Seven people were killed when a UPS cargo plane crashed while taking off from an airport in Louisville, Kentucky on Tuesday evening, the state's governor said.

At least 11 other people were injured when the freight plane exploded as it departed Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport at around 17:15 local time (22:15 GMT), sending thick plumes of black smoke into the sky.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said the plane's three crew members were likely to be among the dead, adding that, "Anyone who has seen the images and the video knows how violent this crash is".

Officials warned that people suffered "very significant" injuries in the incident and the death toll could rise.

UPS flight 2976 bound for Honolulu, Hawaii was carrying 38,000 gallons (144,000 litres) of fuel when it skidded off the runway in Louisville and struck nearby buildings.

The explosion engulfed at least two nearby businesses, including a petroleum recycling company. A shelter-in-place order was initially issued for within five miles of the airport due to concerns of further explosions and air pollution, but was later reduced to just one mile.

All departing flights for Tuesday evening were cancelled, the airport said in a statement on X.

Louisville Fire Dept Chief Brian O'Neill said the fire has almost entirely been contained, with crews still deployed at the crash site.

"When you have such a large scale incident and fire that spread over such a massive area, we have to use hundreds of personnel to surround it, contain it, and then slowly bring it in," O'Neill said.

He added: "These are trained firefighters from all around the region that are handling this to search, grid by grid, very carefully to make sure if we can find any other victims."

At a press conference, Beshear warned people not to go to the crash site, saying that, "There are still dangerous things that are flammable, that are potentially explosive."

Beshear said he would not "speculate" as to what caused the incident, adding that the National Transportation Safety Bureau (NTSB) would be leading the investigation.

The NTSB's investigative team is scheduled to arrive in Kentucky on Wednesday.

Louisville Metro Police Dept Chief Paul Humphrey said that the crash site will be "an ongoing active scene for the next several days".

He added: "We don't know how long it's going to take to render that scene safe for the investigation to take place."

The aircraft was a MD-11F, a triple-engine jet that started service 34 years ago with Thai Airways as a passenger jet, but was transferred to UPS in 2006.

The MD-11F was originally manufactured by McDonnell Douglas, which merged with Boeing in 1997.

MD-11s are just over 61 metres long and have a wingspan of 52 metres, smaller than Boeing 747s , which are roughly 76 metres long and have a wingspan of 68 metres.

In 2023, FedEx and UPS both announced plans to begin retiring their fleets of MD-11s over the next decade as part of plans to modernise their fleets.

In a statement, Boeing said it is "ready to support our customer" and that "our concern is for the safety and well-being of all those affected."

It added that it will offer technical assistance to the NTSB.

Louisville is home to UPS Worldport, a global hub for the delivery firm's air cargo operations and its largest package handling facility in the world.

During the press conference, Louisville Metro Council member Betsy Ruhe said that the city is a "UPS town", and that every resident would know somebody who works for company.

"They're all texting their friends, their family, trying to make sure everyone is safe," she said.

In a statement, UPS said it was "terribly saddened" by the incident and would be halting package sorting operations at Worldport on Tuesday night.

It added: "UPS is committed to the safety of our employees, and customers and the communities we serve. This is particularly true in Louisville, home to our airline and thousands of UPSers."

State Senator Keturah Herron said, "Many of us watch our family members and loved ones pass through [Louisville airport] on a regular basis."

In a post on X, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said that the plane crash is an "incredible tragedy that our community will never forget".

He added: "We are so thankful for our brave first responders who have flooded the scene to help try and control the fire and provide support for any victims on the ground."

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At least seven people have been killed after a cargo plane ran off the runway and burst into flames in Kentucky on Tuesday.

The burning aircraft, which was operated by the American delivery company UPS, struck several buildings when it crashed mid-takeoff. Officials fear the number of dead and injured could rise.

Here is everything we know so far.

Where did the crash happen and what was hit?

UPS flight 2976, a cargo plane, crashed during takeoff at Louisville International Airport at around 17:15 local time on Tuesday, skidding off the runway and striking nearby buildings.

The aircraft burst into flames and at least two nearby businesses were hit by the wreckage, the state's governor Andy Beshear has said.

Kentucky Petroleum Recycling was struck "pretty directly", Beshear said, with a second business - Grade A Auto Parts - also impacted.

Unverified footage of the incident shows the plane was already engulfed in flames when it careered off the runway.

The flames spread to several buildings close to the runway and officials launched a major operation to halt the blaze from spreading further.

Nearby residents were ordered to stay inside over fears of further explosions and air pollution. The airport is located in Kentucky's biggest city and several neighbourhoods and business districts surround it.

All operations at the airport have been halted.

How many people have been killed or injured?

Officials have confirmed seven deaths so far but have warned that number is expected to rise.

It is unclear whether that death toll includes the three crew members who were onboard the plane and are feared dead.

Eleven other people are have been injured and are being treated in hospital - but local officials say that figure is also likely to rise.

The head of the local fire service said he was not aware of anyone being trapped in nearby buildings but said searches were still ongoing.

Two workers at the auto business that was struck were still unaccounted for as of Tuesday evening, and it is not known how many customers were on the premises when the crash happened.

What caused the crash?

A preliminary investigation is under way but officials have said it is too early to say what caused the crash.

Officials did note, though, that the massive blaze was due to the amount of fuel onboard the aircraft, which was beginning a journey of around 4,300 miles (6,920km) to Hawaii.

The aircraft was carrying 38,000 gallons (144,000 litres) of fuel when it crashed.

It has not been confirmed what cargo was on board, though officials have said the plane was not carrying anything that would create a heightened risk of contamination.

Louisville Fire Department chief Brian O'Neal said the amount of fuel spilled at the crash site made it a "very dangerous situation".

An order warning people to shelter in place was reduced from a five-mile radius from the airport to a one-mile radius as crews worked to contain the blaze on Tuesday night.

The model of aircraft involved was a MD-11F large triple-engine plane, which first entered service 34 years ago.

Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York City, is notable in many ways. He will become the city's youngest mayor since 1892, its first Muslim mayor and its first mayor born in Africa.

He entered the race last year with next to no name recognition, little money and no institutional party support.

That alone makes his victory over former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Silwa remarkable.

But more than that, he represents the kind of politician that many in the Democratic Party's left have been seeking for years.

He is young and charismatic, with his generation's natural comfort with social media.

His ethnicity reflects the diversity of the party's base. He hasn't shied away from a political fight and has proudly espoused left-wing causes - such as free childcare, expanded public transportation and government intervention in free market systems.

Mamdani has also shown a laser-like ability to focus on the kind of core economic issues that have been a priority for working-class voters who have drifted from the Democratic Party recently, but he hasn't disavowed the left's cultural principles.

But critics have warned that such a candidate is unelectable in broad swathes of America - and Republicans have gleefully held the self-avowed democratic socialist up as the far-left face of the Democratic Party. Still, on Tuesday night in New York City, he was a winner.

• Follow live updates
• Democrat Spanberger wins race for Virginia governor

By running against and defeating Cuomo, a former New York governor who is himself the son of a governor, he has vanquished the entrenched Democratic establishment viewed by many on the left as woefully out of touch with their party and their nation.

Because of this, Mamdani's campaign for mayor has generated voluminous media attention, perhaps more than a municipal election, even one for America's largest city, deserves.

It also means that, as mayor, his successes - and failures - will be closely scrutinised.

Twelve years ago, Democrat Bill de Blasio won his race for mayor on a platform of addressing New York City's economic and social inequalities. Like Mamdani, Americans on the left had high hopes that his administration would provide a national example of effective liberal governance.

De Blasio, however, departed office eight years later widely unpopular and with a mixed record of achievements as he struggled with the limits of his mayoral power to implement new policies.

Mamdani will have to grapple with those same limits - and those same expectations.

• Mamdani: From rank outsider to New York mayor
• Trump says it would be 'hard' to fund New York if Mamdani wins
• Who is Zohran Mamdani?

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a fellow Democrat, has already said she opposed raising the kind of taxes necessary to fund Mamdami's ambitious agenda.

And even with sufficient funding, Mamdani would not be able to implement programmes unilaterally.

He campaigned as a sharp critic of the corporate and business elite that call New York City their home, and have made Manhattan the financial capital of the world. To effectively govern, he will probably have to make some form of peace with those interests, however - a process he has already begun in recent weeks.

He has also condemned Israel conduct during the Gaza War and pledged to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal if he sets foot in New York City, a promise that could be tested at some point during his term.

All those are problems for a later date, however. For now, Mamdani will need to set about the task of defining himself on the public stage - before his opponents do.

While his campaign has generated national attention, he is still a blank slate for much of America.

A recent CBS poll indicated that 46% of the American public were following the New York mayoral election "not closely at all". That provides both an opportunity and a challenge for Mamdani and the American left.

Conservatives from President Donald Trump down will be trying to paint the newly elected mayor as a socialist menace, whose policies and priorities will bring ruin to America's largest city and present a danger if embraced by the nation as a whole.

They will amplify every stumble and highlight every negative economic indicator or crime statistic.

Trump, who has a personal connection to New York, is sure to welcome a political tussle with Mamdani and he has a wealth of ways to complicate life for the new mayor.

He will also be pressed to win over Democratic leaders, like New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who never backed his campaign.

The opportunity for Mamdani, however, is that he is not burdened by his past, which his political opponents unsuccessfully tried to wield against him during the campaign.

When he is inaugurated in January, he will have the chance to build his political reputation from scratch. And if Trump does feud with him, he will only give Mamdani a larger platform on which to work.

His political talent and abilities have gotten him this far, which is no small feat. But that is nothing compared to the tests that await him in the years ahead.

Hamas has handed over to the Red Cross in northern Gaza a coffin containing what the Palestinian group says is the body of a deceased hostage, according to the Israeli military.

The remains will be transferred to Israeli forces, who will take them to the National Centre of Foreign Medicine in Tel Aviv for identification.

Earlier, Hamas's armed wing said it had recovered the body of an Israeli soldier in the eastern Shejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City.

Israel had allowed members of the group and Red Cross staff to search for the remains in the area, which is inside territory still controlled by Israeli forces.

The Israeli government has accused Hamas of deliberately delaying the recovery of the dead hostages since a ceasefire deal took effect more than three weeks ago.

Hamas has insisted it is difficult to locate the bodies under rubble.

Under the US-brokered ceasefire deal that took effect on 10 October, Hamas agreed to return the 20 living and 28 dead hostages it was still holding within 72 hours.

All the living Israeli hostages were released on 13 October in exchange for 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

Israel has handed over the bodies of 270 Palestinians in exchange for the bodies of the 18 Israeli hostages returned by Hamas before Tuesday, along with those of two foreign hostages - one of them Thai and the other Nepalese.

Six of the eight dead hostages still in Gaza before Tuesday were Israelis, one was Tanzanian, and one was Thai.

All but one of the dead hostages still in Gaza were among the 251 people abducted during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, during which about 1,200 other people were killed.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 68,800 people have been killed, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Earlier on Tuesday, a hospital official in Gaza City said a man was killed by Israeli fire in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza.

The Israeli military said its troops killed a "terrorist" who had crossed the "Yellow Line", which demarcates Israeli-controlled territory, and posed a threat to them.

Democrat Abigail Spanberger has been projected as winning the race for Virginia governor after a closely-watched election which her party hoped could signal a national trend.

The former congresswoman and CIA officer defeated the state's Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, CBS News reported.

Virginia's leadership usually swings between Democrats and Republicans, meaning the outcome might serve as a bellwether for the electorate's mood going into next year's midterm elections.

High-profile races are also taking place on Tuesday in New York City, which is poised to possibly elect its first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and New Jersey, which is also choosing a new governor.

Even though his name is not on the ballot, the elections happening around the US on Tuesday are being viewed as a referendum on President Donald Trump's policies. This was particularly true in Virginia, home to the Pentagon and many federal workers who have been affected by Trump's sweeping spending cuts.

• Follow live coverage here

Spanberger, a former CIA officer and three-term congresswoman, who campaigned alongside former President Barack Obama last weekend, will become the first woman to lead the state.

"Tonight, we sent a message to the whole world," the Democrat told supporters at a victory party on Tuesday night.

She declared that her state "chose pragmatism over partisanship and "our commonwealth over chaos." Spanberger added that her victory "can set an example for the rest of the nation".

She will take over after four years under Republican Glenn Youngkin.

Virginia is bordered by the liberal-leaning Washington DC to the north, where many residents work in the nation's capital or for the federal government. But the state also has large pockets of conservative voters throughout its rural districts, and swing voters.

Spanberger had highlighted the economic impact of Trump's cuts to the federal government, which have impacted Virginia's employment, and ran on a platform of increasing affordability.

Fellow Democrat Ghazala Hashmi was also projected to win Virginia's lieutenant governor's race against Republican John Reid. The governor and lieutenant governor do not run on a joint ticket in the state.

Hashmi's victory made her the first Muslim woman elected statewide office in the US.

The Democratic National Committee hailed Spanberger's victory as "a resounding rejection of the self-serving and corrupt Trump establishment".

"It's time for Republicans to cherish their short time in power — because Democrats are going to keep winning, and we have a vision for this country that's a lot bigger than building a ballroom," said DNC chair Ken Martin.

Republican Earle-Sears touted Virginia's economy under conservative leadership and leaned into cultural topics like transgender issues, which Republicans used successfully as a wedge issue in last year's presidential election.

Trump had not formally endorsed Earle-Sears, although he encouraged Virginia voters to back all the Republican candidates up for election.

In a telephone rally on Monday to drum up support, Trump repeatedly praised the candidate for New Jersey governor but never mentioned Earle-Sears by name, according to US media.

Trump and Earle-Sears have a complicated relationship, after she declined to support his 2024 election campaign.

"A true leader understands when they have become a liability. A true leader understands that it's time to step off the stage," she said about Trump in 2022.

Democrat Mikie Sherrill, a New Jersey lawmaker serving in the US House of representatives, is projected to win the governor's race in the Garden State.

In one of several races that are seen as both a referendum on US President Donald Trump and bellwether for the 2026 midterm elections, Sherill will succeed fellow Democrat Gov Phil Murphy.

The US Naval Academy graduate, helicopter pilot and former federal prosecutor first entered politics in 2018 as anti-Trump sentiment washed over the US during his first term.

The congresswoman edged out Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a former state legislator. Her victory comes after fellow liberal Abigail Spanberger won the governor's race in Virginia.

At a victory rally, Sherrill said her election victory would bring a "new day" for the state.

"I know these are tough times. I know not everyone voted for me - but I'm working for everyone," she said.

She told supporters she would follow the country's founding principles and noted this election sent a message to US President Donald Trump.

"We're going to follow Lady Liberty's beacon. We're not going to give in to our darker impulses," she said. "Here in New Jersey, we know that this nation has not ever been, nor will it ever be ruled by kings. We take oaths to a Constitution, not a king."

The race to lead the state was neck and neck between Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, and Sherill in the weeks leading up to the 4 November general election in a reliably blue state that is also considered a bellwether for next year's midterm elections, where Democrats hope to tilt control of Congress in their favour.

Both focused on cost of living, with Ciattarelli, a businessman and former Republican state representative, proposing lowering personal and corporate tax rates and using a new school funding formula to lower taxes across the state.

Sherrill campaigned on proposed tax incentives for new housing developments and a freeze on utility rate hikes.

State governors are key figures in the US with enormous power that control many aspects of American life, including things ranging from education to abortion rights. Governors have a say on issues decided at the state level.

In New Jersey, governors are limited to two consecutive terms. But they are not limited in non-consecutive terms. The third US state, and one of the original 13 US colonies, New Jersey last had a Republican governor in 1988.

As polling stations opened on Tuesday, the BBC's US partner CBS reported that some polling locations received bomb threats that caused temporary closures and police response.

Sherrill called the threats "a clear attempt to undermine our democratic system and intimidate New Jerseyans from going to the polls to exercise their right to vote".

Her opponent Ciattarelli told CBS that "there's no place in politics for nonsense like this".

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Reform UK could win more seats than any other party at the next general election - perhaps enough to form a government. Or so suggest repeated opinion polls, released since May. That was also when Reform won control of 10 English local authorities - so what does their first six months at the helm at local level tell us about what a UK government led by them could look like?

Listen to Alex reading this article

Last month a leaked video recording showed Linden Kemkaran, Reform UK's leader in Kent, swearing at councillors from her own party and telling them to "suck it up" if they didn't agree with her.

The footage became national news - insights into tensions within local government are, after all, rarely made public, and Kent is Reform UK's self-professed flagship council.

Plenty of critics seized on the incident.

Labour MPs in Kent labelled her "unprofessional" and "not up to the job," and local Liberal Democrat and Green groups claimed Reform's running of the council had descended into chaos.

Five of Kent's Reform councillors have been expelled from the party amid the upheaval. Kemkaran, meanwhile, remains firmly in post.

And she has declared that it is "business as usual" at Kent County Council.

To some the fallout was undoubtedly damaging and has prompted questions about whether this insurgent party, that is consistently topping national opinion polls, really is a credible force ready to run the country - something they are trying to prove.

Danny Kruger, who is one of Reform's five MPs, has his own take. Last month he described the party as a bit of a pirate ship with an "ill-disciplined" crew and a "buccaneering" captain, but added: "A powerful ship with a dangerous broadside, a terror to its rivals…

"The job… is to help turn this pirate ship into His Majesty's Royal Navy ship, ready to enter the King's service and serve our nation."

Reform's performance at local government level can help start to give some insight into this: it has been exactly six months since the local elections that saw them take outright control of 10 English local authorities, including six of 21 county councils.

In all it won 677 seats - more than any other party, amounting to 41% of the total up for election.

So what can we learn from Reform's performance during its time at the helm of these authorities about how they lead - and how well they have so far fared on delivering their promises?

These are, after all, promises that are not dissimilar in nature to those they would need to keep if they were successful in their bid to reach Number 10.

Reform's own version of DOGE

Before the elections, Nigel Farage addressed a packed rally in Birmingham promising his party would "send in the auditors… get rid of the fraudulent contracts… cut spending" if it won.

Shortly after their success in the local elections, Reform launched a "DOGE" unit, based on billionaire Elon Musk's efforts to cut spending in the US with a Department of Government Efficiency.

A photo call on the steps of Kent County Council followed, with a promise that a team of soft ware engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors would "visit and analyse" local authorities to identify "wasteful spending".

But the unit has run into legal challenges in accessing sensitive council data. So far it is reported to have visited only a handful of the councils in England that Reform controls.

Zia Yusuf, Reform's head of policy who led the DOGE team until last month, acknowledges there is a limit on how much control local authorities have over their budgets, blaming "overwhelming demands" from Whitehall. Nonetheless he insists that hundreds of millions of pounds in savings have already been identified.

"The reality is there's a lot of information that can be shared… because it's in the public domain already," he says. "[DOGE] has been working with every single one of our councils on an ongoing basis."

He points to certain decisions by Kent County Council, including halting a planned office move and stopping net-zero schemes, as examples of the savings he says Reform has found.

Councils spend the bulk of their budgets on statutory services that they have to provide by law, and the cost of these services has spiralled in recent years.

The County Councils' Network, which represents some of England's largest local authorities, says its members spend on average 69% of their budgets on adult social care and children's services, with some spending up to 76% - an increase from 63% a decade ago.

Reform's argument is that there's still "waste" to be found, with Yusuf saying: "This idea that… because social care is statutory there's no point in finding those savings - we don't buy that."

But Stuart Hoddinott, an associate director at the Institute for Government think tank, believes that the savings Reform have identified so far are "minuscule" in comparison to the financial challenge facing the sector.

"They've found things that are just so tiny to be completely insignificant or are cutting programmes that might actually end up saving money in the longer run.

"It has just been a complete sort of mirage so far... It's like somebody who makes £30,000 worrying about losing 2p per year."

Budget pressures and a 'broken' system

The pressure on council budgets across the country has been well-documented. Ahead of this year's spending review, the Local Government Association estimated councils would face a funding gap of £8.4bn by 2028/29.

The controversial Kent council meeting, in which tensions boiled over, was a private discussion that seemed to focus, among other things, on both budgets and local government reorganisation.

It is another illustration of how, when it comes to setting a budget, Reform is now facing many of the same challenges as parties that preceded it.

Stuart Hoddinott acknowledges that Reform has entered a "broken" system, given the pressure on funding for statutory services and cuts already made across the board - but he accuses the party of "bluster" and "outlandish promises".

"They have focused on culture wars, things like 'Oh we'll just cut DEI (diversity equity and inclusion) programmes from local authorities and won't run a Pride flag up the pole every June, then that will solve our financial problems,'" he argues.

"They were also very naive to think that they would be the ones to solve it [budget pressures] given that you have had 15 years of 300-odd local authorities all battling this and trying to come up with solutions."

Reform's DOGE unit has now had a change of personnel.

Richard Tice, the party's deputy leader, has taken over, a change he says was simply a "natural evolution" from Yusuf.

He has said billions can be saved, and that his focus will be on local government pension schemes, property and "waste-related contracts". The party, he adds, will also make announcements on support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, which is a cost pressure for councils.

"You'll be hearing over the next few weeks in areas where we have achieved savings, we have identified savings – and where we need to have some serious discussions about what actually is sensible in certain areas," he has said.

But these are thorny issues that will likely prove controversial.

Tony Travers, a professor in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics, argues that any benefits would likely take time to filter through.

"Reforming the pension system… might produce benefits for local government in the medium term, but it's probably not going to do it for next May, next April," he says.

"That's the trouble. With a lot of these things, they can't be done quickly or as quickly as Reform needs."

He believes that Reform's cost-cutting narrative was, ultimately, "never realistic" - and in his view the party is now facing the "dawning reality" of an "extraordinary period of financial constraint" that other councils have faced before them.

Future of council tax rises

Now, as councils begin the process of setting budgets for next year, the picture looks bleak for many - including those led by Reform.

Lancashire is facing a budget gap of £100m over the next two years; in West Northamptonshire the council has warned of "tough choices" as it tries to plug a £50m gap; while Worcestershire has asked residents for their views on a potential council tax rise of 10%, combined with millions of pounds of cuts.

And Warwickshire council - led by George Finch, who was just 19 years old when he took office this summer - warned of "difficult decisions to come".

Even though the government has increased the amount of funding available to councils this year and is introducing a new method of allocating funding from next year, claiming it is "fixing a broken system", this all still poses a challenge for Reform UK, if it is to fully meet its promises to cut costs and save money.

Early indications are that Reform-led councils will raise council tax from April 2026 – something acknowledged by both Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf - though both say the focus is on keeping increases low.

"We never said we would cut council tax," Tice says. "But if you can identify the savings, identify what you shouldn't be doing… then we can achieve lower increases than anybody else."

Yusuf suggested the rises were unlikely to exceed inflation levels.

"I would expect certainly [in] most of our councils [for] council tax not to go up by more - it is their decision, but it will be a rise in line with inflation, as opposed to the council going into bankruptcy or a rise much more than 5%," he says.

His comments came before Reform-led Worcestershire signalled the possibility of a 10% rise.

Kent's Linden Kemkaran told the BBC in a statement that the council would "do everything we can to avoid raising council tax by the full amount" - usually 5% is the maximum allowed - and was not planning to cut services in its search for savings.

But keeping council tax relatively low often entails spending cuts – which might not prove popular.

And the question now is whether Reform really can prove to be better custodians of public money than their predecessors – and avoid the effective bankruptcy that has hit some other local authorities, while providing value for money.

Scaling up the challenge

At the start of the year, Reform UK, Labour and the Conservatives were all averaging about 25% in opinion polls registering voting intention.

But in May that all changed: for more than five months Reform's average poll result has hovered around 30%, while the two other parties have now fallen below 20%.

Prof Travers believes the party would likely encounter challenges similar to those it is currently facing in councils were it to win the keys to Number 10.

It had promised tax cuts, and an overhaul of government spending to increase efficiency, echoing its programme for local government.

Already there are signs they are realising what is realistic, and what is not.

Earlier this week Farage rowed back on his party's previous promise to deliver tax cuts worth £90bn a year.

"Substantial tax cuts" are not currently "realistic" because of the "dire state" of the public finances, he said, proposing instead "relatively modest" changes, such as raising tax thresholds and scrapping inheritance tax for family-run businesses.

"The truth is, the constraints of real government would be just as real if they got in at Westminster," Prof Travers says.

"Could you really cut benefits for millions of people? It's not that easy… So all of this is the kind of local version of the fact that even political parties who attempt to cut or reduce NHS spending, find themselves increasing it. It's just a local version of that."

Ben Ramanauskas, a senior research fellow in economics at the right-leaning think tank Policy Exchange, argues that Reform's instinct to look to cut back waste is right – despite the challenges.

"Definitely, any party should be looking for efficiency savings," he says. "This is taxpayers' money being spent and the priority has to be essential public services. There are examples of where there is some waste going on.

"But it is a very tough job for local authorities and councillors," he adds. "And I think any party in that position would possibly struggle, given just how our system operates."

He argues it will be easier to "scale up" savings at a national level, with the ability to pull all the levers of power.

Looking ahead to the next general election, it would be logical to assume that the fate of Reform - and whether or not it will win enough support to make the leap to Downing Street - rests in part on how it fares at the helm of the councils with these gnarly financial challenges.

After all, Reform has pointed the finger at Labour and the Conservatives for what they say are broken promises - so what are the consequences if they cannot deliver on their own pledges in local government?

Luke Tryl, director of focus group and polling company More in Common, argues that this link is not necessarily as direct as it may seem.

"If you look at the reasons people went and voted for Reform in the local elections, they were number one – overwhelmingly - migration, and Channel crossings in particular. And number two, general disillusionment with the main parties.

"I'm just not sure that Reform's failure to find savings necessarily helps with that."

Instead, he believes that one of the main risks for Reform that could cost it supporters would be a significant failing in one of the councils – such as a crisis in social care, or bins, or bankruptcy.

"I don't say that the message of 'Reform has put your council tax up' is going to be deterring people in the general election," he added.

As to whether Reform is ready, based on the evidence so far from their leadership of England's councils, in the six months since May, the jury is out.

"It's very difficult to say exactly that Reform councillors are more or less chaotic than other councillors," says Stuart Hoddinott.

"They get more attention. So these stories tend to blow a bit more. Having said that, there does seem to have been a lot of incidents since the election."

Meanwhile, the party's performance in councils has arguably faced even more scrutiny than their political opponents.

And while the party says it is making progress on its promises, it is clear it is grappling with the same set of challenges as the parties that came before.

So far, it seems the solutions are not proving easy to find for anyone.

Top image credits: Gareth Fuller/ PA - Jacob King/ PA and Bloomberg/Getty Images

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The oldest surviving victim of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal has said she can now "look to the future" after receiving her long-awaited settlement from one of the government's compensation schemes.

"I can settle up my affairs. I can turn the heating up full blast, and that will be wonderful," 92-year-old Betty Brown told the BBC.

Mrs Brown was forced out of her Post Office in Country Durham in 2003 after she and her late husband spent more than £50,000 of their savings to cover shortfalls that did not exist.

Her settlement comes after it was confirmed that campaigner Sir Alan Bates had agreed to a multi-million-pound compensation figure from the Post Office.

"At last, after 26 years, they've recognised justice," she said, adding: "pity they took so long."

Her Post Office had been one of the most successful in the region but eventually she had to sell it at a loss.

Talking about what happened, she previously said it "absolutely destroyed my whole life".

The Horizon IT system was responsible for more than 900 sub-postmasters being wrongfully prosecuted because of it providing incorrect information. Thousands more, like Betty, were forced to make up for the alleged losses at their branches across the UK.

The scandal has been described as one of the widest miscarriages of justice in the UK.

Mrs Brown was one of the original 555 victims who took part in the landmark group legal action led by Sir Alan Bates against the Post Office.

She said it was "fantastic" that Sir Alan had received his final settlement too, describing him as her "hero".

"I think at long, long last, the government are starting to listen. Not only are they starting to listen, they're beginning to act," Mrs Brown said.

Both Betty and Sir Alan were part of the Group Litigation Order compensation scheme, and those claimants were offered the option of taking a fixed sum of £75,000 or pursuing their own settlement.

In Dec 2024, Betty was originally offered just under a third of what she'd claimed for in compensation. That was gradually upped to 70% earlier this year, which she rejected. Her case was then escalated to an independent panel.

There were two main sticking points.

Firstly, the Post Office knocked 10% off the income she'd been making when she was running her branch, which had a big impact on the calculation for her future loss of earnings.

And then it downgraded her claim for psychological damages from severe to moderately severe, even though her medical report had concluded it was severe.

Betty took up the opportunity to address the panel, an experience she said felt like reliving the past.

"The emotions, the fear, the terror was all coming back," she said.

The panel found in her favour.

By then, Betty had already dropped a couple of incidental claims for business costs, because she didn't have any paperwork and the lack of evidence was being challenged by the government

She has now ended up with about 95% of what she originally claimed for – and Betty is happy with that.

The latest government figures up until the end of September, which don't include Betty's payout, show that of 492 eligible claimants, 385 have had their claims fully settled – with more than 100 people still waiting for their final payment.

Across all the government compensation schemes, £1.2bn has now been paid out to more than 9,100 victims.

"This is a redress scheme," Betty stressed. "They've only given us back what they took from us. We haven't had a penny in compensation."

Over the last two years, that's the message Betty has been putting across as she's become one of the most formidable campaigners for justice for former sub-postmasters.

She has appeared on BBC Breakfast, Newsnight and taken government ministers to task.

Betty celebrated with tea and cake at her local church coffee morning. She got a round of applause and some hugs as she broke the news of her final payout.

Mrs Brown also made it clear that she was not finished.

"I don't want to put my feet up," she said. "I just want the other sub-postmasters to have what I have been given. That's all I want – justice for every one of them."

Human error could have led to criminal cases involving alleged grooming gangs being dropped, the early stages of a massive review has found.

Operation Beaconport - a National Crime Agency project tasked with unearthing failings to tackle grooming gangs - is set to look at thousands of cases where police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service decided to take no further action against suspects.

Police say that there appear to be cases where lines of inquiry were not pursued properly, victim accounts were not taken, and suspects were not interviewed as they should have been.

Investigations that were wrongly closed with no further action taken have already been discovered.

"Initial reviews have identified that in some cases where there has been a decision to take no further action, there were available lines of inquiry that could have been pursued", said the National Crime Agency's deputy director Nigel Leary.

"We've seen in those cases what appears to be potentially human error.

"We've seen in some cases that those investigations haven't followed what we would characterise as proper investigative practice, actually that would have contributed to the no further action decision," Mr Leary added.

The issue of grooming gangs has made headlines in recent months - with a national inquiry into the issue in England and Wales thrown into turmoil by disagreements before it had even got under way.

Operation Beaconport is a national policing operation led by the NCA and was set up earlier this year in a bid to eliminate inconsistencies in how cases are handled by police forces. It is reviewing cases between January 2010 and March 2025.

It is not clear how much the operation will cost or how long it will take.

So far, 1,273 cases relating to allegations of group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation identified by 23 police forces have been referred to the investigation team.

Of these, 236 relate to allegations of rape, which Operation Beaconport is reviewing as a priority.

The NCA expects the operation to involve thousands of officers from across policing, with Mr Leary claiming it will be "the most comprehensive investigation of its type in UK history".

In response to the review's early findings, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: "The grooming gangs scandal was one of the darkest moments in this country's history.

"This government initiated this national policing operation to track down the evil child rapists that perpetrated these crimes, and put them behind bars where they belong."

As part of the review, the ethnicity of suspects and victims will be recorded. Officers admit to finding gaps in the existing data that they are trying to fill. They will also aim to flag dangerous suspects, and any that are at risk of fleeing the country.

The NCA says better data sharing between multi-agency teams and more coordinated efforts to track and disrupt offenders will also be developed to help them tackle these crimes more effectively.

It's not clear how much the operation will cost or how long it will take.

The investigation into grooming gangs and other non-familial sexual abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, cost £89m over 11 years.

Last month, the Metropolitan Police announced it was reviewing 9,000 cases of child sexual exploitation.

It is likely that some of these cases will be checked by Operation Beaconport, which is looking at cases involving two or more suspects. It will also focus on allegations where there have been multiple victims, the suspects are still alive, and the case has not already been independently reviewed.

The review will run alongside the national public inquiry, announced by the government earlier this year.

Richard Fewkes from the National Police Chiefs' Council said that some victims will just want to feel listened too.

"Justice means different things for different victims and survivors, and no one victim and survivor is the same.

"For some, justice is just being believed, perhaps for the first time, by someone in authority, being listened to," he said.

Last month, a watchdog said that while police forces had made significant progress in tracking grooming gangs and child exploitation, "significant challenges" remained.

Inconsistent definitions, data accuracy issues and poor national co-ordination risk undermining efforts to protect vulnerable children, His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services said in a progress report.

It found only 37% of child exploitation cases were accurately flagged on police systems, with opportunities to protect children still being missed.

A Home Office spokeswoman said the inspectorate's report showed "important progress" had been made but acknowledged there was "more to do".

Shadow home secretary Chris Philip said the Home Office's failure to adopt a definition for group-based child sexual exploitation was keeping "the system blind to patterns of abuse".

The number of sick and disabled people out of work is putting the UK is at risk of an "economic inactivity crisis" that threatens the country's prosperity, according to a new report.

There were 800,000 more people out of work now than in 2019 due to health conditions, costing employers £85bn a year, according to the review by former John Lewis boss Sir Charlie Mayfield.

The problem could worsen without intervention, but Sir Charlie, who will lead a taskforce aimed at helping people return to work, said this was "not inevitable".

The move has been broadly welcomed, but some business groups said Labour's Employment Rights Bill included some disincentives to hiring people with existing illnesses.

One in five working age people were out of work, and not seeking work, according to the report, which was commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions by produced independently.

Without intervention, another 600,000 people could leave work due to health reasons by the end of the decade.

Sir Charlie said sickness cost employers £85bn a year through issues including lost productivity and sick pay, but it also cost the broader economy.

"For employers, sickness and staff turnover bring disruption, cost and lost experience," he said. "For the country, it means weaker growth, higher welfare spending and greater pressure on the NHS".

Speaking to the BBC, he said that "on the whole, work and health are mutually reinforcing".

"So keeping people in work, keeping them active, actually helps them to stay healthier."

The state spends £212bn per year on illness-related inactivity, or nearly 70% of income tax, through lost output, increased welfare payments and additional burdens on the NHS.

People could be encouraged to stay in work if health is viewed as "a shared responsibility between employers, employees and health services", he said.

'I want to find a job'

Loz Sandom has mental and physical health conditions which has made it difficult to find a job, and the last time they worked was a year ago.

"I am willing to do the work, and I want to. I want to find a job," said the 28-year-old, who has a degree in illustration and has previously worked as a digital marketing executive.

They said that part of the challenge was employers did not realised they had "a duty to provide reasonable adjustments."

"It's such a shame because they're missing out on so many fantastic disabled people that can do fabulous jobs.

"And I'm not blaming employers entirely. They need support as well," Loz added. "There are things that can be put in place to help employers, help save people."

Responding to the report, the government announced a major partnership with over 60 companies, many of them large employers, to "tackle the rising tide of ill-health that is pushing people out of work".

The companies include Tesco, Google UK, Nando's and John Lewis.

Over the next three years, they will "develop and refine workplace health approaches" which aim to "reduce sickness absence, improve return-to-work rates, and increase disability employment rate".

The government is aiming to develop these changes into a voluntary certified standard by 2029.

Speaking to the BBC, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said the report was a "win-win for employees and employers because its' aimed at keeping people with sickness issues or developing disability issues in work".

"That's in the interests of employers because these are good experienced staff and it's in the interests of employees too because most people want to stay in work if they possibly can."

The Resolution Foundation think tank's chief executive Ruth Curtice said: "The review has accurately identified a culture of fear, a dearth of support and structural barriers to work as key challenges to overcome in turning the tide for Britain's economic inactivity problem – which is currently trending in the wrong direction."

The CIPD, which represents HR professionals, welcomed the government's vision for a preventative approach to illness in the workplace.

But its chief executive Peter Cheese said: "The report's success will depend on the extent to which these recommendations are understood by business in driving positive outcomes and backed by policy makers at a national and regional level."

The report comes as the government tries to move ahead with its Employment Rights Bill – which some businesses say will stifle growth.

The proposed new law includes a right to guaranteed hours and cracks down on zero-hour contracts without the offer of work.

As well as that bill, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is aiming to guarantee paid work to young people who have been out of a job for 18 months.

Those who do not to take up the offer could face being stripped of their benefits.

Sexual harassment, racism and bullying did happen at Oxford Brookes University Boat Club, an independent investigation has confirmed.

The report was commissioned by the university after a picture of a so-called "toughness sheet", allegedly criticising members of the top rowing team, circulated online in November 2024.

A summary of the findings by law firm Penningtons Manches Cooper was submitted to the university in April and has been shared with the BBC by a contributor to the investigation.

Oxford Brookes University said it had made "leadership and coaching changes" and "new, progressive structures" were now in place at the club.

Heather, not her real name, rowed at Oxford Brookes University Boat Club (OBUBC) and was interviewed as part of the investigation.

She said that while at the club she witnessed sexual harassment towards women and that public weight shaming of athletes was "prolific".

Heather said she saw the men's squad asked to jump up and down topless, and "if any of their body parts jiggled, they needed to lose it".

"I felt it was important to be part of the investigation because I felt that a lot of the athletes might not feel able to speak out about their experiences," Heather said.

She said she also feels that Oxford Brookes has "glossed over" issues around sexism, racism and bullying and that it has a duty to be transparent about "the culture of the club and what they're doing to improve that."

What did the investigation find?

The independent investigation was conducted by the law firm Penningtons Manches Cooper, that interviewed 41 current and past athletes from OBUBC.

A summary of the report was shared with the BBC by someone who contributed to the investigation and then requested its findings through a Freedom of Information request.

Any individuals' names within the report had been redacted.

The investigation found:

• "Multiple and varied instances" of sex discrimination and sexual harassment

• Repeated breaches of British Rowing's Code of Conduct, including rules prohibiting coaches from having sexual relationships with athletes

• Evidence of bullying, "personalised profanity", and three incidents of "racial slurs"

• That there had been data protection breaches and it suggested that aspects of the club's finances should be audited

• Breaches of British Rowing's Weighing Guidance

• That there had been "repeated interference" during the investigation

The report summary recommended that disciplinary action be taken against some OBUBC members, a Welfare Officer be appointed, and that there should be more Equality, Diversity and Inclusion training.

A spokesperson for Oxford Brookes University said: "When concerns were initially raised about coaching at the Oxford Brookes University Boat Club, we took swift action by launching the independent investigation that led to the production of this report.

"Respect, inclusion and the dignity of everyone who studies and works here are central to our culture.

"We have worked with British Rowing to address the issues raised in the report, with leadership and coaching changes and new, progressive structures now in place at the club."

The investigation began after the picture of a so-called "toughness sheet" circulated online.

It included comments next to rowers' names including "Put the pies down", "Get a haircut" and "Watching you row is like watching paint dry".

After the sheet was leaked, an unverified WhatsApp message from a senior member of the boat club referencing the "toughness sheet" was seen by the BBC.

It asked someone to "own up" for posting a photo of it online, otherwise they would be "tracked down".

In December 2024, Oxford Brookes University announced that an investigation would look at behaviour and culture at the club.

Heather said she feels that methods like the "toughness sheet" are not effective in training athletes, and that "success and wellbeing should come hand in hand".

Oxford Brookes is home to one of the UK's top rowing programmes, with eight members of its boat club selected to represent Team GB at the Paris Olympics.

British Rowing said that they "worked collaboratively with and supported Oxford Brookes University as it implemented the recommendations identified through its independent investigation into coaching practices at Oxford Brookes University Boat Club."

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Ahead of Tesla's annual general meeting (AGM) on Thursday there's been one key message the electric car-maker has been hammering home to shareholders: the boss is worth $1tn.

It has taken out digital ads to make the case for Elon Musk's proposed bumper pay package, while Votetesla.com features a video of board chair Robyn Denholm and director Kathleen Wilson-Thompson praising him, as triumphant music crescendos in the background.

It's not clear that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet though, meaning the AGM in Austin, Texas is set to become a referendum on Musk himself, after a rightward political turn which has made him one of the most polarising chief executives in recent memory.

Musk himself has taken to X - which he owns - to raise the stakes higher still, saying the fate of Tesla "could affect the future of civilization."

He's also used his social media megaphone to amplify some of the deal's high-profile backers, including Dell Technologies' Michael Dell, Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood, and his brother, Kimbal, who sits on the Tesla board.

"There is no one remotely close to my brother," Kimbal said, extolling his sibling's leadership qualities.

"Thanks bro ❤️," Musk replied.

Not everyone agrees.

For some, the focus on Musk and the soap opera around his pay is symptomatic of how the car firm - which has seen sales slide - has lost its way under his leadership.

"What's amazing to me is a company struggling to sell cars spends money on advertising to sell a pay package," said Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management.

Mr Gerber has pared back his Tesla holdings in recent years - and turned up his criticism of the direction it's heading in.

"[Tesla] needs to change the focus of the company back to its core – to selling EVs again," he said.

The trillion dollar man

The deal Tesla wants shareholders to back is not a salary of a one followed by twelve zeroes.

Instead, it sets Musk the target of raising Tesla's market value to $8.5tn, from $1.4tn at the time of writing.

He would also have to oversee a massive boom in the company's self-driving "Robotaxi" cars, getting a million of them into commercial operation - no small deal given their underwhelming launch.

Do that, among meeting other benchmarks, and Musk would be given 423.7 million new shares, which would be worth nearly $1tn if the target valuation is reached.

Tesla did not respond to the BBC's requests for comment about its strategy to garner support from shareholders.

• Who is Elon Musk - and what is he worth?
• Elon Musk to step back from Doge

Of course, this is not the first pay controversy Musk and Tesla have become embroiled in.

Previously, Tesla got shareholders to twice ratify a pay package for Mr Musk that was worth tens of billions of dollars if he achieved a tenfold increase in Tesla's market value.

He met that milestone but, in 2024, a Delaware judge rejected the deal on the grounds that Tesla's board members were too personally and financially enmeshed with the company's boss.

The Delaware Supreme Court is reviewing that decision - even as deliberations continue over this even larger pay package.

"The strategy is more of the same from Tesla, which is not to say that this is normal. Nothing about Tesla is normal," Dorothy Lund, a professor at Columbia Law School told BBC News.

"They're not a poster child for good corporate governance."

Professor Lund said get-out-the-vote campaigns like this sometimes take place when a company is worried, for example. about an activist shareholder forcing significant changes to how it operates, such as who is on its board of directors.

"[But] never in my life have I seen something like that happen in the context of a compensation decision," Professor Lund said.

And unlike the vote on that earlier compensation package, Elon and Kimbal Musk will both get to vote as they push to reach the majority threshold required to seal the deal.

Mr Musk is already the world's richest man, becoming the first known half-trillionaire earlier this year.

A polarising figure

Tesla's argument in support of the pay package rests on the idea that Musk might leave the company if shareholders don't follow the board's recommendation and approve the pay package.

It says it can't afford to lose him, and that he "singularly possesses the leadership characteristics necessary to... realize its long-term mission".

In the video posted to votetesla.com, Ms Wilson-Thompson said the board undertook a seven month process using legal and compensation experts to devise the compensation deal.

On last month's earnings call, Musk minimised the focus on the payout, saying the real issue was ensuring he had adequate control in order to properly steer Tesla.

But - aside from the question of whether Musk, with his preoccupations with autonomous cars and humanoid robots, is the setting the right course - there is also the matter of whether championing the boss is the board's job.

"The role of a board is to have fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and not to be advocating for a CEO," said Yale School of the Environment's Matthew Kotchen, an economics professor who co-authored a recent study attempting to quantify damage Mr Musk has done to Tesla of late.

It's clear a number of key decision-makers are unpersuaded the deal represents value for money.

Proxy advisers Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), which advise asset managers on how to vote on major corporate proposals, have recommended investors reject the pay package, saying it's excessive and would dilute shareholder value.

Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest national wealth fund, has followed suit, as has the largest public pension fund in the US, CalPERS.

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has urged investors to also reject directors up for re-election to the board, saying they've failed "to provide independent oversight and accountability."

As some institutions balk, that might leave Mr Musk more reliant on Tesla's unusually large volume of retail investors - who tend to support him - to get his wish.

It all means, in the words of Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, that Thursday's vote is set to be one of "most important events" in Tesla's history - with a "distinct possibility" the pay package won't pass.

It doesn't help Musk's cause that protesters continue to organise anti-Tesla rallies, months after his controversial turn as US President Donald Trump's government efficiency tsar crashed and burned in May.

"It's hard for me to imagine that Elon Musk, in the very near term, shakes off the damage that he's done to this brand," said Mr Kotchen.

Others though would say Musk's extraordinary track record of entrepreneurship would make it unwise to bet against him, even when the sum being staked is as dizzyingly high as $1tn.

"It's hard to deny that Elon Musk's larger-than-life personality has helped drive more interest and awareness for his organisation than almost any other corporate leader in the modern era," said Edmunds' head of insights Jessica Caldwell.

"He's become a more polarizing figure over time, but there's still a belief in his ability to deliver on bold, unconventional ideas," she added.

The trillion dollar question now is - do Tesla shareholders agree?

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The 'godmother' of AI, Professor Fei-Fei Li has told the BBC that being the only woman amongst seven pioneers of artificial Intelligence being presented with a top engineering prize by the King today makes her "proud to be different".

The King will present the 2025 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering to Prof Li and six others during a ceremony at St James's Palace.

Those honoured alongside her are Prof Yoshua Bengio, Dr Bill Dally, Dr Geoffrey Hinton, Prof John Hopfield, Nvidia founder Jensen Huang and Meta's Chief AI Scientist Dr Yann LeCun.

They are being recognised for their contributions to the development of modern machine learning, a field that underpins the rapid advancement of AI.

Who are the Godparents of AI?

Dr Hinton, Prof Bengio and Yann LeCun, currently Chief AI Scientist at Meta have widely been recognised as the "Godfathers of AI" since they were jointly awarded the 2018 Turing Award.

There is however only one so-called "godmother" of AI and Prof Li told the BBC she has grown to accept the moniker.

"I would not call myself godmother of anything," she said.

She said a few years ago when people started calling her that, she had to "pause and recognise if I rejected this, it would miss an opportunity for women scientists and technologists to be recognised this way".

"Because men are pretty easily called godfathers or founding fathers."

"For all the young women I work with and the generations of girls to come, I'm okay now accepting this title," she added.

Born in China, Prof Li emigrated to the US as a teenager and went on to excel in computer science. She is co-director at Stanford Computer Science Department, and co-founder and CEO of World Labs.

It is her work on ImageNet a project which enabled major advances in computer vision for which she is recognised.

She and her students created large-scale image recognition datasets upon which a lot of artificial intelligence technology is now built. It paved the way for computer vision – working out how computers could 'see'.

She says the importance of that data set "open the floodgate of data-driven AI".

She thinks the next AI milestone will come when it is able to interact with the world around it.

This ability was is "innately important and native to animals and humans", and if this could be unlocked in AI, it could "superpower" humans in many ways, "including creativity, robotic learning, design and architecture".

This will be the first time all seven laureates have come together in person.

The three "godfathers" have publicly stated opposing views on how dangerous AI could be.

Dr Hinton has repeatedly expressed serious concerns about the potential for AI to pose an "extinction-level threat". But Prof LeCun, who also works at Meta has written that apocalyptic warnings are overblown.

Prof Li says she takes a more "pragmatic approach" and says the disagreement amongst scientists is "healthy".

"We're used to even disagreement, and I think that's healthy. A topic as profound and impactful as AI requires a lot of healthy debate and public discourse.

"I think in the case of AI, both extreme rhetorics concern me…I have always advocated for a much more science based, pragmatic method in communicating and educating the public.

"So, yes, I would like to see our communication of AI to be much more moderated and grounded in facts and science instead of the extreme rhetorics".

The Queen Elizabeth prize is awarded annually to engineers responsible for groundbreaking innovations which globally benefit humanity. Previous recipients include Sir Tim Berners Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web.

Lord Vallance, chair of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation, said the winners "represent the very best of engineering," adding that their work "demonstrates how engineering can both sustain our planet and transform the way we live and learn."

Additional reporting by Philippa Wain

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Scroll through social media or glance at the supermarket shelves and you'll see endless products claiming to improve your gut health.

It seems everyone's talking about looking after their microbiome - the trillions of tiny organisms living in our digestive system – which influence everything from digestion and immunity to mood and sleep.

Gut health is all about having the right mix of bacteria and enough fibre-rich food to keep everything moving and your body feeling its best.

The key to keeping the microbes happy is feeding them the right food and it's easier than you think to maintain a healthy gut.

Instead of reaching for pricey probiotic shots or snacks, I recommend making these five easy food swaps to give your gut a boost.

• Swap crisps for popcorn. Popcorn is a wholegrain so it's packed with fibre that feeds the good bacteria in your gut and it's also lighter and far less processed than a bag of crisps.

• Swap sweets for dried fruit. This can be a hard swap to make if you love sweets but dried apricots, raisins or dates can still hit that sweet spot whilst also delivering fibre, vitamins and natural sugars that your gut and your energy levels will thank you for.

• Add lentils or chickpeas to your bolognese. Pulses are full of prebiotic fibre which acts as food for your gut microbes and they can help bulk out your meal, making it go further while adding texture and extra plant-based protein so it's a great way to eat less meat without feeling like you're missing out

• Swap flavoured nuts for plain ones. Flavoured nuts are often loaded with salt and sugar while plain nuts give you healthy fats and fibre without the additives your gut could do without.

• Swap ice cream for frozen berries and kefir. Ice cream might make your taste buds happy, but frozen berries with kefir (a tangy fermented milk drink) give you natural sweetness, antioxidants and live cultures that can help your microbiome flourish.

Of course there are many other foods you can consume to improve your gut health like drinking kombucha or eating fermented food such as kimchi or sauerkraut, but it's not necessary to focus on that too much.

The most important thing for your gut and overall health is eating a range of whole foods that are rich in fibre like fruits and vegetables.

And when it comes to supplements and probiotics, my advice is the same - there's no evidence it will do you any good and products like probiotic drinks and powders promising miraculous results can cost you hundreds of pounds which I see as a waste of money.

Additional reporting by Yasmin Rufo

A Kurdish crime network is enabling migrants to work illegally in mini-marts on High Streets the length of Britain, a BBC investigation can reveal.

The fake company directors are paid to put their names to official paperwork, and have dozens of businesses listed on Companies House, but are not involved in running them.

Two undercover reporters, themselves Kurdish, posed as asylum seekers and were told how easy it would be for them to take over and run a shop and make big profits selling illegal vapes and cigarettes.

We have linked more than 100 mini-marts, barbershops and car washes, operating from Dundee to south Devon, to the crime network. But a financial crime investigator told the BBC he believes it goes much wider.

Reacting to our investigation, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, said: "Illegal working and linked organised criminality creates an incentive for people to come here illegally. We will not stand for it."

For the first time, we can reveal the inner workings of a criminal system that lets asylum seekers work in plain sight on UK High Streets, in mini-marts that mainly profit from illegal cigarettes and vapes.

One man told us weekly takings from illicit tobacco at his shop could be "sometimes, up to £3,000".

The men who facilitate it all - so-called "ghost directors" - each have dozens of businesses listed on Companies House but in many cases are not involved in running them.

"The shop doesn't belong to me, it's just under my name," one of them told our undercover reporters.

Many of the businesses are dissolved after about a year, and then re-opened with small changes to official paperwork.

These businesses have "all the red flags" associated with organised criminality, a financial crime investigator told the BBC.

During our investigation we found:

• An asylum seeker, who says his claim was rejected, trying to sell a shop to our undercover reporter for £18,000
• A Kurdish Facebook group listing dozens of mini-marts, barbers, car washes and takeaways for sale
• "Ghost directors" charging illegal workers up to £300 per month to register mini-marts in their names
• Kurdish builders offering to build elaborate hiding spaces for illegal cigarettes and vapes that would fool sniffer dogs
• Asylum seekers, who said the Home Office had left them in legal limbo, working 14-hour shifts in mini-marts for as little as £4 per hour

The two Kurdish journalists involved in our investigation know that tensions over immigration are high. They worry that such coverage of illegal activities within the Kurdish community could inflame hostilities.

One of them is a former asylum seeker himself, and says "I wanted to play a role in uncovering these illegal activities [...] to say loudly that they don't represent us."

Over four months, we monitored a Kurdish Facebook group where businesses across the UK were listed for sale.

New adverts popped up every week.

The reporters got in touch with three people who listed mini-marts for sale in Crewe, Hull and Liverpool. They said they were interested in running a mini-mart and trading illegal cigarettes.

In Cheshire, the man running a Crewe mini-mart called Top Store said he would sell his shop to one reporter for £18,000 cash.

The shopkeeper, who went by the name Surchi, assured our journalist that "you don't need anything" to own and run a mini-mart as an asylum seeker.

Surchi told us he was himself a Kurdish asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK in 2022, but whose claim had been refused.

When the BBC later confronted him, he told us he had paperwork proving his right to work. We asked if he could show us these documents, but he hasn't provided them.

Asylum seekers generally do not have the right to work in the UK while their claim is being processed. Permission to work is only granted in limited circumstances and is subject to strict conditions.

If asylum seekers are granted permission to work, they can only apply for eligible jobs on the Immigration Salary List.

These do not include being a shop manager or shop assistant.

Like our undercover reporters, Surchi told us he was from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, an area that straddles the borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria and Armenia. The region is often referred to as Kurdistan, but it is not an independent country.

To avoid scrutiny by the authorities, Surchi said he paid someone called "Hadi" about £250 a month to be named on official papers.

"That's his job and he probably has 40 to 50 shops under his name. There's no problem, he doesn't mind what you sell," he explained.

This arrangement let Surchi go under the radar of immigration enforcement and sell whatever he liked. He said he had never paid any council tax and that our undercover reporter would not need to officially register the company.

Immigration enforcement officers had only come by once in the past five years, when he was out, Surchi said during his sales patter. They never returned, he said.

Trading Standards had raided the shop once, Surchi said, and he had been given a £200 fine for selling illegal cigarettes and vapes.

Shop owners in the UK caught selling these items can be fined up to £10,000, but the profits that can be made from such products far outweigh the penalties.

During a tour of the premises, Surchi took us outside to a so-called "stash car" where he said he hid the bulk of his stock until 17:00 each night, when Trading Standards officers finished for the day.

He also told our reporter that "you could make a hiding spot" for the stock in the shop's basement - where he also showed how he tampered with the electricity meter to avoid paying utility bills.

Surchi sold vapes to a group of teenagers while we were at the shop. "I have customers that are 12 years old, I don't have any problem with them," he said.

Customers paid via a card machine into a bank account, he explained. Both of these belonged to his cousin, he said, who owned a mini-mart 15 miles away in Stoke.

'Fine craftsmanship' to fool sniffer dogs

On Facebook, we discovered Kurdish builders willing to help us conceal illegal vapes and cigarettes.

One of our reporters posted that he had bought a mini-mart in Manchester and was looking for "a specialist to build a space to hide cigarettes in the shop".

Six builders got in touch. One sent us a video of what looked like a vending machine for illegal cigarettes hidden in a loft, which, at the press of a button, pinged packets down a chute to a concealed vent below.

It was "fine craftsmanship" and cost £6,000, the builder said, claiming it was guaranteed to fool Trading Standards' sniffer dogs.

A network of ghost directors

As we delved deeper into who officially owned these mini-marts, a network of ghost directors began to emerge.

One name that kept coming up was Hadi Ahmad Ali - the Birmingham man to whom Surchi told us he was paying his monthly fee. We found Mr Ahmad Ali listed on Companies House as being from Iraq, in his 40s and a director of more than 50 other businesses - mini-marts, barbers and car washes.

One of our reporters phoned him pretending to be an asylum seeker looking to buy the Crewe business to sell illegal cigarettes. Mr Ahmad Ali said the shop didn't belong to him but the lease was under his name. He confirmed he could keep it in his name for our undercover reporter, for a fee of between £250 and £300 a month.

He also said he could try to provide a bank card for the shop.

"I will give you a 50% guarantee that I can get you a bank card. I have another six to seven shops under my name in Hull and other places."

Mr Ahmad Ali is still listed as an active director on several businesses on Companies House. We later learned that in October 2024 he had been disqualified from being a company officer for five years.

The ban followed illegal cigarette sales at a shop in his name in Chorley, Lancashire - including to a 16-year-old.

Separately, he pleaded guilty to his involvement in the sale of illegal cigarettes in Lincolnshire and was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for 18 months.

When later confronted by the BBC, Mr Ahmad Ali told us these mini-marts were nothing to do with him, and he had contacted Companies House to get his name removed from the businesses.

A spokesperson for Companies House said it "now has greater powers to share information and support law enforcement investigations".

"Where criminality is suspected, information and intelligence are shared with relevant partners."

Our research linked Mr Ahmad Ali to another man, Ismael Ahmedi Farzanda, who we found was a ghost director and responsible for 25 mini-marts.

Mr Farzanda's name came up because Companies House filings showed he had taken over as company director from Mr Ahmad Ali at seven mini-mart businesses. The pair also shared a co-directorship on one shop in Blackpool.

One of our reporters managed to call Mr Farzanda, using the same cover story as he had told Mr Ahmad Ali.

"I just put the shops under my name for people," said Mr Farzanda who, like Mr Ahmad Ali, was based in the West Midlands. He told us an "accountant" would take care of the paperwork, bank accounts and payments to him, and that he would have no problem with us selling illegal cigarettes.

The only request he had was that if the undercover reporter was ever caught by the police, he should let him know immediately.

"If you know you're caught, tell us so that for the interviews we can change the name and not get in trouble," he told our reporter.

Mr Farzanda was fined £4,500 in August after one shop, registered in his name in Haslingden, Lancashire, was caught selling illegal vapes to a 14-year-old, according to local media reports.

Seventeen shops registered under the names of Mr Ahmad Ali and Mr Farzanda have been raided since 2021 with illegal tobacco and vapes seized, Trading Standards sources confirmed.

Despite being registered on official documents as being from Iran, Mr Farzanda told our undercover reporter he was actually from the Sharazoor district in neighbouring Iraq.

Both our undercover reporters say they are aware of Kurdish people who have arrived in the UK on small boats and pretended to be Iranian, believing their asylum claims would have a better chance of success.

When later presented with our evidence, Mr Farzanda denied all the allegations put to him by the BBC.

When we looked into the official records attached to all the companies listed for Mr Ahmad Ali and Mr Farzanda, a suspicious pattern emerged.

We found companies would be set up for a year, dissolved, and then set up again - each time with a slightly different spelling of the businesses' names. The men's names and birthdays would also be changed slightly.

"Why are they doing that? It's most likely to evade tax and to dodge scrutiny by authorities," said financial crime investigator Graham Barrow, when we showed him our data.

We have also confirmed details of two further ghost directors - with 40 companies listed between them.

This UK-wide network of more than 100 company directorships in the names of just four individuals has "all the red flags that I would associate with organised criminal networks", said Mr Barrow.

The network of businesses identified by the BBC could stretch even wider across the country, said Mr Barrow: "I certainly think it's hundreds. It could easily be bigger than that," he said.

We visited more than a dozen mini-marts linked to this network of ghost directors.

Everywhere we went, it was the same story - the shops were on rundown High Streets in some of the UK's most deprived areas, such as Blackpool, Bradford, Huddersfield and Hull.

All but one of the shops sold counterfeit or smuggled cigarettes for about £4 per pack, instead of the average UK price of £16 for a pack of 20.

As well as Surchi's story in Crewe, our investigation revealed details of other Kurdish asylum seekers being employed illegally.

A mini-mart worker in a Blackpool shop linked to one of the ghost directors told us he had left an asylum-seeker hotel in Liverpool to work 14-hour days at the shop. "In return I get £60 to £65 [per day]," he told us. "For three months, I worked for £50 [per day]."

He was interviewed by the Home Office four months ago, he said, but hasn't heard anything since. The shop had been raided by Trading Standards three times, he told us - but he described that as "nothing".

"Just give them any name and they will walk away," he explained, saying that whenever he was asked who he was, he would give the name of a famous Kurdish singer, Aziz Waisi.

He did say he was worried by immigration enforcement, however. "They [Trading Standards] take the cigarettes and leave, but immigration makes you do fingerprints."

We also found another Kurdish shopworker in a Salford shop registered under Ismaeel Farzanda's name, who said he was in limbo. "I've been here for six months and I still haven't claimed asylum," he said.

The 42-year-old said he had first come to the UK as a teenager, before returning to Kurdistan.

He said he returned to the UK this year and "they found my previous fingerprint records but nothing came of it". He said he was staying with friends.

"Honestly, we're all struggling here and don't know what to do."

The government says it has increased raids by 51% and this year raised the fines for businesses to £60,000 per person found working illegally.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood added that the government has "seized millions of pounds worth of unlicensed goods, banned dodgy directors and removed more than 35,000 people with no right to be in the UK."

Additional reporting by Phill Edwards and Kirstie Brewer

Children will be taught how to budget and how mortgages work as the government seeks to modernise the national curriculum in England's schools.

They will also be taught how to spot fake news and disinformation, including AI-generated content, following the first review of what is taught in schools in over a decade.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the government wanted to "revitalise" the curriculum but keep a "firm foundation" in basics like English, maths and reading.

Head teachers said the review's recommendations were "sensible" but would require "sufficient funding and teachers".

The government commissioned a review of the national curriculum and assessments in England last year, in the hope of developing a "cutting edge" curriculum that would narrow attainment gaps between the most disadvantaged students and their classmates.

It said it would take up most of the review's recommendations, including scrapping the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), a progress measure for schools introduced in 2010.

It assesses schools based on how many pupils take English, maths, sciences, geography or history and a language - and how well they do.

The Department for Education (DfE) said the EBacc was "constraining", and that removing it alongside reforms to another school ranking system, Progress 8, would "encourage students to study a greater breadth of GCSE subjects", like arts.

The former Conservative schools minister, Nick Gibb, said the decision to scrap the EBacc would "lead to a precipitous decline in the study of foreign languages", which he said would become increasingly centred on private schools and "children of middle class parents who can afford tutors".

Other reforms coming as a result of the curriculum review include:

• Financial literacy being taught in maths classes, or compulsory citizenship lessons in primary schools
• More focus on spotting misinformation and disinformation - including exploring a new post-16 qualification in data science and AI
• Cutting time spent on GCSE exams by up to three hours for each student on average
• Ensuring all children can take three science GCSEs
• More content on climate change
• Better representation of diversity

The review also recommended giving oracy the same status in the curriculum as reading and writing, which the charity Voice 21 said was a "vital step forward" for teaching children valuable speaking, listening, and communication skills.

However, the government is not taking up all of the review's recommendations.

It is pushing ahead with the reading tests for Year 8 pupils reported in September, whereas the review recommended compulsory English and maths tests for that year group.

Asked why she stopped short of taking up the review's recommendation, Phillipson told the BBC that pupils who are unable to read "fluently and confidently" often struggle in other subjects.

And she addressed the claims that scrapping the EBacc could lead to fewer pupils taking history, geography and languages at GCSE, saying the measure "hasn't led to improved outcomes" or "improvement in language study".

"I want young people to have a good range of options, including subjects like art and music and sport. And I know that's what parents want as well," she said.

She said ministers recognised "the need to implement this carefully, thoroughly and with good notice", adding that schools would have four terms of notice before being expected to teach the new curriculum.

Prof Becky Francis, who chaired the review, said her panel of experts and the government had both identified a "problem" pupils experience during the first years of secondary school.

"When young people progress from primary into secondary school, typically this is a time when their learning can start falling behind, and that's particularly the case for kids from socially disadvantaged backgrounds," she told the BBC.

She said the approach to the review was "evolution not revolution", with England's pupils already performing relatively well against international averages.

She said the call for more representation of diversity in the curriculum was not about "getting rid of core foundational texts and things that are really central to our culture", but was more about "recognising where, both as a nation but also globally, there's been diverse contribution to science and cultural progress".

Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott said the changes "leave children with a weaker understanding of our national story and hide standards slipping in schools".

"Education vandalism will be the lasting legacy of the prime minister and Bridget Phillipson," she added.

Pepe Di'Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the review had proposed "a sensible, evidence-based set of reforms".

But he said delivering a "great curriculum" also required "sufficient funding and teachers", adding that schools and colleges did not currently have all the resources they need.

He said a set of "enrichment benchmarks" - which the government said would offer pupils access to civic engagement, arts and culture, nature and adventure, sport, and life skills - had been announced "randomly" and "added to the many expectations over which schools are judged".

Additional reporting by Hope Rhodes

Pregnant teenager Bella Culley, who admitted drug trafficking charges in Georgia, has arrived home after being freed from prison.

The 19-year-old from Billingham, Teesside, had initially faced a possible 20 years in jail, but prosecutors made a last-minute change to the terms of a plea bargain.

Now eight months pregnant, she had spent five months and 24 days in custody at Georgia's Rustavi Prison Number Five.

She walked free from court in Tbilisi arm-in-arm with her mother on Monday and arrived on an Easyjet flight at Luton Airport just before 19:00 GMT.

The teenager was detained on 10 May having being arrested at Tbilisi International Airport when 12kg (26lb) of marijuana and 2kg (4.4lb) of hashish were found in her luggage.

Her family had recently paid £137,000 to reduce her sentence to two years.

On Monday her lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia said that prosecutors made the changes to the plea deal and, given her age and pregnancy, decided to free her.

Miss Culley had previously pleaded guilty to bringing drugs into Georgia, flying from Thailand via Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.

She said she was forced to do so by gangsters who tortured her with a hot iron.

She had initially gone missing while travelling in Thailand and her lawyer said Georgian police had launched a separate criminal investigation into her coercion allegations.

Miss Culley had been held in pre-trial detention since May, first in stark conditions in Georgia's Rustavi Prison Number Five before being transferred to a "mother and baby" unit.

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Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, had a glittering - if controversial - career in American public life.

He served as President Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff in the 1970s, before spending a decade in the House of Representatives.

President George H. W. Bush made him defence secretary during the first Gulf War and the US invasion of Panama.

In 2001, Cheney became one of the most powerful vice presidents in history.

He was a key architect of President George W. Bush's 'War on Terror' after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and an early advocate of the invasion of Iraq.

But, in his final years, he became a bitter critic of the Republican party under the leadership of President Donald Trump.

"In our nation's 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic," Cheney said.

Richard Bruce Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on 30 January 1941.

His father worked for the US Department of Agriculture, while his mother had been a successful softball player in the 1930s.

When he was 13, his family moved to Casper, an oil town in Wyoming. In 1959, Cheney entered Yale on a scholarship, but failed to graduate.

He confessed that he fell in with “some kindred souls, young men like me who were not adjusting very well [to Yale] and shared my opinion that beer was one of the essentials of life.”

He went on to gain a Master's degree in political science from the University of Wyoming but - like his future boss, George W. Bush, he continued to party.

In his early 20s, Cheney was twice convicted of drink driving. The incidents focused his mind on the future.

"I was headed down a bad road if I continued on that course," he said.

In 1959, when he became eligible to be drafted for military service, Cheney made the most of every legal avenue to avoid putting on a uniform.

He obtained a string of deferments, first so that he could finish his college course and then when his new wife, Lynne became pregnant.

"I don't regret the decisions I made," he said later. "I complied fully with all the requirements of the statutes, registered with the draft when I turned 18. Had I been drafted, I would have been happy to serve."

Surprisingly this did not become a major campaign issue when he was running for the Vice-Presidency, even after Cheney questioned the ability of the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry - himself a Vietnam veteran - to serve as commander in chief.

Dick Cheney's first taste of Washington came in 1968 when he worked for William Steiger, a young republican representative from Wisconsin.

Legend has it that he caught the eye of Donald Rumsfeld, former defence secretary, then about to take over at the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) under President Richard Nixon.

Rumsfeld mentored Cheney, first in the OEO, and then in the Ford White House.

When Gerald Ford made Rumsfeld his defence secretary in 1975, Cheney found himself chief of staff at the White House. He was just 34 years old.

Eschewing the standard limousine for his battered VW Beetle, Dick Cheney proved a popular and approachable master of ceremonies.

"He made the system run," said Brent Scowcroft, Ford's national security adviser. "Everybody had access to the president, but it was smooth, orderly. He didn't try to be a deputy president."

When Ford lost the presidency in 1976, Cheney returned to Wyoming and stood for its House of Representatives seat.

But, weeks into the campaign and smoking three packets of cigarettes a day, he had the first of his many heart attacks.

While he was recuperating, Lynne continued to campaign on his behalf - and Cheney was returned with an impressive 59% of the vote.

During his decade in the House, he gained himself the reputation as a drier-than-dry conservative, enthusiastically supporting Ronald Reagan's huge Cold War increases in defence spending.

More controversially, he opposed the release of Nelson Mandela from jail and was one of only 21 congressmen to vote against the prohibition of armour-piercing "cop killer" bullets.

Early in 1989, he was given the chance of higher office when President George H. W. Bush's nominee for defence secretary, Senator John Tower, was forced to withdraw amid allegations of heavy drinking and womanising.

Bush needed a congressman with a good reputation to take over at the Pentagon. He chose Dick Cheney and the Senate approved the choice without opposition.

Cheney's years at defence were some of the most momentous since the end of World War Two. The Berlin Wall and the Soviet empire collapsed and the United States was left to rethink its whole doctrine.

Although hawkish by nature, he oversaw a huge post-Cold War reduction in the military budget - where the number of servicemen and women fell from 2.2 million to 1.8 million.

Most of all, though, his time at the Pentagon will be remembered for the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq.

He took the lead in advocating military force against Saddam Hussein, whose troops had invaded Kuwait.

He persuaded Saudi Arabia's King Fahd to allow the deployment of more than 400,000 United States troops on his territory in the lead-up to Operation Desert Storm.

Dick Cheney flew to Riyadh to plan the attack with his generals. After a five week air campaign, coalition forces began a ground war.

Within 100 hours, Iraq's army had been routed.

Generals Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf received the ticker-tape parades. But Dick Cheney, as much as his soldiers, deserved credit for the success of Desert Storm.

Bill Clinton's presidential election victory in 1992 saw Cheney leave Washington once again.

This time he became CEO of Halliburton, a huge multinational company that is a leading supplier of equipment to the oil industry. There he remained, until summoned back to public life by George Bush Jnr.

Initially, he was asked to chair the search for someone to be vice president. But, having reviewed his recommendations, the young presidential candidate asked Dick Cheney if he would join him on the ticket.

After the attacks on 11 September 2001, Cheney was isolated from the president for a number of weeks - taken to an "undisclosed location" - in order to secure the succession if George W. Bush should be killed.

He was a leading advocate of US military action in both Afghanistan and Iraq. He insisted that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, and saw his defeat as the finishing of old business.

Cheney was a strong supporter of waterboarding captured terrorist suspects, declaring himself to be a "strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation techniques".

But it was his close links to, and long experience in Congress which made him a new type of vice-president. Cheney kept offices in the Capitol building as well as near the commander-in-chief, so as to be at the heart of the legislative process.

He played an influential role in keeping Bush's tax policies conservative, and rolling back environmental protections that were hampering American businesses.

Cheney had the ear of the president at all times and was never slow in using his privileged access to by-pass other senior members of the administration.

He did so to some effect in 2001, when he persuaded Bush to sign an order stripping captured foreign terrorist suspects of their legal rights.

This was to the anger of the Secretary of State, Colin Powell who first heard about the decision when it was broadcast on the news channel, CNN.

In October 2002, and later in July 2007, while President Bush was undergoing medical procedures, Cheney became acting president for a few hours under the terms of the 25th Amendment.

But his inability to shepherd legislation through Congress brought accusations that Mr Cheney was a liability.

And, even though George W Bush said that he would retain his running mate for 2004, there was pressure in Republican circles to dump him.

The president stood firm and Cheney played a central role in the decisive victory against John Kerry and his running mate John Edwards.

There was one exception to his conservatism which emerged during the campaign.

He opposed a constitutional ban on gay marriage - supported by President Bush - because his daughter Mary was a lesbian.

Cheney announced that - although the final decision should be left to individual states - he was personally in favour of marriage equality. "Freedom means freedom for everyone," he said.

His reputation became damaged when it emerged that Halliburton had won the contract to restore Iraq's oil industry, and that he was to receive $500,000 in deferred compensation from the company.

More controversy was to follow. In 2005, his former chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted on charges relating to the leaking of a CIA agent's identity to the press.

And in 2006, after intense pressure from politicians and the media, Cheney was forced to take responsibility for accidentally shooting a hunting companion.

Harry Whittington, 78, was left with 30 pellets in his body, leading to a minor heart attack. Mr Cheney later called the incident "one of the worst days of my life".

The unfortunate episode became fodder for US late-night comedians and was seized upon by opponents as a damaging political metaphor - showing Cheney blasting away at the wrong target.

The vice president also grew worried that terrorists might try and assassinate him, by sending an electronic signal to his pacemaker - having seen a fictional version of this plot on the TV series, Homeland.

"I was aware of the danger that existed," he late wrote. "I knew from the experience we had and the necessity for adjusting my own device that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible."

The pacemaker was taken out and replaced with one that had no connection to wifi.

After eight-years as vice-president, the man widely seen as the architect of President Bush's "war on terror" left office in January 2009.

He became a critic of the Obama administration's national security policies, opposing plans to close the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He lashed out at his vice presidential successor, Joe Biden, calling him "dead wrong" for saying another attack on the scale of 11 September 2001 was unlikely.

After a full heart transplant in 2012, he remained an active political figure. And, despite decades working for Republican presidents, he became a bitter opponent of President Donald Trump.

Having initially endorsed him in 2016, Cheney was appalled by allegations of Russian interference in the presidential election and Trump's seemingly casual attitude towards Nato.

He supported his older daughter, Liz, as she became a leading Republican 'never Trump' in the House of Representatives - and condemned the refusal to accept the result of the 2020 election.

Dick Cheney later published a statement that he would vote for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

It was an action that guaranteed that he will be remembered with mixed emotions on both sides of the political aisle.

For years, Cheney was a hero to the Republican right for his forthright manner and dry-as-dust ideological beliefs - and reviled by the left, who accused him of working for the interests of the oil industry.

But, he ended up supporting gay marriage and a Democratic party presidential candidate - while his frequent attacks on Donald Trump destroyed his relationship with his former party.

Dick Cheney, the former vice-president who died on Tuesday, dramatically expanded the powers of the US presidency in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. More than two decades later, Donald Trump is wielding the political levers Cheney constructed as a potent tool to advance his national priorities - even as the two men had nasty personal clashes over the direction of the Republican Party.

Cheney's experience in US government stretched back to Richard Nixon's White House, and he honed his theories of presidential powers over decades of experience in the corridors of power in Congress and during multiple Republican administrations.

As vice-president during the George W Bush administration, he used the Al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon – the most consequential moment of American national unity and clarity of purpose since the Japanese Pearl Harbor attack of World War Two – to restructure the foundations of executive authority.

"Cheney freed Bush to fight the 'war on terror' as he saw fit, driven by a shared belief that the government had to shake off old habits of self-restraint," former Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman writes in Angler, his 2008 book on Cheney's time as vice-president.

Now Donald Trump, who has inherited those expanded presidential powers, is using them to pursue his own political agenda. It's an agenda that has shocked portions of the American public the way Cheney's once did, but one that has, at times, run counter to the policies and priorities Cheney once endorsed.

And while Trump cites "national emergencies" to justify his actions, there is nothing near the national unity or sense of crisis that gripped America in the wake of 9/11.

Despite spending decades concentrating power in the White House, in the later years of his life Cheney warned of the danger Trump posed to the nation, particularly after Trump's attempts to challenge his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. In 2024, Cheney said he supported Democrat Kamala Harris.

"There has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump," he said. "As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution."

Trump, for his part, called Cheney "the king of endless, nonsensical wars, wasting lives and trillions of dollars".

How Trump mirrors Cheney's playbook

The parallels between Cheney and Trump and their expansive deployment of presidential authority, however, stretch across the breath of the American political landscape - in the use of American military power overseas, the ability to detain and transport non-citizens, and in the development and expanded use of US surveillance power, including focusing on perceived domestic threats.

"The powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned," Stephen Miller, a long-time Trump adviser who is now deputy chief of staff, said during a television interview in 2017. It's a line that could have been spoken by Cheney when he was at the pinnacle of American politics.

While Trump has renounced Cheney's interventionist foreign policy and the Iraq War he oversaw, he – like Cheney – has demonstrated a willingness to use American military power abroad in ways that often flout attempts at oversight.

He launched bombing strikes on Iran in June, which he justified with warnings of a growing nuclear threat from a regional adversary, echoing the very reasoning Cheney used at the start of the 2003 Iraq war.

In recent months, Trump's administration has designated narcotics traffickers as "enemy combatants" and is undertaking an ongoing campaign of destroying suspected drug-running boats in international waters. The deadly military attacks are necessary, they say, to protect American national security.

According to a Washington Post report, Trump's justice department has informed Congress that the White House does not need congressional approval to continue these strikes, despite requirements governing the use of force set out in the 1974 War Powers Resolution.

Critics had accused Cheney's Bush administration of stretching the boundaries of the 2001 Authorisation of Military Force in the "War on Terror" to permit US military operations against suspected terrorists across the world. Now Trump is using similar means – drones and missiles – without even that slim cover of congressional approval.

Another key facet of Cheney's foreign policy was a reliance on "extraordinary renditions" of suspected terrorists captured abroad or on US soil in order to avoid US domestic courts from having jurisdiction oversight individual cases.

The Bush administration constructed a massive facility at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in order to indefinitely hold those individuals and struck deals with foreign governments to operate "black sites" where interrogations could be conducted without judges weighing in on the legality of the activities.

During his second term in office, Trump has taken similar steps to avoid judicial review of his efforts to detain and deport undocumented migrants on US soil. He has expanded the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay to house deportees and struck deals with foreign governments to receive deported individuals.

While some US courts have issued injunctions to stop the removals, they have had limited ability to review the merits of such actions.

"The constitution charges the president, not federal district courts, with the conduct of foreign diplomacy and protecting the nation against foreign terrorists, including by effectuating their removal," Trump's lawyers argued in one case before the US Supreme Court.

Trump has also threatened to use domestic surveillance and investigatory capabilities of the US Department of Justice that Cheney enhanced and expanded more than 20 years ago to combat what he has called "the enemy within".

While the Bush administration used these powers to infiltrate Muslim communities suspected of harbouring extremist views, Trump has called for a national crackdown on the loosely organised left-wing Antifa movement, which he says has resorted to violence in its demonstrations against the president's right-wing policies.

The government's surveillance powers have also been focused on foreign nationals with legal authorisation to enter the US – revoking residency permits and work visas for those the administration has deemed to hold anti-American or antisemitic views.

Within hours after Cheney's death on Tuesday, flags at the White House were lowered to half staff - a display of national mourning mandated by federal law. The move, however, obscures the dramatic rift that had formed between the conservative old guard of Cheney's era and the new Republican Party that Trump has fashioned in his image.

While tributes to the late vice-president have rolled in at a steady pace, Trump has been notably silent.

The current president hasn't hesitated to criticise Cheney and his interventionist foreign policy views in the past, however. And he frequently clashed with Cheney's daughter, Liz, who became a vocal critic of Trump and in 2021 served as vice-chair of the congressional panel investigating his conduct during the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.

Trump and Cheney stood at loggerheads in the more than a decade since the latter left public office for the final time. Those clashes, however, were about policies and personality. On the power of the presidency – the scope of executive authority and the necessity for the White House to act forcefully when required – they were singing from the same hymnal.

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Dua Lipa admires her writing. Taylor Swift referenced her in her track The Tortured Poets Department, singing: "You're not Dylan Thomas, I'm not Patti Smith".

Fifty years after Smith released her swaggering, era-defining album, Horses, she is back on the road and also publishing a new memoir, titled Bread of Angels.

"The idea of the book came to me in a dream," Patti Smith tells me.

It's a fantastic read - a portrait of an artist who was at the heart of New York's counter-cultural scene in the 1970s. Smith was rubbing shoulders with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and the poet William Burroughs.

During that heady period, she was performing at the legendary CBGBs (though the club "wasn't legendary yet… it was completely unknown" she tells me).

The singer-songwriter was also refusing to compromise to the whims of male record producers. "I had a lot of armour and it wasn't easily pierced," she says.

Her first album Horses was for the disenfranchised and the shunned.

"We were still living in a time where if a kid told their parents they were gay in the Midwest or somewhere, they were disowned. New York was filled with the disowned".

When we met, Smith had just played the Palladium on the London leg of her European tour.

Delivering songs that are at least half a century old to an audience of all ages, including young people who know her lyrics, "could bring you to tears, it's very humbling," she tells me. "It makes me feel like I'm still doing something useful - and that's a great feeling".

Being useful is clearly a driver for Patti Smith - a poet, writer, artist, activist and trailblazer whose anthemic rock song, People Have the Power, is a call to stand up for what you believe in.

She wrote the track with her husband, the musician Fred 'Sonic' Smith, who died more than 30 years ago, aged just 44.

The song was "his concept," she tells me "and it was for the people of the future, for marches, for protest, for just feeling some strength".

She's since "been on marches where people didn't know I was marching - and they were singing that song spontaneously".

It is "heartbreaking" that Fred didn't live to see it. But it also makes her "so proud for him and happy".

When I ask if the new book is a love letter to him, she's visibly moved. Even 30 years on, it appears talking about Fred can bring her to tears. She takes a moment to compose herself, while sharing "it's not a sad feeling".

Probably her best known hit was also Fred-related. Bruce Springsteen's recording engineer had offered her a song that the singer had abandoned, to see if she could come up with an idea for the lyrics. She avoided listening until one night, when she was waiting for her weekly call from Fred, who was living in Detroit.

She played the tape and tells me she said to herself: "''It's one of those darn hits'. I knew it, as soon as I listened to it. It was in my key, it was perfect, it had sensualness, it was anthemic."

She wrote the lyrics to Because the Night as she waited for Fred to call, including the lines, 'Have I doubt when I'm alone? Love is a ring, the telephone'. (He did eventually call).

Smith ditched her music career when she was at the very top, touring Europe and being chased down the street by fans, because she fell in love with Fred. She gave up the band to return to her first love - poetry - and wedded bliss (the couple had two children together).

The book "is a love letter to my parents, to my siblings, to my husband, to my brother, to all of the people named and unnamed that helped shape me".

She's certainly lost more than her fair share of loved ones far too young.

Not just Fred, but her best friend, the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who was felled by Aids in 1989 at the age of 42. (Smith's 2010 book Just Kids, charts their relationship and was described by Dua Lipa as "an incredible book and such a time capsule of creativity when it was really emerging, especially during that time in the 1960s and 1970s").

Patti's adored brother Todd also died at the age of 45.

In Bread of Angels, Smith writes with her usual vividness about her upbringing. Her family relocated 11 times before she was four years old; they were evicted and had to live with relatives; they moved into a rat-infested tenement building in Philadelphia.

But what radiates most from the book is how she developed her artistic passions from a really young age.

While most of us were still honing our fine motor skills playing with Lego bricks, the young Smith seemed to be asking big philosophical questions about life and becoming fascinated by words.

Poetry, she writes, "formed a map that led to the kingdom of the infinite imagination".

She was obsessed with the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, and aged 17, it was a "seamless transition" to Bob Dylan.

"Both poets' words seemed as if they were written for the tribe of black sheep, outsiders trying to exist in the times they were dealt," she says.

As any of the 1.4 million people who follow her on Instagram know, she's an artist to her core.

The book delves deeper into what shaped her.

Smith described to me discovering some Vogue magazines as a child and becoming enchanted by contemporary photography.

She was "shocked, stunned, beguiled. It was a whole new world… I can't say why a little seven-year old kid was drawn to that, living in a lower middle class area after World War II, but it was a real thing".

Age nine, struck down with a virus during the Asian flu pandemic, and so ill the doctor says she probably won't survive, her mother bought her a boxset recording of Puccini's Madame Butterfly and put it within eyeshot of her bed.

Smith genuinely believes that the desire to listen to it made her get well.

And on the family's only visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, young Patti slipped off alone to a hall of Picassos and was "smitten". She had "fallen for art".

It was her beloved father who took her to that museum. Smith was a sickly child, contracting bronchial pneumonia, tuberculosis, German measles, mumps and chicken pox which kept her in "periods of lengthy bed rest".

Her mother told her her dad actually saved her life as a baby. She was "born coughing". He would hold little Patti above a steaming washtub to help her breathe.

Her love for him is evident. But after he and her mother died, she and her sister did a DNA test to find out more about their heritage. Smith made the "shocking" discovery that her biological father was someone different. She reveals it for the first time in her memoir.

"I would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit broken-hearted.

"It actually held the book up for a while because I had to process that. So much of my book is dedicated to my father and it still is.

"He will always be my father, but now I have two fathers".

She discovered her blood father was Jewish, "one hundred percent Ashkenazi," with relatives who she says were driven out of Russia to Ukraine, then on to Liverpool, England, and Newfoundland, Canada, before taking root in Philadelphia in the US.

"I don't know a whole lot about him," she tells me. "But everything I found out about him, I recognise. I recognise myself in his face. I've only seen a couple of pictures, but the same attitude. I can just feel it".

The discovery has given her answers about the "things about yourself that the rest of your family doesn't have".

Smith praises her mother for keeping the secret from her. "This is how great my mother was. My mother knew in her lifetime that I favoured my father, so she never said a word to make me feel that he wasn't… she did her best to protect me".

Patti Smith has always struck me as uncompromising. Think of those fabulous, almost gender-defying photographs from the 1970s.

She was the height of countercultural cool.

I wasn't sure what to expect when we met. I found a warm and thoughtful person, with an intense aesthetic sensibility and a - just as intense - love of family. Her losses have shaped her.

Her poetic artistry has shaped us all.

She's also an ardent supporter of the younger female artists who have followed in her footsteps. Dua Lipa. Taylor Swift. They're "doing a good job," she tells me, because the music industry is "dominated by women".

She calls them "strong girls… like the song The Kids are All Right, the girls are all right. They're facing a lot of stuff, but they're facing it well".

Bread of Angels by Patti Smith is published on 4 November

A transgender hospital worker felt a right to use a female-only facility at work as she had done for years without issues being raised, an employment tribunal heard.

Eight nurses are challenging County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust's policy of allowing a female-only changing room to be used by Rose Henderson, a biological male who identifies as a woman.

Rose, an operating department practitioner at Darlington Memorial Hospital who has been referred to by first name at the tribunal and uses female pronouns, also denied claims of giving "evil looks" at nurses who had signed a letter of objection to her use of and alleged conduct within the changing room.

The tribunal continues.

The hearing in Newcastle heard Rose had completed placements at the hospital since 2019 as part of studies at Teesside University, before beginning full time work there in 2022.

Since the first day, Rose had changed in the female-only room, used by about 300 women, the tribunal heard.

Niazi Fetto KC, barrister for the nurses, asked if Rose had ever considered, as other transgender colleagues had done in the past, asking for a separate place to get changed.

"No, I didn't see it as necessary," Rose replied, adding the use of the women's changing room was "never really brought up" by managers.

Mr Fetto asked if Rose had ever considered if using the changing room could pose a "risk" that other users might be upset, embarrassed or frightened by Rose's presence there.

"It never occurred to me it could be a risk, no," Rose said.

The tribunal has heard complaints were first made by female nurses on the day surgery unit (DSU) in August or September 2023, with 26 women going on to sign a letter complaining about Rose's use of and conduct within the changing room in March 2024.

Mr Fetto asked if Rose had continued using the changing room even after being aware of the "discontent", which Rose agreed with.

"To your mind you had a right to use the changing room?" Mr Fetto asked.

Rose replied: "Yes."

Mr Fetto asked if Rose had thought about the "perspective" of those complaining, to which Rose replied it was a source of "wonder" why there was "suddenly an issue" given she had been using the room for several years already.

"I considered their reasoning, but not to any great extent," Rose told the tribunal.

'Above bigotry'

Rose only became aware of the full details of the complaint when they were printed and broadcast in the media, the tribunal heard.

Mr Fetto asked if, after that, Rose had made a point of going to the DSU in "defiance" of the women and to appear "above bigotry and hatred" as Rose had written in a statement to the tribunal.

Rose said there were a "good number of reasons" professionally to go to the unit.

Several nurses alleged Rose gave them "evil looks" or "hard stares", which Rose denied, telling the tribunal she did not know who the nurses were.

"I'm not in the business of levelling evil looks at anyone or hard staring," Rose said, adding people could think whatever they wanted about her but that did not influence her view of colleagues "as professionals".

One of the lead nurses, Bethany Hutchison, said Rose had smirked at her as they passed in a corridor, which she took to be an attempt at intimidation.

Mr Fetto asked Rose if she had "displayed amusement" towards nurse Bethany Hutchison.

Rose said she was talking to another colleague at the time about something they found funny, "but it wasn't [Ms Hutchison's] presence which I found amusing".

The tribunal has heard a poster declaring the changing room to be "inclusive" was put up by some of Rose's colleagues after the row erupted.

Rose saw a post about it circulating on social media and immediately contacted managers to ask for the sign to be taken down, saying it was done with good intentions but was doing more harm than good.

Mr Fetto asked if Rose knew who put the poster up.

Rose did not know exactly but assumed it to have been done by supportive theatre colleagues, a "small subset" of whom had been frustrated at not being able to do anything to help.

The tribunal has heard allegations from the nurses about Rose's conduct in the changing room, with some claiming Rose would walk around in boxer shorts and stare at women getting changed.

Rose said the allegations were "false".

One of the nurses, Karen Danson, had told the tribunal Rose had once asked her three times if she was going to get changed, which had triggered flashbacks to sexual abuse Ms Danson suffered as a child.

Rose did not know who Ms Danson was and could not recall such an incident, the tribunal heard.

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Pregnant teenager Bella Culley, who admitted drug trafficking charges in Georgia, has arrived home after being freed from prison.

The 19-year-old from Billingham, Teesside, had initially faced a possible 20 years in jail, but prosecutors made a last-minute change to the terms of a plea bargain.

Now eight months pregnant, she had spent five months and 24 days in custody at Georgia's Rustavi Prison Number Five.

She walked free from court in Tbilisi arm-in-arm with her mother on Monday and arrived on an Easyjet flight at Luton Airport just before 19:00 GMT.

The teenager was detained on 10 May having being arrested at Tbilisi International Airport when 12kg (26lb) of marijuana and 2kg (4.4lb) of hashish were found in her luggage.

Her family had recently paid £137,000 to reduce her sentence to two years.

On Monday her lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia said that prosecutors made the changes to the plea deal and, given her age and pregnancy, decided to free her.

Miss Culley had previously pleaded guilty to bringing drugs into Georgia, flying from Thailand via Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.

She said she was forced to do so by gangsters who tortured her with a hot iron.

She had initially gone missing while travelling in Thailand and her lawyer said Georgian police had launched a separate criminal investigation into her coercion allegations.

Miss Culley had been held in pre-trial detention since May, first in stark conditions in Georgia's Rustavi Prison Number Five before being transferred to a "mother and baby" unit.

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

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Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, had a glittering - if controversial - career in American public life.

He served as President Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff in the 1970s, before spending a decade in the House of Representatives.

President George H. W. Bush made him defence secretary during the first Gulf War and the US invasion of Panama.

In 2001, Cheney became one of the most powerful vice presidents in history.

He was a key architect of President George W. Bush's 'War on Terror' after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and an early advocate of the invasion of Iraq.

But, in his final years, he became a bitter critic of the Republican party under the leadership of President Donald Trump.

"In our nation's 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic," Cheney said.

Richard Bruce Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on 30 January 1941.

His father worked for the US Department of Agriculture, while his mother had been a successful softball player in the 1930s.

When he was 13, his family moved to Casper, an oil town in Wyoming. In 1959, Cheney entered Yale on a scholarship, but failed to graduate.

He confessed that he fell in with “some kindred souls, young men like me who were not adjusting very well [to Yale] and shared my opinion that beer was one of the essentials of life.”

He went on to gain a Master's degree in political science from the University of Wyoming but - like his future boss, George W. Bush, he continued to party.

In his early 20s, Cheney was twice convicted of drink driving. The incidents focused his mind on the future.

"I was headed down a bad road if I continued on that course," he said.

In 1959, when he became eligible to be drafted for military service, Cheney made the most of every legal avenue to avoid putting on a uniform.

He obtained a string of deferments, first so that he could finish his college course and then when his new wife, Lynne became pregnant.

"I don't regret the decisions I made," he said later. "I complied fully with all the requirements of the statutes, registered with the draft when I turned 18. Had I been drafted, I would have been happy to serve."

Surprisingly this did not become a major campaign issue when he was running for the Vice-Presidency, even after Cheney questioned the ability of the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry - himself a Vietnam veteran - to serve as commander in chief.

Dick Cheney's first taste of Washington came in 1968 when he worked for William Steiger, a young republican representative from Wisconsin.

Legend has it that he caught the eye of Donald Rumsfeld, former defence secretary, then about to take over at the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) under President Richard Nixon.

Rumsfeld mentored Cheney, first in the OEO, and then in the Ford White House.

When Gerald Ford made Rumsfeld his defence secretary in 1975, Cheney found himself chief of staff at the White House. He was just 34 years old.

Eschewing the standard limousine for his battered VW Beetle, Dick Cheney proved a popular and approachable master of ceremonies.

"He made the system run," said Brent Scowcroft, Ford's national security adviser. "Everybody had access to the president, but it was smooth, orderly. He didn't try to be a deputy president."

When Ford lost the presidency in 1976, Cheney returned to Wyoming and stood for its House of Representatives seat.

But, weeks into the campaign and smoking three packets of cigarettes a day, he had the first of his many heart attacks.

While he was recuperating, Lynne continued to campaign on his behalf - and Cheney was returned with an impressive 59% of the vote.

During his decade in the House, he gained himself the reputation as a drier-than-dry conservative, enthusiastically supporting Ronald Reagan's huge Cold War increases in defence spending.

More controversially, he opposed the release of Nelson Mandela from jail and was one of only 21 congressmen to vote against the prohibition of armour-piercing "cop killer" bullets.

Early in 1989, he was given the chance of higher office when President George H. W. Bush's nominee for defence secretary, Senator John Tower, was forced to withdraw amid allegations of heavy drinking and womanising.

Bush needed a congressman with a good reputation to take over at the Pentagon. He chose Dick Cheney and the Senate approved the choice without opposition.

Cheney's years at defence were some of the most momentous since the end of World War Two. The Berlin Wall and the Soviet empire collapsed and the United States was left to rethink its whole doctrine.

Although hawkish by nature, he oversaw a huge post-Cold War reduction in the military budget - where the number of servicemen and women fell from 2.2 million to 1.8 million.

Most of all, though, his time at the Pentagon will be remembered for the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq.

He took the lead in advocating military force against Saddam Hussein, whose troops had invaded Kuwait.

He persuaded Saudi Arabia's King Fahd to allow the deployment of more than 400,000 United States troops on his territory in the lead-up to Operation Desert Storm.

Dick Cheney flew to Riyadh to plan the attack with his generals. After a five week air campaign, coalition forces began a ground war.

Within 100 hours, Iraq's army had been routed.

Generals Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf received the ticker-tape parades. But Dick Cheney, as much as his soldiers, deserved credit for the success of Desert Storm.

Bill Clinton's presidential election victory in 1992 saw Cheney leave Washington once again.

This time he became CEO of Halliburton, a huge multinational company that is a leading supplier of equipment to the oil industry. There he remained, until summoned back to public life by George Bush Jnr.

Initially, he was asked to chair the search for someone to be vice president. But, having reviewed his recommendations, the young presidential candidate asked Dick Cheney if he would join him on the ticket.

After the attacks on 11 September 2001, Cheney was isolated from the president for a number of weeks - taken to an "undisclosed location" - in order to secure the succession if George W. Bush should be killed.

He was a leading advocate of US military action in both Afghanistan and Iraq. He insisted that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, and saw his defeat as the finishing of old business.

Cheney was a strong supporter of waterboarding captured terrorist suspects, declaring himself to be a "strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation techniques".

But it was his close links to, and long experience in Congress which made him a new type of vice-president. Cheney kept offices in the Capitol building as well as near the commander-in-chief, so as to be at the heart of the legislative process.

He played an influential role in keeping Bush's tax policies conservative, and rolling back environmental protections that were hampering American businesses.

Cheney had the ear of the president at all times and was never slow in using his privileged access to by-pass other senior members of the administration.

He did so to some effect in 2001, when he persuaded Bush to sign an order stripping captured foreign terrorist suspects of their legal rights.

This was to the anger of the Secretary of State, Colin Powell who first heard about the decision when it was broadcast on the news channel, CNN.

In October 2002, and later in July 2007, while President Bush was undergoing medical procedures, Cheney became acting president for a few hours under the terms of the 25th Amendment.

But his inability to shepherd legislation through Congress brought accusations that Mr Cheney was a liability.

And, even though George W Bush said that he would retain his running mate for 2004, there was pressure in Republican circles to dump him.

The president stood firm and Cheney played a central role in the decisive victory against John Kerry and his running mate John Edwards.

There was one exception to his conservatism which emerged during the campaign.

He opposed a constitutional ban on gay marriage - supported by President Bush - because his daughter Mary was a lesbian.

Cheney announced that - although the final decision should be left to individual states - he was personally in favour of marriage equality. "Freedom means freedom for everyone," he said.

His reputation became damaged when it emerged that Halliburton had won the contract to restore Iraq's oil industry, and that he was to receive $500,000 in deferred compensation from the company.

More controversy was to follow. In 2005, his former chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted on charges relating to the leaking of a CIA agent's identity to the press.

And in 2006, after intense pressure from politicians and the media, Cheney was forced to take responsibility for accidentally shooting a hunting companion.

Harry Whittington, 78, was left with 30 pellets in his body, leading to a minor heart attack. Mr Cheney later called the incident "one of the worst days of my life".

The unfortunate episode became fodder for US late-night comedians and was seized upon by opponents as a damaging political metaphor - showing Cheney blasting away at the wrong target.

The vice president also grew worried that terrorists might try and assassinate him, by sending an electronic signal to his pacemaker - having seen a fictional version of this plot on the TV series, Homeland.

"I was aware of the danger that existed," he late wrote. "I knew from the experience we had and the necessity for adjusting my own device that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible."

The pacemaker was taken out and replaced with one that had no connection to wifi.

After eight-years as vice-president, the man widely seen as the architect of President Bush's "war on terror" left office in January 2009.

He became a critic of the Obama administration's national security policies, opposing plans to close the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He lashed out at his vice presidential successor, Joe Biden, calling him "dead wrong" for saying another attack on the scale of 11 September 2001 was unlikely.

After a full heart transplant in 2012, he remained an active political figure. And, despite decades working for Republican presidents, he became a bitter opponent of President Donald Trump.

Having initially endorsed him in 2016, Cheney was appalled by allegations of Russian interference in the presidential election and Trump's seemingly casual attitude towards Nato.

He supported his older daughter, Liz, as she became a leading Republican 'never Trump' in the House of Representatives - and condemned the refusal to accept the result of the 2020 election.

Dick Cheney later published a statement that he would vote for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

It was an action that guaranteed that he will be remembered with mixed emotions on both sides of the political aisle.

For years, Cheney was a hero to the Republican right for his forthright manner and dry-as-dust ideological beliefs - and reviled by the left, who accused him of working for the interests of the oil industry.

But, he ended up supporting gay marriage and a Democratic party presidential candidate - while his frequent attacks on Donald Trump destroyed his relationship with his former party.

A transgender hospital worker felt a right to use a female-only facility at work as she had done for years without issues being raised, an employment tribunal heard.

Eight nurses are challenging County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust's policy of allowing a female-only changing room to be used by Rose Henderson, a biological male who identifies as a woman.

Rose, an operating department practitioner at Darlington Memorial Hospital who has been referred to by first name at the tribunal and uses female pronouns, also denied claims of giving "evil looks" at nurses who had signed a letter of objection to her use of and alleged conduct within the changing room.

The tribunal continues.

The hearing in Newcastle heard Rose had completed placements at the hospital since 2019 as part of studies at Teesside University, before beginning full time work there in 2022.

Since the first day, Rose had changed in the female-only room, used by about 300 women, the tribunal heard.

Niazi Fetto KC, barrister for the nurses, asked if Rose had ever considered, as other transgender colleagues had done in the past, asking for a separate place to get changed.

"No, I didn't see it as necessary," Rose replied, adding the use of the women's changing room was "never really brought up" by managers.

Mr Fetto asked if Rose had ever considered if using the changing room could pose a "risk" that other users might be upset, embarrassed or frightened by Rose's presence there.

"It never occurred to me it could be a risk, no," Rose said.

The tribunal has heard complaints were first made by female nurses on the day surgery unit (DSU) in August or September 2023, with 26 women going on to sign a letter complaining about Rose's use of and conduct within the changing room in March 2024.

Mr Fetto asked if Rose had continued using the changing room even after being aware of the "discontent", which Rose agreed with.

"To your mind you had a right to use the changing room?" Mr Fetto asked.

Rose replied: "Yes."

Mr Fetto asked if Rose had thought about the "perspective" of those complaining, to which Rose replied it was a source of "wonder" why there was "suddenly an issue" given she had been using the room for several years already.

"I considered their reasoning, but not to any great extent," Rose told the tribunal.

'Above bigotry'

Rose only became aware of the full details of the complaint when they were printed and broadcast in the media, the tribunal heard.

Mr Fetto asked if, after that, Rose had made a point of going to the DSU in "defiance" of the women and to appear "above bigotry and hatred" as Rose had written in a statement to the tribunal.

Rose said there were a "good number of reasons" professionally to go to the unit.

Several nurses alleged Rose gave them "evil looks" or "hard stares", which Rose denied, telling the tribunal she did not know who the nurses were.

"I'm not in the business of levelling evil looks at anyone or hard staring," Rose said, adding people could think whatever they wanted about her but that did not influence her view of colleagues "as professionals".

One of the lead nurses, Bethany Hutchison, said Rose had smirked at her as they passed in a corridor, which she took to be an attempt at intimidation.

Mr Fetto asked Rose if she had "displayed amusement" towards nurse Bethany Hutchison.

Rose said she was talking to another colleague at the time about something they found funny, "but it wasn't [Ms Hutchison's] presence which I found amusing".

The tribunal has heard a poster declaring the changing room to be "inclusive" was put up by some of Rose's colleagues after the row erupted.

Rose saw a post about it circulating on social media and immediately contacted managers to ask for the sign to be taken down, saying it was done with good intentions but was doing more harm than good.

Mr Fetto asked if Rose knew who put the poster up.

Rose did not know exactly but assumed it to have been done by supportive theatre colleagues, a "small subset" of whom had been frustrated at not being able to do anything to help.

The tribunal has heard allegations from the nurses about Rose's conduct in the changing room, with some claiming Rose would walk around in boxer shorts and stare at women getting changed.

Rose said the allegations were "false".

One of the nurses, Karen Danson, had told the tribunal Rose had once asked her three times if she was going to get changed, which had triggered flashbacks to sexual abuse Ms Danson suffered as a child.

Rose did not know who Ms Danson was and could not recall such an incident, the tribunal heard.

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The chancellor's pitch: the Budget will be painful, due to the actions of others, but it will be worth it, to tackle debt, help public services and promote growth.

How does that add up?

Rachel Reeves pinned the need for expected tax rises on the actions of previous governments – post-Brexit trading arrangements, austerity – as the underlying reasons for a disappointing assessment by the official forecasters of the economy's productivity.

That productivity has been held back by years of poor investment, and improvements have been slow. Lower productivity means weaker growth in the economy, hitting tax income and affecting assumptions about how much money the chancellor has to find to meet her financial rules.

Reeves also pointed to other external forces - tariffs and supply chain disruption – for the underwhelming performance of growth and inflation.

But some of these were foreseeable. Even if the official assessment is worse than thought, productivity - a measure of the output of the economy per hour worked - has long been problematic.

And when it comes to external factors, President Trump's trade hostilities, for example, are expected to have a very limited impact on growth.

Economists say the chancellor may need tax rises totalling some £30bn to meet her financial rules by a comfortable margin.

Reeves accused past Conservative governments of prioritising political convenience, but her fiscal position also reflects similar actions by her own government.

The public purse is having to find several billions of pounds to fund U-turns over welfare and Winter Fuel Payments.

Analysts, including those at the Bank of England, also point to the chancellor's own tax rises in last year's Budget as hindering growth and employment, and adding to inflation pressures this year.

It was always risky for Reeves to suggest she wouldn't be back for another hefty tax raid. She met her financial rules by only a slim margin last year. The gamble didn't pay off, but it can't just be blamed on ill winds from elsewhere.

It now appears that taxes are going to rise – and significantly. The chancellor argues money is needed to support the extra funding that has been put into public services, but the performance of these services depends on more than just cash.

Official figures indicate that in the year after Labour came to power, the public sector, and in particular healthcare, became less efficient as productivity dropped. There's more work to be done if we're to get bang for our buck.

For the actual detail on which taxes will rise, we'll have to wait until the Budget.

But by skirting around the issue of whether manifesto pledges will be adhered to, while claiming to have inherited a dire environment, the chancellor has stoked speculation that income tax rates may rise.

The pledges of not increasing the main rates of VAT, employee National Insurance Contributions and income tax always seemed risky to economists – the "big three" account for the majority of tax take. But they are also the most visible taxes for the public, and their inclusion in the manifesto made them appear taboo, glass only to be broken in cases of emergency.

A rise in, say, income tax rates may come to pass (perhaps accompanied with a cut in National Insurance to offset the impact on workers). But it may not.

The Budget is still being put together. The door to breaking manifesto pledges may have been deliberately nudged open so that if it doesn't come to pass, then an alternate package of tax rises, however large, would be greeted with relief.

There are a multitude of other options to consider– a levy on banks or the gambling industry, a further freezing of the thresholds at which different rates of taxes on incomes become applicable (so-called fiscal drag), a change in the liability of partnerships for National Insurance and even the tax treatment of pension levies have all been mooted.

And those tax rises will still be substantial, and felt primarily in the pockets of the better off.

Finding tax rises of the tune of £20-£30bn - sucking that amount out of the economy - is impossible without affecting incomes or profits, which risks damaging the outlook for growth.

However big the tax bill, this Budget may not deliver everything the chancellor wishes for.

The brother of the Southport killer said his parents "lost control" of their son and he feared his younger sibling would kill a member of their family, a public inquiry has heard.

Axel Rudakubana, then 17, killed three children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop on 29 July 2024.

The Southport Inquiry, sitting at Liverpool Town Hall, heard the attacker's brother Dion Rudakubana told a friend there was a risk of his brother "doing something potentially fatal".

The inquiry was told Dion told his friend over the Discord messaging app: "The fights are scary because of the danger of someone dying".

Dion said his brother reminded him of the sociopathic murderer in the film No Country For Old Men.

The inquiry heard Dion was diagnosed with a neuromuscular disorder at the age of 12 which led to him using a wheelchair and his parents helping him more.

When asked by Richard Boyle, counsel to the inquiry, if that changed his relationship he said: "There was tension that came about."

Dion agreed his brother appeared to resent this change.

He told the inquiry that after the family moved from Cardiff to Southport his brother's moods deteriorated and he would have "violent outbursts".

The inquiry heard Dion became "increasingly wary" of his brother, who would hit him regularly.

He said: "I had to be cautious if I did speak to him because any disagreement could escalate into an argument."

'Serious fears'

Dion said his brother became significantly more violent after he was expelled from Range High School in Formby, Merseyside, in October 2019.

Dion left for university in 2022 and the brothers spoke less and less "because he was not familiar with having me around".

The inquiry was told about a message Dion sent to a friend on Discord in which he said his brother was annoyed by him speaking late at night because of the thin walls in their home.

He also told his friend there was a risk of "him doing something potentially fatal".

He said: "The fights are scary because of the danger of someone dying."

Mr Boyle asked: "You had serious fears that your brother would kill a member of your family?"

Dion replied: "If things escalated to that point."

Mr Boyle asked how his parents reacted to the attacker's violent behaviour.

"It didn't make sense to try and punish him," he said. "Also, there was a heavy risk in doing so.

"We said there was a general risk to life in general conversation, if you try to confront him... it wouldn't be responded to well."

When Mr Boyle asked if his parents had lost control of his brother, Dion agreed.

When asked about his brother reminding him of a character from the film No Country for Old Men, Dion said: "I've been told that character's meant to be a sociopath and that's why I used the word there".

Dion said the last interaction he had with his brother was in the summer of 2023 .

He confirmed that their parents asked the killer to say goodbye to him as he was leaving to see his friends and his brother threw a bottle at him but the door had closed before it hit.

The inquiry continues.

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Chancellor Rachel Reeves is contemplating tax rises in her Budget on 26 November.

And she has said one of the key reasons is that the government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), is going to lower its UK productivity growth forecast for the coming years.

So why would lower UK productivity forecasts lead to tax rises?

And is this something the government could have anticipated before it pledged not to raise taxes on working people in its 2024 election manifesto?

BBC Verify has been looking into the statistics.

What is productivity?

Productivity is the amount of goods and services the entire UK economy produces for each hour of work done by everyone in the working population, also known as "output per hour".

It gives an indication of how efficiently a country's economy is using its workforce and equipment to produce these goods and services - and so how productive a country is.

A country with higher levels of productivity often has higher average wages and incomes.

In the Spring Statement in March 2025 the OBR projected total UK productivity would grow by around 1% each year over the next five years.

If productivity grows more slowly it means overall GDP growth - and overall tax revenues - will be lower than previously expected.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank has estimated each 0.1 percentage point downgrade in the official productivity growth forecast increases projected government borrowing by £7bn in 2029–30.

That is the year when the government's chosen borrowing rules require it to balance day-to-day spending with tax revenues, essentially so it's not borrowing for anything except investment.

So if the OBR downgraded its forecast for average UK productivity growth over the next five years from 1% to 0.8% (-0.2 percentage points) that revision would increase projected borrowing in 2029-30 by £14bn.

In March, the chancellor gave herself "headroom" against meeting her borrowing rules in 2029-30 of only £9.9bn. In other words, this was the leeway between meeting and not meeting her rules.

That means an OBR productivity forecast downgrade of 0.2 percentage points (£14bn) would, on its own, wipe away this headroom, pushing the government into a projected deficit in that year.

And if the chancellor wanted to restore that headroom against her rules she would need to either cut government spending or raise taxes by an equivalent amount.

Given the spending budgets of departments were fixed in the June Spending Review, the chancellor is expected to try to restore her headroom against her fiscal rules by raising taxes.

What's been happening to UK productivity over a longer period?

The UK's productivity growth has been unusually weak since the financial crisis.

Between 1971 and 2009, UK output per hour grew by 2% a year on average.

But since 2010 it has grown by an average of just 0.4% a year.

This productivity growth slowdown is not unique to the UK. It has been a feature of most advanced countries since 2010.

However, the UK's slowdown has been relatively large.

In the period 2010 to 2023, the UK's average annual growth rate fell by an average of 1.9 percentage points relative to the growth rate in the period 1971 to 2009.

This was worse than the rest of the G7 group of industrialised nations, apart from Germany and Japan.

Why has UK productivity growth been so weak?

For many years after 2010, economists treated the UK's productivity slowdown as a puzzle, because there was no consensus on the cause.

Some pointed to the lasting and outsize impact of the financial crisis on the UK, given our economy's reliance on financial services through the City of London.

Others suggested the austerity era spending cuts and tax rises of the last Conservative-led government had contributed to it by reducing overall economic activity at a time when the UK had the potential to grow more quickly without generating inflation.

More recently, Brexit has been cited as a contributor - both due to the reduction in trade relative to the UK staying in the EU's single market and customs union since 2020 and also the damage to business investment from the long period of uncertainty about the UK's future status in the years after the 2016 referendum.

There is still no consensus on the reasons for the productivity slowdown, though many economists think historically low levels of investment in the UK economy - both from the private sector and government - are likely to be an important part of the story.

Should this latest productivity downgrade come as a surprise?

Not really, because in its most recent forecast the OBR was notably more optimistic about UK productivity growth than other UK forecasters, including the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In March, the OBR was projecting medium-term potential supply growth for the UK (a wider measure of productivity, which includes increases in the available workforce) of 1.79%, versus the Bank of England's 1.5% and the IMF's 1.36%.

And the OBR has been persistently optimistic about UK productivity growth since 2010.

Given that, it is not surprising that the OBR has downgraded its forecasts to be more in line with other forecasters.

Public finance experts note that if Rachel Reeves had given herself more headroom against her fiscal rules in March 2025 then she might not have needed to respond to this downgrade by raising taxes.

Many public finance experts cautioned after her last Budget in October 2024 that if productivity growth disappointed, her plans and pledges not to raise taxes again looked vulnerable.

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