Four people have been arrested by police investigating the cyber-attacks that have caused havoc at M&S and the Co-op.
The National Crime Agency says a 20 year old woman was arrested in Staffordshire, and three males - aged between 17 and 19 - were detained in London and the West Midlands.
They were apprehended on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences, blackmail, money laundering and participating in the activities of an organised crime group.
All four were arrested at their homes in the early hours on Thursday. Electronic devices were also seized by the police.
Paul Foster, head of the NCA's National Cyber Crime Unit, said the arrests were a "significant step" in its investigation.
"But our work continues, alongside partners in the UK and overseas, to ensure those responsible are identified and brought to justice," he added.
The hacks - which began in mid April - have caused huge disruption for the two retailers.
Some Co-op shelves were left bare for weeks, while M&S expects its operations to be affected until late July, with some IT systems not fully operational until October or November.
The chairman of M&S told MPs this week that it felt like the hack was an attempt to destroy the business. The retailer has estimated it will cost it £300m in lost profits.
Harrods was also targeted in an attack that had less impact on its operations.
A wave of attacks
M&S was the first to be breached. A huge amount of private data belonging to customers and staff was stolen.
The criminals also deployed malicious software called ransomware scrambling the company's IT networks making them unusable unless a ransom was paid.
The BBC revealed that the hackers had sent an offensive email to the M&S boss demanding payment.
A few days after M&S was breached the Co-op was also targeted by the criminals who broke in and stole the private data of millions of its and staff.
The Co-op was forced to admit that the data breach had happened after hackers contacted the BBC with proof that the firm was downplaying the cyber attack.
The BBC later discovered from the criminals that the company disconnected the internet from IT networks in the nick of time to stop the hackers from deploying ransomware and so causing even more disruption.
Shortly after Co-op announced it had been attacked, luxury retailer Harrods said it too had been targeted and had been forced to disconnect IT systems from the internet to keep the criminals out.
Romanian police have targeted a gang suspected of being behind a complex scam in which stolen data was used to fraudulently claim millions in tax repayments from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), police have said.
Thirteen people were detained during armed raids around Bucharest, and luxury cars and piles of cash were seized. A fourteenth man was arrested in Preston.
According to HMRC, scammers gained access to the personal data of British taxpayers through a sophisticated phishing operation, which was used to make bogus claims for tax refunds.
HMRC said "millions" was believed to have been stolen without specifying an amount, while Romanian police said over £1m had been taken.
Romanian Police/HMRC
Armed police officers raided the properties in Romania, leading to the seizure of wads of cash
A joint operation between HMRC and Romanian police saw male and female suspects, aged between 23 and 53, arrested during the armed raids.
They were held on suspicion of computer fraud, money laundering and illegal access to a computer system.
A 38-year-old man was arrested in Preston on Thursday. His electronic devices were seized and he was questioned by HMRC officers.
In footage published by Romanian authorities on Thursday, armed police officers were seen searching a large property, where jewellery and large quantities of cash were found.
A joint investigation team - composed of Romanian prosecutors, HMRC and the Crown Prosecution Service - was established earlier this year.
HMRC/Romanian Police
Cash was found by officers as part of the raids
HMRC said the organised gang had used stolen data to submit fraudulent claims for PAYE, child benefit and VAT refunds.
It is unclear how many people had their information stolen, but HMRC said it had contacted "around 100,000" customers to inform them they had detected attempts to access their accounts.
Romanian police said scammers accessed the Government Gateway accounts of over 1000 UK taxpayers, and then laundered the stolen funds.
The scammers tricked people into disclosing their security information using various methods, and HMRC stressed that its systems had not been subject to a cyber-attack.
Phishing scams involving HMRC in common: in 2022, the National Cyber Security Centre found it was the government body third most likely to be impersonated by criminals trying to obtain information.
Arpineh and her husband Arthur with their children in happier times before ICE agents arrived at the family's home
If Arpineh Masihi could vote, she would have cast her ballot for Donald Trump. She's a devout supporter of the US president – even now that she's locked up as an illegal immigrant.
"He's doing the right thing because lots of these people don't deserve to be here," Arpineh told the BBC over the phone from the Adelanto immigrant detention centrein California's Mojave Desert.
"I will support him until the day I die. He's making America great again."
Sixty miles (96 km) away in her home in Diamond Bar, a wealthy suburban city in eastern Los Angeles County, a Trump flag flies over the family's front yard. Maga hats adorn a shelf next to a family photo album, while the family's pet birds chirp in a cage.
It's a lively home, with three dogs and four young children, and Arpineh's husband and mother are bleary eyed and exhausted with worry, trying to put on brave faces.
"Our home is broken," says Arthur Sahakyan, Arpineh's husband.
'We all make mistakes'
In many ways, Arpineh, 39, is an American success story - a prime example of how the country gives people second, even third chances. Arpineh's mother wells up with tears as she talks about her daughter, who has lived in the US since she was three.
She had a rough patch many years ago, in 2008, when she was convicted of burglary and grand theft and was sentenced to two years in prison. An immigration judge revoked her Green Card, which is a common practice. But because she is a Christian Armenian Iranian, the judge allowed her to remain in the country instead of being deported.
"We are Christians. She can't go back, there's no way," Arthur says as their 4-year-old daughter runs in and out of the room. He fears her life would be at risk if she is sent back.
Arthur Sahakyan
Arpineh talks with ICE agents outside her home before she's detained
But since her release from prison, Arpineh has rebuilt her life, starting a successful business and a family among hundreds of thousands of Iranian immigrants who call Southern California home.
West Los Angeles - often called Tehrangeles - has the largest population of Iranians outside of Iran.
Some, like Arpineh, have been detained in recent weeks, swept up in immigration raids that have put the city on edge. While the majority of those detained in LA come from Mexico, daily updates from the Department of Homeland Security show immigrants from seemingly every corner of the globe have been arrested.
Trump was elected in part because of his promise to "launch the largest deportation programme of criminals in the history" - a promise Arpineh, her husband and mother say they all still believe in.
Yet her family says they have faith that Arpineh will be released, and believe that only hardened, dangerous criminals will actually be deported.
"I don't blame Trump, I blame Biden," Arthur says. "It's his doing for open borders, but I believe in the system and all the good people will be released and the ones that are bad will be sent back."
While many of those detained do not have criminal records, Aprineh is a convicted felon, which makes her a prime target for removal.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment about Arpineh's case.
Arthur says he doesn't know details of the burglary. They spoke briefly about it before they were married and then he forgot about what he considered a youthful indiscretion by his wife.
Instead, he focuses on his wife's good deeds over the last 17 years, volunteering with the local school district and bringing food to firefighters and police.
"We all make mistakes," he says.
'No matter what, we're going to catch you'
So, when ICE phoned Arpineh on 30 June as the family was having breakfast, the couple thought it must be a joke.
But immigration enforcement pulled up to their home 30 minutes later.
Despite signs all over Los Angeles County urging immigrants to "Know Your Rights" and not to open the door to immigration enforcement agents, the couple came outside to speak with the officers.
Arpineh explained how a judge had allowed her to stay in the US because of the situation in Iran, as long as she didn't commit any other crimes, and as long as she frequently checked in immigration officials. Her last check-in was in April, she showed them, presenting her paperwork.
Arthur even invited them into the house, which they declined, he says.
The immigration enforcement agents told her circumstances had changed and they had a warrant for her arrest.
They allowed her to go back inside and say goodbye to her children – aged 14, 11, 10 and 4. The officers told her that if she didn't come back outside, they would get her eventually.
"They told us no matter what we're going to catch you – maybe if you're driving on the street with your kids - so we thought, what we'd been seeing on the news: flash bombs, cornering cars," Arthur says. They didn't want to risk her being violently detained, possibly with their children watching.
"She came and kissed the kids goodbye," he recalls. "She came outside like a champion and said, 'Here I am'."
Arthur asked the immigration officers not to handcuff his wife. They said that wasn't possible, though they agreed to do it on the far side of the vehicle so the couple's children wouldn't see.
"I knew my kids were watching from upstairs," he says. "I didn't want them to see their mom handcuffed."
Arpineh was then taken to a federal building in downtown Los Angeles, a centre used by ICE to process those arrested in the ongoing raids across the region. The building became the centre of sometimes violent anti-ICE protests that riled Los Angeles for weeks.
She says those being held at the building "were treated like animals".
Arpineh told the BBC she was held in a freezing, brightly lit room with 28 other women for three days. They survived on snacks and one bottle of water a day, she says, the women huddling together for warmth, and sleeping on the floor.
Getty Images
A November 2013 file photo shows a detainee making a call inside Adelanto
Waiting for reprieve
Because Arpineh speaks three languages – Armenian, Spanish and English – she was able to communicate with many of the other women and says they helped each other.
Three days later, she was moved to Adelanto, the privately-run ICE detention centre in the desert northeast of Los Angeles, which has a reputation for harsh, prison-like conditions.
But Arpineh says it's much better than what they faced in downtown LA, now having three meals a day, access to showers and a bed. Though she's heard it's difficult to get medical treatment if you need it, Arpineh is young and healthy.
"But it's still very challenging," she says.
She and her husband say they still have faith in the Trump administration and believe that she will be released.
"I'm not deportable to any country," Arpineh told the BBC from the detention facility.
But that hasn't stopped immigration officials in the past. In February, a group of Iranian Christians who had just crossed the border from Mexico were deported - but to Panama, not Iran.
Arpineh remains hopeful for a reprieve, but she notes that she's felt discouraged, too.
She says she loves America and that she feels American, even if she lacks the paperwork.
She calls her husband collect once an hour so they can share updates on her legal case, though so far there isn't much to share. The older children understand what's happening, but their 4-year-old daughter keeps asking when mommy is coming home, he says.
All four children are US citizens, born and raised in California. The couple believes officials will take that into consideration when deciding Arpineh's fate.
"I have four citizen children. I own a business. I own a property. I own cars," Arpineh says. "I haven't done anything wrong in so many years."
Locke said he enjoyed playing characters who had "a bit of a bite, a bit of a grey area"
Heartstopper star Joe Locke is to make his West End debut this autumn, in a play about two young men who bond while working night shifts at a warehouse in a rural US town.
Locke is currently filming the forthcoming Heartstopper movie after appearing in three series of the hit Netflix show about two classmates who fall in love, but will take on his new stage role later this year.
The 21-year-old will star in Clarkston, which follows two men in their twenties from opposite ends of the US who meet while working at Costco.
Locke told BBC News he was "so excited" for his West End debut, adding that his new role matched his desire to play "flawed characters... who have a bit of bite".
Producers have not yet announced the venue or run dates for the British production, but told the BBC it would open in a West End theatre in the autumn.
Set in Clarkston, Washington, the play opens with a Costco employee named Chris working night shifts when he meets new hire Jake, a young gay man originally from Connecticut.
Jake has Huntington's disease, a degenerative neurological condition that causes involuntary movements. He ended up in Clarkston by accident after finding himself no longer able to drive during a road trip west.
"He's this city boy in a small place," explained Locke. "Jake has got so many layers to him that really unravel in the play. A lot of the themes are to do with class and the different experiences of the characters."
Chris, meanwhile, struggles with the strained relationship he has with his mother, who is a drug addict.
Locke, who is used to portraying young men grappling with their identity, explained: "I really enjoy characters that have something to them, a bit of bite, a bit of a grey area.
"Everyone is flawed in some ways. And I've been lucky enough in my career so far to play a few flawed characters, and Jake is no different to that. And that's the fun bit, the meaty bit, getting to know these characters - they're good and they're bad."
Hunter noted the play "is fundamentally about friendship and platonic male love, which is something that I feel like we don't see a lot of on stage and screen".
Locke agreed: "Yeah, one of my favourite things about this play is there's a scene where these characters almost build on their platonic relationship and get to a romantic level, and they realise that no, the platonic relationship is what's important, and I think that's really beautiful."
Getty Images
Samuel D Hunter (right) also wrote The Whale, the film adaptation of which won Brendan Fraser an Oscar
Clarkston, which has previously been performed alongside another of Hunter's plays, Lewiston, received positive reviews from critics when it was staged in the US.
"You feel like you're eavesdropping on intensely private moments of people you don't always like but come to deeply understand," said The Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck of a 2018 production.
"Toward the end, there's an encounter between Chris and his mother that is as shattering and gut-wrenching a scene as you'll ever see on stage. But the play ends on a sweet, hopeful note that sends you out of the theatre smiling."
Writing about a different production in 2024, Charles McNulty of the LA Times said: "Clarkston hints that some of our most instructive relationships may be the most transitory. That's one of the beautiful discoveries in Hunter's small, absorbing and ultimately uplifting play."
Anybody who has worked night shifts may relate to the idea that the early hours are a time when people often open up to each other and have have their deepest conversations.
Hunter suggests such an atmosphere results in a "more delicate, more intimate" backdrop.
"I had an experience working in a Walmart when I was a teenager," he recalled, "and I found that places like the break room were so intimate and vulnerable, you're in this very sterilised space so I think the need for human connection is made all the greater."
Netflix
Locke, pictured with Heartstopper co-star Kit Connor, said the forthcoming film will be "a really nice closing chapter"
Hunter had the idea of writing the play when visiting his home town of Moscow Idaho, about 30 miles from Clarkson, and became interested in "the idea that the American West is still kind of young", following the Louisiana Purchase in the early 19th Century.
"The markers of that history are still there," noted Hunter, "but they are right next to things like Costcos and gas stations and mini-malls.
"So it just got me interested in the experiment of the American West and the colonial past, and what that means in 2025."
The new production will be directed by Jack Serio, who has previously directed another of Hunter's plays, Grangeville, with Ruaridh Mollica and Sophie Melville cast in the other two lead roles as Chris and his mother.
Locke has previously appeared on stage at London's Donmar Warehouse, and in a Broadway production of Sweeney Todd.
The actor said being a theatre actor "was the thing I wanted more than anything" when growing up.
"I'm from the Isle of Man," he explained, "and my birthday present every year was a trip to London with my mum to watch a few shows, so it's very full circle to bring my mum to my press night to my West End debut, it's going to be very exciting."
Locke has starred in three seasons of Neflix's Heartstopper since its launch in 2022. The show followed two teenage boys, Charlie and Nick, who fall for each other at secondary school, and their circle of friends. Locke spoke to BBC News while on set, shooting the film adaptation.
"It's going great, we're almost two thirds of the way through shooting now, and everything, touch wood, is going well," he said.
"We're having a great time doing it, it's a really nice closing chapter of the story."
Four people have been arrested by police investigating the cyber-attacks that have caused havoc at M&S and the Co-op.
The National Crime Agency says a 20 year old woman was arrested in Staffordshire, and three males - aged between 17 and 19 - were detained in London and the West Midlands.
They were apprehended on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences, blackmail, money laundering and participating in the activities of an organised crime group.
All four were arrested at their homes in the early hours on Thursday. Electronic devices were also seized by the police.
Paul Foster, head of the NCA's National Cyber Crime Unit, said the arrests were a "significant step" in its investigation.
"But our work continues, alongside partners in the UK and overseas, to ensure those responsible are identified and brought to justice," he added.
The hacks - which began in mid April - have caused huge disruption for the two retailers.
Some Co-op shelves were left bare for weeks, while M&S expects its operations to be affected until late July, with some IT systems not fully operational until October or November.
The chairman of M&S told MPs this week that it felt like the hack was an attempt to destroy the business. The retailer has estimated it will cost it £300m in lost profits.
Harrods was also targeted in an attack that had less impact on its operations.
A wave of attacks
M&S was the first to be breached. A huge amount of private data belonging to customers and staff was stolen.
The criminals also deployed malicious software called ransomware scrambling the company's IT networks making them unusable unless a ransom was paid.
The BBC revealed that the hackers had sent an offensive email to the M&S boss demanding payment.
A few days after M&S was breached the Co-op was also targeted by the criminals who broke in and stole the private data of millions of its and staff.
The Co-op was forced to admit that the data breach had happened after hackers contacted the BBC with proof that the firm was downplaying the cyber attack.
The BBC later discovered from the criminals that the company disconnected the internet from IT networks in the nick of time to stop the hackers from deploying ransomware and so causing even more disruption.
Shortly after Co-op announced it had been attacked, luxury retailer Harrods said it too had been targeted and had been forced to disconnect IT systems from the internet to keep the criminals out.
The UK faces a "rising" and unpredictable threat from Iran and the government must do more to counter it, Parliament's intelligence and security committee has warned.
The call comes as it publishes the results of a major inquiry which examined Iranian state assassinations and kidnap, espionage, cyber attacks and the country's nuclear programme.
The committee, which is tasked with overseeing Britain's spy agencies, has raised particular concern over the "sharp increase" in plots against opponents of the Iranian regime in the UK.
"Iran poses a wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the UK, UK nationals and UK interests," said Lord Beamish, committee chair.
"Iran has a high appetite for risk when conducting offensive activity and its intelligence services are ferociously well-resourced with significant areas of asymmetric strength."
He added: "Iran is there across the full spectrum of all the kinds of threats we have to be concerned with."
The committee accuses the government of focusing on "crisis management" and "fire-fighting" with Iran, as well as on its nuclear programme, at the expense of other threats.
It says the national security threat from Iran requires more resourcing and a longer-term approach.
"Whilst Iran's activity appears to be less strategic and on a smaller scale than Russia and China, Iran poses a wide-ranging threat to UK national security, which should not be underestimated: it is persistent and – crucially – unpredictable."
The report was published on Thursday as part of the committee's inquiry into national security issues relating to Iran. It covers events up to August 2023, when the committee finished taking evidence.
It has previously been read by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who was sent a copy in March, and circulated among UK intelligence organisations to give them the opportunity to check accuracy and request redactions on national security grounds.
According to the committee, the government is required to provide its response within 60 days of publication.
The committee examines the policies, expenditure, administration and operations of UK intelligence organisations including MI5, MI6, and GCHQ.
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At least 15 Palestinians, including eight children and two women, have been killed in an Israeli strike near a medical point in central Gaza, a hospital there says.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said the strike hit people queueing for nutritional supplements in the town of Deir al-Balah. Graphic video from the hospital showed the bodies of several children and others being treated for their wounds.
The Israeli military said it was checking the reports.
Another 26 people were reportedly killed in strikes elsewhere in Gaza on Thursday, as Israeli and Hamas delegations continued negotiations for a new ceasefire and hostage release deal at indirect talks in Doha.
Despite optimism expressed by the US, which is acting as a mediator along with Qatar and Egypt, they do not so far seem to have come close to a breakthrough.
On Wednesday night, a senior Israeli official told journalists in Washington that it could take one or two weeks to reach an agreement.
The official, who was speaking during a visit to the US by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also said that if an agreement was reached on a 60-day ceasefire, Israel would use that time to offer a permanent end to the war that would require Hamas to disarm. If Hamas refused to disarm, Israel would "proceed" with military operations, they added.
Earlier, Hamas issued a statement saying that the talks had been difficult, blaming Israeli "intransigence".
The group said it had shown flexibility in agreeing to release 10 hostages, but it reiterated that it was seeking a "comprehensive" agreement that would end the Israeli offensive.
The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
At least 57,680 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
Most of Gaza's population has also been displaced multiple times. More than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and there are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.
Caster Semenya won the Olympic 800m title twice and the world title three times
Published
Caster Semenya's right to a fair hearing was violated by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court when she lost a 2023 appeal against World Athletics regulations that effectively barred her from competing, Europe's top court has ruled.
The double 800m Olympic champion won a partial victory at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in her long legal battle over athletics' sex eligibility rules.
Semenya, 34, was born with differences of sexual development (DSD) and has been unable to compete in the 800m since World Athletics brought in rules in 2019 restricting testosterone levels for track events from 400m up to the mile.
The South African middle distance runner believes World Athletics has shown discrimination against athletes with DSD by insisting they reduce testosterone levels in order to be eligible.
Athletics' governing body insists the rules, which in 2023 were expanded to cover all female track and field events, are needed to ensure fair competition and to protect the female category.
Semenya was the Olympic champion over 800m in 2012 and 2016.
In 2019, she unsuccessfully challenged World Athletics' rules at the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).
The case at the ECHR was not against sporting bodies or DSD rules, but specifically against Switzerland's government for not protecting Semenya's rights and dates back to a Swiss Supreme Court ruling from 2020.
Switzerland's government requested the matter be referred to the ECHR's Grand Chamber, which has now found that the Swiss ruling "had not satisfied the requirement of particular rigour" under Article 6 (right to a fair hearing) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, the Grand Chamber found Semenya's complaints under Articles 8 (right to respect for private life), 13 (right to an effective remedy) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination) inadmissible as they "did not fall within Switzerland's jurisdiction".
As the case concerns the Swiss government and not World Athletics, it will not immediately affect the current restrictions on DSD athletes.
Semenya said the outcome was "great for me, great for athletes" after leaving the court in Strasbourg, France.
"This is a reminder to the leaders [that] athletes need to be protected," she said.
"Before we can regulate we have to respect athletes and put their rights first."
Decisions made by the ECHR's Grand Chamber are not open to appeal.
Semenya's case could now go back to the Swiss federal court in Lausanne.
World Athletics declined to comment.
Who is Caster Semenya?
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Media caption,
I'm not ashamed to be different - Caster Semenya
Semenya is a two-time Olympic champion and three-time world champion over 800m.
Between 2009 and 2019, the South African dominated her sport, sealing a 30th consecutive victory when she won the Doha Diamond League 800m in May 2019.
She was given a hero's welcome in South Africa after picking up her first World Championship gold in 2009, with thousands of jubilant fans turning out at Johannesburg airport to greet her.
However, her rapid rise from unknown teenager to global star was also accompanied by scrutiny over her gender and possible advantages in her biology.
It was later revealed she was born with DSD, one outcome of which means she has an elevated level of testosterone - a hormone that can increase muscle mass and strength.
It was in the Cas ruling that Semenya's specific DSD was confirmed as 46 XY 5-ARD (5-alpha-reductase deficiency). People with this particular DSD have the male XY chromosomes. Some are recorded as female or male at birth depending on their external genitalia.
Semenya said in 2023 she was turning her attention to "winning battles against the authorities" rather than collecting medals.
Cas said athletes such as Semenya with 5-ARD have "circulating testosterone at the level of the male 46 XY population and not at the level of the female 46 XX population", which gives them "a significant sporting advantage over 46 XX female athletes".
In an interview with BBC Sport in 2023 Semenya said she was "born without a uterus" and born "with internal testicles" and said: "I am a woman and have a vagina".
Temperatures will increase across the United Kingdom over the next few days, rising above the official heatwave threshold. They are likely to peak at 34C on Friday and possibly Saturday too.
This heatwave, for many the third of the summer, will persist into early next week.
Yellow heat health alerts from the UK's Health Security Agency are in force across central and southern parts of England.
Thursday is set to be a warmer day for much of England and Wales with temperatures widely getting up to 24 to 28C.
The hottest areas are likely to be in the south Midlands, central southern and south-east England with temperatures of 30 to 32C.
By Friday, the heat will move into Scotland and Northern Ireland where we could well see the hottest day of the year for both if the temperature exceeds 29.1C and 29.5C respectively.
This is very likely, especially on Saturday.
Across England and Wales, the heat will be widespread on Friday and Saturday with highs of 27 to 33, perhaps 34C.
While this latest heatwave will bring hotter weather for more of us, the highest temperature is unlikely to exceed the highest UK temperature of the year so far of 35.8C set on 1 July in Faversham, Kent.
Image source, Getty
Image caption,
After the hottest opening day to Wimbledon on record, the Finals over the weekend will also see temperatures in the low thirties
After the hottest opening day to Wimbledon (32.2C), the women and men's finals over the weekend will also see temperatures exceeding 30C.
But it is likely to fall just short of the hottest Wimbledon finals day which occurred in 1976 when the temperature reached 34.1C.
By Sunday, a cooler north-easterly breeze will develop and which will shift the hottest weather into more central areas of England and east Wales.
Temperatures across the UK will be in the high twenties to low thirties for most.
We will start to see temperatures fall in Scotland and Northern Ireland on Monday as showers and cooler air moves in from the north-west.
Cooler weather is forecast to spread to all parts of the UK on Tuesday meaning temperatures will fall below the heatwave threshold.
Image source, BBC Weather Watchers / SantaSusie
Image caption,
Tuesday should see the UK temperatures fall below the heatwave threshold
How unusual is a third summer heatwave?
Comparing heatwaves each year is a little tricky because they are location dependant and the current Met Office heatwave definition has only been in place since 2019.
A heatwave occurring a some point during the summer is fairly common.
And while this heatwave is being highlighted as the third, Scotland and Northern Ireland missed out on the heatwave at the end of June and beginning of July.
The last time we experienced three heatwaves in the UK was 2022. This was also when the UK saw the highest temperature on record with 40.3C at Coningsby.
In terms of 'number of heatwave days' - when at least one UK location met the current threshold temperature - up to 10 July, there have been 25 days in 2025.
Only 1989 and 2018 had more 'heatwave days' up to this point at 26 and 34 days respectively, according to data from weather website Starlings Roost Weather, external.
While we might expect hotter weather for at least a time during the summer, temperatures over the next few days are around 7 to 10C above average for mid-July.
Climate scientists are clear that heatwaves will become more frequent, more intense and last longer with climate change.
Watch: Beverley Morris flushes her toilet using a bucket because of low water pressure
When Beverly Morris retired in 2016, she thought she had found her dream home - a peaceful stretch of rural Georgia, surrounded by trees and quiet.
Today, it's anything but.
Just 400 yards (366m) from her front porch in Fayette County sits a large, windowless building filled with servers, cables, and blinking lights.
It's a data centre - one of many popping up across small-town America, and around the globe, to power everything from online banking to artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT.
"I can't live in my home with half of my home functioning and no water," Ms Morris says. "I can't drink the water."
She believes the construction of the centre, which is owned by Meta (the parent company of Facebook), disrupted her private well, causing an excessive build-up of sediment. Ms Morris now hauls water in buckets to flush her toilet.
She says she had to fix the plumbing in her kitchen to restore water pressure. But the water that comes of the tap still has residue in it.
"I'm afraid to drink the water, but I still cook with it, and brush my teeth with it," says Morris. "Am I worried about it? Yes."
Meta, however, says the two aren't connected.
In a statement to the BBC, Meta said that "being a good neighbour is a priority".
The company commissioned an independent groundwater study to investigate Morris's concerns. According to the report, its data center operation did "not adversely affect groundwater conditions in the area".
While Meta disputes that it has caused the problems with Ms Morris' water, there's no doubt, in her estimation, that the company has worn out its welcome as her neighbour.
"This was my perfect spot," she says. "But it isn't anymore."
Huge data centres are being built across the state of Georgia
We tend to think of the cloud as something invisible - floating above us in the digital ether. But the reality is very physical.
The cloud lives in over 10,000 data centres around the world, most of them located in the US, followed by the UK and Germany.
With AI now driving a surge in online activity, that number is growing fast. And with them, more complaints from nearby residents.
The US boom is being challenged by a rise in local activism - with $64bn (£47bn) in projects delayed or blocked nationwide, according to a report from pressure group Data Center Watch.
And the concerns aren't just about construction. It's also about water usage. Keeping those servers cool requires a lot of water.
"These are very hot processors," Mark Mills of the National Center for Energy Analytics testified before Congress back in April. "The surface of each chip is hotter than the surface of the sun. It takes a lot of water to cool them down."
Many centres use evaporative cooling systems, where water absorbs heat and evaporates - similar to how sweat wicks away heat from our bodies. On hot days, a single facility can use millions of gallons.
One study estimates that AI-driven data centres could consume 1.7 trillion gallons of water globally by 2027.
Few places illustrate this tension more clearly than Georgia - one of the fastest-growing data centre markets in the US.
Its humid climate provides a natural and more cost-effective source of water for cooling data centres, making it attractive to developers. But that abundance may come at a cost.
Gordon Rogers is the executive director of Flint Riverkeeper, a non-profit advocacy group that monitors the health of Georgia's Flint River. He takes us to a creek downhill from a new construction site for a data centre being built by US firm Quality Technology Services (QTS).
George Diets, a local volunteer, scoops up a sample of the water into a clear plastic bag. It's cloudy and brown.
"It shouldn't be that colour," he says. To him, this suggests sediment runoff - and possibly flocculants. These are chemicals used in construction to bind soil and prevent erosion, but if they escape into the water system, they can create sludge.
QTS says its data centres meet high environmental standards and bring millions in local tax revenue.
While construction is often carried out by third-party contractors, local residents are the ones left to deal with the consequences.
"They shouldn't be doing it," Mr Rogers says. "A larger wealthier property owner does not have more property rights than a smaller, less wealthy property owner."
Tech giants say they are aware of the issues and are taking action.
"Our goal is that by 2030, we'll be putting more water back into the watersheds and communities where we're operating data centres, than we're taking out," says Will Hewes, global water stewardship lead at Amazon Web Services (AWS), which runs more data centres than any other company globally.
He says AWS is investing in projects like leak repairs, rainwater harvesting, and using treated wastewater for cooling. In Virginia, the company is working with farmers to reduce nutrient pollution in Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the US.
In South Africa and India - where AWS doesn't use water for cooling - the company is still investing in water access and quality initiatives.
In the Americas, Mr Hewes says, water is only used on about 10% of the hottest days each year.
Still, the numbers add up. A single AI query - for example, a request to ChatGPT - can use about as much water as a small bottle you'd buy from the corner shop. Multiply that by billions of queries a day, and the scale becomes clear.
Gordon Rogers takes regular water samples to monitor the health of Georgia's Flint River
Prof Rajiv Garg teaches cloud computing at Emory University in Atlanta. He says these data centres aren't going away - if anything, they're becoming the backbone of modern life.
"There's no turning back," Prof Garg says.
But there is a path forward. The key, he argues, is long-term thinking: smarter cooling systems, rainwater harvesting, and more efficient infrastructure.
In the short term, data centres will create "a huge strain", he admits. But the industry is starting to shift toward sustainability.
And yet, that's little consolation to homeowners like Beverly Morris - stuck between yesterday's dream and tomorrow's infrastructure.
Data centres have become more than just an industry trend - they're now part of national policy. President Donald Trump recently vowed to build the largest AI infrastructure project in history, calling it "a future powered by American data".
Back in Georgia, the sun beats down through thick humidity - a reminder of why the state is so attractive to data centre developers.
For locals, the future of tech is already here. And it's loud, thirsty, and sometimes hard to live next to.
As AI grows, the challenge is clear: how to power tomorrow's digital world without draining the most basic resource of all - water.
Senior government figures believe they are on the cusp of achieving a breakthrough with Emmanuel Macron on a deal that would see France take back at least some of those who have crossed the English Channel on small boats.
In return, the UK would take asylum claimants from France who wish to come to the UK and are believed to have a legitimate reason to do so.
It's being called a "one-in-one" out deal, although the numbers will be greater than that.
But the key word to watch out for, when the deal is announced later, is "deterrent".
Sir Keir Starmer has said both he and the French president agree on the need for "a new deterrent to break the business model of the gangs".
The big question is the extent to which what is agreed to amounts to that, particularly in the short term.
Will it put people off getting in a small boat?
The pilot scheme is expected to involve around 50 migrants a week being returned to France, in return for the UK taking the same number of asylum seekers in France who are deemed to have a legitimate case to move to the UK.
Critics, including the Conservatives, say this would amount to about 5% of those who are attempting crossing currently, and so would be an inadequate deterrent.
The Tories point to the deterrent they planned but never got started - the idea of sending migrants to Rwanda. This scheme was scrapped when Labour won the election.
But it is true to say this agreement, albeit limited in scale initially, marks a new moment in Franco British diplomacy on this issue - the willingness of France to take back some of those who embark on the cross Channel journey.
The test, in the months and years ahead, can it be scaled up sufficiently to make a noticeable impact on the numbers?
Or, to put it more bluntly, do the numbers attempting a crossing start to fall, or not?
Because unless they do, the scheme, on this side of the Channel at least, is likely to be seen as a failure.
Royal Mail can deliver second-class letters on every other weekday and not on Saturdays to help cut costs, the industry regulator has said.
Ofcom said a reform to the Universal Service Obligation (USO) was needed as people are sending fewer letters each year, so stamp prices keep rising as the cost of delivering letters goes up.
The current one-price-goes-anywhere USO means Royal Mail has to deliver post six days a week, from Monday to Saturday, and parcels on five from Monday to Friday.
Ofcom said Royal Mail should continue to deliver first-class letters six days a week but second class will be limited to alternate weekdays.
"These changes are in the best interests of consumers and businesses, as urgent reform of the postal service is necessary to give it the best chance of survival," said Natalie Black, Ofcom's group director for networks and communications.
However, just changing Royal Mail's obligations will not improve the service, she said.
"The company now has to play its part and implement this effectively."
The regulator is also making changes to Royal Mail's delivery targets.
The company will have to deliver 90% of first-class mail next-day, down from the current target of 93%, while 95% of second-class mail must be delivered within three days, a cut from the current 98.5%.
However, there will be a new target of 99% of mail being delivered no more than two days late to incentivise Royal Mail to cut down on long delays.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's regime does not typically respond to claims of abuse made by North Korean defectors
A North Korean defector is filing civil and criminal charges against the country's leader Kim Jong Un for abuses she faced while detained in the country.
Choi Min-kyung fled the North to China in 1997 but was forcibly repatriated in 2008. She said she was sexually abused and tortured after her return.
When she files the case in Seoul on Friday, it will be the first time a North Korean-born defector takes legal action against the regime, said a South-based rights group assisting Ms Choi.
South Korean courts have in the past ruled against North Korea on similar claims by South Koreans but such verdicts are largely symbolic and ignored by Pyongyang.
The case names Kim and four other Pyongyang officials. The rights group, the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB), says it also plans to take Ms Choi's case to the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.
"I earnestly wish for this small step to become a cornerstone for the restoration of freedom and human dignity, so that no more innocent North Koreans suffer under this brutal regime," Ms Choi said on Wednesday, according to a statement by NKDB.
"As a torture victim and survivor of the North Korean regime, I carry a deep and urgent responsibility to hold the Kim dynasty accountable for crimes against humanity," she said.
Ms Choi fled North Korea again in 2012 and settled in the South. She said psychological trauma from the ordeal remains and that she continues to rely on medication.
For years international rights groups have documented alleged human rights violations by North Korea, ranging from the abuse of political prisoners to systematic discrimination based on gender and class.
Hanna Song, executive director of the NKDB, told BBC Korean that the lawsuits were significant because they were pursuing criminal charges "in parallel" to civil cases.
Previous court cases against North Korea had been "limited to civil litigation", she said.
In 2023, a Seoul court ordered North Korea to pay 50 million won ($36,000; £27,000) each to three South Korean men who were exploited after being taken as prisoners of war in North Korea during the Korean War.
In 2024, the North Korean government was also ordered to pay 100 million won to each of five Korean Japanese defectors. They were part of thousands who had left Japan for North Korea in the 1960s and 1980s under a repatriation programme.
They said they had been lured to North Korea decades ago on the promise of "paradise on Earth", but were instead detained and forced to work.
North Korea did not respond to either of the lawsuits.
But Ms Song, from the NKDB, argued that the rulings offered much-needed closure to the plaintiffs.
"What we've come to understand through years of work on accountability is that what victims really seek isn't just financial compensation - it's acknowledgment," said Ms Song.
"Receiving a court ruling in their favour carries enormous meaning. It tells them their story doesn't just end with them - it's acknowledged by the state and officially recorded in history."
Wildfires have forced thousands of Canadians to evacuate their homes in 2025
Smoke from Canadian wildfires is drifting south and making it difficult for Americans to enjoy summer, six members of Congress have said in a letter to Canada's embassy.
"We write to you today on behalf of our constituents who have had to deal with suffocating Canadian wildfire smoke filling the air to begin the summer," they wrote to Ambassador Kirsten Hillman.
It was signed by Tom Tiffany and Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin and Michelle Fischbach, Brad Finstad, Pete Stauber and Tom Emmer of Minnesota. The Canadian embassy told the BBC that Canada takes wildfire prevention "very seriously".
Two Canadians have died in this year's wildfires and tens of thousands of others have evacuated.
Tom Emmer is a senior member of Congress, serving as Majority Whip in the House of Representatives.
He and his five fellow Republican lawmakers wrote in the letter, published Monday: "We would like to know how your government plans on mitigating wildfire and the smoke that makes its way south."
They continued: "Our constituents have been limited in their ability to go outside and safely breathe due to the dangerous air quality the wildfire smoke has created.
"In our neck of the woods, summer months are the best time of the year to spend time outdoors recreating, enjoying time with family, and creating new memories, but this wildfire smoke makes it difficult to do all those things."
Tarryn Elliott, spokeswoman for the Canadian embassy in Washington DC, told the BBC the Canadian government "takes the prevention, response, and mitigation of wildfires very seriously".
"I can confirm that the letter has been received by the Embassy and has been shared with the relevant Canadian agencies," she said. "We will respond in due course."
Canada faces wildfires every summer. The worst year on record was 2023, when the fires killed eight people and torched an area larger in size than England, according to the Canadian government.
There have been 2,672 fires so far this year, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.
May and June were particularly bad months in western Canada, when around 30,000 people were evacuated in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where officials declared a state of emergency.
"As I'm sure you know, this is not the first year Canadian wildfire smoke has been an issue," the lawmakers wrote, blaming a "lack of active forest management" and arson.
"With all the technology that we have at our disposal, both in preventing and fighting wildfires, this worrisome trend can be reversed if proper action is taken," they stated.
Wildfires are part of the natural cycle, and play an essential role in the regeneration of Canada's boreal forests, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources of Canada.
Many are caused by lightning strikes. In 2023, 93% of the fires in Canada were caused by lightning, according to the Canadian Climate Institute.
Scientists have linked worsening wildfire seasons to climate change, an issue that affects Canada significantly.
The country is warming at a rate twice that of the global average due to its large land mass, and its Arctic region is warming three times as fast, according to scientists.
Roy Barclay was told to expect a "lengthy sentence" after being found guilty of the murder of Anita Rose
The sun was rising over the village of Brantham in Suffolk when Anita Rose set off for an early morning dog walk. She was a mother of six, and a grandmother of 13. Within an hour, she had been assaulted so brutally that her injuries were akin to those of someone in a head-on car crash. She died four days later.
The man responsible, Roy Barclay, was on a list of Suffolk Police's most wanted criminals but he had managed to avoid being recalled to prison for the past two years by sleeping in makeshift camps.
But despite this, Barclay had left a sizeable digital footprint - using his bank card to order items online and leaving hundreds of reviews on Google Maps.
With all this online activity, how did he manage to evade police and remain free to murder Anita?
Suffolk Police
Anita Rose loved walking her dog over the fields near her home village of Brantham, Suffolk, at sunrise
Anita was an "early bird", her partner Richard Jones said. She loved to walk her springer spaniel Bruce around Brantham, a village where she'd lived for six years and always said she felt safe. The 57-year-old loved watching the sun come up before other people were awake.
On the morning of 24 July last year, Mr Jones and Anita chatted on the phone while she walked. He worked as a lorry driver and would spend time away from home during the week, so the couple would catch up while Anita took Bruce on the first of his three daily walks.
The couple had known each other since they were teenagers and had started dating in 2011 after a chance meeting at a petrol station in Copdock where Anita worked.
The pair's final conversation ended with Anita telling the 59-year-old to "drive safe, I love you".
Within an hour of hanging up, she was found unconscious and severely injured on a track road near a railway line by a cyclist and dog walker.
PA Media
Anita Rose was captured on CCTV walking her dog Bruce on the morning of the fatal attack
During the trial, Ms Island told the court Anita had "laboured breathing" and patches of blood on her face, and was only wearing leggings and a black sports bra, despite leaving the house wearing her pink Regatta jacket.
Mr Tassel described how her dog Bruce was lying "patiently" next to her body with his lead wrapped twice around her leg - this turned out to be something Barclay had also done in 2015, when he attacked a man.
Neuropathologist Dr Kieran Allinson, who treated Anita at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, likened her injuries to those seen in high speed car crashes and said they were consistent with kicking, stamping and repeated impacts to the head.
Google
Roy Barclay was a prolific reviewer of different locations on Google Maps - the red dots show all the locations he reviewed and photographed between 2022 and 2024
In the weeks that followed, Barclay was described during his Ipswich Crown Court trial as having lived in carefully-hidden camps and shaving his head to change his appearance.
He had been wanted by police since 2022, when he breached the terms of his licence by making himself homeless.
After killing Anita, his internet search history showed he had looked up news articles about the attack. He also looked up Anita's partner on social media.
Barclay is also said to have kept some of her belongings - including a pink Regatta jacket - at his makeshift camps.
George King/BBC
Anita Rose was found with serious injuries on a track road in Brantham, Suffolk, in July 2024
In the weeks after Anita's murder, Suffolk Police entered into one of its biggest-ever investigations to find the culprit.
A number of people were arrested and bailed.
Barclay, meanwhile, continued to be a prolific reviewer on Google Maps for hundreds of locations around Suffolk and Essex.
Between 2022 and October 2024, he posted thousands of photos of churches, Amazon lockers, libraries, beaches, council buildings, statues and more - earning himself a 'Level 8' contributor status (the highest being level 10).
One review was of Decoy Pond in Brantham, with photos posted between April and July - the month he murdered Anita a short distance away.
Google
Roy Barclay posted his thoughts on Flatford shortly before being arrested on suspicion of murder
Three months after the murder, his final few Google reviews were about Flatford, a historic area on the Essex-Suffolk border famed for inspiring iconic paintings.
"It's a beautiful, unspoilt rural idyll that somehow exists in its own timelessness, as if awaiting the return of John Constable," wrote Barclay in a review posted in October 2024.
By then he was camping out a mile from where he'd killed Anita - but a chance meeting with a Suffolk Police officer near White Bridge, between Brantham and Manningtree, led to his arrest.
Barclay gave the officer, Det Con Simpson, a fake name, coming across as "quite nervous and quite anxious", the detective said.
Six days later on 21 October, at Ipswich County Library, Barclay was arrested and was subsequently charged with Anita's murder, which he denied.
Crown Prosecution Service
Barclay, who was homeless, lived in makeshift camps he had set up under the Orwell Bridge and in Brantham (pictured)
After his conviction, the Crown Prosecution Service described Barclay as "an individual that… has a history for acting violently so we knew that this was somebody that could act unprovoked in a very violent manner".
The 2015 attack in Walton-on-the-Naze left the victim, 82-year-old Leslie Gunfield, with serious injuries to his head, neck, face and jaw.
Barclay was jailed for 10 years for the assault, but was released on licence after five.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ), which is responsible for probation services, told the BBC that a recall notice for Barclay was issued quickly following the breach of his licence conditions.
In doing this, finding Barclay became the responsibility of Suffolk Police.
Crimewatch Live
Anita Rose was a mother and grandmother who was very active and loved walking her dog
The force began looking for him in 2022 but did not issue a press release about his wanted status until January 2024. it asked for members of the public to get in touch if they saw him, saying he had "links across Suffolk and Essex".
Just over a month before he murdered Anita, on 10 June, Barclay had left a comment on an online article called 'Fixing Fixed Term Recalls'.
He accused the MoJ of "deliberately" setting up prison leavers "to fail" and "return like a boomerang".
"Is it really any surprise that so many of those on license are on recall within the first year of release?" he wrote.The MoJ has refuted these claims.
Supplied
Former Metropolitan Police detective Hamish Brown believes the murder could have been prevented
Hamish Brown, a former detective inspector who worked for the Specialist Crime Directorate at New Scotland Yard, said his own experience taught him that officers were often not given "huge amounts of time" to investigate wanted suspects.
But in this case, he said, the force would have serious questions to answer.
"Suffolk Police failed in tracking him down, despite him using his bank card and reviewing places on Google.
"I'm surprised Suffolk Police missed this and didn't find him, despite the trail he was leaving.
"The bottom line is it could have been prevented if the police had done their job and gone looking for the person.
"So the police will have to brace themselves and be answerable."
But Paul Bernal, professor of information technology law at the University of East Anglia, believes there would have been a limit to how useful the Google reviews could have been in tracking Barclay down.
"There is absolutely no way a social media or search provider would know that those things are in any way needed in a police investigation," he told the BBC.
Jamie Niblock/BBC
Anita's eldest daughter, Jess, addressed the media outside Ipswich Crown Court
Speaking after the jury found Barclay guilty, Anita's family stood on the court steps and spoke of the changes they said "need to be made within the probation service and justice system".
"We need make sure our communities are safe and criminals are taken back to prison when they break the terms of their probations," her eldest daughter Jess said.
"They cannot remain at large - there's too much at stake."
'Definitive answers'
Suffolk Police confirmed it would conduct a voluntary partnership review which would look at how the force and the probation service handled the search for Barclay.
"It will look closely at the information sharing processes and how the organisations collaborated," said assistant chief constable Alice Scott.
"This review will be a thorough assessment and scrutiny of the processes concerning Barclay.
"It will be expedited as soon as possible so we can provide clear and definitive answers for Anita's family."
Additional reporting by Jodie Halford and Laura Foster.
Two other former Tory MPs defected recently too – Anne Marie Morris and Ross Thomson.
Now it is Sir Jake Berry joining Nigel Farage's party.
A man knighted by Boris Johnson.
A man whose son counts Johnson as his godfather.
A man who used to be the chairman of the Conservative Party and who was a Tory minister in three different government departments.
And yet a man who now says this: "If you were deliberately trying to wreck the country, you'd be hard pressed to do a better job than the last two decades of Labour and Tory rule."
Read that sentence again and consider it was written by someone who was not just a Tory MP for 14 years but a senior one, occupying high office.
Extraordinary.
And this is probably not the end of it – both Reform and Conservative folk I speak to hint they expect there to be more to come.
Tories are trying to put the best gloss on it they can, saying Reform might be attracting former MPs – Sir Jake lost his seat at the last election – but they are losing current MPs.
The MP James McMurdock suspended himself from Reform at the weekend after a story in the Sunday Times about loans he took out under a Covid support scheme.
But the trend is clear: Conservatives of varying seniority are being lured across by Nigel Farage and are proud to say so when they make the leap.
PA Media
Sir Jake Berry was appointed as the Conservative Party chairman by Liz Truss during her brief tenure as prime minister
Reform are particularly delighted that Sir Jake has not just defected but done so by going "studs in" on his former party, as one source put it.
"For us this is really crucial. If you want to join us you need to be really going for the other side when you do. Drawing a proper line in the sand," they added.
They regard Sir Jake's closeness to Boris Johnson as "dagger-in-the-heart stuff" for the Conservatives.
But perhaps the more interesting and consequential pivot in strategy we are currently witnessing is Labour's approach to Reform.
At the very highest level in government they are reshaping their approach: turning their attention away from their principal opponent of the last century and more, the Conservatives, and tilting instead towards Nigel Farage's party.
Again, extraordinary.
It tells you a lot about our contemporary politics that a party with Labour's history, sitting on top of a colossal Commons majority, is now shifting its focus to a party with just a handful of MPs.
Senior ministers take the rise of Reform incredibly seriously and are not dismissing them as a flash in the pan insurgency.
After all, Reform's lead in many opinion polls has proven to be sustained in recent months and was then garnished with their impressive performance in the English local elections in May and their win, on the same day, in the parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in Cheshire.
If Labour folk then were still in need of the jolt of a wake-up call, that night provided it.
In their immediate response to Sir Jake's defection, Labour are pointing to Reform recruiting Liz Truss's party chairman and so are inheriting, they claim, her "reckless economics".
But they know the challenge of taking on and, they hope, defeating Reform, will be work of years of slog and will have to be grounded in proving they can deliver in government – not easy, as their first year in office has so often proven.
Not for the first time in recent months, Reform UK have momentum and are making the political weather.
Firefighters also battled fires sparked by explosions in the Kyiv region on Wednesday
Ukraine's capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least eight people reported injured and fires burning across the city.
Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage has hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.
Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows explosions in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine's military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.
In the early hours of Thursday, morning Kyiv's military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.
"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.
He urged city residents to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted.
Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.
Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.
In other developments:
Ukraine's emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka - close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical arms
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Two other former Tory MPs defected recently too – Anne Marie Morris and Ross Thomson.
Now it is Sir Jake Berry joining Nigel Farage's party.
A man knighted by Boris Johnson.
A man whose son counts Johnson as his godfather.
A man who used to be the chairman of the Conservative Party and who was a Tory minister in three different government departments.
And yet a man who now says this: "If you were deliberately trying to wreck the country, you'd be hard pressed to do a better job than the last two decades of Labour and Tory rule."
Read that sentence again and consider it was written by someone who was not just a Tory MP for 14 years but a senior one, occupying high office.
Extraordinary.
And this is probably not the end of it – both Reform and Conservative folk I speak to hint they expect there to be more to come.
Tories are trying to put the best gloss on it they can, saying Reform might be attracting former MPs – Sir Jake lost his seat at the last election – but they are losing current MPs.
The MP James McMurdock suspended himself from Reform at the weekend after a story in the Sunday Times about loans he took out under a Covid support scheme.
But the trend is clear: Conservatives of varying seniority are being lured across by Nigel Farage and are proud to say so when they make the leap.
PA Media
Sir Jake Berry was appointed as the Conservative Party chairman by Liz Truss during her brief tenure as prime minister
Reform are particularly delighted that Sir Jake has not just defected but done so by going "studs in" on his former party, as one source put it.
"For us this is really crucial. If you want to join us you need to be really going for the other side when you do. Drawing a proper line in the sand," they added.
They regard Sir Jake's closeness to Boris Johnson as "dagger-in-the-heart stuff" for the Conservatives.
But perhaps the more interesting and consequential pivot in strategy we are currently witnessing is Labour's approach to Reform.
At the very highest level in government they are reshaping their approach: turning their attention away from their principal opponent of the last century and more, the Conservatives, and tilting instead towards Nigel Farage's party.
Again, extraordinary.
It tells you a lot about our contemporary politics that a party with Labour's history, sitting on top of a colossal Commons majority, is now shifting its focus to a party with just a handful of MPs.
Senior ministers take the rise of Reform incredibly seriously and are not dismissing them as a flash in the pan insurgency.
After all, Reform's lead in many opinion polls has proven to be sustained in recent months and was then garnished with their impressive performance in the English local elections in May and their win, on the same day, in the parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in Cheshire.
If Labour folk then were still in need of the jolt of a wake-up call, that night provided it.
In their immediate response to Sir Jake's defection, Labour are pointing to Reform recruiting Liz Truss's party chairman and so are inheriting, they claim, her "reckless economics".
But they know the challenge of taking on and, they hope, defeating Reform, will be work of years of slog and will have to be grounded in proving they can deliver in government – not easy, as their first year in office has so often proven.
Not for the first time in recent months, Reform UK have momentum and are making the political weather.
All-inclusive family package holidays from the UK have jumped in price for some of the most popular destinations, including Spain, Cyprus and Turkey.
The average price for a week in Cyprus in August has gone up by 23%, from £950 per person to £1,166, figures compiled for the BBC by TravelSupermarket show.
Of the top 10 most-searched countries, Italy and Tunisia are the only ones to see prices drop by 11% and 4% respectively compared with 2024.
Travel agents say holidaymakers are booking shorter stays or travelling mid-week to cut costs.
The top five destinations in order of most searched are: Spain, Greece, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Portugal. They have all seen price rises.
Trips to the UAE have seen the biggest jump, up 26% from £1,210 in August 2024 to £1,525 this year.
Cyprus had the next biggest rise and came in at number nine in terms of search popularity.
The figures are based on online searches, made on TravelSupermarket from 18 April to 17 June, for all-inclusive, seven-night family holidays in August 2024 and 2025.
While this snapshot of data reveals a general trend, costs will vary depending on exactly where a family goes and when they book.
Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of travel agent industry group Advantage Travel Partnership, said the price rises were down to a number of factors.
"These increases simply keep pace with the broader cost of doing business and reflect the reality of higher operational costs, from increased energy bills affecting hotels, to elevated food costs impacting restaurants and rising wages across the hospitality sector," she said.
But she added the group had seen evidence that some holidaymakers still had money to spend.
Some customers were upgrading to more premium all-inclusive packages and booking more expensive cabin seats on long-haul flights to locations such as Dubai, she said.
Abi Smitton / BBC News
Ellie Mooney said she's spent the last year saving up for her holiday to Turkey
Holiday destinations are a frequent topic of conversation at the hairdressers.
At Voodou in Liverpool, Ellie Mooney talked to us as she got a last-minute trim before jetting off to Turkey.
"We've been going for the past 20 years or so. We normally book a year ahead then save up in dribs and drabs," she said.
Hope Curran, 21, was getting her highlights done and she and her partner had just got back from holiday in Rhodes in Greece.
"We did an all-inclusive trip because it was a bit more manageable, but it's not cheap," she said.
Francesca Ramsden
Nurse Francesca Ramsden says she spends thousands of hours hunting for the best deals
End of life care nurse Francesca Ramsden, 35, from Rossendale, has made it her mission to cut the cost of holidays, saving where she can and hunting for a bargain at every turn.
"My husband is sick of me, he'll ask 'have you found anything yet' and I'll say no, rocking in the corner after looking for 10,000 hours.
"The longest I've booked a holiday in advance is two to three months and I find that the closer you get, the cheaper it is."
She said she spent hours trying to save as much as possible on a May half-term break to Fuerte Ventura for her family of four which came in at £1,600.
She now shares her budgeting tips on social media.
"I've mastered the art of packing a week's worth of clothes into a backpack. I always book the earliest or latest flight I can, and midweek when it's cheaper."
Abi Smitton / BBC News
Travel consultant Luke says people are getting creative to save money
Luke Fitzpatrick, a travel consultant at Perfect Getaways in Liverpool, said people were cutting the length of their holidays to save money.
"Last year we did a lot for 10 nights and this year we've got a lot of people dropping to four or seven nights, just a short little weekend vacation, just getting away in the sun," he said.
He has also seen more people choosing to wait until the last minute to book a trip away.
"People are coming in with their suitcases asking if they can go away today or tomorrow," he added.
"Yesterday we had a couple come in with their passports and we got them on a flight last night from Liverpool to Turkey."
How to save money on your holiday
Choose a cheaper location. A UK holiday eliminates travel and currency costs, but overseas destinations vary a lot too
To decide whether all-inclusive will save you money, first look at local costs for eating out and don't forget about drinks and airport transfers
Travel outside the school holidays if you can
Booking early can help, especially if you have to travel at peak times
Check whether you can get a cheaper flight by travelling mid-week
Haggle. Call the travel agent to see if they can better the price you found online
Choose destinations where the value of the pound is strong. This year that includes Turkey, Bulgaria and Portugal
With doubts circling and pressure increasing, England needed to step up at Euro 2025 - and they did.
A 2-1 defeat by France on Saturday meant the defending champions had catching up to do in Group D.
But England ensured their hopes of qualifying for the quarter-finals remained intact with a commanding 4-0 victory over the Netherlands.
"Proper England", as midfielder Georgia Stanway had called it earlier this week, returned as Sarina Wiegman's side played with fluidity and creativity.
They were back to their defensive best and Wiegman's positional switches worked a treat.
Wiegman knows what it means to be under the spotlight, having led England to back-to-back major tournament finals.
When you have set that standard, anything less is a disappointment.
England's level dropped dramatically against France which increased scrutiny on Wiegman, who suffered her first defeat at a Euros after winning 12 games in a row over the previous two tournaments.
It was also the first time the reigning women's European champions had lost the first match of their defence at the following finals.
Wiegman admitted the scrutiny was "hard" but she focused on the task in hand.
"I always knew ahead of this tournament that it was a very hard group. It can happen but then you need to win the other games," she said.
"So yes, I was excited, but at the same time I felt a little tense too. I think that's completely normal as you really want to stay in the tournament and you want to win.
"I just had to focus on my job, review well and think about how we could bring people together."
Wiegman has often delivered in the big moments and no manager has won more Euros matches than the Dutchwoman (13 - level with Germany's former manager Tina Theune).
She also boasts the best goals-per-game rate in the competition among managers to take charge of four or more matches, with her sides scoring 40 in 14 games.
Having come under criticism for her decision to start Lauren James in the number 10 role against France - which left England vulnerable defensively - Wiegman made all the right choices against the Netherlands.
James started on the right wing, with Manchester United's Ella Toone starting in the number 10 role. They scored three of the four goals on the night.
Jess Carter, who struggled against France at left-back, was moved into central defence, swapping with Alex Greenwood, and England kept a clean sheet.
"The priority was that we wanted to skip and exploit space. The Netherlands pushed up so we wanted to go over them. That worked really well," said Wiegman.
"When you're in their half of the pitch, you can start playing. We had some nice crosses and we spoke about that too.
"[James] came in good positions but she can also do that in midfield. In midfield today we wanted Ella [Toone] because she can make good runs in behind."
The plan worked.
Netherlands striker Vivianne Miedema had just eight touches in the first half and the Dutch conceded more than two goals in a single match at a major women's tournament for the first time.
They also managed just four shots against England - their fewest on record (since 2011) at a major tournament.
'That's a proper English performance'
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'That should be three points for England' - James makes it 3-0
England midfielder Keira Walsh said the players "had to acknowledge that sometimes it is a bad day and it was a really bad day against France".
They wanted to put it behind them and do their talking on the pitch, as team-mate Stanway stressed this week.
Striker Alessia Russo felt they produced the "proper England" performance that Stanway had talked about.
"'Proper English' to us means we'll work hard until we can't run any more, stick together and know that we are very dominant on the ball," said Russo.
"We were picking up the ball in right areas and were clinical with our chances. We wanted to return to our roots and we know we're capable of performances like that."
Russo was among the standout performers as she picked up three assists - the first player on record (since 2013) to provide as many in a women's Euros match.
James' double means she has now been directly involved in more goals (eight) than any other European player at the past two major tournaments.
Stanway and Toone impressed in midfield, while Carter thrived in the centre-back role, with Greenwood producing the goods at left-back.
"We can change the structure of the team with so many different players. That's a strength of ours, that each individual player is so good at something," said Lucy Bronze.
"[Greenwood] isn't the fastest player on the pitch and I think she completely marked Chasity Grant out of the game. She was front-footed, she was aggressive.
"Jess Carter was covering her every single minute of the game as well. I think that's a proper English performance."
Carter told BBC Radio 5 Live that the two defenders had felt "isolated" in the defeat by France and they wanted to combat that.
Wiegman made the decision to swap them in training and tested it out.
"I'm not one to question and ask for a reason, I just do the job I'm asked to do," said Carter.
"This game felt the total opposite with Alex and the whole team. She was phenomenal at left-back."
Has optimism been revived?
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Toone and Russo combine for England's fourth
England were one of the pre-tournament favourites and despite defeat by France, qualification for the quarter-finals is in their hands.
If they beat Wales in their final group game, they will qualify for the last eight.
Wiegman admitted the "consequences of the result were huge" against the Netherlands - but it was nothing they did not expect.
"We knew exactly that we were going straight into finals [against strong opposition]," she added.
"Losing the first game, it was not the end of the world but it doesn't put you in the best position.
"We knew we had to perform really well and the team did."
Were England written off too soon? They won Euro 2022 and reached the 2023 World Cup final after all.
"Everybody else was panic stations, but we still needed to win this game whether we beat France or not and we knew that," said Walsh.
"The objective didn't change. We wanted to take the game to them and put things right that we didn't the other day.
"I think we did back up what we said in the media and I think everyone was just on it from the first whistle to the last."
It is hoped the sculpture will be a permanent memorial to the tree's mindless destruction
A piece of the world-famous Sycamore Gap tree which was illegally felled nearly two years ago is to go on permanent display.
The act sparked global condemnation and outrage in September 2023, with two men found guilty of chopping the tree down earlier this year.
Now, people will be able to see and touch part of its trunk at a Northumberland visitor centre near where the tree stood, as a permanent memorial to its mindless destruction is unveiled.
The BBC has been to see what the display looks like - and has had an insight into how it was created.
In a workshop in a tiny village in Cumbria, an idea has been taking shape.
The large shed up an ever-thinning track is where artist Charlie Whinney creates his abstract and beautiful sculptures.
They often feature steam-bent wood that makes my mind boggle when I visit, with its twists and turns.
His curved creations are everywhere I look, and his signature style will now surround the Sycamore Gap trunk.
Artist Charlie Winney has used the Sycamore Gap trunk as a centrepiece for his sculpture
The piece of tree, which is more than 6ft (2m) long, arrived at Charlie's workshop in mid-June, three weeks before its unveiling as part of a permanent exhibition at the Sill National Landscape Discovery Centre near Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland.
He is preparing the trunk for the metal work that will keep it upright, with the carving and drilling into the base being the only modification he is making to the sycamore itself.
It is nerve-wracking work, he tells me, "because so many people care about it, you don't want to mess it up".
Charlie Whinney took delivery of the trunk in mid-June
The wood cuts smoothly and is "really nice to work with", the artists says, as he attaches a three-pronged metal baseplate that will finally hold the trunk vertical once again.
He is not an emotional person but is "blown away by how huggable it is", he says, before inviting me to try and wrap my arms around the trunk - which, of course, I do.
This is what everyone who visits the installation will able to do too.
PA Media
The tree was a much-loved landmark before it was illegally felled in September 2023
"The actual design came from what people said," Charlie says. "They wanted to be able to sit down, so we made some benches, and also pretty much 100% of the people we spoke to said they want to be able to access the tree and touch it."
A public consultation was held to work out what to do with the tree, which included workshops with children and any written contributions people wanted to make.
The much-loved tree had been a part of so many memorable moments for so many people, from marriage proposals to the scattering of ashes.
Charlie Winney makes sculptures from steam-bent wood
Three benches with canopies formed from curved wooden stems and leaves now surround the trunk, the seats inscribed with words taken from people's submissions.
The Northumberland National Park Authority (NNPA) received thousands of emails, letters and messages in visitor books from people talking about the tree, with every one read by staff members.
The authority commissioned Charlie and the Creative Communities art collective, a community interest company which creates sustainable art projects, to deliver an artistic response with the wood.
"It was very important at the beginning when we received the commission to kind of represent people that loved the tree, or knew the tree in life," says Nick Greenall, of the collective.
"It shows by its absence how much it meant to people."
Rosie Thomas helped choose the words to be inscribed on the sculpture's benches
Rosie Thomas, the park's business development director, helped pick out some of the messages that feature in the installation.
"The words that were chosen take you from sorrow, grief, the initial reaction, all the way through to feelings of hope and wishes for the future," she says.
"The really nice thing about the words is that everyone's experience of the tree was different and everybody's experience with this installation will be different too because the route that you take to read the words creates your own individual poem."
The trunk and benches were hidden behind curtains while they were being installed at The Sill, which is just two miles from where the tree had stood.
Tony Gates is delighted to have the trunk back near Hadrian's Wall
For Tony Gates, the chief executive of the NNPA, having the installation revealed to the public on Thursday morning will be a big moment.
The 18 months since the tree was felled have been difficult for everyone, he says.
"Back in September 2023, people felt they'd lost the tree forever and maybe in some ways felt they'd lost those memories of those life events," he says.
"To be sat here today to be part of that tree with this beautiful installation, it gives me a ray of hope for the future, this is a time to look forward and a time for us to repledge to do positive things for nature."
Royal Mail can deliver second-class letters on every other weekday and not on Saturdays to help cut costs, the industry regulator has said.
Ofcom said a reform to the Universal Service Obligation (USO) was needed as people are sending fewer letters each year, so stamp prices keep rising as the cost of delivering letters goes up.
The current one-price-goes-anywhere USO means Royal Mail has to deliver post six days a week, from Monday to Saturday, and parcels on five from Monday to Friday.
Ofcom said Royal Mail should continue to deliver first-class letters six days a week but second class will be limited to alternate weekdays.
"These changes are in the best interests of consumers and businesses, as urgent reform of the postal service is necessary to give it the best chance of survival," said Natalie Black, Ofcom's group director for networks and communications.
However, just changing Royal Mail's obligations will not improve the service, she said.
"The company now has to play its part and implement this effectively."
The regulator is also making changes to Royal Mail's delivery targets.
The company will have to deliver 90% of first-class mail next-day, down from the current target of 93%, while 95% of second-class mail must be delivered within three days, a cut from the current 98.5%.
However, there will be a new target of 99% of mail being delivered no more than two days late to incentivise Royal Mail to cut down on long delays.
Roy Barclay was told to expect a "lengthy sentence" after being found guilty of the murder of Anita Rose
The sun was rising over the village of Brantham in Suffolk when Anita Rose set off for an early morning dog walk. She was a mother of six, and a grandmother of 13. Within an hour, she had been assaulted so brutally that her injuries were akin to those of someone in a head-on car crash. She died four days later.
The man responsible, Roy Barclay, was on a list of Suffolk Police's most wanted criminals but he had managed to avoid being recalled to prison for the past two years by sleeping in makeshift camps.
But despite this, Barclay had left a sizeable digital footprint - using his bank card to order items online and leaving hundreds of reviews on Google Maps.
With all this online activity, how did he manage to evade police and remain free to murder Anita?
Suffolk Police
Anita Rose loved walking her dog over the fields near her home village of Brantham, Suffolk, at sunrise
Anita was an "early bird", her partner Richard Jones said. She loved to walk her springer spaniel Bruce around Brantham, a village where she'd lived for six years and always said she felt safe. The 57-year-old loved watching the sun come up before other people were awake.
On the morning of 24 July last year, Mr Jones and Anita chatted on the phone while she walked. He worked as a lorry driver and would spend time away from home during the week, so the couple would catch up while Anita took Bruce on the first of his three daily walks.
The couple had known each other since they were teenagers and had started dating in 2011 after a chance meeting at a petrol station in Copdock where Anita worked.
The pair's final conversation ended with Anita telling the 59-year-old to "drive safe, I love you".
Within an hour of hanging up, she was found unconscious and severely injured on a track road near a railway line by a cyclist and dog walker.
PA Media
Anita Rose was captured on CCTV walking her dog Bruce on the morning of the fatal attack
During the trial, Ms Island told the court Anita had "laboured breathing" and patches of blood on her face, and was only wearing leggings and a black sports bra, despite leaving the house wearing her pink Regatta jacket.
Mr Tassel described how her dog Bruce was lying "patiently" next to her body with his lead wrapped twice around her leg - this turned out to be something Barclay had also done in 2015, when he attacked a man.
Neuropathologist Dr Kieran Allinson, who treated Anita at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, likened her injuries to those seen in high speed car crashes and said they were consistent with kicking, stamping and repeated impacts to the head.
Google
Roy Barclay was a prolific reviewer of different locations on Google Maps - the red dots show all the locations he reviewed and photographed between 2022 and 2024
In the weeks that followed, Barclay was described during his Ipswich Crown Court trial as having lived in carefully-hidden camps and shaving his head to change his appearance.
He had been wanted by police since 2022, when he breached the terms of his licence by making himself homeless.
After killing Anita, his internet search history showed he had looked up news articles about the attack. He also looked up Anita's partner on social media.
Barclay is also said to have kept some of her belongings - including a pink Regatta jacket - at his makeshift camps.
George King/BBC
Anita Rose was found with serious injuries on a track road in Brantham, Suffolk, in July 2024
In the weeks after Anita's murder, Suffolk Police entered into one of its biggest-ever investigations to find the culprit.
A number of people were arrested and bailed.
Barclay, meanwhile, continued to be a prolific reviewer on Google Maps for hundreds of locations around Suffolk and Essex.
Between 2022 and October 2024, he posted thousands of photos of churches, Amazon lockers, libraries, beaches, council buildings, statues and more - earning himself a 'Level 8' contributor status (the highest being level 10).
One review was of Decoy Pond in Brantham, with photos posted between April and July - the month he murdered Anita a short distance away.
Google
Roy Barclay posted his thoughts on Flatford shortly before being arrested on suspicion of murder
Three months after the murder, his final few Google reviews were about Flatford, a historic area on the Essex-Suffolk border famed for inspiring iconic paintings.
"It's a beautiful, unspoilt rural idyll that somehow exists in its own timelessness, as if awaiting the return of John Constable," wrote Barclay in a review posted in October 2024.
By then he was camping out a mile from where he'd killed Anita - but a chance meeting with a Suffolk Police officer near White Bridge, between Brantham and Manningtree, led to his arrest.
Barclay gave the officer, Det Con Simpson, a fake name, coming across as "quite nervous and quite anxious", the detective said.
Six days later on 21 October, at Ipswich County Library, Barclay was arrested and was subsequently charged with Anita's murder, which he denied.
Crown Prosecution Service
Barclay, who was homeless, lived in makeshift camps he had set up under the Orwell Bridge and in Brantham (pictured)
After his conviction, the Crown Prosecution Service described Barclay as "an individual that… has a history for acting violently so we knew that this was somebody that could act unprovoked in a very violent manner".
The 2015 attack in Walton-on-the-Naze left the victim, 82-year-old Leslie Gunfield, with serious injuries to his head, neck, face and jaw.
Barclay was jailed for 10 years for the assault, but was released on licence after five.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ), which is responsible for probation services, told the BBC that a recall notice for Barclay was issued quickly following the breach of his licence conditions.
In doing this, finding Barclay became the responsibility of Suffolk Police.
Crimewatch Live
Anita Rose was a mother and grandmother who was very active and loved walking her dog
The force began looking for him in 2022 but did not issue a press release about his wanted status until January 2024. it asked for members of the public to get in touch if they saw him, saying he had "links across Suffolk and Essex".
Just over a month before he murdered Anita, on 10 June, Barclay had left a comment on an online article called 'Fixing Fixed Term Recalls'.
He accused the MoJ of "deliberately" setting up prison leavers "to fail" and "return like a boomerang".
"Is it really any surprise that so many of those on license are on recall within the first year of release?" he wrote.The MoJ has refuted these claims.
Supplied
Former Metropolitan Police detective Hamish Brown believes the murder could have been prevented
Hamish Brown, a former detective inspector who worked for the Specialist Crime Directorate at New Scotland Yard, said his own experience taught him that officers were often not given "huge amounts of time" to investigate wanted suspects.
But in this case, he said, the force would have serious questions to answer.
"Suffolk Police failed in tracking him down, despite him using his bank card and reviewing places on Google.
"I'm surprised Suffolk Police missed this and didn't find him, despite the trail he was leaving.
"The bottom line is it could have been prevented if the police had done their job and gone looking for the person.
"So the police will have to brace themselves and be answerable."
But Paul Bernal, professor of information technology law at the University of East Anglia, believes there would have been a limit to how useful the Google reviews could have been in tracking Barclay down.
"There is absolutely no way a social media or search provider would know that those things are in any way needed in a police investigation," he told the BBC.
Jamie Niblock/BBC
Anita's eldest daughter, Jess, addressed the media outside Ipswich Crown Court
Speaking after the jury found Barclay guilty, Anita's family stood on the court steps and spoke of the changes they said "need to be made within the probation service and justice system".
"We need make sure our communities are safe and criminals are taken back to prison when they break the terms of their probations," her eldest daughter Jess said.
"They cannot remain at large - there's too much at stake."
'Definitive answers'
Suffolk Police confirmed it would conduct a voluntary partnership review which would look at how the force and the probation service handled the search for Barclay.
"It will look closely at the information sharing processes and how the organisations collaborated," said assistant chief constable Alice Scott.
"This review will be a thorough assessment and scrutiny of the processes concerning Barclay.
"It will be expedited as soon as possible so we can provide clear and definitive answers for Anita's family."
Additional reporting by Jodie Halford and Laura Foster.
Firefighters also battled fires sparked by explosions in the Kyiv region on Wednesday
Ukraine's capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least eight people reported injured and fires burning across the city.
Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage has hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.
Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows explosions in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine's military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.
In the early hours of Thursday, morning Kyiv's military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.
"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.
He urged city residents to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted.
Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.
Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.
In other developments:
Ukraine's emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka - close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical arms
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Two other former Tory MPs defected recently too – Anne Marie Morris and Ross Thomson.
Now it is Sir Jake Berry joining Nigel Farage's party.
A man knighted by Boris Johnson.
A man whose son counts Johnson as his godfather.
A man who used to be the chairman of the Conservative Party and who was a Tory minister in three different government departments.
And yet a man who now says this: "If you were deliberately trying to wreck the country, you'd be hard pressed to do a better job than the last two decades of Labour and Tory rule."
Read that sentence again and consider it was written by someone who was not just a Tory MP for 14 years but a senior one, occupying high office.
Extraordinary.
And this is probably not the end of it – both Reform and Conservative folk I speak to hint they expect there to be more to come.
Tories are trying to put the best gloss on it they can, saying Reform might be attracting former MPs – Sir Jake lost his seat at the last election – but they are losing current MPs.
The MP James McMurdock suspended himself from Reform at the weekend after a story in the Sunday Times about loans he took out under a Covid support scheme.
But the trend is clear: Conservatives of varying seniority are being lured across by Nigel Farage and are proud to say so when they make the leap.
PA Media
Sir Jake Berry was appointed as the Conservative Party chairman by Liz Truss during her brief tenure as prime minister
Reform are particularly delighted that Sir Jake has not just defected but done so by going "studs in" on his former party, as one source put it.
"For us this is really crucial. If you want to join us you need to be really going for the other side when you do. Drawing a proper line in the sand," they added.
They regard Sir Jake's closeness to Boris Johnson as "dagger-in-the-heart stuff" for the Conservatives.
But perhaps the more interesting and consequential pivot in strategy we are currently witnessing is Labour's approach to Reform.
At the very highest level in government they are reshaping their approach: turning their attention away from their principal opponent of the last century and more, the Conservatives, and tilting instead towards Nigel Farage's party.
Again, extraordinary.
It tells you a lot about our contemporary politics that a party with Labour's history, sitting on top of a colossal Commons majority, is now shifting its focus to a party with just a handful of MPs.
Senior ministers take the rise of Reform incredibly seriously and are not dismissing them as a flash in the pan insurgency.
After all, Reform's lead in many opinion polls has proven to be sustained in recent months and was then garnished with their impressive performance in the English local elections in May and their win, on the same day, in the parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in Cheshire.
If Labour folk then were still in need of the jolt of a wake-up call, that night provided it.
In their immediate response to Sir Jake's defection, Labour are pointing to Reform recruiting Liz Truss's party chairman and so are inheriting, they claim, her "reckless economics".
But they know the challenge of taking on and, they hope, defeating Reform, will be work of years of slog and will have to be grounded in proving they can deliver in government – not easy, as their first year in office has so often proven.
Not for the first time in recent months, Reform UK have momentum and are making the political weather.
Kemi Badenoch will call for foreign nationals to be barred from claiming disability and sickness benefits, as she sets out plans for tighter curbs on welfare.
In a speech on Thursday, the Tory leader will describe Britain's benefits bill as a "ticking time bomb" that could "collapse the economy".
It comes after the party outlined some of its own proposals to reduce spending, after Labour largely gutted its own plan for benefits cuts after a backbench revolt.
Legislation to bring in remaining government cuts to sickness benefits was approved by MPs on Wednesday evening.
But other proposals, including changes to the eligibility criteria for disability benefits, have effectively been put on hold.
The government announced plans to shrink welfare spending in March, warning the working-age welfare bill was set to rise by nearly £30bn by 2030 and reforms to the system were required to ensure it remained sustainable.
It wanted to make it harder to claim personal independence payment (Pip), the main disability benefit in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and make health-related top-ups for universal credit less generous.
But ministers significantly watered down the cuts earlier this month after a huge rebellion from Labour MPs, all but wiping out savings estimated to be worth £5bn a year by the end of the decade.
Plans to freeze the higher rate of universal credit for existing health-related claimants have been reversed, whilst all changes to the Pip system have been parked pending a government review into the assessment regime.
In her speech on Thursday, Badenoch will accuse Labour of being "beholden to left-wing MPs" and "turning a blind eye" to rising benefit costs.
She will also seek to create a dividing line with Reform UK over the two-child benefit cap, which Nigel Farage's party has pledged to scrap, branding him "Jeremy Corbyn with a pint and a cigarette".
"On welfare he shows his true colours - promising unaffordable giveaways with no plan to fix the system," she is expected to add.
A Labour spokesperson said "The Conservatives had 14 years to reform welfare - instead, they left the country with a broken system that holds people back and fails to support the most vulnerable."
The party also warned that the Conservative proposal could see disabled British nationals living abroad being denied support if other countries decided to take a similar approach.
Tory welfare proposals
The Conservatives have not backed the government's legislation to deliver the changes, arguing its proposals do not go far enough.
They have set out some plans of their own to shrink welfare spending in the form of amendments to the government's plans, which were defeated on Wednesday.
These include limiting access to Pips and the health-related part of universal credit to those with "less severe" mental health conditions, and preventing claimants from receiving payments without a face-to-face assessment.
They also say both benefits should only be paid to British citizens, with exceptions for those covered by international agreements, such as citizens from EU countries who have acquired settled status in the UK.
At the moment, foreign nationals gain access to the welfare system when they are granted indefinite leave to remain or refugee status. Applicants for Pip generally need to have lived in Britain for at least two of the last three years.
Asylum seekers are not allowed to apply for benefits, although they have access to taxpayer-funded accommodation and separate financial support.
Conservative shadow minister Neil O'Brien has said he has obtained figures under freedom of information laws showing universal credit payments to households containing at least one foreign national stood at £941m a month as of March.
But working out the exact scale of payments to non-UK nationals specifically is complicated, because the Department for Work and Pensions does not provide a breakdown of claimants by immigration status and nationality.
However, the department is due to publish the first such breakdown next week, and has committed to updates every three months thereafter.
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Locke said he enjoyed playing characters who had "a bit of a bite, a bit of a grey area"
Heartstopper star Joe Locke is to make his West End debut this autumn, in a play about two young men who bond while working night shifts at a warehouse in a rural US town.
Locke is currently filming the forthcoming Heartstopper movie after appearing in three series of the hit Netflix show about two classmates who fall in love, but will take on his new stage role later this year.
The 21-year-old will star in Clarkston, which follows two men in their twenties from opposite ends of the US who meet while working at Costco.
Locke told BBC News he was "so excited" for his West End debut, adding that his new role matched his desire to play "flawed characters... who have a bit of bite".
Producers have not yet announced the venue or run dates for the British production, but told the BBC it would open in a West End theatre in the autumn.
Set in Clarkston, Washington, the play opens with a Costco employee named Chris working night shifts when he meets new hire Jake, a young gay man originally from Connecticut.
Jake has Huntington's disease, a degenerative neurological condition that causes involuntary movements. He ended up in Clarkston by accident after finding himself no longer able to drive during a road trip west.
"He's this city boy in a small place," explained Locke. "Jake has got so many layers to him that really unravel in the play. A lot of the themes are to do with class and the different experiences of the characters."
Chris, meanwhile, struggles with the strained relationship he has with his mother, who is a drug addict.
Locke, who is used to portraying young men grappling with their identity, explained: "I really enjoy characters that have something to them, a bit of bite, a bit of a grey area.
"Everyone is flawed in some ways. And I've been lucky enough in my career so far to play a few flawed characters, and Jake is no different to that. And that's the fun bit, the meaty bit, getting to know these characters - they're good and they're bad."
Hunter noted the play "is fundamentally about friendship and platonic male love, which is something that I feel like we don't see a lot of on stage and screen".
Locke agreed: "Yeah, one of my favourite things about this play is there's a scene where these characters almost build on their platonic relationship and get to a romantic level, and they realise that no, the platonic relationship is what's important, and I think that's really beautiful."
Getty Images
Samuel D Hunter (right) also wrote The Whale, the film adaptation of which won Brendan Fraser an Oscar
Clarkston, which has previously been performed alongside another of Hunter's plays, Lewiston, received positive reviews from critics when it was staged in the US.
"You feel like you're eavesdropping on intensely private moments of people you don't always like but come to deeply understand," said The Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck of a 2018 production.
"Toward the end, there's an encounter between Chris and his mother that is as shattering and gut-wrenching a scene as you'll ever see on stage. But the play ends on a sweet, hopeful note that sends you out of the theatre smiling."
Writing about a different production in 2024, Charles McNulty of the LA Times said: "Clarkston hints that some of our most instructive relationships may be the most transitory. That's one of the beautiful discoveries in Hunter's small, absorbing and ultimately uplifting play."
Anybody who has worked night shifts may relate to the idea that the early hours are a time when people often open up to each other and have have their deepest conversations.
Hunter suggests such an atmosphere results in a "more delicate, more intimate" backdrop.
"I had an experience working in a Walmart when I was a teenager," he recalled, "and I found that places like the break room were so intimate and vulnerable, you're in this very sterilised space so I think the need for human connection is made all the greater."
Netflix
Locke, pictured with Heartstopper co-star Kit Connor, said the forthcoming film will be "a really nice closing chapter"
Hunter had the idea of writing the play when visiting his home town of Moscow Idaho, about 30 miles from Clarkson, and became interested in "the idea that the American West is still kind of young", following the Louisiana Purchase in the early 19th Century.
"The markers of that history are still there," noted Hunter, "but they are right next to things like Costcos and gas stations and mini-malls.
"So it just got me interested in the experiment of the American West and the colonial past, and what that means in 2025."
The new production will be directed by Jack Serio, who has previously directed another of Hunter's plays, Grangeville, with Ruaridh Mollica and Sophie Melville cast in the other two lead roles as Chris and his mother.
Locke has previously appeared on stage at London's Donmar Warehouse, and in a Broadway production of Sweeney Todd.
The actor said being a theatre actor "was the thing I wanted more than anything" when growing up.
"I'm from the Isle of Man," he explained, "and my birthday present every year was a trip to London with my mum to watch a few shows, so it's very full circle to bring my mum to my press night to my West End debut, it's going to be very exciting."
Locke has starred in three seasons of Neflix's Heartstopper since its launch in 2022. The show followed two teenage boys, Charlie and Nick, who fall for each other at secondary school, and their circle of friends. Locke spoke to BBC News while on set, shooting the film adaptation.
"It's going great, we're almost two thirds of the way through shooting now, and everything, touch wood, is going well," he said.
"We're having a great time doing it, it's a really nice closing chapter of the story."
Christian Horner's removal as Red Bull's F1 team principal leads several of Thursday's front pages. The Metro says the racing boss, husband of Spice Girl Geri, was "shunted out" 17 months after a female employee accused him of coercive, controlling behaviour. He was twice cleared of these claims, which he has strongly denied, but the fallout has been "blamed for the team's decline", the paper reports. Red Bull has won only two races this season.
The Daily Star references the energy's drink's slogan in its own headline on the Horner saga: "Red Bull gives you the boot." It adds that wife Geri has "stood by" her husband.
The Daily Mail's front page pictures the "humiliated" Geri and Christian Horner, but its lead story is based on fresh analysis suggesting "work doesn't pay under Labour". The Centre for Social Justice think tank has warned that sickness benefits will soon be worth "more than a minimum wage job", the paper reports. This "shocking finding" comes after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer failed to secure benefits cuts earlier this month, it adds.
The Daily Telegraph also covers the think tank's benefits analysis, saying someone on "full handouts" will receive £2,500 more a year than a minimum wage worker. It also covers a separate report from a group representing the beer industry, which warns one pub a day will close after what the paper calls Labour's "tax raids". Elsewhere, actor Hugh Grant is pictured talking to Queen Camilla at Wimbledon.
The i Paper has a different story about Labour's economic policy. It says a minister has told the paper that the government will introduce new taxes that "target wealthier people" to appease restless backbench MPs. It will not call these measures a wealth tax in public, but it will do so privately, the paper reports.
On the third day of French President Emmanuel Macron's state visit to the UK, the Sun's headline is "A kick in the Gauls". It says a deal on returning migrants who crossed the Channel in small boats is expected to be announced on Thursday, during a bilateral summit. But the paper highlights criticism of the deal, which it says will deport "just 50 migrants a week". The Tories have said this arrangement is "no deterrent at all", the paper says, as "40,000 are arriving annually". Home Office figures say more than 21,000 migrants have crossed the Channel in small boats this year so far.
The Times also leads on the UK-France asylum deal, which it says will deport one in 17 people who arrive via the Channel, but is intended to expand at a later date. A UK government source has told the paper the scheme will be "scaled up" after a pilot period.
Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that the Anglo-French migration deal "hangs in the balance" with negotiators still "deadlocked" over the details. Aides on both sides said there were "several significant hurdles" to overcome on Wednesday night. Sir Keir had hoped to unveil an agreement as the "key prize" of Macron's three-day visit at the bilateral summit on Thursday, the paper says.
The departure of X chief executive Linda Yaccarino is also covered in several newspapers. The Financial Times features a picture of Ms Yaccarino, who was hired to run the social media site by billionaire owner Elon Musk two years ago. She was tasked with "luring back advertisers" after Mr Musk controversially relaxed moderation on the platform, the FT reports. Its lead story is on AI chipmaker Nvidia, which has become the first $4tn (£2.94tn) company after a "rapid rebound for Wall Street technology stocks".
The Daily Express says there has been "fury" at a potential doctors' strike, with the prime minister branded as "weak". Resident doctors, previously known as junior doctors, in England have said they will strike for five days from 25 July after voting in favour of fresh action over pay if the government does not agree to negotiate their pay instead. The paper also features a picture of the Queen at Wimbledon on its front page - here shaking hands with Novak Djokovic.
The Mirror leads on the "astonishing bravery" of the children targeted by Southport killer Axel Rudakubana, after an inquiry into the attacks revealed "incredible tales of bravery" on Wednesday.
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Christian Horner
The Times leads on the possible new immigration deal between Britain and France ahead of today's summit in London. The paper says 50 migrants a week will be sent back to France from the end of August, as part of a pilot scheme - and, reportedly, the UK would accept the same number of asylum seekers in return, if they have family connections in Britain. The paper points out that if crossings continue at the same rate the number sent to France would equate to one in 17 of all small-boat migrants.
The Daily Telegraph says the government is hoping the number of returns will grow significantly, if the trial is successful.
The Guardian however says the deal "hangs in the balance" - with negotiators haggling over how much the UK should pay towards policing the crossings. Aides from both countries tell the paper that other significant hurdles include potential legal challenges in France, and opposition from other European countries. A Downing Street spokesperson is quoted saying the prime minister hopes to make "concrete progress" on a range of issues.
The I Paper says Labour will target the rich with its new tax plans, but won't publicly call it a "wealth tax". The paper quotes an unnamed minister saying "we'll end up doing a few things that target wealthier people".
The Daily Express leads on resident doctors announcing a five-day strike over pay - saying it puts around 200,000 hospital appointments at risk of being cancelled. The paper's leader column calls the prime minister weak and says it's only a matter of time before Downing Street "waves the white flag".
The Daily Mail is among a number of papers to highlight a report by the right-leaning think tank, the Centre for Social Justice - which forecasts that full sickness benefits will soon be worth £2,500 a year more than the minimum wage. "Proof Work Doesn't Pay Under Labour" is the Mail's headline.
A picture of the former Red Bull Racing Formula One boss, Christian Horner, with his head in his hands covers the front of The Daily Star. He was fired yesterday after 20 years in the role. Its headline reads "Red Bull gives you the boot".
Firefighters also battled fires sparked by explosions in the Kyiv region on Wednesday
Ukraine's capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least eight people reported injured and fires burning across the city.
Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage has hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.
Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows explosions in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine's military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.
In the early hours of Thursday, morning Kyiv's military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.
"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.
He urged city residents to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted.
Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.
Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.
In other developments:
Ukraine's emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka - close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical arms
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.