chapter appears to be over.

As Susi Dennison puts it: "There's a certain distance that will always be there, but things are operating quite well."

During King Charles' 2023 state visit to France he called on the two countries to find common ground, "to reinvigorate our friendship to ensure it is fit for the challenge of this, the 21st Century".

And so this visit will help show — both in the relationships between individuals and on concrete policy debates — whether his call has been answered.

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

Warmer from midweek

When will the heatwave end?

Will the rest of the summer be hot?

Some children are living in "Dickensian" levels of poverty, England's children's commissioner has said.

Dame Rachel de Souza said children have described living in homes with rats, seeing bacon as a luxury food and not having a place to wash.

She insisted the government should scrap the two-child benefit cap, which prevents most families from claiming means-tested benefits for any third or additional children born after April 2017.

A spokesperson for the government said it was "determined to bring down child poverty" and it had announced a £1bn package to improve crisis support, including funding to ensure poorest children do not go hungry outside term time.

The Labour government had been considering lifting the limit, but at the weekend the education secretary refused to commit to doing so.

Bridget Phillipson said ministers were "looking at every lever" to lift children out of poverty - but that spending decisions have now been made "harder" after the government axed other benefit changes which would have saved billions.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast on Tuesday, England's children's commissioner Dame Rachel said: "I have been doing this job for four years but I was shocked by how much worse things have got."

"It really is Dickensian and there are a huge number of children now who have dropped below what anyone of us would think is reasonable," she said.

"The children who have got no food to eat, the children who can't wash their clothes so they are going to school dirty and if they're lucky the school are washing their clothes for them.

"I had one child tell me about his shame because he couldn't have his friends round because in the night rats came and bit his face."

She was speaking as her office published a report that had been commissioned by the government. The report - which looks at children's experiences of poverty - is aimed at helping the government as it works on a child poverty strategy.

The government's child poverty taskforce is looking at the case for removing the cap, among other policy options.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank estimates that axing the two child benefit cap would cost the government about £3.4bn a year and would lift 500,000 children out of relative poverty.

About 1.6 million children live in households affected by the cap, according to the Department for Work and Pensions.

"I've always said the two child limit should be lifted", said Dame Rachel. "That's a big structural thing and the reason why is it would immediately lift half a million children out of poverty.

"Nobody is choosing to have children so they can get money from the state. That is absolutely not what's happening here."

A spokesperson for the government also said it has expanded free breakfast clubs, it is investing £39bn in social and affordable housing, increasing the national minimum wage and supporting 700,000 of the poorest families by introducing a fair repayment rate on Universal Credit deductions.

"As part of our plan for change, the Child Poverty Taskforce will publish an ambitious strategy later this year to ensure we deliver fully-funded measures that tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty across the country," the statement added.

A hopepipe ban affecting more than five million people in Yorkshire will come into effect from Friday.

Yorkshire Water said the region had experienced its driest and warmest spring on record with only 15cm of rainfall between February and June - less than half of what would be expected in an average year.

Yorkshire is the first part of the UK to face restrictions on water usage amid an extended spell of dry weather nationwide.

Dave Kaye, director of water at Yorkshire Water, said the restrictions "are intended to make sure we have enough supply for the essential needs of people across the region this year and next as well as making sure we are able to protect our local environment".

The ban applies to customers across much of Yorkshire, parts of North Lincolnshire and parts of Derbyshire.

It prohibits the use of a hosepipe for activities such as watering the garden, washing the car or filling a paddling pool.

Anyone flouting the restriction could be fined up to £1,000.

The ban comes after the Environment Agency declared a drought across the region last month.

Nationally, England recorded its warmest June on record after the driest spring for 132 years.

According to Yorkshire Water, reservoir levels currently stand at just over 50% - a record low for the time of the year and "significantly below" the average for early July, which is nearer 80%.

Mr Kaye said water supplies would normally be topped up by rainfall in spring but reservoir stocks had been falling since the last week of January.

Recent downpours had "helped slightly", he added, but he said that "constant high temperatures and more dry weather" had only increased water usage.

"With more dry weather forecast in the coming weeks, it is likely our stocks will continue to fall.

"We need to act now to maintain clean water supplies and long-term river health."

Mr Kaye said the ban would be in place "until the region has seen significant rainfall to bring reservoirs and groundwater stocks back to where they need to be".

He said: "This may last into the winter months."

Yorkshire Water said it had supplied an additional 4.3 billion litres of water between April and June compared with a typical year due to the sustained hot weather - enough to supply Leeds for five weeks.

The company increased bills by almost 30% in April although customers will now be restricted on how much water they use.

In October, the Environment Agency (EA) reported that 21% of Yorkshire Water's supplies were lost due to leakage, higher than the national average of 19%.

The company said it had been "finding and fixing leaks 24/7 which has resulted in leakage being at its lowest ever level in Yorkshire".

Although hosepipe bans in Yorkshire are fairly rare - this is just the third in 30 years - they have become more common, with water use also restricted in 2022.

Analysis - Paul Hudson, Climate & Environment correspondent

Questions are likely to be asked about why the region is facing its second hosepipe ban in just three years and whether its water supply is robust enough.

It is striking that Yorkshire's reservoirs, which were full at the end of January, have lost half of their capacity in just five months.

There is no doubt that rainfall has been exceptionally low since February.

But at a time when the climate is changing – there have been three exceptionally dry springs in the past 14 years - the demand for water has increased sharply.

Yorkshire's population has grown by approximately 500,000 since 2000 but no new reservoirs have been built since Thruscross in the Washburn Valley in 1966.

In the short term, Yorkshire Water will be hoping the measures announced today will be enough to slow the fall in reservoir levels until the rain returns and replenishes supplies.

But, in the longer term, with the combined challenges of climate change and population growth, water restrictions may become much more common.

Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.

Employers will be banned from using non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to silence victims of workplace sexual misconduct or discrimination, the government has said.

An amendment to the Employment Rights Bill, which is expected to become law later this year, will void any confidentiality agreements seeking to prevent workers from speaking about allegations of harassment or discrimination.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said it was "time we stamped this practice out".

The use of NDAs to cover up criminality has been in the headlines ever since Zelda Perkins, the former assistant to Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, broke her NDA in 2017 to accuse him of sexual abuse.

More recently, the now deceased Mohamed Al Fayed, who used to own Harrods, was accused of deploying confidentiality clauses to silence women who accused him of rape and abuse.

An NDA is a legally binding document that protects confidential information between two parties. They can be used to protect intellectual property or other commercially sensitive information but over the years their uses have spread.

Ms Perkins began campaigning for a change in the law more than seven years ago.

She now runs the campaign group Can't Buy My Silence UK and said the amendment marked a ''huge milestone'' and that it showed the government had ''listened and understood the abuse of power taking place".

But she said the victory ''belongs to the people who broke their NDAs, who risked everything to speak the truth when they were told they couldn't".

The change in the law would bring the UK in line with Ireland, the United States, and some provinces in Canada, which have banned such agreements from being used to prevent the disclosure of sexual harassment and discrimination.

Ms Perkins said that while the law was welcome, it was vital "to ensure the regulations are watertight and no one can be forced into silence again".

Employment rights minister Justin Madders said there was "misuse of NDAs to silence victims", which he called "an appalling practice".

"These amendments will give millions of workers confidence that inappropriate behaviour in the workplace will be dealt with, not hidden, allowing them to get on with building a prosperous and successful career," he added.

Peers will debate the amendments when the Employment Rights Bill returns to the House of Lords on 14 July and, if passed, will need to be approved by MPs as well.

In the aftermath of the fatal Texas floods, some Democrats have warned about the "consequences" of the Trump administration's cuts to the federal government workforce, including meteorologists, with Senator Chris Murphy saying that: "Accurate weather forecasting helps avoid fatal disasters."

The suggestion is that the cuts may have impeded the ability of the National Weather Service (NWS) - the government agency which provides weather forecasts in the US - to adequately predict the floods and raise the alarm.

But the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said on Monday: "These offices [of the NWS] were well staffed… so any claims to the contrary are completely false."

BBC Verify has examined the impact of cuts under President Trump in this area and while there has been a reduction in the workforce at the NWS, experts who we spoke to said the staffing on hand for the Texas floods appears to have been adequate.

What are the cuts?

The Trump administration has proposed a 25% cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) current annual budget of $6.1bn (£4.4bn). NOAA is the agency which oversees the NWS.

This would take effect in the 2026 financial year which begins in October this year - so these particular cuts would not have contributed to the Texas tragedy.

However, the staffing levels of the NWS have already been separately reduced by the Trump administration's efficiency drive since January.

The Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), previously run by Elon Musk, offered voluntary redundancies, known as buyouts, as well as early retirements to federal government workers. It also ended the contracts of most of those who were on probation.

As a result, about 200 people at the NWS took voluntary redundancy and 300 opted for early retirement, according to Tom Fahy, the director of the NWS union. A further 100 people were ultimately fired from the service, he said.

In total, the NWS lost 600 of its 4,200 staff, says Mr Fahy, causing several offices across the country to operate without the necessary staffing.

In April 2025, the Associated Press news agency said it had seen data compiled by NWS employees showing half of its offices had a vacancy rate of 20% - double the rate a decade earlier.

Despite this, climate experts told BBC Verify that the NWS forecasts and flood warnings last week in Texas were as adequate as could be expected.

"The forecasts and warnings all played out in a normal manner. The challenge with this event was that it is very difficult to forecast this type of extreme, localised rainfall," says Avantika Gori, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University in Texas.

And Andy Hazelton, a climate scientist who modelled hurricane paths for the NOAA until he was fired during the layoffs in February, says: "I don't think the staffing issues contributed directly to this event. They got the watches and the warnings out."

What about the impact on offices in Texas?

However, some experts have suggested that staffing cuts may have impeded the ability of local NWS offices in Texas to effectively co-ordinate with local emergency services.

"There is a real question as to whether the communication of weather information occurred in a way that was sub-optimal," says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at University of California Los Angeles.

"The impact might have been partially averted if some of the people at the weather service responsible for making those communications were still employed - which they were not in some of these local offices," he adds.

The San Angelo and San Antonio offices, which cover the areas affected by the flooding, reportedly had some existing vacancies.

For example, the San Antonio office's website lists several positions as being vacant, including two meteorologists.

The NSW union director told BBC Verify that the San Angelo office was missing a senior hydrologist, a scientist who specialises in flooding events.

The San Antonio office also lacked a "warning coordinating meteorologist", who coordinates communications between local forecasting offices and emergency management services in communities, Mr Fahy said.

However, he noted that both offices had temporarily upped their staffing in anticipation of a dangerous weather event, which is typical in these circumstances.

"The NWS weather forecast offices in Austin/San Antonio and San Angelo, Texas had additional forecasters on duty during the catastrophic flooding event," NWS spokeswoman Erica Grow Cei said in a statement to BBC Verify. "All forecasts and warnings were issued in a timely manner," she added.

NWS meteorologist Jason Runyen, who covers the San Antonio area, also said in a statement that where the office would typically have two forecasters on duty during clear weather, they had "up to five on staff".

When asked on Sunday if government cuts had left key vacancies unfilled at the NWS, President Trump told reporters: "No, they didn't."

Were weather balloon launches reduced?

In a video shared thousands of times on social media, US meteorologist John Morales said: "There has been a 20% reduction in weather balloon releases, launches... What we're starting to see is that the quality of the forecasts is becoming degraded."

Some social media users have been pointing to Mr Morales' words as evidence that budget cuts have limited forecasters' ability to anticipate extreme weather events like the floods in Kerr County, Texas.

Weather balloons are an important tool used by meteorologists to collect weather data - from temperatures, to humidity, pressure, or wind speed - from the upper atmosphere.

In the US, NWS stations would typically launch them twice a day.

In a series of public statements released since February, the NWS confirmed that it either suspended or reduced weather balloon launches in at least 11 locations across the country, which it attributed to a lack of staffing at the local weather forecast offices.

However, there is no evidence to suggest that any of those changes directly affected weather balloon launches in the areas impacted by the floods in Texas.

Publicly available data shows that, in the lead-up to the floods, weather balloon launches were carried out as planned at Del Rio, the launch station nearest to the flood epicentre, collecting data that informed weather forecasts which experts say were as adequate as they could be.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

An eight-year-old girl and the director of an all-girls' summer camp are among the victims of flash floods in Texas that have claimed at least 43 lives, including 15 children.

Officials say most of the victims have been identified, though the identities of six adults and a child remain unknown. Authorities have not yet released any names publicly.

Here's what we know so far about the victims.

Renee Smajstrla

Eight-year-old Renee Smajstrla was at Camp Mystic when flooding swept through the summer camp for girls, her uncle said in a Facebook post.

"Renee has been found and while not the outcome we prayed for, the social media outreach likely assisted the first responders in helping to identify her so quickly," wrote Shawn Salta, of Maryland.

"We are thankful she was with her friends and having the time of her life, as evidenced by this picture from yesterday," he wrote. "She will forever be living her best life at Camp Mystic."

Camp Mystic, where 27 children are missing, is a nearly century-old Christian summer camp for girls on the banks of the Guadalupe River near Hunt, Texas.

Operated by generations of the same family since the 1930s, the camp's website bills itself as a place for girls to grow "spiritually" in a "wholesome" Christian atmosphere "to develop outstanding personal qualities and self-esteem".

Jane Ragsdale

Heart O' the Hills is another all-girls' camp that sits along the Guadalupe River, and it was right in the path of Friday's flood.

Jane Ragsdale, described as the "heart and soul" of Heart O'Hills, "did not make it", a post shared on the camp's official website said on Saturday.

Ragsdale, who started off as a camper then a counsellor, became the director and co-owner of the camp in 1976.

"We are mourning the loss of a woman who influenced countless lives and was the definition of strong and powerful," the camp website post said.

Heart O' the Hills wasn't in session and "most of those who were on camp at the time have been accounted for and are on high ground", the statement said.

"Access to the site is difficult, and authorities are primarily focused on locating the missing and preventing further loss of life and property".

Sarah Marsh

Sarah Marsh, a student at Cherokee Bend Elementary School in Texas, would have entered third grade in August.

She, too, was attending Camp Mystic when the floods struck, and reported as missing along with about two dozen other campers.

Her grandmother, Debbie Ford Marsh, took to Facebook on Friday asking for prayers. Just hours later she shared online that her granddaughter was among the girls killed.

"We will always feel blessed to have had this beautiful spunky ray of light in our lives. She will live on in our hearts forever!" Ms Ford Marsh wrote on Facebook.

In a post on Facebook, Alabama Senator Katie Britt said she's "heartbroken over the loss of Sarah Marsh, and we are keeping her family in our thoughts and prayers during this unimaginable time".

Lila Bonner

Nine-year-old Lila Bonner, a Dallas native was found dead after flooding near Camp Mystic, according to NBC News.

"In the midst of our unimaginable grief, we ask for privacy and are unable to confirm any details at this time," her family said in a statement to the news outlet.

"We ache with all who loved her and are praying endlessly."

Norman Tebbit, who has died at the age of 94, was at the heart of Margaret Thatcher's political revolution.

He was a man whose philosophy of self-reliance formed the core of his political beliefs.

An able and conscientious politician, his plain speaking on immigration and Europe endeared him to the Tory faithful, and he was once spoken of as a possible party leader.

And while Lord Tebbit's uncompromising views often enraged his political opponents, he was unmoved by the less-than-flattering names they bestowed upon him.

Norman Beresford Tebbit was born on 29 March 1931 in the working-class suburb of Ponders End in north London.

His father, a manager in a jewellery and pawnbroker's business, had progressed sufficiently in life to be buying his own house.

However, prosperity was not to last.

The manager's job disappeared in the economic depression, and the family moved to what became a series of short-term lets in Edmonton.

Tebbit's father found employment as a painter, although not before he had travelled the streets looking for work on a bicycle that was later became to become famous.

By the time the young Norman arrived at Edmonton County Grammar School, he had already developed his interest in Conservative politics.

"I felt you should be able to make your own fortune," he said. "You should be master of your own fate."

Leaving school at 16, he joined the Financial Times where, much to his annoyance, the operation of the closed shop forced him to join the print union, Natsopa.

After two years, he went to do his National Service with the RAF where he gained a commission as a Pilot Officer.

However, he decided that his political ambitions were not compatible with a service career so he left to sell advertising with a company run by a family friend.

He had not lost his love of flying and he signed up with the Royal Auxiliary Air Force as a part-time pilot.

He narrowly escaped death when his Meteor jet failed to take off and ploughed off the end of a runway in Cambridgeshire.

Trapped in the burning plane, Tebbit managed to force open the cockpit canopy. His aircraft was completely destroyed.

Sixty years later, doctors told him that he'd lived with a cardiac arrhythmia for most of his life. It was possible that he had slipped unconcious on the runway.

In 1953, he joined the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) as a pilot and, three years later, married a nurse called Margaret Daines.

For the next 17 years, he juggled his flying with a career as an activist for the British Airline Pilots' Association.

The man who would later be instrumental in tackling Britain's trade unions became a scourge of the airline's management.

The election of a Labour government in 1964 spurred him towards politics.

He was eventually selected as the Conservative candidate for Epping, a seat once held by Sir Winston Churchill.

He won his chance after giving a characteristically robust Tebbit speech.

It advocated selling off state-owned industries, trade union reform, immigration control and an attack on the so-called permissive society.

The seat then contained the Labour stronghold of Harlow, but an energetic campaign, coupled with the overconfidence of the sitting Labour MP, saw Tebbit victorious in 1970.

He quickly became disillusioned with Ted Heath's leadership.

Tebbit felt that the radical platform on which the Conservatives had won the election was being ignored, in favour of a more consensus style of politics.

But in 1972, he accepted a job as parliamentary private secretary to the minister of state for employment, the first rung on the ladder to ministerial office.

His new post was not to last long.

Angered by Heath's adoption of a prices and incomes policy - a clear breach of a manifesto promise - and his failure to curb union influence, Tebbit resigned from the government.

Three months later, the Conservatives were out of office.

Tebbit, now the member for the newly created seat of Chingford, would gain a reputation as a thorn in the side of Labour ministers.

In 1975, he clashed with the Employment Secretary Michael Foot over the government's failure to condemn the dismissal of six power station workers.

The men had refused to join a trade union following the imposition of a new closed shop agreement at the plant.

Tebbit revelled in his ability to get under the government's skin.

"I was quite amused to find that, as a maverick backbencher with no formal standing, I could lure ministers into wasting their time, and fire power, on such an unimportant target," he said.

Foot fired back, famously comparing Tebbit to a "semi-house-trained polecat" during a debate on parliamentary business.

When the Conservatives won the 1979 election, Margaret Thatcher appointed Tebbit as an under secretary of state at the Department of Trade.

Within 18 months, he was employment secretary, a move that signalled the government's intention to take a tough line on industrial relations.

In the autumn of 1981, with three million unemployed and with riots blighting a number of inner city areas, Tebbit made the speech for which he will always be remembered.

Addressing the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool, he strayed from his prepared text to remember how his father had reacted to his own unemployment.

"I grew up in the '30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it."

The trade unions and the labour movement were outraged, claiming that Tebbit had told the unemployed to "get on your bike".

But the education secretary insisted his emphasis had been on condemning the riots.

His 1982 Employment Act raised the level of compensation for workers dismissed for refusing to join a union.

It also made any closed shop agreement subject to regular ballots and removed the immunity of trade unions from civil action if they authorised illegal industrial action.

Tebbit later claimed that this was "my finest achievement in government".

In 1983, he became trade and industry secretary, following the resignation of Cecil Parkinson over an extra-marital affair.

During his tenure, he presided over the Thatcher government's privatisation programme and was instrumental in encouraging foreign investors to Britain, not least the establishment of a Nissan car plant.

But the IRA bomb which exploded in Brighton's Grand Hotel during the 1984 Conservative conference changed his life forever.

The attack killed five people and injured more than 30 others. He and his wife were trapped under tons of debris.

They laid together, holding hands, waiting for help. Tebbit gave Margaret a message to give to their children, in case he died.

He was left with a broken shoulder blade, fractured vertebrae, a cracked collar bone and needing plastic surgery - but was back at his desk within three months.

Margaret was less fortunate.

As a result of her injuries, she remained paralysed and faced months of hospital treatment. She returned home in a wheelchair and the Tebbits' domestic life had to adapt accordingly.

Following a cabinet reshuffle in the autumn of 1985, he left the DTI to become Conservative Party chairman.

He threw himself into rebuilding a moribund organisation, launching a membership drive and preparing the party for the next election.

Tebbit used the 1986 Conservative conference to launch an election campaign in all but name, under the slogan, The Next Move Forward.

Margaret Thatcher's popularity rating was beginning to slide, and some commentators began talking about the succession.

Polls suggested that Norman Tebbit might be a popular choice in a future leadership contest, which made relations with the prime minister difficult.

In the end, the 1987 election resulted in a Conservative landslide.

Tebbit left the cabinet after the election to look after his wife. But his ability to create controversy had not deserted him.

In 1990, he suggested that a test of the willingness of ethic minorities in Britain to assimilate was to see if they supported the England cricket team or the side from their country of origin.

He turned down an invitation from Thatcher to return to the government as education secretary, but steadfastly supported her when her leadership was challenged and she was eventually forced from office.

He decided not to seek election in 1992, and was created a life peer as Baron Tebbit of Chingford.

He was not content to sit quietly in the Lords.

He embarrassed new Prime Minister John Major with a show-stopping appearance during the 1992 party conference debate on Europe, when he lambasted the decision to sign the Maastricht Treaty.

He later criticised the Conservative Party's move to a moderate, right of centre position, saying this allowed UKIP to hoover up the political right.

In 2009, he published The Game Cook which instructed readers on the best way to cook game, after his local butcher told him that none of his customers knew how to prepare a pheasant.

Having campaigned for Brexit, he grew impatient with Theresa May's negotiations with Brussels - accusing the government of "thinking of nothing but the rights of foreigners".

In 2020, his wife Margaret died, having suffered from Lewy Body Dementia.

Two years later, he made his final appearance in the House of Lords, after a 52-year parliamentary career.

Lord Tebbit's working-class credentials and dry Conservative ideology made him an influential figure throughout the Thatcher years and beyond.

The satirical puppet show, Spitting Image, portrayed him as a leather-clad bovver boy, the enforcer of the Iron Lady's doctrine.

He believed that homosexuals should not have senior cabinet posts, thought foreign aid fuelled corruption, and that too many immigrants fail to integrate.

He helped move the Conservative party from one-nation centrism under Sir Edward Heath, to a position where it favours a small state, controlled immigration and life outside the European Union.

One academic commented: "Although Thatcherism was the political creed of Essex Man, it was Norman Tebbit who was perhaps the public face or voice of Essex Man, and articulated his views and prejudices."

The families of three murdered schoolgirls have demanded "real change" before the start of the public inquiry into the Southport stabbing attacks later.

Alice Aguiar, nine; Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven; and six-year-old Bebe King were killed on 29 July 2024 when Axel Rudakubana, then 17, walked into a dance workshop on Hart Street and began attacking children at random.

The Southport Inquiry will hold its first live hearings at Liverpool Town Hall this week.

Retired senior judge Sir Adrian Fulford will lead the inquiry and said the focus would first be on the circumstances leading to the attack, before looking at how young people are "drawn into extreme violence".

Nothing the inquiry could do would ever "change the unimaginable loss" of the families of the three murdered girls, Rachael Wong, director of law firm Bond Turner, and the families' solicitor, Chris Walker, said in a joint statement.

They added: "We all now have a responsibility to ensure that something like this never happens again...

"It is only through intense public scrutiny that real change can be effected."

The hearing will begin at 14:00 BST with an opening statement from Sir Adrian, before some of the families of those injured begin giving evidence on Wednesday morning.

Rudakubana, from Banks in Lancashire, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 52 years at Liverpool Crown Court in January this year.

He had previously pleaded guilty to the murders of Alice, Elsie and Bebe - plus 10 counts of attempted murder involving eight children and two adults - on what was supposed to be the first day of his trial.

Rudakubana, now 18, also admitted producing the biological toxin ricin in his bedroom and possession of terrorist material relating to an article containing an al-Qaeda training manual.

Reports emerged alleging that Rudakubana had attacked a prison officer with boiling water at HMP Belmarsh in May.

Sir Adrian called the attack "one of the most horrific crimes in our country's history" and promised to conduct the inquiry "at pace and with rigour".

The first part of the inquiry will look at issues including Rudakubana's contact with the government's counter-extremism service Prevent, which he was referred to three times, as well as other agencies.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced the inquiry in April and said it would work for the families "to quickly understand what went wrong, answer difficult questions and do everything in our power to prevent something like this from happening again".

Listen to the best of BBC Radio Merseyside on Sounds and follow BBC Merseyside on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.

Tuesday will mark another big milestone in the long road to justice for the victims of the Post Office IT scandal.

The chair of the inquiry into it – Sir Wyn Williams – will publish the first part of his final report, focusing on compensation and the human impact of the scandal.

Thousands of sub-postmasters were wrongly blamed for financial losses from the Post Office's faulty Horizon computer system, which was developed by Fujitsu.

More than 900 people were prosecuted and 236 were sent to prison in what is believed to be one of the biggest miscarriages of justices in UK history.

Sir Wyn put those victims at the heart of the inquiry's work, which has pored over several decades worth of technical evidence and grilled many of those who had a role in ruining so many lives.

Dozens of sub-postmasters gave evidence too - many who had lost their businesses, their homes and some who served prison sentences.

Sir Wyn's findings on their treatment will surely be damning given everything he has heard since the inquiry began in 2022.

The inquiry became almost box office viewing - racking up more than 20 million views on YouTube, with people with no connection to the Post Office following it closely.

However, it is going to be months before we find out who Sir Wyn will point the finger of blame at.

That will come in part two of the report, meaning that accountability is still a long way off.

'Patchwork quilt'

Sir Wyn has taken a big interest in compensation for the victims, admitting at one point that he'd stretched his terms of reference on the issue, "perhaps beyond breaking point".

He held four separate hearings on redress and issued an interim report in 2023, likening the various schemes to a "patchwork quilt with a few holes in it".

Victims and their legal representatives still battling to secure final payouts will be looking to see what his conclusions are on compensation and whether it is living up to the mantra of being full and fair.

They hope his recommendations will result in more action.

Still, you might be wondering why we're only getting the first part of the final report.

Sir Wyn knows how pressing compensation is to many of the victims and that's why he wants to publish his recommendations on the issue as soon as possible.

"It's something I am very keen to say as much about as I reasonably can," he told the inquiry last year.

But the implication from this is that part two - establishing what happened and who is to blame - isn't coming out any time soon.

This second report may not be published until 2026 given the sheer volume and complexity of the evidence as well as the need to give those who are criticised the chance to respond.

As for justice, any criminal trials may not start until 2028. Police investigating the scandal confirmed last month that files won't be handed to prosecutors until after the final inquiry report is published.

After years of waiting, even after part one of Sir Wyn's report is published, the sub-postmasters' long road to justice will continue.

The national system for sending emergency alerts to mobile phones in the UK will be tested again this September, the government has said.

It will see compatible phones vibrate and make a siren sound for 10 seconds while displaying a message at 15:00 BST on 7 September, even if they are set to silent.

The alerts are intended for situations in which there is an imminent danger to life, such as extreme weather events or during a terror attack.

Though the system has been deployed regionally five times in the past few years, a previous nationwide test in 2023 revealed technical issues - with some people receiving the alert earlier than expected and some not receiving it at all.

Many on the Three network did not get anything, along with users on other networks - while some received multiple alerts. The government later said the message did not reach around 7% of compatible devices.

The Cabinet Office said at the time that the problems uncovered would be reviewed and addressed ahead of another test.

It said September's test is intended to ensure the system works well and to make sure people are familiar with the alerts, in line with other countries that also use them, like the US and Japan.

Of the approximately 87 million mobile phones in the UK, the alert will only appear on smartphones on 4G or 5G networks. Older phones, and phones connected to 2G or 3G networks, will not receive the message.

Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden said: "Just like the fire alarm in your house, it's important we test the system so that we know it will work if we need it."

The system was used to send alerts to 4.5 million phones in Scotland and Northern Ireland during Storm Eowyn in January 2025, and 3.5 million in England and Wales during Storm Darragh the previous month.

It was also used to aid the evacuation of more than 10,000 residents in Plymouth as an unexploded 500kg World War Two bomb was carefully removed and taken out to sea to be detonated after being uncovered.

Tracey Lee, chief executive of Plymouth City Council, said it had been an "invaluable tool" and provided residents with "clear information at a critical moment".

While devices that are not connected to mobile data or wi-fi will still receive the alert, those that are switched off or in airplane mode will not.

Domestic abuse charities previously warned the system could endanger victims by potentially alerting an abuser to a hidden phone. The National Centre for Domestic Violence advised people with concealed phones to turn them off for the duration of the test.

The government stresses that emergency alerts should remain switched on, but has published a guide for domestic abuse victims on how to opt out.

The new test will also feature a version of the message in British Sign Language for deaf people.

The US plans to impose a 25% tax on products entering the country from South Korea and Japan on 1 August, President Donald Trump has said.

He announced the tariffs in a post on social media, sharing letters he said had been sent to leaders of the two countries.

The White House has said it expects to send similar messages to many countries in the coming days as the 90-day pause it placed on some of its most aggressive tariffs is set to expire.

The first two letters suggest that Trump remains committed to his initial push for tariffs, with little change from the rates announced in April.

At that time, he said he was looking to hit goods from Japan with duties of 24% and charge a 25% on products made in South Korea.

Those tariffs were included in a bigger "Liberation Day" announcement, which imposed tariffs on goods from countries around the world.

After outcry and turmoil on financial markets following the initial tariffs announcement, Trump suspended some of the import taxes to allow for talks. That deadline is set to expire on 9 July.

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expected "a busy couple of days".

"We've had a lot of people change their tune in terms of negotiations. So my mailbox was full last night with a lot of new offers, a lot of new proposals," he told US business broadcaster CNBC.

The first malaria treatment suitable for babies and very young children has been approved for use.

It's expected to be rolled out in African countries within weeks.

Until now there have been no approved malaria drugs specifically for babies.

Instead they have been treated with versions formulated for older children which presents a risk of overdose.

Half a million deaths in 2023

In 2023 - the year for which the most recent figures are available - malaria was linked to around 597,000 deaths.

Almost all of the deaths were in Africa, and around three quarters of them were children under five years old.

Malaria treatments for children do exist but until now, there was none specifically for the very youngest babies and small children, who weigh less than 4.5kg or around 10lb.

Instead they have been treated with drugs designed for older children.

But that presents risks, as doses for these older children may not be safe for babies, whose liver functions are still developing and whose bodies process medicines differently.

Experts say this has led to what is described as a "treatment gap".

Now a new medicine, developed by the drug company Novartis, has been approved by the Swiss authorities and is likely to be rolled out in regions and countries with the highest rates of malaria within weeks.

Novartis is planning to introduce it on a largely not-for-profit basis.

The smallest and most vulnerable

The company's chief executive, Vas Narasimhan, says this is an important moment.

"For more than three decades, we have stayed the course in the fight against malaria, working relentlessly to deliver scientific breakthroughs where they are needed most.

"Together with our partners, we are proud to have gone further to develop the first clinically proven malaria treatment for newborns and young babies, ensuring even the smallest and most vulnerable can finally receive the care they deserve."

The drug, known as Coartem Baby or Riamet Baby in some countries, was developed by Novartis in collaboration with the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), a Swiss-based not-for-profit organisation initially backed by the British, Swiss and Dutch Governments, as well as the World Bank and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Eight African nations also took part in the assessment and trials of the drug and they are expected to be among the first to access it.

Martin Fitchet, CEO of MMV, says this is another important step on the road towards ending the huge toll taken by malaria.

"Malaria is one of the world's deadliest diseases, particularly among children. But with the right resources and focus, it can be eliminated.

"The approval of Coartem Baby provides a necessary medicine with an optimised dose to treat an otherwise neglected group of patients and offers a valuable addition to the antimalarial toolbox."

Dr Marvelle Brown, associate professor at the University of Hertfordshire's School of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, says this should be seen as a major breakthrough in saving the lives of babies and young children.

"The death rate for malarial infections, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa is extremely high - over 76% of deaths occur in children under five years old.

"Increase in death from malaria is further compounded in babies born with sickle cell disease, primarily due to a weak immune system.

"From a public health perspective, Novartis making this not-for-profit can help with reducing inequality in access to healthcare."

The winters in Victoria's Gippsland region are known for being chilly. Frost is a frequent visitor overnight, and the days are often overcast.

But in the small town of Korumburra - a part of Australia surrounded by low, rolling hills - it's not just the weather that's gloomy; the mood here is plainly subdued.

Korumburra is where all of Erin Patterson's victims made their home. Don and Gail Patterson, her in-laws, had lived there since 1984. They brought up their four children in the town of 5,000. Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson lived nearby - her husband Ian was the pastor at the local Baptist church.

The four were invited to Erin's house on 29 July 2023 for a family lunch that only Ian would survive, after a liver transplant and weeks in an induced coma.

And on Monday a jury rejected Erin's claim she accidentally served her guests toxic mushrooms, finding her guilty of three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.

Her 10-week trial caused a massive stir globally, but here in Korumburra they don't want to talk about it. They just want to return to their lives after what has been a difficult two years.

"It's not an easy thing to go through a grieving process... and it's particularly not easy when there's been so much attention," cattle farmer and councillor for the shire Nathan Hersey told the BBC.

"There's an opportunity now for a lot of people to be able to have some closure."

The locals are fiercely loyal - he's one of the few people who is willing to explain what this ordeal has meant for the many in the region.

"It's the sort of place that you can be embraced in very quickly and made to feel you are part of it," he explains.

And those who died clearly helped build that environment.

Pretty much everyone of a certain generation in town was taught by former school teacher Don Patterson: "You'll hear a lot of people talk very fondly of Don, about the impact he had on them.

"He was a great teacher and a really engaging person as well."

And Mr Hersey says he has heard many, many tales of Heather and Gail's generosity and kindness.

Pinned to the Korumburra Baptist Church noticeboard is a short statement paying tribute to the trio, who were "very special people who loved God and loved to bless others".

"We all greatly miss Heather, Don and Gail whether we were friends for a short time or over 20 years," it read.

It's not just Korumburra that's been changed by the tragedy though.

This part of rural Victoria is dotted with small towns and hamlets, which may at first appear quite isolated.

The reality is they are held together by close ties - ties which this case has rattled.

In nearby Outtrim, the residents of Neilson Street – an unassuming gravel road host to a handful of houses – have been left reeling by the prosecution claim their gardens may have produced the murder weapon.

It was one of two locations where death cap mushrooms were sighted and posted on iNaturalist, a citizen science website. Pointing to cell phone tracking data, the prosecution alleged that Erin Patterson went to both to forage for the lethal fungi.

"Everyone knows somebody who has been affected by this case," Ian Thoms tells the BBC from his small farm on Nielson Street.

He rattles off his list. His son is a police detective. His wife works with the daughter of the only survivor Ian. His neighbour is good friends with "Funky Tom", the renowned mushroom expert called upon by the prosecution – who coincidentally was also the person who had posted the sighting of the fungi here.

Down the road another 15 minutes is Leongatha, where Erin Patterson's home sits among other sprawling properties on an unpaved lane.

She bought a plot of land here with a generous inheritance from her mother and built the house assuming she would live here forever.

It has been sitting empty for about 18 months, a sign on the gate telling trespassers to keep out. A neighbour's sheep intermittently drop by to mow the grass.

This week, the livestock was gone, and a black tarpaulin had been erected around the carport and the entrance to her house.

There's a sense of intrigue among some of the neighbours, but there's also a lot of weariness. Every day there are gawkers driving down the lane to see the place where the tragic meal happened. One neighbour even reckons she saw a tour bus trundle past the house.

"When you live in a local town you know names - it's been interesting to follow," says Emma Buckland, who stops to talk to us in the main street.

"It's bizarre," says her mother Gabrielle Stefani. "Nothing like that has [ever] happened so it's almost hard to believe."

The conversation turns to mushroom foraging.

"We grew up on the farm. Even on the front lawn there's always mushrooms and you know which ones you can and can't eat," says Ms Buckland. "That's something you've grown up knowing."

The town that's felt the impact of the case the most in recent months, though, is Morwell; the administrative capital of the City of Latrobe and where the trial has been heard.

"We've seen Morwell, which is usually a pretty sleepy town, come to life," says local journalist Liam Durkin, sitting on a wall in front of Latrobe Valley courthouse.

He edits the weekly Latrobe Valley Express newspaper, whose offices are just around the corner.

"I never thought I'd be listening to fungi experts and the like for weeks on end but here we are," he says.

"I don't think there's ever been anything like this, and they may well never be in Morwell ever again."

While not remote by Australian standards, Morwell is still a two-hour drive from the country's second largest city, Melbourne. It feels far removed from the Victorian capital – and often forgotten.

Just a few months before that fateful lunch served up by Erin Patterson in July 2023, Morwell's paper mill - Australia's last manufacturer of white paper and the provider of many local jobs - shut down. Before that, many more people lost their jobs when a nearby power station closed down.

Older people here have struggled to find work; others have left to find more lucrative options in states like Queensland.

So locals say being thrust in the spotlight now is a bit bizarre.

In Jay Dees coffee shop, opposite the police station and the court, Laura Heller explains that she normally makes about 150 coffees a day. Recently it's almost double that.

"There's been a lot of mixed feelings about [the trial]," she says.

There's been a massive uptick for many businesses, but this case has also revived long-held division in the community when it comes to the police and justice systems, she explains.

"This town is affected by crime a lot, but it's a very different type of crime," Ms Heller says, mentioning drugs and youth offending as examples.

"Half the community don't really have much faith in the police force and our magistrates."

Back in Korumburra, what has been shaken is their faith in humanity. It feels like many people around the globe have lost sight of the fact that this headline-making, meme-generating crime left three people dead.

"Lives in our local community have changed forever," Mr Hersey says.

"But I would say for a lot of people, it's just become almost like pop culture."

Though the past two years has at times brought out the worst in the community, it's also shone a light on the best, he says.

"We want to be known as a community that has been strong and has supported one another... rather than a place that is known for what we now know was murder."

Additional reporting by Tiffanie Turnbull

The US plans to impose a 25% tax on products entering the country from South Korea and Japan on 1 August, President Donald Trump has said.

He announced the tariffs in a post on social media, sharing letters he said had been sent to leaders of the two countries.

The White House has said it expects to send similar messages to many countries in the coming days as the 90-day pause it placed on some of its most aggressive tariffs is set to expire.

The first two letters suggest that Trump remains committed to his initial push for tariffs, with little change from the rates announced in April.

At that time, he said he was looking to hit goods from Japan with duties of 24% and charge a 25% on products made in South Korea.

Those tariffs were included in a bigger "Liberation Day" announcement, which imposed tariffs on goods from countries around the world.

After outcry and turmoil on financial markets following the initial tariffs announcement, Trump suspended some of the import taxes to allow for talks. That deadline is set to expire on 9 July.

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expected "a busy couple of days".

"We've had a lot of people change their tune in terms of negotiations. So my mailbox was full last night with a lot of new offers, a lot of new proposals," he told US business broadcaster CNBC.

US President Donald Trump has said he thinks talks to end the war in Gaza have been "going along very well", as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington DC.

Trump also expressed confidence that Hamas was willing to end the 21-month conflict. "They want to meet and they want to have that ceasefire," he said in unexpected remarks to reporters at the White House.

Both leaders were asked about potential plans to relocate Palestinians, with Trump saying he has co-operation from countries neighbouring Israel.

The meeting came after the latest rounds of indirect ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas in Qatar ended without a breakthrough, though negotiations were expected to continue this week.

In Monday's remarks, Trump was asked by a journalist what was preventing a peace deal in Gaza, and he said: "I don't think there is a hold-up. I think things are going along very well."

Netanyahu, meanwhile, said he was working with the US on finding countries that will "give Palestinians a better future".

The Palestinian presidency has previously rejected plans to relocate Palestinians, which it pointed out would violate international law.

Netanyahu also appeared to play down prospects of full Palestinian statehood, saying that Israel will "always" keep security control over the Gaza Strip.

"Now, people will say it's not a complete state, it's not a state. We don't care," Netanyahu said.

At the meeting, the Israeli PM also said he had nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, reportedly a long-held goal of the US president.

"He's forging peace as we speak, in one country, in one region after the other," Netanyahu said as he presented Trump with a letter he sent to the prize committee.

Trump has previously said he would be "very firm" with the Israeli PM about ending the war and indicated that "we'll have a deal" this week.

The White House initially said it would not make the meeting between the two leaders open to media, with officials describing it as a private dinner during which Trump would prioritise the push for an end to the war and the return of all hostages.

Keeping the meeting closed to journalists would have been unusual for a president who likes to platform his positions with foreign leaders in front of the world's press.

The US-backed ceasefire proposal would reportedly see Hamas release 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 dead hostages in five stages during a 60-day truce.

Israel would be required to release an unknown number of Palestinian prisoners and withdraw from parts of Gaza, where it now controls about two-thirds of the territory.

Obstacles to a deal remain significant.

The main outstanding issue relates to aid, as Hamas insists on ending the work of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, while the Israeli delegation refuses to discuss the issue, saying they are not authorised to discuss it.

During his visit, Netanyahu met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

As Netanyahu's armoured limousine travelled to the White House, dozens of protesters gathered at security gates, waving Palestinian flags and shouting calls for the Israeli's PM's arrest.

Netanyahu, along with his former defence minister Yoav Gallant and a Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, were made subjects of an arrest warrant in November from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Netanyahu has rejected the allegations, calling the warrants antisemitic, while the Trump administration has imposed sanctions on four ICC judges for what it called "baseless actions targeting America or our close ally, Israel".

The latest round of negotiations on the war in Gaza began on Sunday in Doha, with representatives seated in different rooms in the same building.

A second session was held on Monday and ended without a breakthrough, a Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations told AFP.

Witkoff was due to join the talks in Doha later this week in an effort to get a ceasefire over the line as the Gaza conflict nears its 22nd month.

Speaking to the BBC, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee declined to say whether Trump would give a written guarantee that a proposed 60-day ceasefire would be extended, so long as negotiations continue.

"I simply don't know," Huckabee said.

This is one of Hamas's key demands and a stumbling block in the current negotiations.

When asked whether he believes Trump can achieve a breakthrough with the Israeli leader, Huckabee said: "I'm not a prophet. I cannot predict the future, so I won't try to tell you what will happen."

Netanyahu is visiting the White House for the third time since Trump returned to power nearly six months ago.

But the leaders are meeting for the first time since the US joined Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and then brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.

There is a strong sense that the recent 12-day war has created more favourable circumstances to end the Gaza war.

Witkoff said at Monday's dinner that a US meeting with Iran would take place in the next week or so. Trump also said he would like to lift sanctions on the Islamic Republic at some point.

The US president has expressed increasing concern over the conflict in Gaza in recent weeks and believes there is a "good chance" of reaching a ceasefire.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said it was Trump's "utmost priority" to end the war in Gaza and that he wanted Hamas to agree to the 60-day deal "right now".

"It's unfair to lift censorship suddenly," growls a grizzled newspaper editor into the phone, a copy of The Daily Pulp sprawled across his desk. "We should be given time to prepare our minds."

The cartoon capturing this moment - piercing and satirical - is the work of Abu Abraham, one of India's finest political cartoonists. His pen skewered power with elegance and edge, especially during the 1975 Emergency, a 21-month stretch of suspended civil liberties and muzzled media under Indira Gandhi's rule.

The press was silenced overnight on 25 June. Delhi's newspaper presses lost power, and by morning censorship was law. The government demanded the press bend to its will - and, as opposition leader LK Advani later famously remarked, many "chose to crawl".

Another famous cartoon - he signed them Abu, after his pen name - from that time shows a man asking another: "What do you think of editors who are more loyal than the censor?"

In many ways, half a century later, Abu's cartoons still ring true.

India currently ranks 151st in the World Press Freedom Index, compiled annually by Reporters Without Borders. This reflects growing concerns about media independence under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Critics allege increasing pressure and attacks on journalists, acquiescent media and a shrinking space for dissenting voices. The government dismisses these claims, insisting that the media remain free and vibrant.

After nearly 15 years drawing cartoons in London for The Observer and The Guardian, Abu had returned to India in the late 1960s. He joined the Indian Express newspaper as a political cartoonist at a time when the country was grappling with intense political upheaval.

He later wrote that pre-censorship - which required newspapers and magazines to submit their news reports, editorials and even ads to government censors before publication - began two days after the Emergency was declared, was lifted after a few weeks, then reimposed a year later for a shorter period.

"For the rest of the time I had no official interference. I have not bothered to investigate why I was allowed to carry on freely. And I am not interested in finding out."

• Indira Gandhi's Emergency: When India's democracy was put on pause

Many of Abu's Emergency-era cartoons are iconic. One shows then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signing the proclamation from his bathtub, capturing the haste and casualness with which it was issued (Ahmed signed the Emergency declaration that Gandhi had issued shortly before midnight on 25 June).

Among Abu's striking works are several cartoons boldly stamped with "Not passed by censors", a stark mark of official suppression.

In one, a man holds a placard that reads "Smile!" - a sly jab at the government's forced-positivity campaigns during the Emergency. His companion deadpans, "Don't you think we have a lovely censor of humour?" - a line that cuts to the heart of state-enforced cheer.

Another seemingly innocuous cartoon shows a man at his desk sighing, "My train of thought has derailed." Another features a protester carrying a sign that reads "SaveD democracy" - the "D" awkwardly added on top, as if democracy itself were an afterthought.

Abu also took aim at Sanjay Gandhi, the unelected son of Indira Gandhi, who many believed ran a shadow government during the Emergency, wielding unchecked power behind the scenes. Sanjay's influence was both controversial and feared. He died in a plane crash in 1980 - four years before his mother, Indira, was assassinated by her bodyguards.

Abu's work was intensely political. "I have come to the conclusion that there's nothing non-political in the world. Politics is simply anything that is controversial and everything in the world is controversial," he wrote in Seminar magazine in 1976.

He also bemoaned the state of humour - strained and manufactured - when the press was gagged.

"If cheap humour could be manufactured in a factory, the public would rush to queue up in our ration shops all day. As our newspapers become progressively duller, the reader, drowning in boredom, clutches at every joke. AIR [India's state-run radio station] news bulletins nowadays sound like a company chairman's annual address. Profits are carefully and elaborately enumerated, losses are either omitted or played down. Shareholders are reassured," Abu wrote.

In a tongue-in-cheek column for the Sunday Standard in 1977, Abu poked fun at the culture of political flattery with a fictional account of a meeting of the "All India Sycophantic Society".

The spoof featured the society's imaginary president declaring: "True sycophancy is non-political."

The satirical monologue continued with mock proclamations: "Sycophancy has a long and historic tradition in our country… 'Servility before self' is our motto."

Abu's parody culminated in the society's guiding vision: "Touching all available feet and promoting a broad-based programme of flattery."

Born as Attupurathu Mathew Abraham in the southern state of Kerala in 1924, Abu began his career as a reporter at the nationalist Bombay Chronicle, driven less by ideology than a fascination with the power of the printed word.

His reporting years coincided with India's dramatic journey to independence, witnessing firsthand the euphoria that gripped Bombay (now Mumbai). Reflecting on the press, he later noted, "The press has pretensions of being a crusader but is more often a preserver of the status quo."

After two years with Shankar's Weekly, a well-known satire magazine, Abu set his sights on Europe. A chance encounter with British cartoonist Fred Joss in 1953 propelled him to London, where he quickly made a mark.

His debut cartoon was accepted by Punch within a week of arrival, earning praise from editor Malcolm Muggeridge as "charming".

Freelancing for two years in London's competitive scene, Abu's political cartoons began appearing in Tribune and soon attracted the attention of The Observer's editor David Astor.

Astor offered him a staff position with the paper.

"You are not cruel like other cartoonists, and your work is the kind I was looking for," he told Abu.

In 1956, at Astor's suggestion, Abraham adopted the pen name "Abu", writing later: "He explained that any Abraham in Europe would be taken as a Jew and my cartoons would take on slant for no reason, and I wasn't even Jewish."

Astor also assured him of creative freedom: "You will never be asked to draw a political cartoon expressing ideas which you do not yourself personally sympathise."

Abu worked at The Observer for 10 years, followed by three years at The Guardian, before returning to India in the late 1960s. He later wrote he was "bored" of British politics.

Beyond cartooning, Abu served as a nominated member of India's upper house of Parliament from 1972 to 1978. In 1981, he launched Salt and Pepper, a comic strip that ran for nearly two decades, blending gentle satire with everyday observations. He returned to Kerala in 1988 and continued to draw and write until his death in 2002.

But Abu's legacy was never just about the punchline - it was about the deeper truths his humour revealed.

As he once remarked, "If anyone has noticed a decline in laughter, the reason may not be the fear of laughing at authority but the feeling that reality and fancy, tragedy and comedy have all, somehow got mixed up."

That blurring of absurdity and truth often gave his work its edge.

"The prize for the joke of the year," he wrote during the Emergency, "should go to the Indian news agency reporter in London who approvingly quoted a British newspaper comment on India under the Emergency, that 'trains are running on time' - not realising this used to be the standard English joke about Mussolini's Italy. When we have such innocents abroad, we don't really need humorists."

Abu's cartoons and photograph, courtesy Ayisha and Janaki Abraham

In a rural village close to the Ukrainian front line, a group of women queue quietly outside a purple and white ambulance, waiting to be seen by a doctor with his shaved head dyed the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag.

For many of them, it's their first time seeing a doctor since the war began more than three years ago.

Since 2022, Dr Serhii Baksheiev, 53, has carried out more than 1,000 gynaecological examinations on women throughout front-line and occupied areas in his kitted out mobile clinic - named 'The Feminine Shuttle' and complete with a bright pink examination chair.

"This is a humanitarian volunteering mission. It's for people who need help, in places where there are no doctors or hospitals, and it's absolutely free," he says.

The war with Russia has placed a huge strain on Ukraine's healthcare system, with more than 1,940 attacks on health facilities since the invasion, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) - making it the highest number in any humanitarian crisis to date - and with a significant increase in those attacks since December 2023.

When the war began, Dr Baksheiev, who is an obstetrician and gynaecologist, initially spent his days in a bunker in Kyiv helping to deliver babies as bombs fell above.

The idea for an on-the-road clinic came to him, he says, after later medical volunteer missions to the front line revealed the lack of facilities because medical centres and hospitals had been completely destroyed.

"We went to Kharkiv and Chernihiv, which were very damaged, and the most difficult thing was not being able to provide gynaecological services because there were no tools and equipment, because everything was ruined," he says.

Dr Baksheiev and his team would have to use anything available as an examination table, including old sofas, meaning he would have to kneel on the floor to conduct examinations.

Today, walking around the electric vehicle, it's clear Dr Baksheiev is incredibly proud of its capabilities: it's been kitted out with everything he and his team could need in these remote areas, including an ultrasound machine and medical equipment to carry out minor surgeries.

During a two-day mission the team can perform up to 80 colposcopies - where they examine the cervix and vulva for signs of cancerous or pre-cancerous tissue.

The work is crucial to the people living in these remote areas.

His visits to small rural villages occupied by the Russians are often carried out in secret. He and his team slip in for a day or two to carry out their examinations and leave before they are detected.

Figures provided by Ukraine's public health ministry and seen by the BBC show detection rates for ovarian and cervical cancers are down by 17% and 10% respectively since 2020.

And when doctors like Dr Baksheiev do get into those areas to perform examinations, they are finding a higher than average incidence of malignant tumours.

On average, up to 4% of all women are diagnosed with malignant tumours after being examined, according to FRIDA Ukraine, the medical organisation Dr Baksheiev volunteers for.

Dr Ulana Supron was Ukraine's health minister from 2016 to 2019. She says there is a concern about the "ticking time bomb" of health outcomes as the war drags on.

"In the public health community, there definitely is a lot of worry about what's going to happen as the war continues," she says.

"Not only in terms of physical health, but also mental health - because there is a constant stress, constant psychological trauma happening."

Dr Supron says the government has managed to partially or fully rebuild as many as 964 medical facilities that were damaged by Russia.

"They're working closely with the WHO and with other international organisations to try to come up with a plan on how we can rebuild the health system that was in place prior to Russia's invasion," she adds.

Despite a cancer diagnosis himself in September 2024, Dr Baksheiev continues to volunteer and provide treatment to women across the country.

"Apart from the medical examination, you also hear them out because a lot of patients have stories about how the Russians attacked their villages," he says.

"So we are not only doctors, we're the therapists for these patients."

The death toll from flash floods that struck central Texas on Friday has now climbed to more than 100 people and an unknown number of others are missing.

Search and rescue teams are wading through mud-piled riverbanks as more rain and thunderstorms threaten the region, but hope was fading of finding any more survivors four days after the catastrophe.

Camp Mystic, a Christian all-girls' summer camp, confirmed at least 27 girls and staff were among the dead. Ten girls and a camp counsellor are still missing.

The White House meanwhile rejected suggestions that budget cuts at the National Weather Service (NWS) could have inhibited the disaster response.

At least 84 of the victims - 56 adults and 28 children - died in Kerr County, where the Guadalupe River was swollen by torrential downpours before daybreak on Friday, the July Fourth public holiday.

Some 22 adults and 10 children have yet to be identified, said the county sheriff's office.

• Why Texas floods were so devastating

Camp Mystic said in a statement on Monday: "Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy."

Richard Eastland, 70, the co-owner and director of Camp Mystic, died trying to save the children, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

Local pastor Del Way, who knows the Eastland family, told the BBC: "The whole community will miss him [Mr Eastland]. He died a hero."

In its latest forecast, the NWS has predicted more slow-moving thunderstorms, potentially bringing more flash flooding to the region.

Critics of the Trump administration have sought to link the disaster to thousands of job cuts at the NWS' parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The NWS office responsible for forecasting in the region had five employees on duty as thunderstorms brewed over Texas on Thursday evening, the usual number for an overnight shift when severe weather is expected.

• Did US government cuts contribute to the Texas tragedy?

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt rejected attempts to blame the president.

"That was an act of God," she told a daily briefing on Monday.

"It's not the administration's fault that the flood hit when it did, but there were early and consistent warnings and, again, the National Weather Service did its job."

She outlined that the NWS office in Austin-San Antonio conducted briefings for local officials on the eve of the flood and sent out a flood watch that afternoon, before issuing numerous flood warnings that night and in the pre-dawn hours of 4 July.

Trump pushed back when asked on Sunday if federal government cuts had hampered the disaster response, initially appearing to shift blame to what he called "the Biden set-up", referring to his Democratic predecessor.

"But I wouldn't blame Biden for it, either," he added. "I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe."

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, told a news conference on Monday that now was not the time for "partisan finger-pointing".

One local campaigner, Nicole Wilson, has a petition calling for flood sirens to be set up in Kerr County - something in place in other counties.

Such a system has been debated in Kerr County for almost a decade, but funds for it have never been allocated.

Texas Lt Gov Dan Patrick acknowledged on Monday that such sirens might have saved lives, and said they should be in place by next summer.

Meanwhile, condolences continued to pour in from around the world.

King Charles II has written to President Trump to express his "profound sadness" about the catastrophic flooding.

The King "offered his deepest sympathy" to those who lost loved ones, the British Embassy in Washington said.

The US plans to impose a 25% tax on products entering the country from South Korea and Japan on 1 August, President Donald Trump has said.

He announced the tariffs in a post on social media, sharing letters he said had been sent to leaders of the two countries.

The White House has said it expects to send similar messages to many countries in the coming days as the 90-day pause it placed on some of its most aggressive tariffs is set to expire.

The first two letters suggest that Trump remains committed to his initial push for tariffs, with little change from the rates announced in April.

At that time, he said he was looking to hit goods from Japan with duties of 24% and charge a 25% on products made in South Korea.

Those tariffs were included in a bigger "Liberation Day" announcement, which imposed tariffs on goods from countries around the world.

After outcry and turmoil on financial markets following the initial tariffs announcement, Trump suspended some of the import taxes to allow for talks. That deadline is set to expire on 9 July.

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expected "a busy couple of days".

"We've had a lot of people change their tune in terms of negotiations. So my mailbox was full last night with a lot of new offers, a lot of new proposals," he told US business broadcaster CNBC.

An overwhelming amount of drugs being smuggled into prisons in England and Wales is "destabilising" the system and hindering efforts to stop re-offending, a watchdog has warned.

Prisons are being targeted by criminal gangs using drones to fly in contraband to sell to bored inmates being kept in cramped conditions, according to the chief inspector of prisons' annual report.

"This meant in many jails, there were seemingly uncontrolled levels of criminality that hard-pressed and often inexperienced staff were unable to contain," Charlie Taylor wrote.

Prisons Minister Lord Timpson said the report showed the "scale of the crisis we inherited" and that the government was working to end the "chaos".

The damning report published on Tuesday found overcrowding and staffing shortages were contributing to a lack of purposeful activities for prisoners to do that would aid their rehabilitation, with many turning to drugs to keep themselves occupied.

Both staff and prisoners have been saying for several years that far too little is being done to keep drugs out of prisons.

A survey of 5,431 prisoners found 39% said it was easy to acquire drugs, while 30% of random drug tests came back positive.

In one prison, HMP Hindley, this rate was almost double.

An inspection of HMP Bedford found random drug testing had not been conducted for 12 months despite drugs being a "significant threat to safety".

Drugs are smuggled into prisons by visitors or staff, thrown over fences or flown in using drones.

An inmate serving time for a violent offence told the BBC that getting drugs inside was "super easy".

Speaking from his cell on an illegal phone, he said: "If you want spice [synthetic cannabis] or weed or something stronger, you can get it in a jiffy. Everyone inside knows who's got some. You can smell it across the wings.

"The boredom is too much and sometimes you just want something to take your mind off it so you'll get high."

The report said drones were being used to make regular deliveries to HMP Manchester and Long Lartin - which hold "some of the most dangerous men in the country, including terrorists and organised crime bosses".

It said that physical security measures were inadequate, while at HMP Manchester "inexperienced staff were being manipulated or simply ignored by prisoners".

Mr Taylor said the failure to tackle these issues presented a threat to national security.

"The challenge for the prison service must be to work in conjunction with the police and security services to manage prisoners associated with organised crime," Mr Taylor said.

"This is a threat that needs to be taken seriously at the highest levels of government."

The report also found:

• Prisoners were spending too long locked in cells, with limited opportunities to spend time in fresh air or take part in recreational activities
• Prisoners in full-time work or education missed out on other activities
• Prisoners released early to ease overcrowding had placed a "huge burden on already-overstretched" probation units
• The population is growing "faster than new [prison] spaces can be made available"

Lord Timpson said the report highlighted the "unacceptable pressures faced by our hardworking staff".

Addressing the issue of overcrowding, he said the government was building 14,000 extra places, with 2,400 already delivered, and "reforming sentencing to ensure we never run out of space again".

He added that the government had pledged £40m to improve prison security, including enhanced CCTV, new windows and floodlighting.

The Prison Service is also employing x-ray body scanners and detection dogs to combat smuggling.

The government hopes reforms to sentencing will allow more prisoners to be released early, freeing up prison spaces.

But drugs in prison are nothing new, and as long as there is a demand, new ways are likely to be created to bring them in.

With drug dealers and addicts doing time, and a constant appetite to make cash, drugs are something that will continue to be an irresistible temptation to those inside.

Tuesday will mark another big milestone in the long road to justice for the victims of the Post Office IT scandal.

The chair of the inquiry into it – Sir Wyn Williams – will publish the first part of his final report, focusing on compensation and the human impact of the scandal.

Thousands of sub-postmasters were wrongly blamed for financial losses from the Post Office's faulty Horizon computer system, which was developed by Fujitsu.

More than 900 people were prosecuted and 236 were sent to prison in what is believed to be one of the biggest miscarriages of justices in UK history.

Sir Wyn put those victims at the heart of the inquiry's work, which has pored over several decades worth of technical evidence and grilled many of those who had a role in ruining so many lives.

Dozens of sub-postmasters gave evidence too - many who had lost their businesses, their homes and some who served prison sentences.

Sir Wyn's findings on their treatment will surely be damning given everything he has heard since the inquiry began in 2022.

The inquiry became almost box office viewing - racking up more than 20 million views on YouTube, with people with no connection to the Post Office following it closely.

However, it is going to be months before we find out who Sir Wyn will point the finger of blame at.

That will come in part two of the report, meaning that accountability is still a long way off.

'Patchwork quilt'

Sir Wyn has taken a big interest in compensation for the victims, admitting at one point that he'd stretched his terms of reference on the issue, "perhaps beyond breaking point".

He held four separate hearings on redress and issued an interim report in 2023, likening the various schemes to a "patchwork quilt with a few holes in it".

Victims and their legal representatives still battling to secure final payouts will be looking to see what his conclusions are on compensation and whether it is living up to the mantra of being full and fair.

They hope his recommendations will result in more action.

Still, you might be wondering why we're only getting the first part of the final report.

Sir Wyn knows how pressing compensation is to many of the victims and that's why he wants to publish his recommendations on the issue as soon as possible.

"It's something I am very keen to say as much about as I reasonably can," he told the inquiry last year.

But the implication from this is that part two - establishing what happened and who is to blame - isn't coming out any time soon.

This second report may not be published until 2026 given the sheer volume and complexity of the evidence as well as the need to give those who are criticised the chance to respond.

As for justice, any criminal trials may not start until 2028. Police investigating the scandal confirmed last month that files won't be handed to prosecutors until after the final inquiry report is published.

After years of waiting, even after part one of Sir Wyn's report is published, the sub-postmasters' long road to justice will continue.

In the aftermath of the fatal Texas floods, some Democrats have warned about the "consequences" of the Trump administration's cuts to the federal government workforce, including meteorologists, with Senator Chris Murphy saying that: "Accurate weather forecasting helps avoid fatal disasters."

The suggestion is that the cuts may have impeded the ability of the National Weather Service (NWS) - the government agency which provides weather forecasts in the US - to adequately predict the floods and raise the alarm.

But the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said on Monday: "These offices [of the NWS] were well staffed… so any claims to the contrary are completely false."

BBC Verify has examined the impact of cuts under President Trump in this area and while there has been a reduction in the workforce at the NWS, experts who we spoke to said the staffing on hand for the Texas floods appears to have been adequate.

What are the cuts?

The Trump administration has proposed a 25% cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) current annual budget of $6.1bn (£4.4bn). NOAA is the agency which oversees the NWS.

This would take effect in the 2026 financial year which begins in October this year - so these particular cuts would not have contributed to the Texas tragedy.

However, the staffing levels of the NWS have already been separately reduced by the Trump administration's efficiency drive since January.

The Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), previously run by Elon Musk, offered voluntary redundancies, known as buyouts, as well as early retirements to federal government workers. It also ended the contracts of most of those who were on probation.

As a result, about 200 people at the NWS took voluntary redundancy and 300 opted for early retirement, according to Tom Fahy, the director of the NWS union. A further 100 people were ultimately fired from the service, he said.

In total, the NWS lost 600 of its 4,200 staff, says Mr Fahy, causing several offices across the country to operate without the necessary staffing.

In April 2025, the Associated Press news agency said it had seen data compiled by NWS employees showing half of its offices had a vacancy rate of 20% - double the rate a decade earlier.

Despite this, climate experts told BBC Verify that the NWS forecasts and flood warnings last week in Texas were as adequate as could be expected.

"The forecasts and warnings all played out in a normal manner. The challenge with this event was that it is very difficult to forecast this type of extreme, localised rainfall," says Avantika Gori, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University in Texas.

And Andy Hazelton, a climate scientist who modelled hurricane paths for the NOAA until he was fired during the layoffs in February, says: "I don't think the staffing issues contributed directly to this event. They got the watches and the warnings out."

What about the impact on offices in Texas?

However, some experts have suggested that staffing cuts may have impeded the ability of local NWS offices in Texas to effectively co-ordinate with local emergency services.

"There is a real question as to whether the communication of weather information occurred in a way that was sub-optimal," says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at University of California Los Angeles.

"The impact might have been partially averted if some of the people at the weather service responsible for making those communications were still employed - which they were not in some of these local offices," he adds.

The San Angelo and San Antonio offices, which cover the areas affected by the flooding, reportedly had some existing vacancies.

For example, the San Antonio office's website lists several positions as being vacant, including two meteorologists.

The NSW union director told BBC Verify that the San Angelo office was missing a senior hydrologist, a scientist who specialises in flooding events.

The San Antonio office also lacked a "warning coordinating meteorologist", who coordinates communications between local forecasting offices and emergency management services in communities, Mr Fahy said.

However, he noted that both offices had temporarily upped their staffing in anticipation of a dangerous weather event, which is typical in these circumstances.

"The NWS weather forecast offices in Austin/San Antonio and San Angelo, Texas had additional forecasters on duty during the catastrophic flooding event," NWS spokeswoman Erica Grow Cei said in a statement to BBC Verify. "All forecasts and warnings were issued in a timely manner," she added.

NWS meteorologist Jason Runyen, who covers the San Antonio area, also said in a statement that where the office would typically have two forecasters on duty during clear weather, they had "up to five on staff".

When asked on Sunday if government cuts had left key vacancies unfilled at the NWS, President Trump told reporters: "No, they didn't."

Were weather balloon launches reduced?

In a video shared thousands of times on social media, US meteorologist John Morales said: "There has been a 20% reduction in weather balloon releases, launches... What we're starting to see is that the quality of the forecasts is becoming degraded."

Some social media users have been pointing to Mr Morales' words as evidence that budget cuts have limited forecasters' ability to anticipate extreme weather events like the floods in Kerr County, Texas.

Weather balloons are an important tool used by meteorologists to collect weather data - from temperatures, to humidity, pressure, or wind speed - from the upper atmosphere.

In the US, NWS stations would typically launch them twice a day.

In a series of public statements released since February, the NWS confirmed that it either suspended or reduced weather balloon launches in at least 11 locations across the country, which it attributed to a lack of staffing at the local weather forecast offices.

However, there is no evidence to suggest that any of those changes directly affected weather balloon launches in the areas impacted by the floods in Texas.

Publicly available data shows that, in the lead-up to the floods, weather balloon launches were carried out as planned at Del Rio, the launch station nearest to the flood epicentre, collecting data that informed weather forecasts which experts say were as adequate as they could be.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Few scenes convey British pomp and soft power more than the King and Queen in a carriage procession through the picturesque streets of Windsor. They are being joined on Tuesday by Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron for the first state visit by a French president since 2008, and the first by a European Union leader since Brexit.

The Prince and Princess of Wales will be there too — a Royal Salute will be fired and Macron will inspect a guard of honour. But at a time of jeopardy in Europe, this three-day visit to Windsor and London promises much more than ceremony.

There is a genuine hope that the coming days will make a difference to both countries.

Macron will address MPs and peers at Westminster, and he and Brigitte will be treated to a state banquet back at Windsor. The trip will culminate with a UK-France summit, co-chaired by Sir Keir Starmer and Macron, during which the two governments hope to reach an agreement on the return of irregular migrants.

They will also host Ukraine's leader by video as they try to maintain arms supplies to his military.

But the wider question is how closely aligned they can really become, and whether they can put any lingering mistrust after Brexit behind them.

And, given that the trip will involve much pageantry — with the tour moving from the streets of Windsor, the quadrangle of the Castle and later to the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster — how crucial is King Charles III's role in this diplomacy?

Resetting a 'unique partnership'

It was less than two months ago that the UK and EU agreed to "reset" relations in London. Ties with France in particular had warmed considerably, driven partly by personal understanding but also strategic necessity.

The two neighbours have much in common: they are both nuclear powers and members of the United Nations Security Council.

They are also both looking to update a 15-year-old defence pact known as the Lancaster House treaties, which established a 10,000-strong Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF), and they have recently been working on broadening it to include other Nato and European countries.

"It has always been a unique partnership," says former French ambassador to the UK Sylvie Bermann. "I think this partnership will be crucial in the future."

All of this is unlikely to escape the notice of US President Donald Trump, who is also promised a state visit, his second to the UK, probably in September.

King Charles is 'more than a figurehead'

King Charles, who is 76, has already navigated some complex royal diplomacy this year.

Macron was the first European leader to visit Trump in the White House in February, but it was Sir Keir who stole the show days later, handing him a personal invitation from the King.

Then, when Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to Europe fresh from a bruising meeting with Trump at the White House in February, it was King Charles who welcomed him to Sandringham, and then met him again at Windsor in June.

He has spoken in the past of the heroism of Ukrainians in the face of "indescribable aggression".

Even before ascending the throne, King Charles amassed decades of experience in international affairs (he is also fluent in French). He was only 21 when he attended the funeral in 1970 of Charles de Gaulle, the wartime general who became the architect of France's current Fifth Republic.

He went on to become the longest-serving Prince of Wales in history, and now he is King he has weekly audiences with the prime minister. "The choreography is a strange dance, I suspect, between Number Ten and the Palace," says royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams.

"There's no doubt at all that Charles is considerably more than a figurehead."

Windsor Castle, which dates back to the first Norman king, William the Conqueror, has hosted French presidents before. But there is a quiet significance in the appearance of the Prince and Princess of Wales in welcoming Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, as Catherine recovers from treatment for cancer.

Between them, the King and Macron have played their part in resetting relations between the two neighbours, and by extension with the European Union too.

The King is a francophile, says Marc Roche, a columnist and royal commentator for French media: "He has always had a good relationship with France."

A year after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, it was France that King Charles and Queen Camilla chose for their first state visit in September 2023.

Macron had reminded the world in 2022 that the late Queen had "climbed the stairs of the Élysée Palace" six times — more than any other foreign sovereign. His words were warmly received in the UK.

The King received a standing ovation after an address in French to the Senate, and the Queen played table tennis at a sports centre with Brigitte Macron. France's first lady has since visited her in London for a cross-Channel book award.

Gentle touches they may have been, but it followed a very rough period in Franco-British relations.

Brexit negotiations soured relations

The mood had soured during negotiations over Brexit, which the French president said was based on a lie.

Then four years ago, Australia pulled out of a deal to buy 12 French submarines and signed a defence pact with the UK and US instead. The French foreign minister called it a "stab in the back".

Boris Johnson, who was prime minister at the time, told the French they should "prenez un grip" and "donnez-moi un break".

It had been Macron's idea for a European Political Community (EPC) in 2022 that brought the UK into a broad group of countries all seeking to respond to Russia's full-scale invasion.

In 2023 the then-Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, sought to turn the page on several years of frosty relations at a Franco-British summit in Paris.

British and French prime ministers have come and gone: the UK had three in 2022, and last year France had four. It was Sunak's team that organised last year's EPC summit at Blenheim, but it was Starmer as new prime minister who chaired it.

Sébastien Maillard, who helped advise the French presidency in setting up the EPC, said he believed "on both sides there is still a lack of trust… The memory of these difficult times has not vanished".

"Trust needs time to build and perhaps the Russian threat, support for Ukraine and how to handle Trump are three compelling reasons to rebuild that trust," says Maillard, who is now at the Chatham House think tank.

Susi Dennison, of the European Council on Foreign Relations in Paris, agrees relations with France are not back to pre-Brexit levels, but suggests some things the UK and France are "bickering" about were being argued over even before the Brexit vote.

For Macron, this is a chance to not only improve the relationship but also to shine on the international stage when his popularity at home has sunk, Mr Roche believes. "It's a very important visit, especially the first day, because the French are fascinated by the Royal Family."

After eight years in power, Macron's second term still has almost two years to run, but he has paid the price politically for calling snap elections last year and losing his government's majority. His prime minister, François Bayrou, faces a monumental task in the coming months in steering next year's budget past France's left-wing and far-right parties.

As president, Macron's powers - his domaine réservé - cover foreign policy, defence and security, but traditionally France's prime minister does not travel with the head of state, so Macron comes to the UK with a team of ministers who will handle far more than international affairs.

The difficult question of migration

During the summit, the two teams will also work on nuclear energy, artificial intelligence and cultural ties. Differences still have to be sorted over "post-Brexit mobility" for students and other young people, and France is expected to push the Starmer government on that.

But most of the headlines on Thursday's UK-France summit will cover the two main issues: defence and migration.

Defending Ukraine will take pride of place. An Élysée Palace source said it would discuss "how to seriously maintain Ukraine's combat capability" and regenerate its military.

"On defence our relationship is closer than any other countries," says former ambassador Sylvie Bermann. "We have to prepare for the future… to strengthen the deterrence of Europe."

And if a ceasefire were agreed in Ukraine, the two countries could provide the backbone of the "reassurance force" being proposed by the "coalition of the willing". Sir Keir and Macron have played a prominent part in forming this coalition, but so too have the military chiefs of staff of both countries.

Migration is the stickiest problem the two countries face, however. How they deal with their differences on it — particularly on small boats — is crucial to their future relationship.

They are especially keen to sign an agreement on migrant returns and on French police stopping people boarding "taxi boats" to cross the Channel.

France has long argued that the UK has to address the "pull factors" that drive people to want to risk their lives on the boats — the UK, for its part, already pays for many of the 1,200 French gendarmes to patrol France's long northern coastline to stop the smugglers' boats.

The countries are believed to have been working on the terms of a "one-in, one-out" agreement, so that for every small-boat arrival in the UK that France takes back, the UK would allow in one asylum seeker from France seeking family reunification.

Several countries on the southern coasts of Europe are unimpressed because it could mean France sending those asylum seekers handed back by the UK on to their country of entry into the EU, bordering the Mediterranean.

In the UK, the opposition Conservatives have branded the idea "pathetic", accusing the government of a "national record - for failure" on curbing small-boat crossings.

And yet every country in Europe is looking for a way to cut illegal border crossings. Meghan Benton, of the Migration Policy Institute, believes a Franco-British deal could work as a possible pilot for the rest of Europe: "What works for the Channel could also work for the Mediterranean."

Any agreement on this tricky issue could also signal a real, practical improvement in the countries' political relationship. France's right-wing Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, has already been working with Labour's Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to try to find a workable solution.

How far they get, and its wider impact on Europe, is still to be decided, but it does reflect a new willingness between the two neighbours to tackle the divisions between them.

Boris Johnson once accused France of wanting to punish the UK for Brexit. That difficult chapter appears to be over.

As Susi Dennison puts it: "There's a certain distance that will always be there, but things are operating quite well."

During King Charles' 2023 state visit to France he called on the two countries to find common ground, "to reinvigorate our friendship to ensure it is fit for the challenge of this, the 21st Century".

And so this visit will help show — both in the relationships between individuals and on concrete policy debates — whether his call has been answered.

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

The winters in Victoria's Gippsland region are known for being chilly. Frost is a frequent visitor overnight, and the days are often overcast.

But in the small town of Korumburra - a part of Australia surrounded by low, rolling hills - it's not just the weather that's gloomy; the mood here is plainly subdued.

Korumburra is where all of Erin Patterson's victims made their home. Don and Gail Patterson, her in-laws, had lived there since 1984. They brought up their four children in the town of 5,000. Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson lived nearby - her husband Ian was the pastor at the local Baptist church.

The four were invited to Erin's house on 29 July 2023 for a family lunch that only Ian would survive, after a liver transplant and weeks in an induced coma.

And on Monday a jury rejected Erin's claim she accidentally served her guests toxic mushrooms, finding her guilty of three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.

Her 10-week trial caused a massive stir globally, but here in Korumburra they don't want to talk about it. They just want to return to their lives after what has been a difficult two years.

"It's not an easy thing to go through a grieving process... and it's particularly not easy when there's been so much attention," cattle farmer and councillor for the shire Nathan Hersey told the BBC.

"There's an opportunity now for a lot of people to be able to have some closure."

The locals are fiercely loyal - he's one of the few people who is willing to explain what this ordeal has meant for the many in the region.

"It's the sort of place that you can be embraced in very quickly and made to feel you are part of it," he explains.

And those who died clearly helped build that environment.

Pretty much everyone of a certain generation in town was taught by former school teacher Don Patterson: "You'll hear a lot of people talk very fondly of Don, about the impact he had on them.

"He was a great teacher and a really engaging person as well."

And Mr Hersey says he has heard many, many tales of Heather and Gail's generosity and kindness.

Pinned to the Korumburra Baptist Church noticeboard is a short statement paying tribute to the trio, who were "very special people who loved God and loved to bless others".

"We all greatly miss Heather, Don and Gail whether we were friends for a short time or over 20 years," it read.

It's not just Korumburra that's been changed by the tragedy though.

This part of rural Victoria is dotted with small towns and hamlets, which may at first appear quite isolated.

The reality is they are held together by close ties - ties which this case has rattled.

In nearby Outtrim, the residents of Neilson Street – an unassuming gravel road host to a handful of houses – have been left reeling by the prosecution claim their gardens may have produced the murder weapon.

It was one of two locations where death cap mushrooms were sighted and posted on iNaturalist, a citizen science website. Pointing to cell phone tracking data, the prosecution alleged that Erin Patterson went to both to forage for the lethal fungi.

"Everyone knows somebody who has been affected by this case," Ian Thoms tells the BBC from his small farm on Nielson Street.

He rattles off his list. His son is a police detective. His wife works with the daughter of the only survivor Ian. His neighbour is good friends with "Funky Tom", the renowned mushroom expert called upon by the prosecution – who coincidentally was also the person who had posted the sighting of the fungi here.

Down the road another 15 minutes is Leongatha, where Erin Patterson's home sits among other sprawling properties on an unpaved lane.

She bought a plot of land here with a generous inheritance from her mother and built the house assuming she would live here forever.

It has been sitting empty for about 18 months, a sign on the gate telling trespassers to keep out. A neighbour's sheep intermittently drop by to mow the grass.

This week, the livestock was gone, and a black tarpaulin had been erected around the carport and the entrance to her house.

There's a sense of intrigue among some of the neighbours, but there's also a lot of weariness. Every day there are gawkers driving down the lane to see the place where the tragic meal happened. One neighbour even reckons she saw a tour bus trundle past the house.

"When you live in a local town you know names - it's been interesting to follow," says Emma Buckland, who stops to talk to us in the main street.

"It's bizarre," says her mother Gabrielle Stefani. "Nothing like that has [ever] happened so it's almost hard to believe."

The conversation turns to mushroom foraging.

"We grew up on the farm. Even on the front lawn there's always mushrooms and you know which ones you can and can't eat," says Ms Buckland. "That's something you've grown up knowing."

The town that's felt the impact of the case the most in recent months, though, is Morwell; the administrative capital of the City of Latrobe and where the trial has been heard.

"We've seen Morwell, which is usually a pretty sleepy town, come to life," says local journalist Liam Durkin, sitting on a wall in front of Latrobe Valley courthouse.

He edits the weekly Latrobe Valley Express newspaper, whose offices are just around the corner.

"I never thought I'd be listening to fungi experts and the like for weeks on end but here we are," he says.

"I don't think there's ever been anything like this, and they may well never be in Morwell ever again."

While not remote by Australian standards, Morwell is still a two-hour drive from the country's second largest city, Melbourne. It feels far removed from the Victorian capital – and often forgotten.

Just a few months before that fateful lunch served up by Erin Patterson in July 2023, Morwell's paper mill - Australia's last manufacturer of white paper and the provider of many local jobs - shut down. Before that, many more people lost their jobs when a nearby power station closed down.

Older people here have struggled to find work; others have left to find more lucrative options in states like Queensland.

So locals say being thrust in the spotlight now is a bit bizarre.

In Jay Dees coffee shop, opposite the police station and the court, Laura Heller explains that she normally makes about 150 coffees a day. Recently it's almost double that.

"There's been a lot of mixed feelings about [the trial]," she says.

There's been a massive uptick for many businesses, but this case has also revived long-held division in the community when it comes to the police and justice systems, she explains.

"This town is affected by crime a lot, but it's a very different type of crime," Ms Heller says, mentioning drugs and youth offending as examples.

"Half the community don't really have much faith in the police force and our magistrates."

Back in Korumburra, what has been shaken is their faith in humanity. It feels like many people around the globe have lost sight of the fact that this headline-making, meme-generating crime left three people dead.

"Lives in our local community have changed forever," Mr Hersey says.

"But I would say for a lot of people, it's just become almost like pop culture."

Though the past two years has at times brought out the worst in the community, it's also shone a light on the best, he says.

"We want to be known as a community that has been strong and has supported one another... rather than a place that is known for what we now know was murder."

Additional reporting by Tiffanie Turnbull

The national system for sending emergency alerts to mobile phones in the UK will be tested again this September, the government has said.

It will see compatible phones vibrate and make a siren sound for 10 seconds while displaying a message at 15:00 BST on 7 September, even if they are set to silent.

The alerts are intended for situations in which there is an imminent danger to life, such as extreme weather events or during a terror attack.

Though the system has been deployed regionally five times in the past few years, a previous nationwide test in 2023 revealed technical issues - with some people receiving the alert earlier than expected and some not receiving it at all.

Many on the Three network did not get anything, along with users on other networks - while some received multiple alerts. The government later said the message did not reach around 7% of compatible devices.

The Cabinet Office said at the time that the problems uncovered would be reviewed and addressed ahead of another test.

It said September's test is intended to ensure the system works well and to make sure people are familiar with the alerts, in line with other countries that also use them, like the US and Japan.

Of the approximately 87 million mobile phones in the UK, the alert will only appear on smartphones on 4G or 5G networks. Older phones, and phones connected to 2G or 3G networks, will not receive the message.

Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden said: "Just like the fire alarm in your house, it's important we test the system so that we know it will work if we need it."

The system was used to send alerts to 4.5 million phones in Scotland and Northern Ireland during Storm Eowyn in January 2025, and 3.5 million in England and Wales during Storm Darragh the previous month.

It was also used to aid the evacuation of more than 10,000 residents in Plymouth as an unexploded 500kg World War Two bomb was carefully removed and taken out to sea to be detonated after being uncovered.

Tracey Lee, chief executive of Plymouth City Council, said it had been an "invaluable tool" and provided residents with "clear information at a critical moment".

While devices that are not connected to mobile data or wi-fi will still receive the alert, those that are switched off or in airplane mode will not.

Domestic abuse charities previously warned the system could endanger victims by potentially alerting an abuser to a hidden phone. The National Centre for Domestic Violence advised people with concealed phones to turn them off for the duration of the test.

The government stresses that emergency alerts should remain switched on, but has published a guide for domestic abuse victims on how to opt out.

The new test will also feature a version of the message in British Sign Language for deaf people.