Prices rose by 3.6% in the year to June, the steepest rise in inflation since January 2024, the Office for National Statistics said.

That marks a significant rise from the 3.4% rate in May.

The rate at which prices rise matters to shoppers, whose money doesn't go as far if goods and services are becoming rapidly more expensive.

The decision will affect whether the Bank of England decides to raise or lower interest rates as higher rates can slow inflation by dampening economic activity.

Former defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace said he makes "no apology" for stopping the reporting of a leak that revealed data about thousands of Afghans who had supported British forces.

Writing in the Telegraph, Sir Ben said the decision to apply for an injunction was "not a cover-up".

In February 2022, the details of nearly 19,000 people who had applied to move to the UK under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) were leaked. The previous government learned of the breach in August 2023 when some details were posted on Facebook.

Sir Ben said when he was informed of the error he was "determined that the first priority was to protect all those that might be at risk".

• Thousands of Afghans were moved to UK in secret scheme after data breach

"Some may disagree but imagine if the Taliban had been alerted to the existence of this list. I would dread to think what would have happened," he added.

A new resettlement scheme - the Afghanistan Response Route - was set up in April 2024 for those on the leaked list. About 4,500 Afghans have arrived in the UK so far.

The scheme is understood to have cost around £400m, with a projected final cost of about £850m.

Details of the major data breach, the response and the number of Afghans granted the right to live in the UK as a result only came to light on Tuesday after a High Court judge ruled the gagging order should be lifted.

The leak contained the names, contact details and some family information of people potentially at risk of harm from the Taliban.

The daughter of an Afghan translator whose details were leaked told the BBC's Newsnight programme that her whole family "panicked".

"No one knows where the data has been sent to - it could be sent to the Taliban, they could have their hands on it," she said.

Her grandmother, who is still in Afghanistan, is "completely vulnerable", she added.

Downing Street would not confirm whether the official responsible for the leak had faced disciplinary action, with a spokesman saying they would not comment on individuals.

Speaking in the commons on Tuesday, Defence Secretary John Healey said the person involved in the leak was "no longer doing the same job", and offered a "sincere apology" on behalf of the government.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has also apologised on behalf of her party.

Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said Parliament should have been informed about the leak.

He told the BBC's World Tonight: "Parliament cannot be ignored for that length of time, we owe a duty to the public to at least have examined this."

The chief executive of Co-op has confirmed all 6.5 million of its members had their data stolen in a cyber-attack on the retailer in April.

"I'm devastated that information was taken. I'm also devastated by the impact that it took on our colleagues as well as they tried to contain all of this," Shirine Khoury-Haq told BBC Breakfast in her first public interview since the hack.

"There was no financial data, no transaction data but it was names and addresses and contact information that was lost," she added.

Ms Khoury-Haq said she would not step down from her role, but said she was "incredibly sorry" for the attack.

Co-op was one of three retailers, alongside Marks and Spencer (M&S) and Harrods who were victims of cyber-attacks in spring this year.

Co-op announced on 30 April that it had been hacked, initially saying it would only have a "small impact" on its call centre and back office.

But days later, after being contacted by the alleged hackers, BBC News revealed that customer and employee data had been accessed.

Co-op then admitted the criminals had "accessed data relating to a significant number of our current and past members".

BBC News later discovered from the alleged attackers 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.

M&S also had customer data stolen, and is still getting its systems back to normal after huge disruption which has cost it millions of pounds.

Last week, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said four people had been arrested in connection with the hacks on Co-op and M&S

These were 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.

Additional reporting by Charlotte Edwards.

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Southern Water is the latest company to announce a hosepipe ban - affecting almost one million customers - due to prolonged dry weather.

The move will come into force for residents across much of Hampshire and all of the Isle of Wight from 09:00 BST on Monday.

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

Managing director Tim McMahon apologised to customers and said: "Only by working together can we make sure there's enough water to go around for customers and the environment."

The water company was fined £90m in 2021 after raw sewage was discharged across Hampshire, West Sussex and Kent.

Announcing the temporary water restrictions, it called on customers to act immediately and avoid a "spike" in demand that could make the situation worse.

The restrictions will apply to 791,000 customers in 336,000 properties in Hampshire as well as 144,000 customers in 75,000 properties on the Isle of Wight.

The River Test and Itchen chalk streams supply most of the water in the area but are at "critically low levels" - down 24% on normal flows for this time of year, the company said.

The Environment Agency also declared the Solent and South Downs were experiencing "prolonged dry weather".

Several other water companies have already introduced hosepipe bans, including Thames Water, Yorkshire Water and South East Water.

People found to be using a hosepipe during a ban can be fined up to £1,000.

Mr McMahon said: "We have to respond to the widespread and prolonged dry weather affecting our region.

"In our case, this means a hosepipe ban for our customers in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, to protect the health of our amazing chalk streams, which as one of the rarest habitats on earth has been compared to the Amazon Rainforest.

"We must act now to support the wildlife that live there, including Atlantic salmon and southern damselfly."

He continued: "Our teams are working 24/7 to find and fix leaks faster than ever, using a wide range of innovative solutions like drones, sensors and even sniffer dogs, and are ensuring that our pipes, reservoirs and water supply works are working as efficiently as possible – but sadly this is not enough."

Water Minister Emma Hardy said: "We face a growing water shortage in the next decade which is why we are pushing ahead with urgent water reforms.

"Our Plan for Change includes £104 billion of private investment to build nine reservoirs and new pipes to cut leaks."

You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.

It's a makeover on a massive scale - it involves moving 1,300 plants, replacing 16,000 panes of glass and cleaning up hundreds of tonnes of iron.

This is the ambitious £50m plan to renovate the world-famous Palm House, which sits at the heart of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.

The hot and humid conditions inside have taken their toll on the building, which opened in 1848 and houses a tropical rainforest.

Kew will also use the refurbishment – which will see the glass house closed for five years from 2027 – to reduce emissions from the Palm House to net zero.

The planning permission for the project has now been submitted, and some of the plants that make up the indoor tropical rainforest have started to be relocated.

"This is probably the plant that I worry about moving the most," says Thomas Pickering, head of glasshouses.

He's standing next to one of Kew's most precious specimens: a plant called Encephalartos altensteinii, which is a type of cycad.

It's growing in a pot, and at 250 years old, it's older than the Palm House itself. It's also enormous - weighing more than a tonne and standing about 4m tall.

"It's the sheer size of it. It has a huge weight in that root ball, but also this incredibly long stem, which is very old because they're incredibly slow-growing plants," says Pickering.

The horticulturists will use scaffolds, supports and braces to protect the plant when the time comes for it to be moved. Other plants, that are a bit easier to shift, have already been taken to a temporary greenhouse.

"It's going to be a long term project," explains Pickering.

"And over the next two years, it's going to be a process of selecting which plants we need to containerize (place in pots) and keep, which ones we need to propagate - and also some of the plants will be felled because we won't be able to move them."

The Palm House was built more than 175 years ago and was a wonder of the Victorian age.

No-one had ever constructed a glass house on that scale before and the engineers borrowed techniques from the shipping industry to build the huge structure.

It was last renovated in the 1980s, but now the iron is heavily rusting in places, so it will be stripped back to the bare metal work, repaired and repainted.

All of the thousands of single glazed panes of glass will be replaced and tests are underway to find the best type of glass to provide maximum insulation.

Maintaining the Palm House's temperature at 21C uses a lot of energy, but now gas boilers will be replaced with air source and water source heat pumps.

"This is an incredibly challenging building to make net zero," said Rachel Purdon, head of sustainability at Kew.

"We can do a huge amount with things like sealing the glass and improving the heating systems to massively reduce the carbon footprint and improve the sustainability of the Palm House without impacting the aesthetics."

The Water Lily House, which is located next to the Palm House, will also be made over as part of the renovation. The public will still be able to visit both for the next two years before they're closed for the works.

The team at Kew acknowledges this will be a big undertaking that will have a temporary impact on people coming to their botanic gardens. But they say the results will be worth it.

"The really important aspect of this is to try and ensure that the structure can last as long as possible, before we have to do another refurbishment," says Rachel Purdon.

The US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has said 20 people have been killed in what it called a "tragic incident" at one of its aid distribution centres in southern Gaza.

Nineteen were trampled to death and one was stabbed "amid a chaotic and dangerous surge" at the site in the Khan Younis area, a statement said. It added that it believed the surge was "driven by agitators in the crowd" who were affiliated to Hamas.

It was not immediately possible to verify the report.

However, officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis earlier said that more than 10 people were killed and others injured due to "suffocation" after the GHF's private security contractors closed an aid site.

An employment tribunal involving a female nurse and a transgender doctor, which has become the latest front in the battle over gender policy, is resuming in Dundee.

Sandie Peggie was suspended from her role as a nurse with NHS Fife last year after she objected to Dr Beth Upton, who is a transgender woman, using a female changing room.

Ms Peggie claims her treatment was unlawful under the 2010 Equality Act and has brought a case against the health board and Dr Upton.

NHS Fife and the doctor are defending their actions – at a cost to the public purse so far of at least £220,000 – arguing that they complied with NHS policy.

Ms Peggie, who has worked at NHS Fife for more than 30 years, told the tribunal she had felt uncomfortable around Dr Upton in a changing room at Kirkcaldy's Victoria Hospital on three occasions between August and December 2023.

She said the issue came to a head on Christmas Eve when Dr Upton started to undress in front of her.

Ms Peggie told the tribunal she had felt "embarrassed and intimidated".

The pair then exchanged words - although the details of their conversation are disputed.

After the exchange, Dr Upton complained to NHS Fife about Ms Peggie's behaviour and the nurse was suspended on 3 January 2024.

In her evidence, Ms Peggie said she had "felt more shocked than anything" when she learned there was a complaint against her.

The board has described Ms Peggie's case as "unnecessary and vexatious" while Dr Upton has accused the nurse of bullying and harassment.

"I'm not interested in vengeance and I'm not interested in retribution – I'm interested in justice," the doctor told the tribunal.

"Trans people are not predators by nature of being themselves."

The tribunal sat for 10 days in February and was then adjourned until now.

A separate disciplinary hearing, which had also been scheduled for February, was postponed at the request of Ms Peggie's legal team.

In that case, the nurse is facing allegations – which she denies – of misconduct, failures of patient care and misgendering Dr Upton.

It is now reported to have taken place although the outcome has not been made public.

Supreme court ruling

The wider issue of gender has provoked years of debate in Scotland.

This includes arguments about the case of a transgender rapist known as Isla Bryson and an attempt by politicians in Edinburgh – ultimately blocked by Westminster – to make it easier to legally change gender.

A pivotal moment came in April when the UK Supreme Court clarified the law on gender, unanimously ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex under the Equality Act.

"The concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man," wrote the judges, adding that "the ordinary meaning of those plain and unambiguous words" was self-explanatory and required "no further explanation".

The 88-page judgment was a repudiation of the SNP's interpretation of the law.

The Scottish government responded that it had acted in good faith by arguing in court that trans women were women.

Ms Peggie has since called on NHS Fife to respond to the Supreme Court by acting immediately to "stop permitting any man who identifies as a woman" access to female-only spaces.

NHS Fife says work is underway to "identify areas where any adaptations may be required and schedule any work that may be necessary," as a result of the judgment.

It added that it was waiting to review a new code of practice expected to be issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which advises public bodies on the law.

In a statement, the EHRC said it was "currently working at pace" on the new advice but it added that organisations should "comply with the law" now by "looking at what changes, if any, need to be made to their policies and practices".

The Scottish government says it "accepts the Supreme Court ruling" adding that "detailed work that is necessary as a consequence" is ongoing.

What is a hosepipe ban?

How do I know if there is a hosepipe ban in my area?

Which water companies have a hosepipe ban?

Who is exempt from a hosepipe ban?

How is a hosepipe ban enforced?

How can I water my garden?

Will we see more hosepipe bans this summer?

When will the hosepipe bans end?

Former defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace said he makes "no apology" for stopping the reporting of a leak that revealed data about thousands of Afghans who had supported British forces.

Writing in the Telegraph, Sir Ben said the decision to apply for an injunction was "not a cover-up".

In February 2022, the details of nearly 19,000 people who had applied to move to the UK under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) were leaked. The previous government learned of the breach in August 2023 when some details were posted on Facebook.

Sir Ben said when he was informed of the error he was "determined that the first priority was to protect all those that might be at risk".

• Thousands of Afghans were moved to UK in secret scheme after data breach

"Some may disagree but imagine if the Taliban had been alerted to the existence of this list. I would dread to think what would have happened," he added.

A new resettlement scheme - the Afghanistan Response Route - was set up in April 2024 for those on the leaked list. About 4,500 Afghans have arrived in the UK so far.

The scheme is understood to have cost around £400m, with a projected final cost of about £850m.

Details of the major data breach, the response and the number of Afghans granted the right to live in the UK as a result only came to light on Tuesday after a High Court judge ruled the gagging order should be lifted.

The leak contained the names, contact details and some family information of people potentially at risk of harm from the Taliban.

The daughter of an Afghan translator whose details were leaked told the BBC's Newsnight programme that her whole family "panicked".

"No one knows where the data has been sent to - it could be sent to the Taliban, they could have their hands on it," she said.

Her grandmother, who is still in Afghanistan, is "completely vulnerable", she added.

Downing Street would not confirm whether the official responsible for the leak had faced disciplinary action, with a spokesman saying they would not comment on individuals.

Speaking in the commons on Tuesday, Defence Secretary John Healey said the person involved in the leak was "no longer doing the same job", and offered a "sincere apology" on behalf of the government.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has also apologised on behalf of her party.

Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said Parliament should have been informed about the leak.

He told the BBC's World Tonight: "Parliament cannot be ignored for that length of time, we owe a duty to the public to at least have examined this."

US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson has called for the justice department to release all its files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a split with President Donald Trump, who has sought to draw a line under the matter.

"We should put everything out there and let the people decide," Johnson, an ally of the president, said in an interview.

It came as Trump said Attorney General Pam Bondi should release "whatever she thinks is credible" on Epstein. At the weekend, the president urged supporters not to "waste time and energy" on the controversy.

Bondi is under fire after she said last week there was no evidence Epstein kept a "client list" or was blackmailing powerful figures.

Convicted paedophile Epstein's 2019 death in a US prison while awaiting federal trial was ruled to be a suicide, but many in Trump's Make America Great Again (Maga) movement suspect a cover-up.

Asked about the Epstein files on Tuesday by US conservative commentator Benny Johnson, Speaker Johnson said he was in favour of "transparency".

The Republican congressman from Louisiana added that he trusted President Trump and his team, and that the White House was privy to facts that he did not know.

But he said Bondi "needs to come forward and explain it to everybody".

• Trump defends US Attorney General Pam Bondi over Epstein files
• Who was Jeffrey Epstein?

Trump is facing a rare backlash from his staunchly loyal political base over their theories that details of Epstein's crimes are being withheld in order to protect influential figures, or intelligence agencies.

On Tuesday, he praised his attorney general's handling of the matter, saying: "She's handled it very well, and it's going to be up to her. Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release."

Last week the president vented frustration in the Oval Office about his supporters' fixation on Epstein and implored them to move on.

But other Republican allies of the president are not letting go of the matter.

Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene told Benny Johnson in a separate interview on Tuesday: "I fully support transparency on this issue."

She praised Bondi's work as attorney general, but said that leaders and elected officials should keep their promises to voters. President Trump had previously pledged to release all details of the Epstein investigation.

Another conservative Republican, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, said if more Epstein files were not released, a special counsel should be appointed to investigate the financier's crimes.

Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said the voters expect more accountability.

"I think it's perfectly understandable that the American people would like to know who he [Epstein] trafficked those women to and why they weren't prosecuted," Kennedy told NBC News.

But other influential Republicans – including Senator John Thune and congressman Jim Jordan – deferred to President Trump on the matter.

At an unrelated news conference on fentanyl on Tuesday, Bondi brushed aside questions about the controversy.

"Nothing about Epstein," she told reporters. "I'm not going to talk about Epstein."

She said last week's memo by the Department of Justice, jointly released with the FBI, declining to release any further files on Epstein "speaks for itself".

The government's findings were made, according to the memo, after reviewing more than 300 gigabytes of data.

On Tuesday, House Democratic lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to force a vote on releasing Epstein files.

Republicans pointed out the administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, also had access to the files, but did not release them.

An employment tribunal involving a female nurse and a transgender doctor, which has become the latest front in the battle over gender policy, is resuming in Dundee.

Sandie Peggie was suspended from her role as a nurse with NHS Fife last year after she objected to Dr Beth Upton, who is a transgender woman, using a female changing room.

Ms Peggie claims her treatment was unlawful under the 2010 Equality Act and has brought a case against the health board and Dr Upton.

NHS Fife and the doctor are defending their actions – at a cost to the public purse so far of at least £220,000 – arguing that they complied with NHS policy.

Ms Peggie, who has worked at NHS Fife for more than 30 years, told the tribunal she had felt uncomfortable around Dr Upton in a changing room at Kirkcaldy's Victoria Hospital on three occasions between August and December 2023.

She said the issue came to a head on Christmas Eve when Dr Upton started to undress in front of her.

Ms Peggie told the tribunal she had felt "embarrassed and intimidated".

The pair then exchanged words - although the details of their conversation are disputed.

After the exchange, Dr Upton complained to NHS Fife about Ms Peggie's behaviour and the nurse was suspended on 3 January 2024.

In her evidence, Ms Peggie said she had "felt more shocked than anything" when she learned there was a complaint against her.

The board has described Ms Peggie's case as "unnecessary and vexatious" while Dr Upton has accused the nurse of bullying and harassment.

"I'm not interested in vengeance and I'm not interested in retribution – I'm interested in justice," the doctor told the tribunal.

"Trans people are not predators by nature of being themselves."

The tribunal sat for 10 days in February and was then adjourned until now.

A separate disciplinary hearing, which had also been scheduled for February, was postponed at the request of Ms Peggie's legal team.

In that case, the nurse is facing allegations – which she denies – of misconduct, failures of patient care and misgendering Dr Upton.

It is now reported to have taken place although the outcome has not been made public.

Supreme court ruling

The wider issue of gender has provoked years of debate in Scotland.

This includes arguments about the case of a transgender rapist known as Isla Bryson and an attempt by politicians in Edinburgh – ultimately blocked by Westminster – to make it easier to legally change gender.

A pivotal moment came in April when the UK Supreme Court clarified the law on gender, unanimously ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex under the Equality Act.

"The concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man," wrote the judges, adding that "the ordinary meaning of those plain and unambiguous words" was self-explanatory and required "no further explanation".

The 88-page judgment was a repudiation of the SNP's interpretation of the law.

The Scottish government responded that it had acted in good faith by arguing in court that trans women were women.

Ms Peggie has since called on NHS Fife to respond to the Supreme Court by acting immediately to "stop permitting any man who identifies as a woman" access to female-only spaces.

NHS Fife says work is underway to "identify areas where any adaptations may be required and schedule any work that may be necessary," as a result of the judgment.

It added that it was waiting to review a new code of practice expected to be issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which advises public bodies on the law.

In a statement, the EHRC said it was "currently working at pace" on the new advice but it added that organisations should "comply with the law" now by "looking at what changes, if any, need to be made to their policies and practices".

The Scottish government says it "accepts the Supreme Court ruling" adding that "detailed work that is necessary as a consequence" is ongoing.

It has been more than three years since a British official inadvertently leaked a dataset containing the names and contact details of thousands of people who were attempting to flee possible Taliban revenge attacks.

In April 2024, the government began relocating some of them to the UK - but we are only learning this now because extraordinary lengths were gone to in order to prevent the breach and subsequent response coming to light.

As the full picture is finally disclosed to the public, these are the questions still facing Britain's security establishment.

What can be done about the danger of leaks?

It has happened before and it will doubtless happen again.

Think Wikileaks, Snowden and all the countless cyber-hacks and ransomware suffered by companies on an almost daily basis.

Data leaks are not new but sometimes – and it is quite possible that this is one of those times – they can be life-threatening.

The revelations that have come to light will have sent a chill down the spine of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Afghans who fear retribution by the Taliban.

For those already spirited out to Britain, it means they can probably never go back home as long as the Taliban are in power.

For the 600 former Afghan government soldiers and their estimated 1,800 dependants still in Afghanistan, the news will mean they are unlikely to breathe easily until the UK delivers on its promise to get them safely out.

It's important to bear in mind that all this was not the result of some deliberate, sophisticated cyber attack by a state-backed hacking group.

It evolved from an unintentional mistake made by just one individual working for the Ministry of Defence.

What does this say about Britain's moral responsibility?

UK forces were deployed to Afghanistan, alongside US and Nato allies, over a period of almost 20 years, from October 2001 to August 2021.

During this time they worked closely with their Afghan government allies, relying heavily on their local knowledge and expertise.

The most sensitive area was in Special Forces (SF), for whom the Taliban reserved a particular hatred.

When Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in the summer of 202, there was a realisation that those now-former Afghan SF soldiers and their families were a priority for relocation to safety.

But thousands more Afghans also risked their lives to work with the British over those two decades.

Many did it out of patriotism, believing they were working to secure a better Afghanistan.

Some did it for the money, some did it because they trusted Britain to safeguard their lives and their personal details.

A data breach like this now threatens to undermine any future promises by a British official who says: "Trust us, your data is safe with us."

Was there a cover-up?

When this "unauthorised data breach" was finally discovered, a full 18 months after it occurred, the UK government obtained what is known as a super-injunction, preventing its publication by the media.

A super-injunction is so draconian that it means you cannot even report the fact that you cannot report it.

That measure has only just been lifted now, following an independent review.

There is a logical case to be made that this measure was necessary to protect the lives of those affected by the data breach.

However, questions are now being raised about whether the injunction - applied for by the previous, Conservative government - might also have been for political purposes.

The High Court judge who lifted the super-injunction, Mr Justice Chamberlain, said that it had "had the effect of completely shutting down the ordinary mechanisms of accountability which operate in a democracy".

It has been more than three years since a British official inadvertently leaked a dataset containing the names and contact details of thousands of people who were attempting to flee possible Taliban revenge attacks.

In April 2024, the government began relocating some of them to the UK - but we are only learning this now because extraordinary lengths were gone to in order to prevent the breach and subsequent response coming to light.

As the full picture is finally disclosed to the public, these are the questions still facing Britain's security establishment.

What can be done about the danger of leaks?

It has happened before and it will doubtless happen again.

Think Wikileaks, Snowden and all the countless cyber-hacks and ransomware suffered by companies on an almost daily basis.

Data leaks are not new but sometimes – and it is quite possible that this is one of those times – they can be life-threatening.

The revelations that have come to light will have sent a chill down the spine of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Afghans who fear retribution by the Taliban.

For those already spirited out to Britain, it means they can probably never go back home as long as the Taliban are in power.

For the 600 former Afghan government soldiers and their estimated 1,800 dependants still in Afghanistan, the news will mean they are unlikely to breathe easily until the UK delivers on its promise to get them safely out.

It's important to bear in mind that all this was not the result of some deliberate, sophisticated cyber attack by a state-backed hacking group.

It evolved from an unintentional mistake made by just one individual working for the Ministry of Defence.

What does this say about Britain's moral responsibility?

UK forces were deployed to Afghanistan, alongside US and Nato allies, over a period of almost 20 years, from October 2001 to August 2021.

During this time they worked closely with their Afghan government allies, relying heavily on their local knowledge and expertise.

The most sensitive area was in Special Forces (SF), for whom the Taliban reserved a particular hatred.

When Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in the summer of 202, there was a realisation that those now-former Afghan SF soldiers and their families were a priority for relocation to safety.

But thousands more Afghans also risked their lives to work with the British over those two decades.

Many did it out of patriotism, believing they were working to secure a better Afghanistan.

Some did it for the money, some did it because they trusted Britain to safeguard their lives and their personal details.

A data breach like this now threatens to undermine any future promises by a British official who says: "Trust us, your data is safe with us."

Was there a cover-up?

When this "unauthorised data breach" was finally discovered, a full 18 months after it occurred, the UK government obtained what is known as a super-injunction, preventing its publication by the media.

A super-injunction is so draconian that it means you cannot even report the fact that you cannot report it.

That measure has only just been lifted now, following an independent review.

There is a logical case to be made that this measure was necessary to protect the lives of those affected by the data breach.

However, questions are now being raised about whether the injunction - applied for by the previous, Conservative government - might also have been for political purposes.

The High Court judge who lifted the super-injunction, Mr Justice Chamberlain, said that it had "had the effect of completely shutting down the ordinary mechanisms of accountability which operate in a democracy".

US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson has called for the justice department to release all its files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a split with President Donald Trump, who has sought to draw a line under the matter.

"We should put everything out there and let the people decide," Johnson, an ally of the president, said in an interview.

It came as Trump said Attorney General Pam Bondi should release "whatever she thinks is credible" on Epstein. At the weekend, the president urged supporters not to "waste time and energy" on the controversy.

Bondi is under fire after she said last week there was no evidence Epstein kept a "client list" or was blackmailing powerful figures.

Convicted paedophile Epstein's 2019 death in a US prison while awaiting federal trial was ruled to be a suicide, but many in Trump's Make America Great Again (Maga) movement suspect a cover-up.

Asked about the Epstein files on Tuesday by US conservative commentator Benny Johnson, Speaker Johnson said he was in favour of "transparency".

The Republican congressman from Louisiana added that he trusted President Trump and his team, and that the White House was privy to facts that he did not know.

But he said Bondi "needs to come forward and explain it to everybody".

• Trump defends US Attorney General Pam Bondi over Epstein files
• Who was Jeffrey Epstein?

Trump is facing a rare backlash from his staunchly loyal political base over their theories that details of Epstein's crimes are being withheld in order to protect influential figures, or intelligence agencies.

On Tuesday, he praised his attorney general's handling of the matter, saying: "She's handled it very well, and it's going to be up to her. Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release."

Last week the president vented frustration in the Oval Office about his supporters' fixation on Epstein and implored them to move on.

But other Republican allies of the president are not letting go of the matter.

Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene told Benny Johnson in a separate interview on Tuesday: "I fully support transparency on this issue."

She praised Bondi's work as attorney general, but said that leaders and elected officials should keep their promises to voters. President Trump had previously pledged to release all details of the Epstein investigation.

Another conservative Republican, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, said if more Epstein files were not released, a special counsel should be appointed to investigate the financier's crimes.

Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said the voters expect more accountability.

"I think it's perfectly understandable that the American people would like to know who he [Epstein] trafficked those women to and why they weren't prosecuted," Kennedy told NBC News.

But other influential Republicans – including Senator John Thune and congressman Jim Jordan – deferred to President Trump on the matter.

At an unrelated news conference on fentanyl on Tuesday, Bondi brushed aside questions about the controversy.

"Nothing about Epstein," she told reporters. "I'm not going to talk about Epstein."

She said last week's memo by the Department of Justice, jointly released with the FBI, declining to release any further files on Epstein "speaks for itself".

The government's findings were made, according to the memo, after reviewing more than 300 gigabytes of data.

On Tuesday, House Democratic lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to force a vote on releasing Epstein files.

Republicans pointed out the administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, also had access to the files, but did not release them.

Physician associates (PAs) and anaesthesia associates (AAs), who assist doctors in GP surgeries and hospitals, should be known as "assistants" to avoid confusing patients, an independent review says.

The review recommends PAs and AAs wear standardised clothing and badges to distinguish them from doctors, and that they should not diagnose patients.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced the review last year, following a heated debate over the roles and responsibilities of the healthcare positions.

The doctor's union, the BMA, says the review should have gone further.

Review author Prof Gillian Leng talked to doctors, patients and the public to collect evidence on the safety and effectiveness of the roles of PAs and AAs.

She said a clear vision "was largely missing" when they were introduced in 2000 and there was no national plan for how the new roles would fit into existing teams, resulting in growing "confusion about the roles' purpose and remit".

"Where capacity was limited in local services, gaps in medical posts were sometimes covered by PAs, without taking into account their more limited training or ensuring that supervisors had the necessary understanding of the roles and the time and skills required to provide appropriate oversight," Prof Leng added.

She also listened to families of relatives who died after being treated by PAs, believing them to be qualified doctors.

Emily Chesterton was told the calf pain she was experiencing in October 2022 was a sprain but it was in fact a blood clot. She died, aged 30, after being seen twice by a physician associate.

Susan Pollitt, 77, was being treated by a PA in hospital two years ago after a pump was left in her stomach for 15 hours longer than it should have been. She died from an infection two days later.

Her daughter Kate says the family have never blamed the PA involved but want more clarity.

"As a family, when you've got someone in hospital, you don't think straight because you're just worried about your relative," she says.

"Even though people are telling you who they are, you're not registering it. So I do think it needs to be made clear, with the uniform and the badges and the name. So we do welcome that," Kate says.

In other cases, patients said they were satisfied after seeing a PA and felt listened to, the review says.

The review recommends physician associates should:

• be renamed "physician assistants" to reflect their supportive role in medical teams
• not see new patients in primary or emergency care or make a diagnosis
• have at least two years' hospital experience before working in a GP surgery or mental health trust
• be part of a team led by a senior doctor
• wear badges, lanyards and clothing to set them apart from doctors

Anaesthesia associates should be renamed "physician assistants in anaesthesia" or PAAs.

In addition, patients should be given clear information about the role of a PA and there should be a faculty to represent PAs and set standards for training.

Physician associates (PAs) and anaesthesia associates (AAs) were introduced into the NHS in the early 2000s to ease doctors' workload.

As their numbers grew, concerns were raised about the safety of the roles, the lack of clarity around their responsibilities and the impact they had on junior medics' work and training.

PAs are not authorised to prescribe medication but they can order certain scans, take medical histories and conduct physical examinations.

Anaesthesia associates (AAs) support surgery teams and are a much smaller group.

There are now more than 3,000 PAs and AAs in England but the NHS workforce plan envisages that increasing to 12,000 by 2036.

Both PAs and AAs have to complete a two-year postgraduate course. To be eligible they need to have either a science-related undergraduate degree or be a registered healthcare professional already.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said there was a growing campaign against their use, fuelled by unsubstantiated claims on social media. It requested an independent review to set out the jobs they can safely do.

PAs and AAs have been regulated by the General Medical Council, the body which also regulates doctors, since December 2024.

Doctors' training takes many years longer, and anti-social hours and exams are a regular occurrence.

The British Medical Association has said PAs and AAs were being asked to do tasks they were not meant to do and the lines with doctors were getting blurred.

Dr Emma Runswick, from the BMA, says the name change to physician assistants is "positive" but doctors haven't got everything they wanted and more still needs to be done.

"Patients can know who they are seeing, but it does not make the key changes that we are looking for in terms of setting out what they can and cannot do."

"But we would be a fool to say that it wasn't some progress."

Dr Hilary Williams, incoming vice president of the Royal College of Physicians, said the review was "thoughtful" and "thorough", and showed that "reform is urgently needed" to ensure safe teamworking in the NHS.

Israel says it has bombed Syrian government forces around Suweida, as they entered the predominantly Druze city following two days of deadly clashes between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes.

About 100 people have reportedly been killed since the fighting erupted on Sunday.

Syria's defence minister announced a ceasefire in Suweida on Tuesday morning, saying an agreement had been reached with local dignitaries for security forces to deploy there. However, one Druze spiritual leader urged local fighters to resist.

Later, Israel's prime minister said he had ordered strikes on forces and weapons in the Suweida area because the government "intended to use [them] against the Druze".

Benjamin Netanyahu said he was committed to preventing harm to the Druze in Syria because of their deep ties to those living in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

This is the first time that Syrian government forces have been deployed to Suweida since Islamist-led rebel forces overthrew President Bashar al-Assad in December.

Minority communities are suspicious of the country's new leaders despite their pledges to protect them, and until now the province of Suweida had remained largely under the control of Druze militias which resisted calls to join the government's forces.

More than 150 farms in England have been caught illegally taking too much water from rivers, lakes and underground sources, a BBC analysis reveals.

Since mid-2022 there have been nearly 200 breaches of permits allowing farmers to use water from local sources, according to Environment Agency data obtained through a freedom of information request.

Of these incidents, 141 threatened environmental damage - but just one farmer has been prosecuted.

The Environment Agency said in response that it carried out 3,000 licence inspections each year, with prosecution a "last option for persistent offenders".

River campaigners said the breaches of so-called abstraction licenses were "the tip of the iceberg" and England's current enforcement system had "no deterrent effect".

The violations date from the beginning of the record-breaking hot spell of 2022, which put pressure on water supply, to this spring, which has been the UK's sixth driest spring since records began in 1836.

The National Farmers' Union (NFU) has been approached for comment by the BBC.

In England, water is abstracted by water companies for public supply, by industry and for use in electricity generation, such as power station cooling.

But agriculture often needs large volumes from local sources for irrigation, particularly for water-intensive crops like potatoes in prolonged dry spells.

Over-abstraction of water, particularly during a drought, can severely impact river levels and adversely affect fish and other wildlife and their habitats as well as intensify pollution levels.

Under the Water Resources Act 1991, the licensing system is in place to control how much water is taken and a licence is needed by anyone taking more than 20,000 litres a day.

'No deterrent effect'

The Environment Agency inspects and monitors farms for any licence breach, which can be a prosecutable offence.

Using a request under the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR), BBC News found that, of the 199 breaches committed by 154 farms between 2022 and June this year, 141 incidents were category one, two or three breaches, all classed as having a foreseeable impact on "human health, quality of life or the environment".

But only one farmer was prosecuted and one was given a fine as a civil sanction while 137 were simply given warnings or advice and no action was taken against three.

There are currently 12 ongoing investigations.

Ten farms breached their licences during the first five months of this year.

A further four farms were found to be abstracting water without the necessary licence at all.

The figures come after a report last week by green watchdog The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) found that some licence-holders would only be inspected once in 20 years and, in 2023/24, 84% of licences were not being inspected.

Dr Justin Neal, from the river campaign group Wildfish, said the number of farm over-abstractors uncovered was "the tip of the iceberg".

"With a minimal risk of being caught and few prosecutions, there is absolutely no deterrent effect.

"That means taking too much water is now an acceptable occupational risk," he explained.

He added that the exemption that allows farmers to take up to 20,000 litres a day without a licence meant no-one could be sure how much water was being abstracted by farms across England.

Wildfish is now calling for more inspections and a new enforcement strategy with less focus on advice and greater use of "suitable sanctions" for those who break the law.

'Proportionate approach'

The Environment Agency said it would be improving inspections using technology such as satellite monitoring to detect how much water is being put on fields and crops, and making better use of intelligence to identify the highest risk abstraction.

A spokeswoman for the Agency said that it took its role as a regulator of how the country's water resources are used "extremely seriously".

"If sites are found to breach their abstraction licence, we take an advice-led and proportionate approach with prosecution as a last option for persistent offenders," she added.

Last month, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) announced the number of farm inspections would increase to 6,000 a year by 2029.

In June, the Environment Agency also published its five-year National Framework for Water Resources, which sets how water companies, farms, businesses and the public should best manage water usage into the future.

It set out plans to make all water abstraction environmentally sustainable, with particularly sensitive areas, such as chalk streams, given greater protection.

It recognised the impact of water shortages on food production but said it would work with farmers to identify how they can become more resilient by sharing water resources and building jointly-owned reservoirs.

It's a makeover on a massive scale - it involves moving 1,300 plants, replacing 16,000 panes of glass and cleaning up hundreds of tonnes of iron.

This is the ambitious £50m plan to renovate the world-famous Palm House, which sits at the heart of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.

The hot and humid conditions inside have taken their toll on the building, which opened in 1848 and houses a tropical rainforest.

Kew will also use the refurbishment – which will see the glass house closed for five years from 2027 – to reduce emissions from the Palm House to net zero.

The planning permission for the project has now been submitted, and some of the plants that make up the indoor tropical rainforest have started to be relocated.

"This is probably the plant that I worry about moving the most," says Thomas Pickering, head of glasshouses.

He's standing next to one of Kew's most precious specimens: a plant called Encephalartos altensteinii, which is a type of cycad.

It's growing in a pot, and at 250 years old, it's older than the Palm House itself. It's also enormous - weighing more than a tonne and standing about 4m tall.

"It's the sheer size of it. It has a huge weight in that root ball, but also this incredibly long stem, which is very old because they're incredibly slow-growing plants," says Pickering.

The horticulturists will use scaffolds, supports and braces to protect the plant when the time comes for it to be moved. Other plants, that are a bit easier to shift, have already been taken to a temporary greenhouse.

"It's going to be a long term project," explains Pickering.

"And over the next two years, it's going to be a process of selecting which plants we need to containerize (place in pots) and keep, which ones we need to propagate - and also some of the plants will be felled because we won't be able to move them."

The Palm House was built more than 175 years ago and was a wonder of the Victorian age.

No-one had ever constructed a glass house on that scale before and the engineers borrowed techniques from the shipping industry to build the huge structure.

It was last renovated in the 1980s, but now the iron is heavily rusting in places, so it will be stripped back to the bare metal work, repaired and repainted.

All of the thousands of single glazed panes of glass will be replaced and tests are underway to find the best type of glass to provide maximum insulation.

Maintaining the Palm House's temperature at 21C uses a lot of energy, but now gas boilers will be replaced with air source and water source heat pumps.

"This is an incredibly challenging building to make net zero," said Rachel Purdon, head of sustainability at Kew.

"We can do a huge amount with things like sealing the glass and improving the heating systems to massively reduce the carbon footprint and improve the sustainability of the Palm House without impacting the aesthetics."

The Water Lily House, which is located next to the Palm House, will also be made over as part of the renovation. The public will still be able to visit both for the next two years before they're closed for the works.

The team at Kew acknowledges this will be a big undertaking that will have a temporary impact on people coming to their botanic gardens. But they say the results will be worth it.

"The really important aspect of this is to try and ensure that the structure can last as long as possible, before we have to do another refurbishment," says Rachel Purdon.

Physician associates (PAs) and anaesthesia associates (AAs), who assist doctors in GP surgeries and hospitals, should be known as "assistants" to avoid confusing patients, an independent review says.

The review recommends PAs and AAs wear standardised clothing and badges to distinguish them from doctors, and that they should not diagnose patients.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced the review last year, following a heated debate over the roles and responsibilities of the healthcare positions.

The doctor's union, the BMA, says the review should have gone further.

Review author Prof Gillian Leng talked to doctors, patients and the public to collect evidence on the safety and effectiveness of the roles of PAs and AAs.

She said a clear vision "was largely missing" when they were introduced in 2000 and there was no national plan for how the new roles would fit into existing teams, resulting in growing "confusion about the roles' purpose and remit".

"Where capacity was limited in local services, gaps in medical posts were sometimes covered by PAs, without taking into account their more limited training or ensuring that supervisors had the necessary understanding of the roles and the time and skills required to provide appropriate oversight," Prof Leng added.

She also listened to families of relatives who died after being treated by PAs, believing them to be qualified doctors.

Emily Chesterton was told the calf pain she was experiencing in October 2022 was a sprain but it was in fact a blood clot. She died, aged 30, after being seen twice by a physician associate.

Susan Pollitt, 77, was being treated by a PA in hospital two years ago after a pump was left in her stomach for 15 hours longer than it should have been. She died from an infection two days later.

Her daughter Kate says the family have never blamed the PA involved but want more clarity.

"As a family, when you've got someone in hospital, you don't think straight because you're just worried about your relative," she says.

"Even though people are telling you who they are, you're not registering it. So I do think it needs to be made clear, with the uniform and the badges and the name. So we do welcome that," Kate says.

In other cases, patients said they were satisfied after seeing a PA and felt listened to, the review says.

The review recommends physician associates should:

• be renamed "physician assistants" to reflect their supportive role in medical teams
• not see new patients in primary or emergency care or make a diagnosis
• have at least two years' hospital experience before working in a GP surgery or mental health trust
• be part of a team led by a senior doctor
• wear badges, lanyards and clothing to set them apart from doctors

Anaesthesia associates should be renamed "physician assistants in anaesthesia" or PAAs.

In addition, patients should be given clear information about the role of a PA and there should be a faculty to represent PAs and set standards for training.

Physician associates (PAs) and anaesthesia associates (AAs) were introduced into the NHS in the early 2000s to ease doctors' workload.

As their numbers grew, concerns were raised about the safety of the roles, the lack of clarity around their responsibilities and the impact they had on junior medics' work and training.

PAs are not authorised to prescribe medication but they can order certain scans, take medical histories and conduct physical examinations.

Anaesthesia associates (AAs) support surgery teams and are a much smaller group.

There are now more than 3,000 PAs and AAs in England but the NHS workforce plan envisages that increasing to 12,000 by 2036.

Both PAs and AAs have to complete a two-year postgraduate course. To be eligible they need to have either a science-related undergraduate degree or be a registered healthcare professional already.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said there was a growing campaign against their use, fuelled by unsubstantiated claims on social media. It requested an independent review to set out the jobs they can safely do.

PAs and AAs have been regulated by the General Medical Council, the body which also regulates doctors, since December 2024.

Doctors' training takes many years longer, and anti-social hours and exams are a regular occurrence.

The British Medical Association has said PAs and AAs were being asked to do tasks they were not meant to do and the lines with doctors were getting blurred.

Dr Emma Runswick, from the BMA, says the name change to physician assistants is "positive" but doctors haven't got everything they wanted and more still needs to be done.

"Patients can know who they are seeing, but it does not make the key changes that we are looking for in terms of setting out what they can and cannot do."

"But we would be a fool to say that it wasn't some progress."

Dr Hilary Williams, incoming vice president of the Royal College of Physicians, said the review was "thoughtful" and "thorough", and showed that "reform is urgently needed" to ensure safe teamworking in the NHS.

An advert by Trip drinks has been banned for making unauthorised claims it can "help you feel calm".

The ad for the drink, which includes cucumber, mint and magnesium also claimed it could help or reduce stress and anxiety.

This was not in line with rules on marketing food or drink ingredients as having health benefits, the advertising watchdog's investigation found.

Trip said it had removed the claims while it awaited external advice but hoped to be in a position to make the claims in the future.

Trip drinks has tapped in to a burgeoning market for non-alcoholic drinks, advertising widely on social media and positioning itself as a brand that uses ingredients that, it claims, relax people.

It calls itself the "UK's No.1 CBD brand". CBD, short for cannabidiol, is an extract of the marijuana plant and is commonly advertised as a relaxant, though it does not induce a "high" like other compounds found in the plant.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld three complaints made against Trip's advert for its cucumber and mint flavoured drink. It appeared on its website in December with the words: "Try me in the morning to help find some calm before a long day, or take a Trip to unwind when work is over."

The ASA found the company made a host of claims about its "Mindful Blend" range having "viral ingredients", that were "calming". These included supplements Lion's Mane extract, L-theanine and ashwagandha.

The Great Britain nutrition and health claims register sets out which nutrition and health claims are permitted in adverts for food or supplements. These were not permitted, the ASA found.

Some of the language used in the advert, such as "crafted for calm" and "simply help you feel calm" would lead consumers to deduce that Trip drinks reduce anxiety, the ASA ruling said. These were implications that were prohibited by the GB register, it said.

The watchdog also found the advert's suggestion that the magnesium in the drink could reduce serum cortisol levels breached the code. Cortisol is commonly known as the stress hormone.

The ASA also found that Trip's claim of "0g added sugar" were inaccurate and therefore breached the ASA's codes of advertising.

The watchdog ruled that the ad must not appear again in the same form, and said it had told Trip not to make claims that its drinks could prevent, treat or cure human disease.

When the world-famous Sycamore Gap tree was illegally felled in September 2023, TV chef and Hairy Biker Si King was among those devastated by the wanton destruction. He was so angry he could not bring himself to visit the site again - until now.

He takes several deep breaths, steeling himself, then walks slowly up to the stump.

Inside the fence surrounding the remains of the sycamore, several green shoots are growing.

"Dear me," Si says simply, before turning away, too overwhelmed by the "big yawning gap" in the landscape.

"I've put off coming to see it, because I didn't want to," he says.

Si inspects the scars left by a chainsaw blade.

"Absolutely mindless," he adds.

On the morning of 28 September 2023, when news that the much-loved landmark had been felled spread globally, Si was among those expressing their fury.

"You've just murdered a sentinel of time and elemental spirit of Northumberland," he raged on social media. "For whatever warped reason you've done it, it's shocking."

The TV chef, best known as one half of the Hairy Bikers, had to postpone filming that day because of his "visceral reaction" to the news.

In his direct message to those responsible - a 44 second clip that's had almost two million views on X - he furiously ranted that he hoped they had a conscience.

Coming from the north-east of England, where the tree had grown for more than 100 years, Si knew its importance.

"There was a magic and majesty to it," he says, calling it an "absolute exclamation mark of who we are in this part of the world".

• Men jailed for felling 'irreplaceable' sycamore
• Listen to Felled: The Sycamore Gap story
• Watch The Sycamore Gap: From Roots to Ruin

Si had been sent the news of its felling in a text message by a close friend, who had come to cherish the tree following a personal tragedy.

He hoped she was mistaken, but links to news articles sent in follow-up messages brought the dreaded confirmation.

Such was his anger, he had to record his condemnation video several times because of the swearing in the original versions.

Following a third expletive-free attempt, he asked fellow Hairy Biker and best friend Dave Myers if it was acceptable to be shared with their one million followers on X.

"I was absolutely raging," Si says.

"That level of vandalism and brutal bitterness was beyond my comprehension.

"I can't comprehend the mindset that would just do that. I don't understand that character and personality. That was just plain nasty.

"It felt so personal."

That sentiment was shared by millions both in the UK and around the world.

Sycamore Gap was the scene of marriage proposals, wedding photographs and somewhere grieving families scattered ashes.

For Si, it was a "special place" that provided moments of "peace", "solace" and "counsel."

It was also somewhere he visited when "in crisis."

Five months after the tree was cut down, his on-screen partner and "best mate" Dave died at the age of 66, two years after revealing he had cancer.

Had the tree still been there, Si says he would have gone there to reflect on his loss, "given the year everybody involved with the Hairy Bikers has had".

However, with only the stump remaining, it was "too much" for him to visit in the immediate aftermath of Dave's death.

On one occasion he drove to the road adjacent to Sycamore Gap, but his emotions halted his return and he "looked away", unable to bring himself to stop his car.

It was only in June, after Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers, both from Cumbria, had been found guilty of chopping down the tree, that he says he felt ready to return, accompanied by a BBC film crew for the documentary The Sycamore Gap: From Roots to Ruin.

"It's quite difficult to put into words," he says, as he surveys the scene.

"I'm an emotional human being and it's sorely missed - tragically so."

Sycamore Gap had extra poignancy to Si because of another personal tragedy.

The close friend who had texted him on the day to say the tree had been cut down had lost her son when he was just 18.

Following the teenager's death, Sycamore Gap became a natural place for them to gather and grieve.

"The impact of that, because we were all very close, was enormous," Si says.

The peacefulness of Sycamore Gap was "of solace" to them all, so much so the tree was depicted on the young man's gravestone.

"Sycamore Gap is that important," Si says.

"It's not just a tree."

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Bradley Murdoch, the Australian man convicted of murdering British backpacker Peter Falconio in 2001, has died.

Murdoch, 67, was serving a life sentence at a prison in Alice Springs, in Australia's Northern Territory.

He was being treated at hospital in Alice Springs in recent weeks for terminal throat cancer.

The Northern Territory Department of Corrections told the BBC there had been a death of a man in custody.

In 2005, Murdoch was convicted of murdering Mr Falconio, but had never revealed the location of his body.

Mr Falconio was shot dead on a remote stretch of highway near the Northern Territory town of Barrow Creek, about 300km (186 miles) north of Alice Springs in July 2001.

The 28-year-old was travelling around Australia with his girlfriend, Joanne Lees, also from the UK, at the time.

Murdoch was also convicted of the attempted kidnap and assault of Ms Lees, who managed to escape by hiding in outback scrub for several hours before she was able to signal for help.

Murdoch was 43 when he committed the crimes.

The ordeal partly inspired the 2001 horror film Wolf Creek.

Last month police in Australia announced a new reward of up to A$500,000 (£240,000) for information leading to the discovery of the remains of the murdered British backpacker.

Acting Commander Mark Grieve of Northern Territory Police told a press conference in late June: "Police still hold out hope that someone might be able to provide some vital information to assist in this search."

"We recognise the passage of time that has transpired but it is never to late to reach out and start that conversation with police," Grieve said.

He said in that press conference police had "made numerous approaches" to Murdoch, including in June, but said that "unfortunately... on all occasions he has chosen not to engage with police".

Acting Commander Grieve said he wanted to "try and at least bring some sliver of resolution to Peter's family by bringing home his remains" - and said they had spoken to family about the reward.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on X to get the latest alerts.

Severance, The Penguin, and The White Lotus lead the nominations for this year's Emmy TV awards.

Britt Lower, Quinta Brunson, Harrison Ford and Jeremy Allen White are among the stars competing for the top prizes for acting.

The Studio, The Bear, Abbott Elementary and Shrinking are among the contenders in the comedy categories.

The best TV shows and actors of the past year will be honoured at the awards ceremony in Los Angeles on 14 September.

Here is the full list of nominees announced on Tuesday.

The most nominated shows

The most nominated shows

27 - Severance

24 - The Penguin

23 - The White Lotus

23 - The Studio

16 - The Last of Us

14 - Andor

14 - Hacks

Major categories

Outstanding drama series

• Andor (Disney+)
• The Diplomat (Netflix)
• The Last of Us (HBO Max)
• Paradise (Hulu)
• The Pitt (HBO Max)
• Severance (Apple TV+)
• Slow Horses (Apple TV+)
• The White Lotus (HBO Max)

Outstanding comedy series

• Abbott Elementary (ABC)
• The Bear (Hulu)
• Hacks (HBO Max)
• Nobody Wants This (Netflix)
• Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)
• Shrinking (Apple TV+)
• The Studio (Apple TV+)
• What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu)

Outstanding limited or anthology series

• Adolescence (Netflix)
• Black Mirror (Netflix)
• Dying for Sex (Hulu)
• Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (Netflix)
• The Penguin (HBO Max)

Outstanding lead actor in a drama series

• Sterling K Brown - Paradise (Hulu)
• Gary Oldman - Slow Horses (Apple TV+)
• Pedro Pascal - The Last of Us (HBO Max)
• Adam Scott - Severance (Apple TV+)
• Noah Wyle - The Pitt (HBO Max)

Outstanding lead actress in a drama series

• Kathy Bates - Matlock (CBS)
• Sharon Horgan - Bad Sisters (Apple TV+)
• Britt Lower - Severance (Apple TV+)
• Bella Ramsey - The Last of Us (HBO Max)
• Keri Russell - The Diplomat (Netflix)

Outstanding lead actor in a comedy series

• Adam Brody - Nobody Wants This (Netflix)
• Seth Rogen - The Studio (Apple TV+)
• Jason Segel - Shrinking (Apple TV+)
• Martin Short - Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)
• Jeremy Allen White - The Bear (Hulu)

Outstanding lead actress in a comedy series

• Uzo Aduba - The Residence (Netflix)
• Kristen Bell - Nobody Wants This (Netflix)
• Quinta Brunson - Abbott Elementary (ABC)
• Ayo Edebiri - The Bear (Hulu)
• Jean Smart - Hacks (HBO Max)

Outstanding lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie

• Colin Farrell - The Penguin (HBO Max)
• Stephen Graham - Adolescence (Netflix)
• Jake Gyllenhaal - Presumed Innocent (Apple TV+)
• Bryan Tyree Henry - Dope Thief (Apple TV+)
• Cooper Koch - Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (Netflix)

Outstanding lead actress in a limited or anthology series or movie

• Cate Blanchett - Disclaimer (Apple TV+)
• Meghan Fehy - Sirens (Netflix)
• Rashidah Jones - Black Mirror (Netflix)
• Cristin Milioti - The Penguin (HBO Max)
• Michelle Williams - Dying for Sex (Hulu)

Outstanding supporting actor in a drama series

• Zach Cherry - Severance (Apple TV+)
• Walton Goggins - The White Lotus (HBO Max)
• Jason Isaacs - The White Lotus (HBO Max)
• James Marsden - Paradise (Hulu)
• Sam Rockwell -The White Lotus (HBO Max)
• Tramell Tillman - Severance (Apple TV+)
• John Turturro - Severance (Apple TV+)

Outstanding supporting actress in a drama series

• Patricia Arquette - Severance (Apple TV+)
• Carrie Coon - The White Lotus (HBO Max)
• Katherine LaNasa - The Pitt (HBO Max)
• Julianne Nicholson - Paradise (Hulu)
• Parker Posey - The White Lotus (HBO Max)
• Natasha Rothwell - The White Lotus (HBO Max)
• Aimee Lou Wood - The White Lotus (HBO Max)

Outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series

• Ike Barinholtz - The Studio (Apple TV+)
• Colman Domingo - The Four Seasons (Netflix)
• Harrison Ford - Shrinking (Apple TV+)
• Jeff Hiller - Somebody Somewhere (HBO Max)
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach - The Bear (Hulu)
• Michael Urie - Shrinking (Apple TV+)
• Bowen Yang - Saturday Night Live (NBC)

Outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series

• Liza Colón-Zayas - The Bear (Hulu)
• Hannah Einbinder - Hacks (HBO Max)
• Kathryn Hahn - The Studio (Apple TV+)
• Janelle James - Abbott Elementary (ABC)
• Catherine O'Hara - The Studio (Apple TV+)
• Sheryl Lee Ralph - Abbott Elementary (ABC)
• Jessica Williams - Shrinking (Apple TV+)

Outstanding supporting actor in a limited or anthology series or movie

• Javier Bardem - Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story (Netflix)
• Bill Camp - Presumed Innocent (Apple TV+)
• Owen Cooper - Adolescence (Netflix)
• Rob Delaney - Dying For Sex (Hulu)
• Peter Sarsgaard - Presumed Innocent (Apple TV+)
• Ashley Walters - Adolescence (Netflix)

Outstanding supporting actress in a limited or anthology series or movie

• Erin Doherty - Adolescence (Netflix)
• Ruth Negga - Presumed Innocent (Apple TV+)
• Deirdre O'Connell - The Penguin (HBO Max)
• Chloë Sevigny - Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story (Netflix)
• Jenny Slate - Dying For Sex (Hulu)
• Christine Tremarco - Adolescence (Netflix)

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Outstanding talk series

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Counter-terror police have warned the activity of hostile states on British soil is posing a growing threat and urged families to watch for signs their children are being manipulated.

Teenagers, along with petty criminals and disillusioned people, may be more vulnerable to recruitment by Russia, Iran and China, they warned.

Hostile states are increasingly using proxies to carry out acts of sabotage and targeted violence in the UK, counter-terror police said, adding that investigating such activity now accounts for about 20% of their workload.

Parents and teachers should "be inquisitive" and "seek help" if they think a child is at risk, police advised.

Since the Salisbury poisonings in 2018 – which targeted Russian double agent Sergei Skripal – there has been a five-fold increase in police work to tackle hostile activity, commanders said.

"The breadth, complexity and volume of these operations has continued to grow at a rate that I'm not sure that us, or our partners internationally, or any intelligence community predicted," Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter-Terrorism Command, told reporters.

"We are increasingly seeing these three states, but not just these three states, undertaking threat to life operations in the United Kingdom."

The youngest person arrested or investigated on suspicion of involvement is aged in their "mid-teens", he added.

Vicki Evans, Counter Terrorism Policing's senior national co-ordinator, expressed concern other children may be encouraged online to carry out activities to earn money, without realising the implications of their actions.

"We really encourage people, parents, teachers, professionals just to be inquisitive," she said.

"If they're concerned, ask those questions, and if they think there's something they need to be concerned about, seek help and act, because we want to make sure that we're protecting people from inadvertently being drawn into this sort of activity."

The Metropolitan Police is now putting additional resources into tackling hostile state activity, with training for officers in "foreign interference" and hundreds taking part in recent exercises in how to respond.

"We're working with local force chiefs up and down the country to raise awareness and ensure that there really is an increased understanding about this threat," Ms Evans said.

Earlier this month, two low-level criminals were among five people convicted of involvement in an arson attack on a warehouse storing communications equipment for Ukraine.

Police said the attack had been ordered by Russia's Wagner group, and that one of the ringleaders, 21-year-old Dylan Earl, had been plotting to kidnap its owner, a Russian dissident.

The Met said it was also dealing with a "high volume" of threats from Iran, focused on those considered to be opponents of the Islamic Republic.

"We know that they are continuing to try and sow violence on the streets of the United Kingdom, they too are to some extent relying on criminal proxies to do that," Mr Murphy said.

The use of criminal proxies offers "arms-length deniability," according to Ms Evans, who blames the rising threat on the "continued erosion of the rule-based international order".

The warnings came in the first specific briefing for journalists from counter-terrorism police on the threat of hostile state activity.

"Foreign regimes are more willing than ever to undertake aggressive actions overseas," Ms Evans said.

Two gunshots.

That is how Yoo Seok-sul begins recounting the night of Friday, 26 October, 1979.

A former security guard in the Korea Central Intelligence Agency, or KCIA, as the South's spy division was known, Yoo has many stories to tell. But this is perhaps the most infamous.

He remembers the time - nearly 19:40 - and where he had been sitting - in the break room. He was resting after his shift guarding the entrance to the low-rise compound where President Park Chung-hee entertained his most trusted lieutenants. They called it the "safe house".

In his 70s now, wiry with sharp eyes, Yoo speaks hesitantly at first - but it comes back to him quickly. After the first shots, more gunfire followed, he says. The guards were on high alert but they waited outside for orders. The president's security detail was inside, along with the KCIA's top agents.

Then Yoo's boss, a KCIA officer who oversaw security for the safe house, stepped outside. "He came over and asked me to bury something in the garden." It was two guns, bullets and a pair of shoes. Flustered, Yoo followed orders, he says.

He did not know who had been shot, and he didn't ask.

"I never imagined that it was the president."

The guns Yoo buried were used to assassinate Park Chung-hee, who had ruled South Korea for the previous 18 years, longer than any president before or since. The man who shot him was his long-time friend Kim Jae-gyu, who ran the much-feared KCIA, a pillar of Park's dictatorship.

That Friday shook South Korea, ending Park Chung-hee's stifling rule and ushering in another decade under the military. Kim was executed for insurrection, along with five others.

Now, 46 years later, that night is back in the spotlight as a court retries Kim Jae-gyu to determine if his actions amounted to treason. He has remained a deeply polarising figure - some see him as a killer blinded by power and ambition, others as a patriot who sacrificed himself to set South Korea on the path to democracy. The president he killed is no less divisive, lauded for his country's economic rise and reviled for his authoritarian rule.

Kim's family fought for the retrial, arguing that he cannot be remembered as a traitor. They will now have their day in the Seoul High Court just as impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol goes on trial for the same charge that sent Kim to the gallows.

Yoon's martial law order last December was short-lived but it threw up questions about South Korean democracy - and that may influence how the country sees a man who shot dead a dictator he claimed was on the brink of unleashing carnage.

Was Kim trying to seize power for himself or to spark a revolution, as he claimed in court?

When news of the shooting broke in the morning, it sent shockwaves through South Korea. Initial reports called it "accidental".

What was left of Park's coterie tried to make sense of what had happened. Kim had been a close ally since Park seized power in a coup in 1961. They shared a hometown and had started out together at the military academy.

Veteran journalist Cho Gab-je acknowledges that Kim seemed uncomfortable with some of Park's actions, but "there's no record that Kim actually acted on those concerns, no evidence he released political prisoners, clashed with Park, or submitted formal objections".

Kim told the court he had thought about killing Park at least three times. But history shows he supported Park as he tightened his grip, abolishing direct presidential elections and term limits, allowing him to control the National Assembly and even suspend constitutional rights.

"My brother was never the kind of person who would commit such an act just to become president," insists his sister Kim Jung-sook, who is now 86.

But he ran the KCIA, which was notorious for jailing, torturing and even framing innocent students, dissidents and opposition figures with false charges.

"They tortured people, fabricated charges, and imprisoned them… and if you criticised that, you'd get arrested too," says Father Ham Se-woong, who was imprisoned twice in the 1970s for criticising the government.

Kim was not a saviour many could accept. But that is the mantle he took on, according to court transcripts that were not widely reported at the time. He told the judges he believed it was imperative to stop Park, whose ruthlessness could plunge South Korea into chaos and cost them a critical ally, the United States.

"I do not wish to beg for my life, as I have found a cause to die for," he said, although he asked the court to spare his men who followed his orders - "innocent sheep", he called them. He said he had hoped to pave the way for a peaceful transition of power, which had eluded his country so far.

On hearing about this back then, even a fierce critic like Father Ham tried launching a campaign for him. "He wanted to prevent further bloodshed. That's why we had to save him," he says.

Father Ham ended up in prison again for his efforts, as the trial became a sensitive subject. The country was under martial law. Days after the trial started - on December 12 - the man who led the investigation into the assassination, General Chun Doo-hwan, seized power in a coup.

Proceedings in the military court moved at lightning speed. On 20 December, it convicted Kim of trying to seize power through murder, and six others of aiding him. Yoo was sentenced to three years in prison for hiding the guns.

By 20 May the following year, Kim had lost his final appeal. Four days later he was hanged, along with three others. One was spared and another had been executed earlier. Kim died as the army brutally suppressed a pro-democracy uprising, killing 166 civilians in the city of Gwangju.

"I got the impression that Chun Doo-hwan was trying to quickly wrap up anything related to the previous regime in order to seize power for himself," says Kim Jung-sook.

She says she saw her brother just once through all this, a week before he was executed: "I think he sensed it might be the last time. So he bowed deeply to my mother as a goodbye."

Yoo survived but he says after he was free, he was followed for years: "I couldn't get a job. Even when I returned to my hometown, they kept tailing me. I couldn't say a word about the case." He now works as an attendant in a private parking lot outside Seoul.

Ms Kim says her family did not speak up until about 10 years ago. After South Korea became a democracy, Park's image recovered, improved by time and wealth. His daughter became president, often defending his legacy for its economic record.

It was her downfall - following massive protests over a corruption scandal - that threw open the door to revisit Kim Jae-gyu's conviction.

"This case should never have gone to a military court because the assassination happened before martial law was declared," says Lee Sang-hee, the lawyer in charge of his retrial. She adds that the "sloppy transcripts" would have influenced his appeal because the defence was not allowed to record the proceedings.

"When I reviewed the documents, I couldn't understand how he could be convicted of insurrection when there was such little evidence. And above all, there was torture," she says, which the court cited as a valid reason when it agreed in February to a retrial.

It accepted Kim's statement, which he submitted in his unsuccessful appeal in 1980, alleging "the investigators beat me indiscriminately and used electric torture by wrapping an EE8 phone line around my fingers".

Reports at the time alleged that Kim Jae-gyu's wife had been detained and tortured too, along with her brother-in-law and brothers, which officials at the time denied.

Now in her 90s, his wife has always been opposed to a retrial.

"She never talked about what she had gone through and trembles even now," Kim Jung-sook, the spy chief's sister, says.

Ms Kim is resolute in her defence of her brother, repeatedly emphasising that "he was a man of integrity".

"Because we believe that he did not kill the president and his security chief for personal gain, we have been able to endure all of this."

The security chief was Cha Ji-cheol, who had been growing closer to Park, and often clashed with Kim as the two men vied for the president's ear.

In the weeks before the assassination, they differed on how to deal with Kim Young-sam, an outspoken opposition leader who Park saw as a threat. In an interview with the New York Times, the opposition leader had called on the US to end Park's dictatorship. The National Assembly, controlled by Park, expelled him.

The decision kicked off huge protests in Kim Young-Sam's strongholds. Cha wanted to crush the uprising, while Kim Jae-gyu advised caution, which would also reassure a Washington that was growing impatient with Park's rule.

Kim told the court he warned against firing at protesters, which would only ignite anger - to which Cha said, "three million died in Cambodia, and nothing happened. If we kill one million demonstrators, we'll be fine".

That evening at the safe house, the public broadcaster reported that the US ambassador was going to meet Kim Young-sam.

An angry Park criticised Kim Jae-gyu for not arresting the opposition leader. When Kim pushed back, the court heard, Park retorted: "The agency should be feared, it should prosecute those who deserve it."

They sat across from each other, sipping Scotch and sharing a meal. Park sat between two women, a popular singer and a young model. Cha and Park's chief of staff were also there.

The terse exchanges continued, and mid-way through a love song, Kim Jae-gyu said, he pulled out the gun, aimed it at Park and told him he needed to change his politics: "Sir, you should approach things with a more magnanimous vision - so this is not just about you."

Turning to a shocked Cha, he cursed as he pulled the trigger, wounding him in the hand as Cha tried to block the shot. Then Kim fired into Park's chest. Outside, acting on his orders, KCIA agents shot dead the president's security detail - two were eating dinner, and two were on standby.

Kim tried shooting the president again, but the pistol malfunctioned. He ran out to one of his men, who gave him a revolver. Having returned, he killed Cha a fleeing Cha, walked towards Park, who was leaning against the model as he bled, and shot him in the head.

The two women left unharmed after being paid to keep quiet. The president's chief of staff was never targeted.

Kim then went to the next building, where the army chief he had summoned earlier was waiting. The men left in a car for KCIA headquarters.

It's likely he didn't argue with Kim - even a shoe-less, suspiciously rattled Kim was powerful, and his men guarded the compound. But en route he was persuaded to go to army headquarters, where he was arrested soon after midnight.

Kim told the court he had planned to use the army, perhaps even impose martial law, to complete the "revolution" and transition to democracy.

This is the crux of the retrial. The prosecution had argued it was a premeditated coup, while Kim claimed far loftier motives.

But sceptics point to the lack of planning. The gun that jammed was plucked from a safe before dinner, there were enough witnesses to derail the plot, and he did not seem to have a strategy for his "revolution". He did not even make it to the KCIA headquarters.

They say it may well have been an impulsive act of revenge by a man whose power was waning.

That's what the army general investigating the murders alleged two days later - Kim, second only to the president, had so much to lose as Park sidelined him in favour of Cha Ji-cheol.

The following month, he also charged Kim with attempting a coup.

"For a charge of insurrection to be proved, the accused must forcibly halt the function of constitutional institutions, but that didn't happen in this case," says lawyer Lee Sang-hee.

Unlike in impeached president Yoon's case - where the court will decide if he directed the military to block parliamentary proceedings - there is no evidence Kim Jae-gyu tried to seize control of state institutions, she argues.

For South Korea though, the retrial is more than that. Many see it as a defining moment to reflect on the trajectory of a democracy threatened just six months ago.

It is also an opportunity to re-evaluate Park Chung-hee, whose legacy some say is overstated. "His achievements were real, but so were his faults," says Kim Duol, an economics professor at Myungji University. "Would South Korea's growth have been possible without such an authoritarian regime?"

Kim's family hopes his retrial will shed a kinder light on his legacy. Killing Park was "a painful decision", Kim had told the court, but he had "shot at the heart of Yusin [the regime] with the heart of a wild beast".

Is that enough to make the former spy chief a hero? That is a question the court cannot answer.

The past weeks have put serious pressure on Tim Davie's leadership. Today, I saw that up close.

For a usually very slick performer, he looked shaken. I wanted to know if he had considered resigning in the face of the recent controversies. He said he had not, but admitted it had been "a very, very tough time".

Earlier Davie had launched the BBC's annual report on Zoom, with journalists remotely asking questions in the Q&A box and no cameras allowed into the room for us to record and use his answers.

We were considering making clear to our audiences that - on such an important day for the BBC - nobody from the top of the corporation was being put in front of a camera to be interviewed on a range of issues, which were both of public interest and specifically relevant to licence fee payers.

Hours later, Mr Davie agreed to a face-to-face interview, which took place just after it was announced that the BBC and Banijay UK were not renewing John Torode's contract as MasterChef presenter.

I usually interview the director general at times of crisis for the BBC. That's the way these things work. To be fair to him, he always makes it clear that my job is to ask him questions without fear or favour. He knows part of his job is to be held to account.

But it's been a very bumpy time, even by BBC standards. The Gaza documentary with a child narrator who later turned out to be the son of a Hamas official, another film about doctors in Gaza pulled before transmission, issues around the BBC livestreaming the punk duo Bob Vylan's set at Glastonbury and the growing controversy surrounding MasterChef - all land at his door.

His leadership has been called into question, not least recently by the culture secretary. She called it a "series of catastrophic failures".

'I felt pressure'

It was obvious today it had been taking its toll. As director general, he's insistent and wholehearted in his defence of the BBC and his role leading that. But as a man, you can sense the last weeks have been testing.

His interview style is to look straight at the person doing the interview. He usually measures his words carefully, although today, on a couple of points he was a little less fluent. Some of his answers - for example when he was talking about he and his team making "clear, strong decisions" in the face of challenges - sounded a bit rehearsed.

However, an unexpected by-product of him sounding less confident was that he also managed to sound, at times, more human. The last week has clearly left him frustrated and for once, he let that show. There was no hiding it when he said rather plainly: "I felt pressure".

It brings to mind the recent public debate about Rachel Reeves and her tears in the Commons. Whatever we think of the decisions made by those in public service, what impact does it have on them as people when they are under such intense scrutiny. Should that even matter?

But they don't call him Teflon Tim for nothing - and he survives, for the moment. Even if he is wounded.

The BBC today was signalling it is getting a grip on bad behaviour in the workplace. It's something Samir Shah, chairman of the BBC, promised after the Huw Edwards scandal.

Now Gregg Wallace is gone, John Torode is gone. Three staff members have been asked to "step back" from their roles after Glastonbury. And we've now learnt that several people have been sacked in light of the BBC's culture review.

The clear messaging: Teflon Tim and his team are getting tough.

It has been more than three years since a British official inadvertently leaked a dataset containing the names and contact details of thousands of people who were attempting to flee possible Taliban revenge attacks.

In April 2024, the government began relocating some of them to the UK - but we are only learning this now because extraordinary lengths were gone to in order to prevent the breach and subsequent response coming to light.

As the full picture is finally disclosed to the public, these are the questions still facing Britain's security establishment.

What can be done about the danger of leaks?

It has happened before and it will doubtless happen again.

Think Wikileaks, Snowden and all the countless cyber-hacks and ransomware suffered by companies on an almost daily basis.

Data leaks are not new but sometimes – and it is quite possible that this is one of those times – they can be life-threatening.

The revelations that have come to light will have sent a chill down the spine of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Afghans who fear retribution by the Taliban.

For those already spirited out to Britain, it means they can probably never go back home as long as the Taliban are in power.

For the 600 former Afghan government soldiers and their estimated 1,800 dependants still in Afghanistan, the news will mean they are unlikely to breathe easily until the UK delivers on its promise to get them safely out.

It's important to bear in mind that all this was not the result of some deliberate, sophisticated cyber attack by a state-backed hacking group.

It evolved from an unintentional mistake made by just one individual working for the Ministry of Defence.

What does this say about Britain's moral responsibility?

UK forces were deployed to Afghanistan, alongside US and Nato allies, over a period of almost 20 years, from October 2001 to August 2021.

During this time they worked closely with their Afghan government allies, relying heavily on their local knowledge and expertise.

The most sensitive area was in Special Forces (SF), for whom the Taliban reserved a particular hatred.

When Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in the summer of 202, there was a realisation that those now-former Afghan SF soldiers and their families were a priority for relocation to safety.

But thousands more Afghans also risked their lives to work with the British over those two decades.

Many did it out of patriotism, believing they were working to secure a better Afghanistan.

Some did it for the money, some did it because they trusted Britain to safeguard their lives and their personal details.

A data breach like this now threatens to undermine any future promises by a British official who says: "Trust us, your data is safe with us."

Was there a cover-up?

When this "unauthorised data breach" was finally discovered, a full 18 months after it occurred, the UK government obtained what is known as a super-injunction, preventing its publication by the media.

A super-injunction is so draconian that it means you cannot even report the fact that you cannot report it.

That measure has only just been lifted now, following an independent review.

There is a logical case to be made that this measure was necessary to protect the lives of those affected by the data breach.

However, questions are now being raised about whether the injunction - applied for by the previous, Conservative government - might also have been for political purposes.

The High Court judge who lifted the super-injunction, Mr Justice Chamberlain, said that it had "had the effect of completely shutting down the ordinary mechanisms of accountability which operate in a democracy".

The chancellor has told the financial industry it must change the "negative" narrative around savers investing money in stocks and shares in order to help grow the economy.

In a speech, Rachel Reeves said: "For too long, we have presented investment in too negative a light, quick to warn people of the risks without giving proper weight to the benefits."

The government is working with the financial regulator to provide support for would-be investors.

It comes as Reeves stepped back from cutting the tax-free limit on cash Individual Savings Accounts (Isas) after a backlash from lenders - she is keen to shift some of the £300bn in these accounts to being invested in the UK and its companies.

At the annual Mansion House dinner in the City of London, Reeves told business leaders: "Our tangled system of financial advice and guidance has meant that people cannot get the right support to make decisions for themselves."

She said the government is consulting with the Financial Conduct Authority "to introduce a brand-new type of targeted support for consumers ahead of the new financial year".

The government is under pressure to ignite growth after figures revealed the UK economy shrank in May following a contraction in April.

Meanwhile, U-turns on welfare benefits and the winter fuel allowance have stoked speculation there could be tax rises in the Budget later this year.

Reeves said the new measures would help "boost retail investment so that more savers can reap the benefits of UK economic success".

But the value of investments in assets such as shares can go down as well as up, and savers have tended to be cautious over the risks involved, although the spending power of savings can be eroded by rising prices.

The government has in the past encouraged the public to buy shares in UK companies, including in 2013 when Royal Mail was floated on the London Stock Exchange.

But perhaps the most famous example was in 1986, when the state-owned British Gas was privatised and Margaret Thatcher's government launched the "tell Sid" campaign. TV adverts featured characters urged each other to "tell Sid" about the chance to buy shares in British Gas.

In reference to her recent travails - including a tearful appearance in the House of Commons - Reeves said that during a visit to a school, a girl had asked her what job she would do if she could have any job in the world.

"Given the events of the last few weeks, I suspect many of you would sympathise if I had said "anything but chancellor"," she joked with the audience. "But I didn't."

In her speech, Reeves said she would "continue to consider further changes to ISAs, engaging widely over the coming months".

She also provided more details about changes to the UK's financial services sector including reforming regulation.

"In too many areas, regulation still acts as a boot on the neck of businesses," she said. "Choking off the enterprise and innovation that is the lifeblood of growth."

She said regulators in other sectors "must take up the call I make this evening not to bend to the temptation of excessive caution but to boldly regulate for growth in the service of prosperity across our country".