The 71-year-old, who was a Republican representative for South Carolina, died on Saturday “from a brief and sudden illness”, his office said.

The statement continued: “Senator Graham’s family appreciates prayers at this time and asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult period.”

Emergency services responded to a call for “cardiac arrest” at Mr Graham’s Washington DC home on Saturday night, according to police scanner audio obtained by our US partner, NBC News.

The senator had just returned from a trip to Ukraine, where he met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Friday.

He was scheduled to appear on NBC News’ Meet The Press on Sunday.

Mr Graham was elected to the US Senate in 2002, and was seeking a fifth six-year term in November.

He was a key Republican voice on defence and international affairs, with his website saying he “consistently pushed for outcomes ​in the War on Terror ​that protect our long-term national security interests”.

US president pays tribute

Mr Trump described Mr Graham as “one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known” in a post on Truth Social.

He added: “He was always working, and was a true American Patriot. Lindsey will be greatly missed!!! DETAILS AND ARRANGEMENTS TO FOLLOW. So sad!”

Mr Graham was initially critical of Mr Trump when the New York businessman moved into politics – but later became one of his staunchest supporters.

He was one of the few Republicans able to remain a key ally for the US president despite publicly disagreeing with him.

In 2025, Mr Graham criticised the decision to pardon the Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the many Israeli politicians who have shared condolences.

“Lindsey understood that the security of Israel and America are inseparable,” he wrote on X. “He devoted his life to defending America, strengthening our alliance and standing up for the free world.

“Israel has lost one of its greatest friends. America has lost a great patriot. I have lost a beloved friend.”

Federal agents delivered subpoenas to some reporters’ homes demanding they appear before a federal grand jury investigating a potential crime, the Times said.

The paper had published stories alleging that the Qatari-gifted plane was not secure enough, and the Secret Service urged Trump to switch planes on his way home from a Nato summit in Turkey.

The Justice Department told the BBC it was investigating illegal leaks, adding: “Reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”

David McCraw, the Times’s top newsroom lawyer, called the summons a “brazen act” and “nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs”.

The subpoenas – a legal requirement from a court or government agency that compels a person to appear or produce records or evidence – say the reporters’ testimony is required “in regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law”, the Times reported.

The summonses require the reporters to appear before a grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday, the Times said. Grand jurys are composed of members of the public and convened by the US government to examine evidence and decide if there is enough to charge a person or persons with a crime.

The New York Times reported on security concerns about the president’s plane citing unnamed sources. While speaking to media about classified information is a crime, the US Constitution protects the freedom of the press to report information in the public interest.

“We value and appreciate the important role that the press plays in this country, but DoJ also plays an important role to make sure that the people entrusted with our nation’s secrets do what they’re supposed to do with that information, which means not sharing classified information,” the Justice Department (DoJ) said in a statement provided to the BBC.

The Times reported on Wednesday that while Trump flew to the Nato summit in Turkey on the new Air Force One, he left the summit on an older plane on the advice of the Secret Service. The next day, the newspaper reported that security officials were concerned the newer plane did not have advanced security features, including antimissile capabilities.

“Our journalists report the facts and advance the American public’s right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used,” McCraw, the Times’ lawyer, said.

Other outlets published similar reports, including CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner. A former US government official told CBS that there was not enough time or money for the plane to be updated with the security requirements to serve as Air Force One.

While these reports were surfacing, tensions with Iran over a negotiated ceasefire deal were growing, and the US was launching strikes.

Trump brushed off concerns about the plane when asked by reporters this week and said: “I have a threat all the time. I’m No. 1 on their list”.

Last month, Trump unveiled the new Boeing 747-8 jet that the Qatari government donated last year as an “unconditional” gift to the US to act as the new Air Force One.

The luxury jumbo jet was modified to transport the president and included upgrades in security, mission communications, logistics support, and advanced technology, the Air Force said. Any potential threats identified with the use of previously owned aircraft were “neutralised” in the new one, it added.

It has been valued at an estimated $400m (£300m).

A local teachers’ union has told the BBC of its “relief” – but families say the ordeal has been harrowing and they are still waiting to be reunited with their loved ones.

The military said that several soldiers died in the rescue mission.

The freed captives are currently receiving medical treatment at an undisclosed hospital and will return home at a later date, army spokesman Danjuma Jonah Danjuma said in a statement issued on Friday evening.

A renewed wave of mass kidnappings has hit Nigeria in recent months, and insecurity remains a major issue ahead of next year’s general election.

The government says it is stepping up security around schools and vulnerable communities but critics say it is not enough.

In this case, the victims were kidnapped by gunmen on 15 May from three schools in the district of Osiire, in Oyo state: Baptist Nursery and Primary School, LA Primary School, and Community Grammar School.

No official confirmation has been given of the victims’ ages, but children at such schools in Nigeria are typically aged between two and 18 years old.

For their families, it has been an agonising wait.

“It was a harrowing experience… but we thank God that it ended well,” Prof Wole Alamu tells the BBC. His wife Rachael Folawe Alamu is the headteacher of Community Grammar School, and he said his family had found it especially difficult to see videos released of her and other teachers and pupils by their abductors.

“We are happy that they are out and we are grateful to everybody who has contributed in one way or the other for the release,” Prof Alamu added.

Speaking to the BBC, Hassan Ajibola, who leads the Teachers’ Union in Oyo State, said he was “happy and elated” and felt huge “joy”, but urged the authorities to fully implement stronger security measures as outlined in their Safe School Initiative that was launched over a decade ago following the infamous Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction.

“I am very much convinced that should that [if the] program be fully implemented and as initiated, our schools will be very, very secured,” he said.

He added measures should include deploying security personnel to schools, CCTV, regular patrols, fencing school premises and using local security groups to support areas facing shortages of personnel.

In Nigeria, continued school kidnappings have led to calls from lawmakers and rights groups for an investigation into how the Safe School Initiative funds have been used.

The Oyo state abductions caused widespread concern in Nigeria because of their scale and because it took place in the predominantly Christian south-west of the country – as opposed to the predominantly Muslim north where such attacks are more commonplace.

The army said the month-long rescue operation involved the military, police, intelligence agencies and local vigilante groups.

It said they identified those behind the abduction and dismantled their support network, including informants and hideouts in the Old Oyo National Park forest. It is one of several large, difficult-to-access areas that have become hideouts for criminal gangs and jihadist groups.

The military acknowledged that some of its personnel were killed during the operation but did not give any more details.

It announced on Friday that it had arrested a number of suspects, but did not say how many remain at large. The army says more operations are planned.

He had earlier refused to sign it in protest over Congress’s failure to pass voter ID legislation but did not veto the housing bill.

Experts have said the legislation marks the most comprehensive action from Congress on lowering housing costs for renters and homebuyers in the 21st Century. Americans have been frustrated with housing costs.

Trump, who has repeatedly made false claims of widespread fraud altering the results of US elections, wanted Republicans to prioritise the voter ID bill ahead of the November midterm elections. Without his veto, it became law automatically.

In June, both chambers of Congress approved the housing bill – called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act – in a rare moment of bipartisan agreement.

“This bill becoming law is a genuine milestone—and I don’t use that word lightly,” Dennis Shea, of the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), said. “Getting Congress to move on housing supply and affordability has been a long time coming, and the American people made clear they were ready for it.”

A survey from the BPC earlier this year found that 89% of voters from across the political spectrum wanted action from Congress to make housing more affordable.

After Congress passed the Road to Housing legislation, Trump cancelled a ceremony to sign the bill and said he would not do so until the voter ID law was passed.

As recently as Friday, he reiterated his call for passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE), which would require Americans to provide ID and proof of citizenship to vote.

“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in protest over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing the Save America Act,” Trump posted on social media.

Republicans, who control the House and the Senate by slim majorities, have said there is not enough support to get the measure over the finish line. Democrats say the SAVE legislation disenfranchises eligible voters.

After Trump’s Friday post about not signing the bill, several Democrats attacked the move on social media.

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote on X that Republicans “would rather make it harder to vote than easier to afford a home”.

What does the housing bill do?

The housing bill aims to both reduce costs and increase housing supply, as Americans have faced housing shortages for years.

It includes more than 40 provisions, including making it easier to build new homes and limiting how many single-family homes institutional investors can buy nationwide.

The bill comes as the median price of existing homes hit an all-time high in June: $440,660 (£328,000), up 1.8% from $432,700 a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors.

A US family needs an income of about $117,000 a year to afford an average home on the market, according to the real estate brokerage Redfin, but that is nearly $30,000 more than what most US households earn, according to Census data.

Potential homebuyers also face high inflation and interest rates, making homeownership even more out of reach for many Americans.

Local authorities say 32 Indians and four crew were on board the vessel, which overturned about 400 metres (1,312 ft) from Hon May Rut Ngoai island in rough sea conditions on Saturday.

Several tourist vessels operating in the area quickly came to the rescue, finding many passengers trapped inside the speedboat, Vietnam’s VnExpress reported. Twenty-one people were later saved.

Hon May Rut Ngoai – a pristine island in the An Thoi Archipelago in the Gulf of Thailand – attracts many tourists from around the world for island-hopping boat tours.

Fifteen people have died after a speedboat carrying Indian tourists capsized near a island in the south of Vietnam, according to local media reports.

Local authorities say 32 Indians and four crew were on board the vessel, which overturned about 400 metres (1,312 ft) from Hon May Rut Ngoai island in rough sea conditions on Saturday.

Several tourist vessels operating in the area quickly came to the rescue, finding many passengers trapped inside the speedboat, Vietnam’s VnExpress reported. Twenty one people were later saved.

Hon May Rut Ngoai – a pristine island in the An Thoi Archipelago in the Gulf of Thailand – attracts many tourists from around the world for island-hopping boat tours.

Hon May Rut Ngoai is located about 10km (six miles) south of Phu Quoc, Vietnam’s largest island.

Nguyen Tien Hai, a senior Communist official in the area, said the authorities were still working to confirm the exact number of those who died as well as the survivors.

He is quoted by VnExpress as saying that the speedboat may have capsized due to heavy winds and high waves.

“The top priority is rescue, bringing all victims ashore and focusing all efforts on providing emergency care to those who are still alive,” Hai said.

The Indian embassy in Vietnam described the incident as “tragic”, publishing the full list of the 32 Indian nationals who were on board the capsized boat.

The embassy also set up the telephone hotlines to “provide information and assistance to affected families”.

The payments are the first to be made to US agency staff in relation to the illness, reports of which began emerging a decade ago among CIA officers working in the Cuban capital.

Since then, American staff based elsewhere, including China, have reported “anomalous health incidents”.

Sufferers have described symptoms such as hearing a low hum, clicks, squeals and “grinding metal” while others reported intense pressure on the skull, dizziness and nausea.

The US Department of Defence said it would continue to prioritise “the care of affected personnel” as it announced the compensation, paid out under the Havana Act which was signed into law in 2021.

There has been widespread speculation for many years over what – and who – is responsible for Havana Syndrome.

Some have claimed the illness is caused by microwaves, prompting further speculation that a foreign power may have used some kind of sonar weapon to attack US overseas staff and their dependants.

“My brain is broken,” former CIA analyst Erika Stith told CBS News in 2022.

“We got this as a result of serving our country. And we deserve to be taken care of,” she said.

Last year, most US intelligence agencies and departments surmised that it was “very unlikely” that a foreign actor used “a novel weapon or prototype device to harm” US personnel and their families.

Although a small component of the US intelligence community did not completely dismiss the theory.

The report, by the National Intelligence Council, said none of the agencies or departments it spoke to “call[ed] into question the experiences or suffering” of US workers and their families.

The community believed that they “experienced genuine, sometimes painful and traumatic, physical symptoms and sensory phenomena and honestly and sincerely reported those events as possible anomalous health incidents”.

What is Havana Syndrome?

Havana Syndrome was first publicly reported in 2016, when US diplomats in Cuba reported getting sick and hearing piercing sounds at night.

Other cases have been reported around the world, from Washington to China.

It was these reports that sparked speculation of an attack by a foreign power using a mystery sonic weapon.

In 2017, the US government pulled more than half of its staff from its embassy in Havana after employees and their families reported dizziness, nausea and difficulty concentrating.

Canada’s government also heard of similar symptoms from its embassy employees in Cuba, leading to a sharp reduction in its personnel in Havana in 2019.

While Havana Syndrome cases began to emerge around a decade ago, some claim the illness has been around for much longer, spanning the Cold War years.

The accused, who was extradited from Ghana to the United States, has been accused of conspiring with one Daniel Yussif and others to participate in a scheme that used Artificial Intelligence tools to create fake identities and build relationships with victims in order to solicit money under false pretences.

The U.S. District Court, presided over by Judge John R. Adams of the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, has fixed September 8, 2026, for the jury trial to begin. A pre-trial conference has been fixed for August 25, 2026.

Per court documents, both parties may enter plea negotiations if they so wish, but must do so before the date set for the jury trial.

“Accordingly, the court will not accept plea agreements after the date of the pre-trial,” it said.

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US media cited unnamed officials as saying Tehran had privately acknowledged to President Donald Trump’s advisers that the shooting at ships was a mistake, though the Iranians reportedly pinned the blame on a rogue internal group.

Trump has said both sides have agreed to continue talks despite this week’s fighting over the Strait of Hormuz, which the White House saw as a violation of the ceasefire.

In June the US and Iran signed a ceasefire agreement where Iran would, in part, give safe passage to commercial ships.

Tehran said that an “errant” sect of hardliners was trying to undermine negotiations by firing on the commercial ships, senior US officials told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

One official told the TV network: “They [the Iranians] came back to the table and said, ‘We screwed up. We made a mistake. Let’s keep talking.'”

In a briefing for reporters on Friday, the US officials said a message to Tehran’s leadership had been conveyed through regional mediators demanding Iran release a statement declaring the strait open and that it will stop shooting at commercial ships, according to multiple media reports.

“They’re either going to give us that statement or we’re not having a good outcome for them,” said one official, quoted by Reuters news agency.

The White House also wants Iran to publicly acknowledge that firing on the shipping was a mistake, CBS reports.

Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and two people who have been heavily involved in Middle East talks – special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner – are expected to lead negotiations, which were expected to take place in Oman on Saturday.

Meanwhile, a delegation from Qatar travelled to Iran on Friday for talks aimed at defusing tensions and easing navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social earlier on Friday: “The Islamic Republic of Iran has asked us to continue ‘talks.’

“We have agreed to do so, but the United States has stated to them, in no uncertain terms, that the Cease Fire is OVER!”

No fresh attacks were reported on Friday after fighting broke out in the Gulf region earlier this week, marking the worst exchange of fire between the US and Iran since the two nations signed an interim deal in June.

Three ships were struck while using a US-recommended route through Omani waters. Iran has repeatedly said the only “safe” passage is a separate route through its waters.

Overall progress came last month when the US and Iran agreed on a 14-point memorandum of understanding, which was aimed at extending a ceasefire and ending conflict “on all fronts”.

As part of the agreement Iran and Oman must hold talks “to define the future administration and maritime services” in the strait with other Gulf states.

During the conflict, Iran sought to assert its sovereignty over the strait, including by establishing the “Persian Gulf Strait Authority”, which it said would manage “safe passage permits”.

Iran’s Fars news agency has reported that under the new deal with the US the strait would ultimately be managed by Iran in co-ordination with Oman, including possible “service fees” for ships to transit the waterway.

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Speaking in an interview on Adom FM’s Dwaso Nsem, the woman said fear, uncertainty and limited access to healthcare have become part of their daily lives as they remain at the camp.

She, however, acknowledged support from the Church of Pentecost, which she said has been providing food assistance to the stranded Ghanaians.

“It’s been difficult, but when it comes to feeding, the Church of Pentecost is helping us,” she said.

According to her, many people at the camp are afraid to move freely because of concerns about being stopped by police and immigration authorities.

“You have to be careful when going out because if you are not careful and the police get hold of you, it will be a different issue,” she said.

The woman, who said she was leaving the camp to purchase medication for her sick brother, claimed access to healthcare has become a major challenge for some of the stranded migrants.

“My brother is sick, and I am going to buy drugs. We can’t access healthcare,” she stated.

She further alleged that a Ghanaian woman was denied medical attention because her passport had expired, although she questioned the basis for the decision.

“One lady was sick and was denied healthcare because they claimed her passport had expired. I don’t know why they are saying that because the passport is for 10 years,” she said.

She also recounted another incident involving a Ghanaian woman who she claimed narrowly escaped arrest while attempting to register for a customer card at a shopping centre.

“Another lady went to Shoprite to register for their card and was nearly arrested, so she had to run,” she alleged.

The woman explained that while some Ghanaians at the camp have secured asylum documents, others are still waiting for their immigration status to be regularised.

She said she applied for legal documentation about three years ago through her employer but has since not received the required permit.

“My boss did it for me and others. I was issued a receipt, and till now, I haven’t received the legal document,” she said.

She also raised concerns about the number of children at the camp, describing their situation as worrying.

“There are a lot of children here. The youngest is five months old. A two-year-old fell sick and almost lost his life,” she said.

The stranded Ghanaians are among those expected to be evacuated to Ghana following heightened concerns over their safety amid renewed xenophobic attacks targeting foreign nationals in parts of South Africa.

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Burnham’s Labour leadership bid has been backed by 322 out of 402 Labour MPs as he remains the only declared candidate

It makes him just one short of the 323 needed before it is mathematically impossible for a rival to run against him. Some MPs say they were not able to vote on Thursday but will back Burnham once they are back in Parliament.

If no one else enters the contest, as expected, Burnham will be declared Labour leader next week before taking office as prime minister on 20 July.

It would mark an extraordinary rise to power following the former Greater Manchester mayor’s by-election win in Makerfield just weeks ago.

In a statement, Burnham said he was “deeply grateful” to the Labour MPs who had nominated him to be leader of the party.

He said the support had come from across the party and reflected a “shared belief that Britain needs a new approach to politics.”

“That is the circuit breaker I am offering: power out of Westminster, an economy rewired for ordinary people, and good growth in every postcode,” Burnham said.

Later on Thursday, he joked about Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s decision to trigger a by-election in his own constituency, Clacton, where he will stand again. Labour and the other main parties are boycotting the vote but serial comedian candidate Count Binface is a candidate.

Speaking at the Silver Clef music awards at the Royal Albert Hall in London, where he was delivering the Legend Award to Manchester indie band James, Burnham said, “The legends that we’re here to honour have not shied away from politics in their career, but I promise you, I am not going to talk politics to you tonight…

“Except to say this, ‘Count Binface, you are carrying the hopes of the nation. Don’t let us down.'”

Burnham’s own by-election victory and heavy Labour losses in May’s local elections left Sir Keir facing calls from his own MPs for him to stand aside and allow Burnham to replace him.

Sir Keir quit as Labour leader on the same day Burnham was sworn in as an MP, saying in his resignation speech he had heard the answer to the question of whether “I am best placed to lead us into the next general election”.

Candidates have until Wednesday next week to gather the required backing of 81 Labour MPs in order to take part in the leadership race.

As well as 323 nominations – which is when no one else can reach the 81-MP threshold needed to run against him – Burnham would also need to garner nominations next week from at least three of the 31 socialist societies and trade unions affiliated to the party, although this is expected to be a formality for him.

Burnham would then become Labour leader and be propelled into Downing Street without the need for a vote over the summer among party members and affiliated trade union supporters.

A few dozen MPs had already posted on social media to confirm they were nominating the former mayor.

This included Burnham himself, who joked that it would be “hopefully third time lucky” for him, referring to his two previous failed bids for the leadership in 2010 and 2015.

Burnham’s route to running unopposed was confirmed on Wednesday evening, when former defence minister Al Carns, who had suggested he could throw his hat into the ring, ruled himself out.

But the possibility of Burnham getting the top job without a contest has already led to some calls within Labour for the ex-mayor to set out further details of the policies he intends to pursue in office.

Burnham left Westminster in 2017, limiting his opportunities to forge strong relationships with Labour MPs elected since then, who now make up the bulk of the party’s contingent in the House of Commons.

As things stand he would be the only participant in an official parliamentary hustings scheduled for Monday next week, at which he would field questions from fellow Labour MPs about his plans for power.

“Access talks” with civil servants about his policy proposals are ongoing, run by Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo, the UK’s most senior official.

As Labour leadership nominations formally opened on Thursday, Sir Keir said Burnham would make a good prime minister.

“I have known him a long time, I’ve worked with him when I first came to Parliament, in his team directly,” Sir Keir said.

Burnham apologises for Labour’s initial response to Gaza war
Who is Count Binface, aiming to face Farage in by-election?
‘More open’
Burnham offered some details of his blueprint for office in a speech in Manchester last week, including proposals to establish a new No 10 unit in the city.

He has suggested the unit will be tasked with handing local government more control in areas including housing and transport.

A central part of his policy offering is a pledge to give all parts of the UK “greater public control” of the water and energy sectors, although he is yet to spell out what this would mean in practice.

In a video posted to X earlier, Burnham apologised for Labour’s initial response to Israel’s military action in Gaza, saying the party “didn’t get it right” and needs to do better under his leadership.

And in a Times article on Thursday, he also confirmed he wanted to keep Sir Keir’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell, a former Blair aide, in post.

He also said he wanted to see a “sustained increase” in defence investment, without committing to a specific target, whilst being “more open with the public” about cost overruns or delays to military procurement.

In one of his final decisions as prime minister, Sir Keir announced a plan to increase military spending by £15bn over the next four years by cutting spending in other parts of government, whilst leaving the details to his successor.

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Secretary to the Cabinet Patrick Kangwa confirmed that the incident occurred while the Vice President was undertaking an official visit to the district.

“Mrs. Mutale Nalumango had an accident at takeoff in Nakonde, Muchinga Province, during her official visit to the region. The Vice President and all passengers and crew are safe and well,” Mr. Kangwa said in a statement.

As a precautionary measure, Ms. Nalumango was taken to Nakonde Hospital for a routine medical examination following the incident. Officials said she was later discharged after being assessed by medical personnel.

Mr. Kangwa said the Vice President was in good health and that all passengers and crew members aboard the aircraft were safe.

“As a standard precaution, she was taken to Nakonde Hospital for a routine check and has since been discharged,” he said.

Government authorities have not yet disclosed the cause of the incident. Mr. Kangwa said relevant agencies would conduct investigations to establish the circumstances surrounding the occurrence.

“The relevant authorities will establish the circumstances of the incident in a normal way,” he stated.

Despite the incident, the Vice President is expected to continue with her scheduled engagements in the region, according to the government.

Mr. Kangwa also commended the flight crew and emergency responders for their professionalism during the incident and thanked residents of Nakonde District for their swift assistance.

The development prompted a message from President Hakainde Hichilema, who said he had spoken with the Vice President following the incident.

“Fellow citizens, we have just spoken with Her Honour the Vice President and our Running Mate, Mrs. W.K. Mutale Nalumango, who was involved in a helicopter incident today,” the President said.

“We are grateful to God to report that she is in good spirits and unharmed. We thank God for His protection and for preserving her life.”

Authorities are expected to provide further details once investigations into the incident are completed.

The renaming of Palm Beach International Airport to President Donald J. Trump International Airport was a high-profile nod to the Republican leader’s support in his adopted state of Florida, home to his ornate Mar-a-Lago resort.

“I don’t ​think there’s anybody more synonymous with Palm Beach than Donald Trump in maybe all ​of Florida,” Trump’s son Eric Trump said in an interview with Fox News.

Since ⁠he took office for a second White House term last year, Trump’s name has been ​imprinted on a planned class of Navy warships, a visa program for wealthy foreigners, a government-run prescription ​drug website and federal savings accounts for children.

He has also pursued an ambitious remaking of Washington. While the Trump name was added to the United States Institute of Peace building, courts have rejected an attempt to affix it to ​the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts.

Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation in March ​to rename the southeast Florida city’s airport after Trump.

The Federal Aviation Administration three-letter identifier code for the airport was ‌changed from ⁠PBI to DJT on Thursday. But passengers will need to use PBI to book flights until August 18, the airport said on its website, when it will be reflected on baggage tags, tickets and airline reservation systems.

The airport said the name change cost $5.5 million.

Eric Trump and his family were aboard the ​first flight to land at ​the newly named ⁠airport in the pre-dawn hours on a private plane.

“There’s no way in hell I was letting UPS be the first plane to land,” Eric Trump ​said in an interview with “Fox & Friends.”

JetBlue Airways (JBLU.O), opens new tab is the largest carrier in ​Palm Beach ⁠and along with Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), opens new tab and American Airlines (AAL.O), opens new tab operate about two-thirds of flights.

Other U.S. airports have been named for politicians, including Little Rock, Arkansas’s airport after former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary ⁠of ​State Hillary Clinton — but it retained the LIT airport code.

Other ​airports have been renamed after former lawmakers including in Las Vegas and San Jose, California.

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The disclosure was made on the DHS website on Wednesday as part of what the agency described as its updated “worst-of-the-worst” criminal register.

Although the names and photographs have been released, US authorities did not indicate when the affected Nigerians would be deported.

The US immigration authorities said the move forms part of ongoing immigration enforcement efforts, noting that those listed had been convicted of serious crimes. However, the agency did not provide details of the offences committed by each individual or a timeline for their removal.

The statement read, “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is highlighting the worst of the worst criminal aliens arrested by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“Under DHS leadership, the hard-working men and women of DHS and ICE are fulfilling President Trump’s promise and carrying out mass deportations – starting with the worst of the worst – including the illegal aliens you see here.”

The published list includes Sunday Adediora, Sunday Kunkushi, Mkpouto Etukudoh, Marcus Unigwe, Olaniyi Ojikutu, Boluwaji Akingunsoye, Ejike Asiegbunam, Emmanuel Mayegun Adeola, Bamidele Bolatiwa, Ifeanyi Nwaozomudoh, Aderemi Akefe, Solomon Wilfred, Chibundu Anuebunwa, Joshua Ineh, Usman Momoh, Oluwole Odunowo, Bolarinwa Salau, Oriyomi Aloba, and others.

Others listed are Oludayo Adeagbo, Olaniyi Akintuyi, Talatu Dada, Olatunde Oladinni, Jelili Qudus, Abayomi Daramola, Toluwani Adebakin, Olamide Jolayemi, Isaiah Okere, Benji Macaulay, Joseph Ogbara, Olusegun Martins, Kingsley Ariegwe, Olugbenga Abass, Oyewole Balogun, Adeyinka Ademokunla, Christian Ogunghide, Christopher Ojuma, Olamide Adedipe, Patrick Onogwu, Olajide Olateru-Olagbegi and Omotayo Akinto.

Also on the list are Kenneth Unanka, Jeremiah Ehis, Oluwafemi Orimolade, Ayibatonye Bienzigha, Uche Diuno, Akinwale Adaramaja, Boluwatife Afolabi, Chinonso Ochie, Olayinka A. Jones, Theophilus Anwana, Aishatu Umaru, Henry Idiagbonya, Okechukwu Okoronkwo, Daro Kosin, Sakiru Ambali, Kamaludeen Giwa, Cyril Odogwu, Ifeanyi Echigeme, Kingsley Ibhadore, Suraj Tairu, Peter Equere, Dasola Abdulraheem, Adewale Aladekoba and Akeem Adeleke.

The list further includes Bernard Ogie Oretekor, Abiemwense Obanor, Olufemi Olufisayo Olutiola, Chukwuemeka Okorie, Abimbola Esan, Elizabeth Miller, Chima Orji, Adetunji Olofinlade, Abdul Akinsanya, Elizabeth Adeshewo, Dennis Ofuoma, Quazeem Adeyinka, Ifeanyi Okoro, Oluwaseun Kassim, Olumide Bankole Morakinyo, Abraham Ola Osoko, Oluchi Jennifer and Chibuzo Nwaonu.

The latest action forms part of the immigration enforcement measures introduced by the administration of President Donald Trump following his return to office on January 20, 2025.

On his first day back in office, Trump signed a series of executive orders declaring illegal immigration a national emergency and directing federal agencies to strengthen border security and accelerate the deportation of undocumented migrants.

One of the executive orders, titled Protecting the American People Against Invasion, directed immigration authorities to prioritise the arrest and removal of deportable migrants, particularly those considered threats to public safety and national security.

Defending the policy, the DHS said the administration was fulfilling Trump’s campaign promise to carry out mass deportations, beginning with what it described as the “worst of the worst” criminal offenders.

The department added that officers of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been instructed to intensify operations nationwide against non-citizens convicted of serious crimes.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has also defended the immigration crackdown, saying the administration remained committed to enforcing US immigration laws and removing undocumented immigrants with criminal records in line with President Trump’s immigration agenda.

Official US immigration data show that Guatemala has recorded the highest number of deportees since the renewed enforcement campaign began, followed by Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador.

The United States has also expanded deportation flights to countries across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean as enforcement operations continue.

Nigeria has also come under increased scrutiny by the Trump administration. In June, Washington imposed partial visa restrictions on Nigerian citizens, citing concerns over identity management, information sharing, visa overstay rates and security screening.

The body of the child was fished out from a pond on Sunday – a day after her family reported her missing.

The incident in Surjyapur village in Baruipur, on the outskirts of Kolkata, has triggered days of violent protests, a mob lynching and the police killing of one of the suspects. Three other men who have been arrested remain in custody.

Warning: This story contains details that some readers may find distressing.

The child’s rape and murder – and the subsequent killing of the suspect – has snowballed into a huge political row, with the opposition parties accusing the state’s newly-elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of failing to protect women.

The BJP, which swept to power in West Bengal for the first time ever in May, has rejected the accusation. But the crime, barely two months after the win, couldn’t have come at a worse time as the party had campaigned heavily on the issue of making the state safe for women.

Analysts say one of the main reasons three-term chief minister Mamata Banerjee lost the election was growing concern over women’s safety and her government’s shoddy handling of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at a government hospital.

In the latest case, as more horrific details of the crime have emerged, questions have been raised about the role of the police, while a local politician from the governing party has become embroiled in the controversy.

Family members of the girl said they last saw her on Saturday afternoon when she went out to buy a birthday gift for a friend.

When she didn’t return home, they went to the police station at around 20:30 to seek help in finding her.

The family and villagers alleged that the police did not take their pleas seriously and said they would look into it the next day.

Desperate family members and villagers then themselves looked through the CCTV footage from nearby shops and spotted her walking with Prabhash Mondal – a local man who has since been killed by the police.

Early Sunday morning, a mob went to Mondal’s house, caught him and handed him over to the police.

A few hours later, a sack containing the girl’s body was pulled out from the pond, with media reports saying Mondal had led the police to the exact spot.

According to the post-mortem report, the cause of death is drowning, leading to claims that she was alive when she was dumped in the pond.

“Had the police acted earlier, she could have been saved,” her relatives have said.

The police complaint has since been amended to include charges under the Pocso, India’s stringent law on child sexual abuse. The police have yet to hold a press conference on the case or respond to the allegations.

The government has formed a special investigation team (SIT) to inquire into the case.

The recovery of the body saw anger pour out onto the streets, with a mob vandalising roads, shops and a local railway station. A young man was beaten to death by the crowd – Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari has since said he was innocent.

Several police officers were injured and vehicles damaged as they tried to contain the mob. Police have registered three cases and detained 40 people so far.

The area remains tense, with a ban on public gatherings and heavy police and paramilitary deployment to maintain order.

The case has also become mired in a political controversy and is threatening to take on religious overtones as the victim was Muslim whereas the arrested men are Hindus.

A local BJP leader, Sushant Mondal’s home was attacked and ransacked by a mob that accused him of helping the suspects. He denied the allegations saying they were “false” and that he had in fact “helped catch the perpetrators”.

To contain the public anger, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari visited the village on Tuesday and met the victim’s family.

“Our government is committed to curb any such incidents in the state. The police is doing what needs to be done. The family has spoke to me, they have lost their beloved daughter. I believe that they are satisfied talking to me.”

Less that 24 hours later, Prabhash Mondal was killed in a “police encounter”.

In a statement on Wednesday morning, Baruipur police said Mondal had been taken to the pond to recreate the crime scene as part of the investigation, but he attempted to snatch the weapon from a policeman and opened fire at them.

The police retaliated and fired back, striking him. The injured accused was taken to hospital, where he was declared dead, the statement said.

Even though no allegations had been proven against Mondal, his mother appeared to have disowned her son and refused to accept his body.

“Two policemen came to my house. I had just woken up. They told me that my son had died and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. I told them I couldn’t because my husband was ill,” she told news agency ANI.

“I said, do whatever you want to do. I have no objection. My son has been punished for what he did. I will not accept his body. I will not even bring his body home,” she added.

Opposition politicians and rights activists, however, have questioned the killing, saying it went against the rule of law.

Ranjit Sur of the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights called the matter “suspicious”.

Sur said the story of police encounters in many states of the country is almost the same – the accused tries to escape by snatching the police weapon and is then killed in the encounter.

In 2019 in a similar incident, four men accused of gang-raping and murdering a young woman in Hyderabad were killed by the police in an encounter.

Here are some details: One ​person was rescued alive from the building ​collapse debris in Delhi, news agency ANI reported.

India’s ⁠weather office issued a “red” alert for parts ​of Delhi and the neighbouring state of Haryana, ​forecasting heavy rain.

The Delhi airport advised passengers to allow extra travel time because of waterlogging on some roads leading to ​the airport.

In the southern state of Kerala, ​a landslide in Wayanad on Tuesday killed at least four ‌people, ⁠local media reported.

In the western state of Maharashtra, at least 13 people were killed in rain-related incidents, a state government minister said earlier this week.

In ​the Maharashtra ​city of ⁠Pune, near Mumbai, a large mound of garbage collapsed at a waste ​treatment facility. At least seven people have ​been ⁠rescued, with nine others were feared trapped.

Elsewhere in the country, visuals showed waterlogged streets in Agra and ⁠flooded ​highways in Gujarat, with residents ​wading through knee-deep waters.

The US military says it struck some 90 military targets, some near the Strait. Iranian authorities say 14 people have been killed in the past two days.

Iran reported explosions in several coastal areas and said it targeted US assets in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar in response.

Iran’s foreign ministry denounced the US strikes as a “gross war crime”, saying it targeted civilian infrastructure including railway bridges.

In a statement, the ministry described the US administration as “evil and psychopathic” and that it condemned the attacks, which have damaged bridges and a railway route connecting Tehran to the city of Mashhad, where the late supreme leader Ali Khamenei is due to be buried at a funeral service later on Thursday.

Iran’s Ministry of Health says 14 people have been killed during this latest round of fighting.

Hossein Kermanpour, head of public relations at the ministry, said US attacks targeting five provinces in Iran over 8 and 9 July have also injured 78 people, of whom 47 remain in hospital.

Gulf nations reported Iranian attacks following the US strikes, with explosions in Bahrain’s capital Manama, Kuwait intercepting missiles and drones, and Qatar issuing a security alert.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has confirmed that it launched retaliatory strikes on US military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain overnight, and called them the “first phase of the punitive response against the American treaty-breakers”.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is also the country’s chief negotiator with the US, said on X that America “still hasn’t learned that bullying and breaking promises are no longer cost-free”.

“Let me put it plainly: if you strike, you’ll get hit,” he wrote, adding that the Strait of Hormuz will only open under Iranian arrangements – not “American threats”.

US Central Command (Centcom) said themost recent round of strikes was carried out to “further degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping and innocent civilian mariners” in the vital waterway.

In a statement it said it had struck 90 Iranian military targets, which included air defense systems and military logistics infrastructure along Iran’s coastline.

“The latest strikes follow successful execution of offensive strikes in Iran the night before,” Centcom added.

Phil Belcher, marine director at Intertanko, an international organisation for independent tanker owners, said the number of ships travelling through the Strait via the southern route was now in “single figures” following the step up in hostilities.

Belcher said the daily figure of about 30 ships was down from about 70 a week ago and well below the normal number of 130 ships that was seen before the Iran war began earlier this year.

“The number of ships that are going through overnight is sort of about single figures in the southern route, which is maintained off the coast of Oman by the US,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, while about 20 travelled through a northern route overseen by Iran.

He told the programme that there had been an “exuberance of optimism” around shipping in the region following the signing of the memorandum of understanding between Iran and the US last month, but now the mood has changed.

“This cycle of violence, this cycle of up-and-down, positive-negative news, it’s having an enormous impact both on business [and] on the seafarers themselves,” he said.

On Wednesday night, several explosions were reportedly heard on other parts of the Iranian coast, including the cities of Konarak and Chabahar.

Iranian state TV reported eight explosions in Bandar Abbas, and said two missiles had hit the ports of both Sirik and Jask – also in southern Iran.

It added that two projectiles had hit the island of Abu Musa, which has been the subject of a longstanding ownership dispute between Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Air defence systems were activated in Bandar Abbas, according to reports in Iranian state media.

The extent of damage from the US strikes is not yet known, but Iranian media have reported power cuts in Chabahar and a fire at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) barracks in Bushehr.

Two of three power lines cut off in Chabahar had been restored quickly and a third would be operational soon, the Iranian Students’ News Agency said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Centcom wrote in a statement that it held Iran accountable for “recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway.”

Speaking to reporters from Air Force One on Wednesday evening, the US president said Iran had “called a little while ago” and wanted to make a deal “so badly”.

Trump added: “I just don’t know if they’re worthy of making a deal – I don’t know that they’re going to honour the deal, that’s the problem.”

On Tuesday, the US military said it had launched “powerful” strikes in response to attacks on three tankers in the strait.

The current flare up has been the worst exchange of strikes between the US and Iran since the deal – known as a memorandum of understanding (MoU) – was signed on 17 June.

Trump said on Wednesday that the ceasefire agreement signed last month with Iran was now “over”.

He told reporters: “I don’t want to deal with them anymore, they’re scum. You know what scum is? They’re scum. They’re sick people.”

In response, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X: “We do not answer vulgarity with vulgarity, but with action: fearlessly and with great valour.”

The deal between the US and Iran included 14 points, among them a 60-day period for a ceasefire during which negotiations should continue, the safe passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz and the US lifting sanctions on Iran.

The 60-day period for negotiations is not yet up, but Trump said he saw further talks as “a waste of time”.

These are not the first strikes since the MoU was signed.

The US launched a series of strikes on Iran on 26 June after an Iranian projectile hit a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

Further US strikes took place on 27 June, following an attack on a tanker. But later that month both sides had agreed to “stand down”.

According to the Authority, applicants must present one of the following original documents at their scheduled appointment at a Ghana Embassy or designated registration centre:

• A valid Ghanaian passport;
• A Birth Certificate issued by the Births and Deaths Registry, Ghana; or
• Evidence of acquired Ghanaian citizenship, such as a Naturalisation or Registration Certificate.

The NIA said applicants who are unable to provide any of the listed documents may still complete the registration process through an Oath of Identity, which will be administered to their guarantor by NIA officials.

The Authority stressed that only original copies of the required documents will be accepted during the registration process.

The announcement forms part of efforts to extend Ghana Card registration services to citizens living outside the country while maintaining the integrity and reliability of the national identification system.

In a travel advisory issued on July 7, the Ministry said the Government of Sierra Leone introduced the requirement for all travellers entering or leaving the country, effective June 18, 2026.

The directive applies to Ghanaian travellers, foreign nationals, returning residents, and all other visitors arriving in or departing from Sierra Leone.

According to the advisory, travellers must complete the Health Declaration Form via Sierra Leone’s Health Travel Portal within 72 hours before travel. They are also required to provide their correct and updated seat number before departure and retain the confirmation QR code or reference number generated after submission.

The Ministry warned that providing false, inaccurate, or misleading information could lead to delays, denial of entry or departure clearance, or additional health screening.

Travellers who feel unwell before, during, or after their trip have also been urged to immediately report to a Point of Entry Health Officer and seek medical attention.

The Ministry explained that information submitted through the portal will support disease surveillance, prevention, and other public health measures, while being handled confidentially in line with applicable data protection regulations.

It added that travellers may be subjected to health screening and other public health measures upon arrival in Sierra Leone and must cooperate with health officials.

Those who face challenges completing the online declaration can seek assistance from designated Point of Entry Health personnel at official entry and exit points.

The Ministry encouraged all travellers to complete the declaration before departure to avoid delays and ensure compliance with Sierra Leone’s public health regulations.

The arrivals ​bring to 29 the number sent to ​the southern African country under a $5.1 million ⁠agreement that has been challenged by lawyers ​who say deportees are being detained despite having ​already served sentences for crimes committed in the United States.

Alma David, a lawyer for some of the original ​deportees sent to Eswatini last year — and who ​is in touch with local prison sources there — confirmed ‌the ⁠arrival to Reuters by text message.

Of the 29 deportees sent from the United States to Eswatini, only two have been released and repatriated, ​one to ​Jamaica and ⁠the other to Cambodia.

An Eswatini government spokesperson did not immediately respond ​to a request for comment.

The detainees had ​already ⁠been transported to Eswatini’s notorious Matsapha correctional facility, David said.

The Trump administration has also ⁠deported ​migrants to other countries in ​Africa, Asia and the Americas under the policy.

A court in Berlin on Wednesday found the 41-year-old man, named only as Johannes M. in line with German privacy rules, guilty of murdering 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024.

The authorities believe these killings could be just the tip of the iceberg. Prosecutors are currently investigating dozens of other incidents involving the doctor.

His victims were between the ages of 25 and 94. The court heard how they were all critically ill, but that their deaths were not imminent.

Prosecutors said that during home visits, the doctor administered a lethal combination of various medicines without his patients’ consent.

On several occasions, they said he set fires to cover his tracks.

In July 2024, shortly before his arrest, prosecutors said the doctor killed two patients in a single day – a 75-year-old man at his home in central Berlin and, a few hours later, a 76-year-old woman in a neighbouring district.

They said the doctor tried to set fire to the woman’s house, but failed.

For much of the trial, which has gone on for about a year, the doctor said nothing. But last month, he confessed to having “killed people”, twelve of his severely ill patients.

He told the court he had convinced himself that he was doing the right thing, sparing them “suffering and infirmity”.

“Throughout it all, I thought this was the best thing for everyone,” he said.

He said he apologised for all the suffering he had caused.

The authorities suspect him of having killed further patients. Prosecutors are currently investigating 76 other cases.

German media say if the further cases are proven, and he is found guilty, it would be one of the worst cases of serial murder in Germany’s history.

The doctor told the court that he would “get involved much earlier in the forthcoming proceedings”.

Earlier in the trial, relatives of the victims told the court they still couldn’t believe it.

The mother of the youngest victim, a 25-year-old woman who died in 2021, was in tears. “She never said she didn’t want to live anymore,” she said.

The son of a 72-year-old woman who died in 2024, said his mother had had plans to go to the Baltic Sea with her sister. “My mother wanted to keep on living,” he said.

The court ordered that the doctor be put in preventive detention, following his prison sentence. It also imposed a lifetime ban on him practising medicine.

But she never imagined her time at the National Space Centre in Leicester, when she was 14, would one day see her lead a team exploring future Mars missions.

Parfitt, originally from Nottingham, now works for the European Space Agency’s European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands.

The 42-year-old joined the space industry after securing a physics degree and a PhD in spacecraft power systems engineering.

She has since worked on missions such as the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover, which will explore the surface of Mars.

She has also worked on the SMILE mission – officially known as the Solar wind, Magnetospheric, Ionic Link Explorer mission – which uses four science instruments to study how Earth responds to the solar wind from the Sun.

But Parfitt still recalls how support in her early years, including from her science teachers at Fernwood School in Wollaton, helped pave the way for her career.

She had initially applied for work experience at Nasa, which was turned down, but she was eventually able to secure a placement at the National Space Science Centre.

During her time there, staff were planning and collecting artefacts for the opening of the country’s flagship space science attraction – the National Space Centre.

“I just knew that’s always what I wanted to do,” she said.

“The director of the Space Centre in those days was a lady called Alex Hall.

“To see someone in that position, I think it really helped me to envisage my own career in the space industry.”

Parfitt recalled exhibits being delivered to the offices ahead of the opening of the Space Centre in June 2001.

“One of those was a space toilet, which I had never seen before and I helped to unpack it,” she said.

“There was obviously some preservation that had to happen, some cleaning.

“It was just an unusual piece of technology that is used for space missions, so it was really interesting to see.”

She helped to unpack a space suit worn by Helen Sharman, who became the first British person to travel into space.

Since it opened 25 years ago, the National Space Centre has welcomed almost six million visitors.

Parfitt described the attraction as incredible, and added: “The Space Centre is such an inspirational place for people to go. I know I was involved from a very, very early age.

“I’m pretty sure it put me on the track that I’m on now for my space career.”

Following a period in the UK space industry, Parfitt moved to the European Space Agency’s European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands in 2019.

Parfitt, who described her career as a “dream come true”, now leads a team planning for the future human and robotic exploration of Mars at the European Space Agency.

She is also chair of the International Mars Exploration Working Group.

Parfitt said Mars was a “really scientifically important place to study and explore”.

She added: “When Rosalind Franklin launches in 2028 that will be extremely exciting.

“For future Mars missions afterwards, there’s a lot to do to prepare for human exploration.

“We have to plan the next decades carefully to make sure that we preserve Mars and get the best science data that we can back for Europe.”

Speaking ahead of a Nato summit in Turkey, the president said US negotiators could continue talks “if they want” but said he saw it as “a waste of time”.

Oil prices spiked by around 6% after Trump’s comments, although are still well below the highs seen during the full closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The US and Iran renewed fighting late on Tuesday into Wednesday, in the worst exchange of fire since they signed an interim deal in June that called for an end to the conflict and safe passage of vessels through the strait.

“I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore they’re scum … they’re led by sick people and they’re vicious, violent people,” Trump said.

“We make a deal. They [Iran] go outside, talk to the press, they say ‘we never even talked about it’. There’s something wrong with them. They’re cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”

The fresh wave of strikes began after three oil tankers were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, with US Central Command (Centcom) saying on Tuesday it had launched “powerful” strikes in response.

On Wednesday, Iran said it targeted US military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait in retaliation to the US strikes.

The US also said it had revoked its temporary suspension of sanctions on Iranian oil sales.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf accused the US of breaching their Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on this issue, and others, including the attacks in southern Iran and “violating Iranian adjustments in the Strait”.

“The era of bullying and extortion is over. It leads nowhere. We don’t fold,” he said.

It is not the first time strikes occurred after the MoU was signed on 17 June.

The US launched a series of strikes on Iran on 25 June after an Iranian projectile hit a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz. By 29 June both sides agreed to “stand down”.

Part of the MoU’s 14 points is for an “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts”.

Iran agreed to use its “best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days”.

Both sides had continued negotiations on the terms of a permanent end to the war, but talks were paused during funeral ceremonies for the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of US-Israel strikes on Iran.

Ceremonies are taking place in Iraq on Wednesday, with the final rites and burial set for Mashhad in north-east Iran on Thursday.

It is not clear when talks will resume after this latest round of strikes, as Trump responded to a question about whether talks would resume after the funeral with: “I don’t care”.

“Frankly, I don’t want to waste my time with them. Now, I’ll let our wonderful negotiators keep talking if they want, but I don’t see it,” Trump said.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them. They’re liars.”

The refinery, East Africa’s largest refining project, is expected to take up to three years to build and would supply refined petroleum products to Kenya and ​neighbouring countries, helping to reduce East Africa’s dependence on imported fuels.

It ​would also fulfil Dangote’s ambition to expand fuel-processing capacity ⁠across Africa following the start-up of its 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Lagos.

“The site ​has been selected, soil tests are under way, and design and engineering ​work has commenced. Kenya was the choice from the beginning,” Edwin Devakumar, Dangote Industries’ vice president for oil and gas, told Reuters.

The refinery, which would be built ​on the island of Lamu, off the coast of Kenya, would ​mark Dangote Group’s biggest refining investment outside Nigeria.

Devakumar said the refinery would be financed ‌through ⁠a mix of internally generated cash, bonds and proceeds from a planned initial public offering. He did not disclose the project’s exact cost, but said it would be comparable to that of the Lagos refinery.

Built ​by Aliko Dangote, ​ranked as Africa’s ⁠richest man by Forbes, the Lagos refinery had cost more than $20 billion by the time it began ​operating in 2024.

The initial estimate had been about $9 billion ​in 2013, ⁠but the cost was driven up by a site relocation, engineering challenges, currency weakness, the COVID-19 pandemic and global inflation.

Dangote has for months expressed ⁠interest ​in building a major refinery in East ​Africa. The company previously considered Tanzania’s port city of Tanga before switching to Kenya, citing ​infrastructure, logistics and market considerations.

US Central Command (Centcom) said on Tuesday it had begun the assault, “to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent individuals in an international waterway”.

The tankers were damaged within a 24-hour period on Monday and Tuesday, according to the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO). No casualties were reported.

Iran has not claimed responsbility for the strikes on the vessels.

Earlier on Tuesday, a US official said Iran would be met with consequences and called the attacks “wholly unacceptable”.

The US Treasury had also revoked a sanctions waiver that temporarily lifted oil sanctions on Iran.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia have also denounced the attacks, with each saying a tanker from its country had been hit as it was transiting in or near the Strait.

Centcom said in a statement posted to X that US strikes were “in response to Iranian attacks”.

“Iran’s demonstrated aggression was unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the ceasefire,” it said.

The US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity before Centcom’s announcement, insisted that US negotiators would continue to work in “good faith” towards a final deal with Iran.

The revoked US licence, which authorised Iran to sell oil and petrol products, was part of the memorandum of understanding, signed by Washington and Tehran last month.

A notice published on the Treasury’s website on Tuesday said it would allow a wind-down period to 17 July for transactions that had been allowed under the waiver.

Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said it held Iran “fully responsible” for an apparent targeted attack on a vessel called Al-Rekayyat as it transited near the Strait.

Qatar demanded that Iran “immediately cease all practices that undermine regional security” and “refrain from endangering global energy supplies & the resources of the countries of the region in pursuit of narrow interests”, he added in a post on X.

In a separate social media post, Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said Iran had targeted the Saudi tanker Wadyan as it crossed the Strait.

It added that the assaults were “an attack on the security and safety of international navigation, and the security of global energy supplies”.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei has so far only commented on Qatar’s accusations, describing them as “contrary to the principle of good neighbourliness”.

In a statement, posted to Telegram, he added that commercial vessels using routes not coordinated with Iran or tampering with the ship’s tracking face a risk of collision and disrupt Iran’s efforts to “facilitate safe transit” in the Strait.

The UKMTO said a tanker travelling through the Strait had reported a fire after an unknown projectile hit an engine room on Monday.

In two separate incidents on Tuesday, a tanker reported being hit as it exited the Strait but was able to proceed to its next port of call, while another tanker reported sustaining minor structural damage after being struck, the organisation said.

Royal sources said the duke had not responded in time to the offer of accommodation at a royal residence, adding he had been informed on Saturday evening that he would not be able to stay there.

A spokesperson for Prince Harry said despite their earlier statement they understood that the offer to stay at the palace had been “withdrawn” – a decision they described as “disappointing”.

It is a chaotic start to a week in which the duke, who arrived in the UK on Monday, according to his spokesman, is to support his charities.

In Buckingham Palace’s version of events, there was an offer of accommodation for Prince Harry, but the Sussex team had failed to confirm whether it would accept and had then formally declined the invitation on Saturday.

According to Buckingham Palace, the duke’s team had later that same day changed their position and had accepted the offer to stay – but by then it was too late to make arrangements and to provide staffing.

The palace said Prince Harry was told on Saturday evening that he could not stay and that he was aware of the decision.

There were also concerns from the Palace about the duke staying when a court result about his claims against Associated Newspapers was being published on Tuesday.

There were worries about the optics for King Charles, who has a position of neutrality, if Prince Harry delivered a controversial response to the high-profile court case while staying at the symbolic HQ of the monarchy.

In response, a spokesman for the Duke of Sussex described the situation differently, claiming Buckingham Palace had withdrawn an offer that had been formally accepted.

It appears this was only about a stay of one night – and the question was raised as to whether the Palace could not accommodate one person for one night?

The Sussex version of events said that the timing of the court case result was already known last week and rejected it as being a factor.

“It is therefore unclear why, having formally accepted the accommodation offer, it has now been withdrawn at the last moment,” said the spokesman for the Duke of Sussex.

This acrimonious war of words is a row that shows how much distrust and poor communication exists between the two camps – the Sussex team and Buckingham Palace.

Both sides are putting out contradictory versions of the invitation to stay at the palace – with no sign of either side accepting the other’s account.

This could make a meeting between the King and Prince Harry, which had been expected this week, even more complicated.

Prince Harry is still set to carry out his engagements this week, starting with an event in London on Tuesday.

Prince Harry’s trip: How the briefings have changed so far

27 June: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their children planned to come to the UK, and expected to stay in a royal residence

28 June: Because of security fears, Prince Harry reconsidered plans to bring his family

29 June: Prince Harry still hoped security problems could be overcome to bring Meghan and children

2 July: Court sources said that the result of Prince Harry’s case against Associated Newspapers will be 7 July, the first day of the visit

4 July: Meghan and children will not come to the start of the trip to the UK in London, but might come to latter part of the week

Prince Harry is said to have initially rejected and then accepted accommodation at Buckingham Palace. The Palace said he had been told it was too late and could not stay

6 July: The Sussexes’ team said Prince Harry had accepted an invitation to stay at Buckingham Palace. Buckingham Palace rejected this and said he had already been informed that it wasn’t possible to stay

7 July: Prince Harry’s engagements due to start in London

Prince Harry has travelled to the UK to promote the Invictus Games, which will be held in Birmingham next year, and charity events.

It was already understood that the prince would not be accompanied by his wife Meghan and their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, during the visit to London, after it was confirmed that the family would not be provided with taxpayer-funded police security.

But it is possible that they may join Prince Harry in Birmingham to promote the Invictus Games later in the week.

It is unclear whether a meeting between King Charles and his two grandchildren, aged seven and five – whom he has not seen in person for four years – will take place under the revised schedule.

During his visit to Birmingham, Prince Harry is expected to visit the city’s children’s hospital and Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, which will be hosting the Invictus Games – held for injured military personnel.

There had been reports that the latter part of the trip would also include a visit to Althorp in Northampton, the family estate of Prince Harry’s mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. It is understood there were plans for him to take his wife and children to his mother’s private grave.

The Duke of Sussex’s long-running dispute with the UK government over security stretches back to his decision to step back from his role as a senior royal in 2020 and move to the US with his family.

He has contested a decision by the Royal and VIP Executive Committee’s Risk Management Board that because he was going to be an infrequent visitor to the UK, his security would be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

He has previously said he would not bring his family to the country without improved security arrangements, telling the BBC in 2025 that he could not “see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the UK at this point”.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were last together in the UK in 2022, at the time of the funeral of Elizabeth II.

He has since travelled to the country alone, and met his father on a trip last September.

On Tuesday, he will also find out the result of a court case that the prince and others brought against Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail, over claims of unlawful information gathering. 

Prince Harry will be attending events alone, as his wife, Meghan, and children, Archie and Lilibet, are not in London due to security concerns.

There was a confused start to the visit when Prince Harry’s team announced that an invitation to stay in Buckingham Palace had been accepted.

But that was rejected by the palace, which said that the prince had been told on Saturday that he would not be able to stay because he had not responded to the invitation in time.

Starting on Tuesday, there are five days of events for the prince to attend, showing support for some of his UK charities and raising funds for the Invictus Games. This includes a visit to Birmingham later in the week, where they will be held next year at this time.

His visit has coincided with the result being published on Tuesday of a court case against Associated Newspapers, which he has brought with a number of well-known figures, including Sir Elton John, Sir Simon Hughes, Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost and Baroness Doreen Lawrence.

They have claimed that the newspaper group, which publishes the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, used unlawful methods for getting information for stories, allegations that have been strenuously denied by the publishers. 

This is the latest and is expected to be the last, in a series of courtroom battles fought by Prince Harry against what he has seen as the dishonest practices of the UK press.

If the outcome of the case is that the judge supports some claims and rejects others, it is likely that all sides might claim victory.

This week has also been surrounded by speculation about Prince Harry building bridges with his family, including a possible meeting with his father, King Charles III.

There had been discussion about whether this would be a chance for the King to see his grandchildren, Archie and Lilibet, who have not been in the UK since the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022.

That has become more complicated because a dispute over security means that Meghan and the children will not be joining Prince Harry in London, as originally intended – but they could still come for the later part of the visit outside the capital.

Prince Harry is not expected to see his brother Prince William during the visit.

But he could see more of the Spencer side of his family, with reports that he might stay at the Althorp estate, where his late mother, Princess Diana, is buried.

If his children come to the UK it would be an opportunity for them to see the grave of the grandmother they never met.

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The findings are contained in the Service’s first-ever Non-Standard Units Survey (NSUS), released on Tuesday, July 7, 2026.

Presenting the report, Government Statistician Dr Alhassan Iddrisu said the survey provides Ghana’s first nationally representative data on the use of non-standard food measurement units, offering a stronger basis for producing official statistics.

According to the survey, the same measurement unit often represents different weights depending on the region, creating inconsistencies in food pricing, agricultural statistics and household consumption estimates.

The report also found that household food measurements vary considerably, even when using containers that appear to be standard, such as cups and margarine tins. At the farmgate level, differences in container sizes and filling methods further contribute to the inconsistencies.

However, the survey noted that container-based liquid commodities, including palm oil, showed greater consistency in measurements than solid food items.

To address the challenge, the Ghana Statistical Service has developed national conversion factors for major food commodities, allowing commonly used local measurement units to be converted into kilograms and litres.

The Service said the conversion factors are expected to improve the accuracy of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), agricultural production statistics and household consumption data, while enhancing evidence-based policymaking.

The GSS described the survey as a major step toward harmonising food measurement practices across the country and improving the reliability of Ghana’s official statistics.

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The football star, 31, was driving in the inner-city suburb of Hillbrow on Sunday when his car was shot at by an unknown gunman, according to local reports.

Lunga, who plays for both Zimbabwe’s national football team and top South African club Mamelodi Sundowns, escaped unharmed.

Crime is a major problem in South Africa, and the country has one of the highest murder rates in the world.

Police spokesperson Captain Tintswalo Sibeko said they were investigating a case of attempted murder but that no arrests had been made.

She did not provide further details, but South African publication The Citizen said that Lunga was on his way to church with his younger brother when they came under attack.

The duo were driving through Hillbrow when the suspect opened fire on their car, apparently mistaking him for an undercover police officer.

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“Of course it’s a middle finger ring, because, why not?” the Florida-based blogger says on her TikTok feed.

Getting rid of her engagement ring would have suggested a regret the 34-year-old doesn’t feel – after all, her marriage brought her daughter. Even just not wearing it would have felt like a waste.

“I didn’t want it locked away in a box,” she says. “Diamonds are precious.”

Plus she does sometimes feel like sticking one finger up after the break-up of her marriage.

Deb is part of a rising trend promoted by jewellers around the world of women marking a new chapter in their life with a new statement piece: the divorce ring.

Deb had the diamond from her engagement ring set at one end of an open circle and added a new sapphire to represent her daughter to the other end. It cost $3,000 (£2,245).

It’s a sizeable sum to part with when divorces can be expensive.

Ring resale values tend to be only around 30% of the original price, so for many the trend of giving their old jewellery a new life feels a better investment.

And Deb’s middle finger statement fits right in with what the fashion pages are calling this year’s “hot divorcee summer” – a celebration of liberated glamour and a “don’t care energy”.

Divorce rings can also be a way of marking a kind of financial liberation, says Kate Daly, co-founder of Amicable, a UK company offering mediated divorce services.

“Your whole life gets thrown up in the air,” she says. “Your finances are under extreme pressure.”

If at that point a woman decides to buy a new ring, it’s a sign that she is making her own financial decisions and “not needing to ask permission from anyone,” says Daly.

“It’s very easy to trivialise, but maybe that’s the first big spending decision you’ve made in a very long time, and certainly perhaps the biggest one you’ve made solo for a long time.”

Ceri Evans’ divorce ring wasn’t a redesign but a fresh start – three large diamonds in an art deco-style platinum ring on the fourth finger of her right hand.

“I say it’s my USA ring,” she jokes. “My declaration of independence.”

Ceri bought the £3,000 ring after finally splitting from her husband last year.

She paid for it “out of defiance” with her own money, not her divorce settlement, says the 58-year-old from Wales.

Alex Proie in Pennsylvania picked up her ring, made from the gold and diamonds in her five-year anniversary band, a couple of weeks ago and is still wrestling with a mix of feelings.

At 31 she separated from her husband of seven years after she came out as gay.

“My ex-husband was a huge part of my formative years as a young adult,” she says.

“It’s something I want to carry with me.”

Her ring has seven small oval diamonds and a wave design, which she says illustrate life’s inevitable highs and lows.

She had to go back to working in sales after the divorce to boost her income and the new ring helps remind her how she managed to rebuild from the ground up.

“Divorce is really hard and when you start over you don’t know what your life is going to look like, and you don’t know if you’re going to be able to make it financially to do stuff like this for yourself.”

On Reddit threads where people are discussing what they have done with their wedding and engagement rings some say they continue to wear theirs, sometimes to ward off unwanted advances. Or stash it out of sight in a drawer.

Others shared they just chucked theirs in the bin, the sea, or out of a car window.

But many say they do want to mark their new life with some spending gesture or other, it seems, from blow-out holidays, tattoos, a new pair of Jimmy Choos, returfing the lawn, or as one recent divorcee shared, refurbishing her bedroom.

“Now I’m having amazing sex with new lovers on the bed that was paid for by the ring,” she posted.

Diplomatic sources in Accra and Pretoria told the Daily Graphic that the decision followed a recent wave of anti-foreigner violence in parts of South Africa, which has led to the repatriation of about 1,000 Ghanaians, with hundreds more reportedly awaiting evacuation.

The situation was further heightened after reports that a Ghanaian national was killed on June 30 during demonstrations by xenophobic groups against African migrants.

A South African diplomatic source said Ghana’s decision reflects concerns over the safety and dignity of its citizens living in South Africa, adding that proceeding with a high-level visit under the current circumstances would have been inappropriate.

A Ghanaian source also confirmed the government’s position, stressing that protecting Ghanaians abroad remains a key priority. The source added that authorities were mindful of the security implications surrounding President Ramaphosa’s visit amid the tense environment, according to the Daily Graphic.

The source said Ghana has communicated its concerns to South Africa and called for decisive action to address the attacks and ensure the safety of Ghanaian nationals before any future visit can be considered.

Despite the development, the source emphasised that relations between Ghana and South Africa remain cordial, with both countries committed to maintaining their longstanding diplomatic ties.

Yang Youlin, who served in various positions in Nanjing city from 1993 to 2023, was also convicted of embezzlement, abuse of power, and money laundering, with his ill-gotten gains amounting to one of the highest in recent years.

The 69-year-old exploited his roles to help others secure engineering contracts, land transfers, and financing, in exchange for money and valuables, said state media.

Yang was investigated as part of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption crackdown, which has cut through military ranks and high-level banking, among other sectors.

Yang, who spent much of his career working on economic and technological development in Nanjing, had committed offences “of an extremely serious nature” and “caused exceptionally heavy losses to the interests of the state and the people”, a court in Changzhou city said on Monday.

Since coming to power, President Xi has launched waves of anti-corruption drives, which critics say have also been used as a tool to purge political rivals.

Death sentences for white-collar crimes, however, remain rare, though they are meted out occasionally, typically if the cases involve large sums exceeding 1 billion yuan.

For instance, former  finance chief Lai Xiaomin was executed in 2021 for taking 1.8bn yuan in bribes over 10 years.

Li Jianping, a former Inner Mongolia official, was executed in 2024 for embezzling and taking bribes totaling more than 3 billion yuan.

In many other cases, the courts handed out jail terms or suspended death sentences, which were commuted to life imprisonment after a specified duration.

The courts have also reduced sentences in some cases where the convicted individuals reported on other offenders.

But while Yang provided similar assistance to authorities, his offences were so “grave” that his assistance “was insufficient to warrant a more lenient punishment”, the Changzhou court said.

Yang pleaded guilty and “expressed remorse in his final statement”, according to state media.

Kirk, a key Trump ally and founder of youth organisation Turning Point USA, was fatally shot on 10 September 2025 as he spoke on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, kicking off an intense manhunt.

Authorities announced the arrest two days later of Robinson, who has been charged with aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm, obstructing justice and witness tampering.

Robinson has not yet entered a plea. Utah County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

The family of Kirk, a 31-year-old father of two, released a statement to local media in advance of Monday’s proceedings, which are scheduled to last through Friday.

“Charlie was a beloved husband, son, brother, friend, and father,” said Kirk’s widow, Erika, his parents, Robert and Kathryn, and sister, Mary. “Every court proceeding serves as a painful reminder of his death and the loss that has irrevocably impacted our lives and the lives of his children.”

Kirk’s parents and widow arrived at court separately on Monday.

“We remain deeply grateful for the support, prayers, and kindness we have received,” the family statement continued. “This outpouring has sustained us during the darkest days of our lives.

“Out of respect for the judicial process, we will not be commenting further at this time. We ask for continued privacy as we navigate this process and immense grief.”

Defense attorneys in previous hearings sought to exclude various evidence and unsuccessfully attempted to ban cameras from the courtroom during the preliminary proceedings that began on Monday. They have also asked Judge Tony Graf to take the death penalty off the table.

Robinson, wearing a light-coloured suit, sat between his attorneys at the defence table.

Prosecutors said that four law enforcement witnesses were expected to take the stand during the day.

Kirk was addressing a crowd from under a tent on 10 September as part of his American Comeback tour of college campuses, during which he invited attendees to debate him.

A shot rang out around 12.20pm as he was speaking about gun violence; Kirk slumped over to the side.

Bagley had been stationed on a building above and realised from the noise that it had come from a rifle, not a handgun.

He described a chaotic scene of people shouting and running and told the court that he was informed by law enforcement that a shooter had been taken into custody.

But he said he discovered suspicious evidence leading him to believe it might not be the right suspect.

Bagley said he found a screwdriver and an impression in gravel on a roof indicative of a sniper and then viewed security footage showing an individual dropping down and escaping from the area.

He described a telling impression the suspect had left behind.

“I could see the disturbance of gravel; to me, it looks like a sniper pad, a person that has been laying in a prone position, and you’ve got markings of elbows, knees and feet – where somebody was in the line of sight of where Charlie’s tent was.”

Defense attorney Kathryn Nestor voiced several objections throughout the prosecution’s questioning of Bagley. She would have opportunities to question him and the other officers later in the hearing.

The initiative, being implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is aimed at making the registration process more accessible to citizens outside the country.

Under the new process, applicants are required to first complete an online application and pay the registration fee through the official registration portal. For applicants in the United Kingdom and other countries outside Africa, the fee is the equivalent of US$115.

After submitting the application, applicants will undergo a virtual interview, during which a registration officer will review and approve their applications. Successful applicants will then receive a confirmation message containing a QR code.

The third stage involves biometric data capture. Applicants are required to book an appointment, print their QR code, and present it at the nearest Ghana Mission for biometric registration.

As part of the exercise, the NIA has announced a special London Pop-Up Registration scheduled for August 1, 2026, at Copthall Playing Fields, London, to provide an additional opportunity for Ghanaians in the United Kingdom to complete the process.

After the biometric capture, applicants will proceed to the final stage, where their Ghana Cards will be printed and issued.

The NIA has encouraged Ghanaians living abroad to begin the registration process by applying online through the official registration portal.

Adaobi was injured on June 29, 2026, when Russian forces reportedly struck the Kholodnohirskyi district of Kharkiv with aerial bombs.

She was initially treated in Kharkiv before being transferred to Germany, where she died on Sunday, July 5, despite efforts by doctors to save her life.

Confirming her death, Kharkiv National Medical University paid tribute to the young graduate, describing her as an exceptional student with a passion for helping others.

“Nnani Adaobi Marian was a bright, sincere and kind-hearted person. She easily found common ground with people and was distinguished by her thirst for knowledge, hard work and sincere desire to help others,” the university said.

The institution added that although medical teams in both Ukraine and Germany fought to save her, her injuries proved fatal.

“Everyone sympathized, helped and hoped for her recovery, but they could not save her life,” the university stated.

The Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office also extended condolences to her family, noting that doctors “fought for her life until the very end.”

Adaobi had been studying at Kharkiv National Medical University since 2020 and had further strengthened her medical training through internships at the University of Cambridge and Biruni University in Türkiye.

According to reports, she and her friend, Fatima Huseynova, were on their way to a graduation photoshoot when the airstrike occurred. Fatima died at the scene, while Adaobi was rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries.

The attack reportedly left 12 other people injured, adding to the civilian casualties from the ongoing war in Ukraine.

But the new deals come with conditions attached and as a result, face resistance from some governments.

When the initial agreement was signed by Kenya’s President William Ruto in Washington last December, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he hoped it would be the first of many.

“We hope to sign, I don’t know, 30, 40, how many? Fifty? Well, this is number one. We’ll always remember this one… and we think we’ve picked the perfect partner,” Rubio declared.

But even this landmark deal with Kenya, worth $2.5bn (£1.9bn), has been delayed by activists who went to court to block it, although cabinet ministers did finally approve it last month.

Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump ordered the closure of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) amid accusations of wastefulness, in the process decimating health programmes in some African countries that relied on American funding.

The State Department’s new global health strategy requires recipient governments to share responsibility by increasing their own health spending, with the goal of building durable systems that can eventually be self-reliant. It is, for example, contributing $1.6bn to the overall deal with Kenya – with the East African nation pledging $850m over five years.

The Trump administration hopes that partnering with national leaderships will improve on traditional donor-NGO relationships which it says created dependency, led to parallel delivery arrangements and sucked up aid dollars in overhead costs.

“Our aid to those countries will not just be dollars distributed to an NGO who then will go into the country and impose programmes,” Rubio told a congressional committee last month.

“Not only are we treating the acute situations on the ground of people that are sick, but we are also helping them build the capacity and the capability to do this for themselves.”

But the result is a shift away from a model of global cooperation anchored in the World Health Organisation (WHO), to direct agreements with individual governments that are tied to US strategic and commercial interests.

The US withdrew from the WHO early this year saying it was unfair that Washington provided so much more funding than other countries and alleging that the organisation mismanaged the Covid-19 crisis, lacked transparency, and was susceptible to political influence.

Controversially, the American bilateral deals come with an explicit promise to prioritise US pharmaceutical and medical firms in developing and delivering treatments.

“Our global health foreign assistance programme is not just aid – it is a strategic mechanism to further our bilateral interests around the world,” says the policy document.

Thirty-two countries had accepted the health Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) by mid-May, including in Latin America, the Caribbean, and at least 20 in Africa. But some – such as Ghana, Zimbabwe and Zambia – have resisted signing up, citing different reasons.

In Zambia, Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe criticised what he described as an American effort to link health funding to US economic interests, tying the deal to a separate agreement granting Washington access to critical minerals.

“Our [US] colleagues looked at it from the perspective that [the two deals] must be taken as a package to be negotiated and concluded at one particular time,” he told the BBC, saying the Zambian government wanted to discuss them separately on their own merits.

“The US felt that there is a need for there to be preferential treatment in the use of critical minerals. And the framework was to reflect that,” he added.

The State Department stopped short of explicitly linking the two when questioned by the BBC but offered a robust “America First” response.

“The Trump administration has made clear, US foreign assistance is not charity – rather it is strategic capital to be wisely invested to advance US interests – and we expect all of our allies and recipient nations to take seriously American strategic and commercial priorities,” a department spokesperson said.

Last month provided further evidence of this readiness to tie health financing to American priorities – with the announcement that the US would withdraw completely from funding HIV/Aids programmes in South Africa.

An administration official connected the move to Pretoria’s “failure to make demonstrable progress on policy requests”, including apparently the treatment of the white-minority Afrikaner community. US claims that a “white genocide” is taking place in South Africa have been widely discredited.

For some African countries that were negotiating the bilateral MOUs, concerns over US access to health data set alarm bells ringing. This included patients’ information as well as biological resources known as pathogens – organisms that cause disease such as viruses, bacteria and parasites.

A Kenyan court initially suspended the country’s deal after legal challenges demanding protection of patient privacy.

Arnold Kavaarpuo, executive director of Ghana’s Data Protection Commission, told the BBC the government in Accra had objected to the deal it was offered for similar reasons.

“We had concerns around the scope and breadth of data that was being required,” he said.

“It was us generating data and passing it on to the US authorities, and there were no real reciprocal measures when it comes to the protection of Ghanaian data and Ghanaian sovereignty.

“And so from our perspective,” he added, “once the data left the Ghanaian borders, we had no control over what becomes of it.”

Zimbabwe also cited concerns about requests for medical data, presumably to be shared with US pharmaceutical companies, as the reason it rejected a deal.

There were no guarantees that drugs or vaccines developed from the pathogens would be available to its people, a government spokesman said, pointing out that the WHO already had a system for members to share data and benefit from any treatments in future pandemics.

African countries have previously passed on medical information through existing schemes including USAID and PEPFAR, America’s main programme to tackle HIV and Aids.

The US insists the sharing of data and specimens is key to continuing scientific development and mutual co-operation.

And a State Department spokesperson said the requested material was the same aggregated and de-identified data that has been used for years in the fight against infectious diseases.

What has changed is the context, says Nelson Aghogho Evaborhene, a PhD fellow in global health governance at Roskilde University in Denmark.

“It was an unequal relationship, but it was quite tolerable politically,” he says, “because you could sell it to the domestic population as an altruistic need to improve health services.

“But now it has changed significantly, because it’s more about very transactional leverage.”

Many African nations have also drawn lessons from Covid, as the race to find a vaccine proved the value of pathogen data but left the continent struggling to get doses for its people.

“I think one of our biggest opportunities as Africa,” says Aggrey Aluso, the executive director of Resilience Action Network Africa (Rana), “is the fact that we have important information that can help build the global health security ecosystem.”

Rana joined more than 50 civil society groups in signing an open letter warning African leaders that US terms were not guided by African national or regional interests, a view shared by South Africa.

“Frankly speaking, no nation on Earth that respects itself should accede to [two requests],” South Africa’s Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi told the BBC.

“That [the US] will get their pathogen if there’s any pandemic or epidemic in their area.

“And they’ll also provide them with a genome for life. But the US is going to give them money for five years.”

The debate over health diplomacy has been thrown into sharper relief in recent weeks following the spread of a new outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

DR Congo was one of the first countries to accept the new American health deals – and the US says the agreement is helping co-ordinate Kinshasa’s response to the crisis.

But, according to humanitarian workers and former US health officials, sweeping US aid cuts to DR Congo and to the WHO seriously weakened the front-line response.

Amadou Bocoum, the DR Congo country director for the international humanitarian organisation Care, says he had to lay off 36 workers – a third of his staff – after USAID cuts, including those responsible for community mobilisation, health education and Ebola prevention.

“When this new Ebola came, the staffing was not there, and the emergency stock that we also used to have was also not there,” he says.

“With proper funding, we would have had prepositioned stock and begun distributing critical supplies like PPE from day one, but instead, we started with nothing and lost 10 days.”

Critics describe the dismantling of USAID as a blow to the speed of detecting the Ebola outbreak and the scale of response, emphasising that the humanitarian agency was crucial to organising logistics, supplies and local outreach.

“I just cannot imagine that if you still had the full slate of health partners that the US government was funding in Congo up until [the cuts] shut most of that down, that no one would have seen that an unidentified viral haemorrhagic fever was spreading,” adds Jeremy Konyndyk, who led the USAID response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

The US denies its cuts have harmed efforts this time, arguing that they are more “aligned and effective” under the new arrangement and pointing to the $270m it has donated to tackle the epidemic.

Underpinning the US deals is the administration’s desire to encourage national governments to spend more of their own money on their health services – observers say there is a poor record of this in Africa, despite a continental commitment to do so in 2001.

But others warn that the Ebola outbreak has highlighted the risks of a bilateral approach to global health.

“Bilateral relationships ignore collective challenges,” says Dr Kevin DeCock, a former director at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who worked for many years at the forefront of battling infectious diseases.

“Global health, by definition, is transnational, crosses borders, does not concern just one country. Global health problems require global approaches, and no country can go it alone.”

Some health and foreign policy analysts have made a case for giving the administration’s new strategy a chance.

In an article for the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, Brett Schaefer and Roger Bate acknowledge the risks of stepping away from the multilateral system, especially the withdrawal from the WHO.

But this “is not the end of American leadership in global health”, they write. “It is the start of a test – of whether influence is better exercised through conditional engagement, parallel institutions and results-driven partnerships than through deference to an organisation that has struggled to learn from failure.”

Evidence so far is that months on from Rubio’s excited signing of the first MOU, adoption of the bilateral agreements in Africa remains patchy and controversial.

Tanzania has just signed up to the partnership, yet with several African nations saying thanks but no thanks, it remains to be seen how far the reshaping of America’s global health strategy will go.

The incident that has led to the arrest of a 21-year-old suspect.

Prince William County Police say the victim was found in the driver’s seat of a crashed vehicle in Manassas, Virginia, on June 25 with a gunshot wound to his upper body.

He was pronounced dead at the scene, prompting a homicide investigation.

According to investigators, officers were responding to reports of a vehicle collision in the 7900 block of Community Drive when they discovered a car that had crashed into a parked vehicle.

Further checks revealed that the victim had suffered a fatal gunshot injury.

Detectives, working alongside U.S. Marshals, arrested 21-year-old Jamal Dana Allen at his residence in Manassas on July 2.

He has been charged with second-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and is being held without bond.

Authorities say early findings suggest the incident was not random, although the exact motive has not yet been disclosed.

Investigations are ongoing to establish the full circumstances surrounding the killing.

At least 12 people were killed in the second large-scale Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital in a week, officials said. Six more were killed in the wider Kyiv region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has appealed for allies to take “strong decisions” at the this week’s Nato summit to provide Kyiv with air defences.

After the strikes, he said the Ukrainian military had been successful in intercepting cruise missiles and drones – but not ballistic missiles.

Sunday’s “massive Russian attack” consisted of 68 missiles and 351 strike drones, he said in a post on X. The air force shot down or suppressed 37 missiles and 326 drones, it said.

Zelensky warned that Moscow would continue to hit residential buildings as long as defensive Patriot missiles “remain in our allies’ stockpiles”.

It was another frightening night for people in the capital, with loud explosions and the boom of Ukraine’s air defences in action.

Widespread destruction was visible on Monday morning. Three large blocks of flats in the city have partially collapsed, some were hit directly by missiles.

Helicopters have been shuttling back and forth in the sky, carrying water from the river to douse fires in the city.

Kyiv’s top military administrator, Timur Tkachenko, said 49 were people injured in the capital, with Zelenksy saying there were 16 injuries in the wider region.

At the site of one missile strike, in the Podilskyi district of Kyiv, rescue teams have been working in the ruins of an apartment block with a big hole blown through its middle.

Specialists have been using sniffer dogs to try to find the missing among the wreckage as cranes lift giant slabs of concrete from collapsed flats, sending bricks crashing to the ground.

A woman, crying on a bench, was too distraught to talk but a team helping her said two of her relatives were buried in the rubble.

The BBC spoke to residents who have lost everything, as they queued to register their loss with the police.

One woman, whose flat was on the eight floor that has now vanished, began to speak only to have to turn away as she sobbed. People here are already drained by four punishing years of this war, and now the aerial attacks are getting worse.

“After the first blast, nearby, the glass shattered and hit us, almost on our heads. Then everything was shaking,” another woman, Olena, said.

She admitted that she did not go to the bomb shelter when the sirens wailed because she was exhausted and wanted to sleep before work.

“I feel like I have calmed down, but I am still trembling all over.”

Olena had a question of her own about the fact that Ukraine did not manage to stop a single ballistic missile this time.

“The missiles hit our houses, and that’s terrible. Really scary. It seems we have nothing to intercept them with. So where are our partners? What’s happening? That’s my question,” she said.

Hours before the latest strikes, Zelensky had warned that Moscow was preparing a second “massive strike” on Kyiv following its attacks on Thursday that killed 30 people.

Ukraine accused Moscow of deliberately attacking civilian areas in that attack, which left at least 30 people dead. Russia said it had targeted military and energy bases in retaliation for recent Ukrainian strikes on power stations and energy facilities in Russian territory.

Kyiv has kept up its drone attacks on critical Russian energy facilities, with power being cut off temporarily in the city of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said Kyiv had launched 625 long-range strike drones and that its forces had shot down 613 of them.

Several reports suggest Zelensky will meet US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the Nato summit, which begins in Ankara in Turkey on Tuesday.

In his post on X on Monday, Zelensky said it was “critically important” that the US and Ukraine’s European partners come to the summit “with strong decisions in support of our air defense, and thus the protection of ordinary people’s lives”.

“The United States and Europe have enough power to stop this terror,” he said.

President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen said Ukraine’s “urgent” need for more air defence would be discussed at the summit.

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and currently controls approximately one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.

In a press release issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday, July 5, President John Dramani Mahama, on behalf of the Government and people of Ghana, conveyed a message of goodwill to U.S. President Donald J. Trump and the American people.

The Ministry noted that Ghana and the United States have maintained cordial relations since Ghana attained independence in 1957.

It recalled that the United States sent an official delegation led by then Vice President Richard Nixon to Ghana’s independence celebrations, accompanied by civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and diplomat Ralph Bunche, laying the foundation for a long-standing diplomatic relationship.

According to the Ministry, the partnership has expanded significantly over the past seven decades through bilateral agreements spanning several sectors.

It highlighted major milestones in the relationship, including collaboration on the Akosombo Dam, the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO), projects under the Millennium Challenge Compact (MCC), the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), as well as cooperation in education, health, trade and investment.

The statement also referenced several high-level exchanges between the two countries, including visits to Ghana by former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton in 1998, George W. Bush in 2008 and Barack Obama in 2009.

It further noted that successive Ghanaian Presidents, including Jerry John Rawlings, John Agyekum Kufuor, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and John Dramani Mahama, have undertaken official visits to the United States to strengthen bilateral cooperation.

The Ministry praised the strong people-to-people ties between Ghanaians and Americans, describing them as instrumental in promoting mutual understanding and expanding educational and cultural exchanges.

In his congratulatory message to President Trump, President Mahama expressed confidence that the longstanding relationship between Ghana and the United States would continue to be guided by shared democratic values and common interests.

“As we join in the celebration of another milestone, it is my deep conviction that the enduring friendship and cooperation between our two countries will continue to be shaped by values and common interests, especially in the areas of the rule of law, human rights and democracy, as well as our shared aspiration for economic prosperity, which fosters a close and enduring partnership between Ghana and the United States,” President Mahama said.

President Mahama concluded by wishing the Government and people of the United States a peaceful, joyous and successful celebration of the country’s 250th Independence Anniversary.

The first batch of returnees, comprising 273 people, including 255 adults and 18 children, arrived at Entebbe International Airport aboard an Ethiopian Airlines flight as part of a government-coordinated repatriation programme. A second group of 116 returnees arrived at 7:00 a.m., followed by another group of 35 at 8:00 a.m.

While receiving the returnees, the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is also the Minister of State in the same portfolio, Hon. Haruna Kyeyune Kasolo, described the returnees’ arrival as a moment of great relief for the nation, their families, and the President.

He said President Museveni immediately directed the mobilisation of resources to facilitate the safe evacuation of Ugandans after receiving reports of escalating insecurity and threats against foreign nationals in South Africa.

“The brotherly responsibility of any sovereign government is the safety and security of its citizens, both within our borders and abroad,” he said.

Hon. Kasolo revealed that more than 700 Ugandans have so far voluntarily registered for repatriation.

“No matter the distances you travel, or the challenges you face abroad, you must always remember that Uganda is your home, and the government will never abandon you in times of crisis,” said Hon. Kasolo.

He revealed that three Ugandans lost their lives during the unrest, while the bodies of two victims are yet to be identified and repatriated.

Addressing the returnees, the minister encouraged them to embrace opportunities back home, noting that Uganda’s economy continues to expand.

“You committed no offence in going to South Africa to look for greener pastures, but I must confirm to you that the greener pasture is now here in Uganda,” he said, urging them to take advantage of various government wealth creation programmes.

Uganda’s Ambassador to South Africa, H.E. Paul Omoru Omiat, commended President Museveni and the Chief of Defence Forces and Senior Presidential Advisor on Special Operations, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, for their swift intervention, describing the evacuation as timely and compassionate.

“Most Ugandans returned with nothing, some without even a suitcase, because the situation was not friendly,” Ambassador Omoru said, appealing for government support to facilitate the returnees’ reintegration.

Speaking on behalf of the returnees, President of the United Returnees Organisation, Mrs Lydia Mwesigwa, who lived in South Africa for more than 30 years, expressed gratitude to the government for ensuring their safe return.

“What the enemy meant for evil, God has turned around for our good,” she said.

Mrs Mwesigwa noted that the organisation would support the returnees’ reintegration through Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCOs) and agricultural livelihood programmes.

One of the returnees, Mr Mawanda Sayid Juma, who had worked as a driver in South Africa since 2023, described the challenges many Ugandans faced.

He appealed to the government to assist the returnees, explaining that many were forced to leave behind property and assets accumulated over several years.

The reception was attended by the Acting Director of Defence Public Information, Col Chris Magezi, Denis Kalemba and Ambassador Dickson Ogwal, Moses Kibombo Ssentongo, and other UPDF officers.

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The agency said the suspect, who works as a caregiver in the United Kingdom, was arrested at the departure hall of Terminal 2 of the airport on Sunday, June 28, while attempting to board a Virgin Atlantic flight to London.

According to a statement released on Sunday by the NDLEA Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, a thorough search of the suspect’s luggage led to the discovery of 31 large wraps of cocaine disguised as hands of plantain and packed alongside other food items.

Babafemi said, “A thorough search of her bags resulted in the discovery of 31 big wraps of cocaine which were packaged to appear like plantain hands, weighing a total of 13 kilograms. In her statement, the elderly woman admitted full ownership of the recovered cocaine exhibits.”

He also announced the arrest of a 45-year-old PhD student at the University of Putra, Malaysia, Nwabueze Felix Onyeka, over an attempt to export cocaine concealed inside cartons of Orijin Bitters bound for Kuala Lumpur.

Babafemi said Onyeka was arrested in Ekwusigo Local Government Area of Anambra State on June 29 after investigators traced him as the alleged leader of a drug trafficking syndicate.

He disclosed that operatives had earlier intercepted 36 parcels of cocaine weighing 5.80 kilograms hidden within the walls of nine cartons of the herbal drink that formed part of a consolidated cargo destined for Malaysia.

According to him, four suspects were initially arrested in Lagos during investigations, including the cargo agent, Alalade Taiwo Azeez; the driver who conveyed the consignment, Ndem Ogbonna Kelechi; a trader at ASPANDA Market, Trade Fair Complex, Okeke Tochukwu Chimezie; and Igwilo Chidi Henry, who allegedly supplied the cartons used to conceal the drugs.

Babafemi said, “The efforts eventually paid off, leading to the unmasking of Nwabueze hiding in his village Aziora, Ozubulu, Anambra State, as the leader of the syndicate.”

In Taraba State, the NDLEA said its operatives arrested a 30-year-old suspect, Daniel Harrison Ugwuoke, along the Zaki-Biam Road in Wukari Local Government Area on Saturday, July 4.

The agency said 43,980 capsules of Tramadol were recovered from two vehicle fuel tanks specially modified to conceal the drugs.

Similarly, NDLEA operatives arrested Boniface Agu, 65, and Monday Nwaeze, 50, during a raid in Gwantu Local Government Area of Kaduna State on July 2, where they allegedly recovered 1.7 kilograms of methamphetamine.

In Ebonyi State, a 65-year-old suspect, Francis Ifara Eja, was arrested with 231.7 kilograms of skunk at Ikwo on July 4, while a 75-year-old suspect, Alhaji Babani, was apprehended with 15 kilograms of skunk at Kurgwi in Qua’anpan Local Government Area of Plateau State on July 3.

The agency also reported that two suspects, Dahiru Mohammed, 65, and Isiya Lawan, 36, were arrested in Gombe State on July 1 with 587 blocks of cannabis sativa weighing 556 kilograms at Kuri village in Yamaltu-Deba Local Government Area.

Beyond enforcement operations, the NDLEA said its commands nationwide sustained the War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) campaign through sensitisation programmes in schools, workplaces, worship centres and communities.

According to Babafemi, the awareness activities were conducted at Girls Secondary School, Abagana, Anambra State; Government Technical College, Obe, Enugu State; Adeola Odutola College, Ijebu Ode, Ogun State; and the FCE Staff Demonstration School, Kabuga, Kano State, among other locations.

Commending officers involved in the recent operations, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd.), praised the commands for combining enforcement with public enlightenment.

Babafemi quoted Marwa as saying he “commended the officers and men of MMIA, Taraba, Kaduna, Ebonyi, Plateau, and Gombe Commands for the arrests and seizures,” noting that “their drug supply reduction efforts balanced with WADA sensitisation activities,” while charging them and other officers across the country to continue to raise the operational bar.

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A statement from the foreign ministry said Emeka Charles Iroegbu was “reportedly killed” on 28 June by police officers “using gruesome interrogation techniques”, while unidentified assailants had killed shop owner Musa Yunana Joe on the same day.

The authorities in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, are yet to comment.

Nigeria’s foreign ministry said the incidents came amid a rise in anti-migrant sentiment in South Africa, which has led to roughly 25,000 citizens from other African countries being repatriated by their nations, including some 700 Nigerians.

Protesters in South Africa have urged the government to do more to curb illegal migration. They say foreigners are taking jobs and unfairly benefiting from public services.

In its statement, Nigeria’s foreign ministry said Iroegbu was reportedly killed in Pretoria by officers from the Tshwane Metro police department.

Joe, killed on 28 June, was attacked outside his shop in the city of eMalahleni, the ministry said.

Abuja said it was placing the South African government “on notice” and that “all options remain on the table… if the uncultured and provocative trend of intolerance and apartheid-style behaviour of South Africa against foreigners is not addressed”.

Nigeria has said it will seek compensation from South Africa for its citizens who have left the country, adding that Abuja had begun documenting businesses and properties left behind by Nigerians.

However, at a media briefing on Friday, South African cabinet minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said her government would not pay compensation and that Nigerians can sell registered properties they left behind on the South African market.

She also said: “We would be interested to know where the drug dens of Nigerians are, so they can show us where they have been holding the drugs so we can clean the drugs in South Africa quite urgently.”

Nigeria’s foreign ministry strongly condemned this comment in their statement on Sunday, calling it “unacceptable”.

“Such derogatory, unprofessional and uncensored generalised public statements by highly placed government officials constitute hate speech,” the ministry said.

Nigeria’s foreign ministry also accused protest groups in South Africa, including March on March and Operation Dudula, of inciting violence and hatred against other Africans.

It warned that those responsible could face regional and international legal action, though it is unclear steps Nigeria would take and whether it plans to raise the issue with the African Union.

Some anti-migrant groups in South Africa had given undocumented foreigners a deadline of 30 June to leave the country.

Ghana, Malawi and Nigeria are among African countries which repatriated some of their citizens ahead of the deadline.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the world – at more than 30% – and anti-migrant sentiment has been rising in recent months.

The continent’s most developed economy remains a magnet for people from poorer countries seeking work often in low-paid jobs.

The actress posted the video on social media on Saturday, July 3, after days of reflection, writing, “I have been contemplating posting this for a while. Anyways, here it is.”

According to Regina, she marked the birthdays of Munir, who turned six, and Khalifa, who turned four, on June 29 by organising a celebration with children, rather than a private family gathering.

The event featured large framed photographs of her sons, birthday cakes, and the distribution of packaged meals and gifts to children who joined in the celebration.

A video from the event also captured an emotional moment as the actress became overwhelmed while reflecting on the occasion.

“This birthday definitely felt very different, special, extremely emotional for me and I give all glory to God,” she wrote.

Regina used the occasion to offer prayers for her children, expressing hope that they would grow in good health, kindness, compassion and under God’s grace.

“My precious jewels, I pray for the grace of God upon your lives. You will grow in good health, kindness, compassion and God’s unfailing grace. Mama will forever adore you,” she wrote.

She also expressed gratitude to her mother, Rita Daniels, describing her as her greatest source of inspiration.

The post comes days after Ned Nwoko shared his own video on June 29 showing how he celebrated the boys’ birthdays.

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In a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday, July 5, President Mahama extended Ghana’s warm wishes to the Government and people of the United States, describing the milestone as an opportunity to reaffirm the enduring friendship between the two nations.

In a message addressed to US President Donald J. Trump, President Mahama said the strong partnership between Ghana and the United States has been built on a common commitment to democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the pursuit of economic prosperity.

“As we join in the celebration of another milestone, it is my deep conviction that the enduring friendship and cooperation between our two countries will continue to be shaped by values and common interests, especially in the areas of the rule of law, human rights and democracy, as well as our shared aspiration for economic prosperity,” he stated.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that Ghana and the United States have maintained cordial diplomatic relations since Ghana attained independence in 1957, with the US being among the first countries to establish formal diplomatic ties with the West African nation.

It said the relationship has grown steadily over the past seven decades through collaboration in trade, investment, infrastructure, education and cultural exchange.

The Ministry highlighted several key bilateral initiatives, including the Akosombo Dam, the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO), the Millennium Challenge Compact (MCC), the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), and partnerships in education, health, trade and investment.

It also pointed to decades of high-level engagements between the two countries, noting that former US Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all paid official visits to Ghana, while successive Ghanaian leaders, including Jerry John Rawlings, John Agyekum Kufuor, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and President Mahama, have undertaken official visits to the United States.

The Ministry further praised the strong people-to-people ties between Ghanaians and Americans, saying they have helped strengthen mutual understanding and expanded educational and cultural exchanges over the years.

President Mahama also wished the Government and people of the United States a peaceful, joyous and memorable celebration of their 250th Independence anniversary.

“The American dream is back,” US President Donald Trump told a cheering crowd at a delayed rally on the National Mall in Washington before the reputed largest fireworks display ever in the US lit up the night.

The 4 July federal holiday commemorates the 13 US colonies signing the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to end British rule.

The sharply divided country has seen Trump criticised for making himself central to the milestone and politicising it by launching Freedom 250 celebrations, which are separate from congressionally established America 250 events.

Trump’s remarks – where he hit on recent political themes of rejecting communism, Save America Act legislation he favors and the right to bear arms – wrapped up just before midnight at the Freedom 250 event.

Upon closing, he told the crowd, “this is only the dawn of the golden age of America” with its destiny “written by God”.

The celebration, which included a flyover – one featuring the new Air Force One jet – a concert, and fireworks as well as the speech was delayed by a thunderstorm that forced an evacuation of the National Mall in the early evening.

 power in the east due to extreme weather with another 150,000 in New Jersey, according to tracker Power Outage.

Energy company DTE said that severe weather, including winds over 60mph (97kmph) on Friday evening in Michigan, left more than 350,000 homes in the state without power.

Other states affected include Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, New York and Wisconsin.

Former presidents reflect

All four living former US presidents also shared messages to celebrate the milestone. President Joe Biden, Trump’s predecessor, recalled the Declaration’s edict that Independence that all people are created equal.

“We chose that path 250 years ago but that’s where the work began, not where it ended,” he said before warning that the nation’s promise of equality for all was still a work in progress.

The country’s first black president, Barack Obama, reshared excerpts of a recent speech he made at his presidential museum’s opening.

“There’s more to do to fulfil the nation’s founding ideals,” he said. “Every generation must take up the unfinished work of the last and carry it further – protecting what’s right, fixing what’s wrong, and making our union a little more perfect.”

The 43rd president George W Bush said “the next 250 years require Americans to be citizens, not spectators”.

Americans need to “take an active interest in the health and welfare of our country and the communities in which they live”, he said.

His predecessor Bill Clinton took a moment to comment on US politics today.

“Today, we celebrate this milestone amid another period of deep division, renewed questions about America’s future and role in the world, and serious threats to our own institutions and to our democracy itself,” the 42nd president said.

The pair both wore Christian Dior, according to Swift’s longtime publicist, and elected not to have bridesmaids and groomsmen. Instead, Swift’s brother Austin Swift served as her man of honour, and retired American footballer Jason Kelce was the groom’s best man.

The event at Madison Square Garden shuttered one of Manhattan’s busiest corridors and brought out Hollywood’s A-list for what was likely the bash of the century.

Actors Hugh Grant and Jason Sudeikis, singer Benson Boone and model Gigi Hadid were among those spotted.

Hordes of fans huddled outside throughout the day on Friday, some singing Swift tunes and donning concert merch, while others climbed scaffolding hoping to catch a better view of the festivities.

The celebration at the arena kicked off on Thursday with a much smaller event, where a reported 100 people were thought to attend. A permit filed with New York City officials called the event a “pre-party”.

On Friday, a much larger event led to a tent being erected outside the arena that doubled in size.

A stream of blacked-out SUVs pulled through the structure, allowing many guests to shield their arrival while streets in Midtown Manhattan were closed to traffic. Crews at the sport arena set up curtains and gazebos for the massive event.

Swift’s longtime publicist Tree Paine confirmed to the BBC that the two wed on Friday in New York City and offered details from the ceremony.

Around the same time, Madison Square Garden lit up massive signs around the complex reading “JUST&T MARRIED” – a nod to both Taylor and Travis’s names.

Paine said Swift and Kelce wore wedding ceremony looks designed by Jonathan Anderson, creative director of Dior’s women’s, men’s and haute couture collections, in close collaboration with the bride and groom.

“This is the designer’s first couture wedding dress for a world-renowned celebrity,” Paine said in a statement, adding that their shoes were custom made by Christian Louboutin and the bride wore Cartier jewellery.

Throughout the day, excitement filled the air, with a heavy police presence in the stifling heat. Temperatures reached 37C (98.6F).

The New York City Police (NYPD) closed the streets around the arena midday, closing them off completely to vehicles and pedestrian traffic, which were diverted by barriers.

Even with curtains and tents erected to shield guests from the barrage of news cameras and anxious fans, many captured celebrity guests leaving hotels and arriving to the venue.

Model Gigi Hadid, in a pink sparkly dress, and actor boyfriend Bradley Cooper were spotted on the way to the ceremony, while actress Dakota Johnson was also photographed.

Several members of Kelce’s football team were among those seen arriving to the wedding in plain view, while other A-list guests exited their vehicles under the enormous tent for privacy.

Also spotted was TV presenter Graham Norton, who was famously invited to the ceremony when Swift appeared on BBC’s The Graham Norton Show.

Swifties – the singer’s legion of fans – of all ages lined every block in the vicinity of the arena. As more blacked-out vehicles entered the area, the more excited the crowd grew, with several craning their necks to peek at the stars leaving their vehicles.

Some chanted lyrics to their favourite Swift songs or cheered “we love you Taylor”, hoping the pop queen was somewhere within earshot. As the event begun, fans adorned with Swift memorabilia climbed city scaffolding and cheered for anyone who walked past.

On Thursday, a stream of black SUVs pulled up to the venue with guests dropped off under a white canopy tent. High-profile friends of the couple, from actress Lena Dunham to frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff, were spotted in formal attire for the rumoured rehearsal dinner.

The two-day celebration – featuring the takeover of part of America’s biggest city – has been dubbed the wedding of the century and has attracted the sort of global attention usually reserved for royal weddings.

On its own, taking over Madison Square Garden – an iconic fixture in NYC – is a feat requiring millions. Then the couple also closed down the area, which includes one of the city’s primary transit hubs.

The spectacle showcased the power the couple holds, with Swift widely recognised as one of the world’s most powerful and famous people.

Their two-day wedding celebrations led news broadcasts, lit up the Empire State Building in NYC and spurred millions in online betting markets as details of their nuptials left people speculating for weeks.

Pop culture critic Kristen Meinzer told the BBC that their marriage was meaningful because Swift and Kelce are from two important worlds when it comes to pop culture and American identity.

“We worship at the throne of music and football, these are all the things we love in America married together,” she said.

New York City also has a long-standing ethos of treating celebrities as part of the fabric of everyday life rather than as spectacles too.

“We aren’t people who run up to our celebrities, we usually leave them alone,” Meinzer added.

The Pennsylvania-born singer has been based in New York since 2014 – when she bought two adjoining Tribeca penthouses for $20m (£15m) and combined them into one massive living space.

She fell in love with the city after discovering she could go shopping without being bothered, saying that she was “physically different since” moving there. The move also inspired her 1989 album track Welcome to New York.

Kelce, who is based in Kansas for his American football career, was introduced to the Big Apple when he started dating Swift in 2023.

The couple likely spent tens of millions of dollars to rent out the iconic arena, planning experts told the BBC.

Ahead of the festivities, the billionaire singer and wealthy athlete donated $26m (£19.5m) to more than 20 charities – though made no mention of a wedding.

To many, though, the 20,000-capacity arena – which hosts concerts and sports matches with beer-drinking fans – felt like an unusual choice for a wedding, though the venue does boast an unusual level of privacy because of its lack of windows and underground access points. But many said that, if anyone could transform the arena into a wedding wonderland, it would be Swift.

“I thought it was going to be more gardens, more flowers, more tropical. Something more fancy, something more Taylor Swift,” Canadian teen Emily told the BBC outside the venue.

New York resident Rose said it was “sort of absurd” that the couple shut down the busy streets around the arena, but believed the ceremony would be beautiful “because it’s Taylor Swift”.

“I hope it’s a beautiful wedding… but I think they should do it somewhere that’s less inconveniencing to [the] general populace of New York City,” she laughed.

Fans broke out into cheers outside Madison Square Garden when the just-married signs lit up outside the arena.

Fan Tara Rosales was one of the many who were unconvinced the wedding would actually take place at the famed arena.

“I knew that she was going to get married in New York but I had no idea where. So I can’t believe it, I’m actually shook and I’m so excited,” she said.

“She’s never an inconvenience. Taylor can do whatever she wants.”

This question has dominated Indian social media and headlines after the eastern state of West Bengal announced last week that eggs would be replaced with vegetarian alternatives in some government school lunches as part of a pilot project.

The scheme, better known as the midday meal programme, provides free cooked lunches to children in government and government-aided schools.

For millions of underprivileged children, it is the most nutritious – and sometimes only – meal they eat all day. The scheme has long been credited with improving nutrition, reducing hunger and encouraging children to stay in school.

The row erupted after West Bengal’s recently elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government said meal preparation for schools run by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation would be handed to International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon), the Hindu group best known as the Hare Krishna movement.

Meals will be prepared by Iskcon’s Annamitra Foundation, which serves only vegetarian food, replacing eggs with other sources of protein, an Iskcon official said last week.

The project has not yet begun and it is unclear whether it will be expanded to other schools. Iskcon told the BBC that discussions were still under way and nothing had been finalised.

But it has already reignited a familiar debate across India: what belongs on a school lunch plate?

Nutrition campaigners say eggs are among the cheapest and most effective sources of protein for growing children, especially those from poorer households. Attempts by several state governments – many led by the BJP – to replace or limit eggs in school meals have repeatedly sparked controversy.

Critics say governments are letting religious or ideological beliefs dictate nutrition policy by removing eggs. Supporters argue that carefully planned vegetarian meals can provide the same nutrients.

The opposition All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), which ruled West Bengal until May, has accused the newly elected BJP government of trying to “impose vegetarianism” on schoolchildren.

Others say substitutes such as soybeans or kidney beans, suggested by an Iskcon official, are not widely eaten in the state and may not be readily accepted by students.

Some politicians and activists have proposed a middle path: let students choose between eggs and a vegetarian alternative.

Eggs have long been considered one of the cheapest and most efficient sources of high-quality protein. They usually cost around eight rupees ($0.08; £0.06) each and have been part of Bengal’s food culture for generations.

Defending the decision, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said the project was aimed at providing students with “good and pure food”.

“You don’t have to say Hare Krishna [the movement’s devotional chant]. No one will force you,” he said, rejecting criticism that the move was driven by the BJP’s Hindu nationalist ideology.

Iskcon says the criticism is misplaced. Through the Akshaya Patra Foundation, which it founded, it provides school meals to about one million students across 16 states, including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and parts of Delhi.

Radharaman Das, Iskcon’s Kolkata vice-president until last week, told local media that the organisation takes special care to ensure its meals are nutritious and hygienic.

He said the vegetarian menu would provide enough protein and vitamins to match the nutritional value of eggs.

Das has since been removed from his organisational posts, although Iskcon has not publicly explained the decision.

The BBC has contacted Iskcon for further comment.

The row has also renewed focus on India’s school meal scheme.

Launched nationwide in 1995, and rooted in a school feeding programme begun in Madras (now Chennai) in 1925, it has grown into one of the world’s largest, serving more than 110 million children.

The federal government sets calorie and protein targets, but states decide how to meet them. As a result, there is no single national menu, and meals vary across the country.

In Bihar, children are typically served rice with pulses or chickpeas, plus an egg once a week. In Tamil Nadu, school lunches often include rice, sambar (lentil-vegetable stew), vegetables and eggs.

Other states serve only vegetarian meals. In Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, menus usually feature rice- or wheat-based dishes with pulses and vegetables, sometimes accompanied by milk, paneer (cottage cheese) or fruit.

How meals are prepared also varies.

In many government schools, they are cooked on site by dedicated staff. Elsewhere, state governments contract non-profit organisations to prepare and distribute meals that meet prescribed nutritional standards and state menus.

For nearly a decade, students in Kolkata’s government schools have been served an egg on some days of the week, alongside rice, pulses and vegetables. Now, that could change.

Reactions have been mixed. Some primary school students told the BBC they welcomed the change as a break from familiar meals. Others were disappointed, saying they looked forward to the days eggs were served.

Chaitali Mitra, 37, whose daughter attends a government school, said school meals are better with an egg.

“It would reassure me that my growing child’s protein needs were being fulfilled,” she added.

For nutrition experts, the debate is less about food preferences than whether vegetarian substitutes can match eggs for nutrition at the same cost.

Fareha Shanam, a nutritionist at Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, says eggs are among the most complete and affordable sources of protein.

“Eggs contain all nine essential amino acids that the body needs,” she said, noting that pulses – while also nutritious – contain more fibre and a higher share of non-essential amino acids.

“Eggs are also rich in vitamins D and B12, making them an efficient source of nutrition for growing children.”

Foods such as paneer can provide similar nutrition, Dr Shanam says, but they are far more expensive than eggs, making them difficult to serve regularly in a publicly funded programme.

“For many children, the school meal is the most nutrient-dense food they get all day,” says Dr Vamshi V, a consultant in internal medicine at Gleneagles Aware Hospital in Hyderabad.

Dr Vamshi says replacing eggs without carefully matching their nutrients could leave children short of essential protein and micronutrients. The effects may not be immediate, she says, but over time they can impair growth, learning and immunity.

For teachers in government schools across the country, it all comes down to a simple reality – for many underprivileged children, these meals are indispensable.

“The mid-day meals have been among the biggest reasons for students getting admissions in primary schools,” says a primary school teacher in Delhi who did not want to be named.

Many children, she said, come to school hungry and wait eagerly for lunch every day.

Meanwhile, in Bihar, teacher Bimla Singh* says the choice should be left to children, as it already is at her school. Every Friday, students are offered an egg, while those who do not eat eggs receive a banana instead.

“No one is forced to eat one or skip the other,” she added.

In December, US and Nigerian forces launched a joint operation in the Lake Chad Basin area, which involved strikes against militants on Christmas Day, followed by the deployment of about 200 soldiers two months later.

Senior Islamic State (IS) leader Abu-Bilal al-Minuki was killed during the months-long mission.

On Thursday, the US said the operation had been a success, while Nigeria’s military spokesperson told the BBC the withdrawal of US soldiers would “not affect our momentum in any way”.

Despite the operations, jihadist groups continue to stage attacks, especially in north-eastern Nigeria.

Maj-Gen Michael Onoja said intelligence-sharing between the two countries would continue, which the US military also said in its briefing.

Military cooperation between Nigeria and the US increased after Washington accused Nigerian authorities of not doing enough to protect vulnerable groups against Islamist militants, and alleged there was a “Christian genocide” in the country.

Nigeria has firmly rejected this claim, saying the violence is complex and affects people from all communities.

Organisations monitoring political violence in Nigeria say most victims of the jihadist groups are Muslims because they mostly operate in the north of the country, where most people follow Islam.

Earlier this year, the US said it would deploy about 200 troops to support Nigeria’s counter-insurgency efforts, while stressing that its forces would not take part in ground combat.

Announcing that most of these troops had now left, General Dagvin Anderson, Commander of US Air Forces in Africa, said on Thursday that the operation had been successful and that IS’ leadership in Nigeria had been “significantly degraded”.

IS has radically shifted in recent years, with around 90% of its attacks now taking place in sub-Saharan Africa, analysts say. Its Nigeria-based branch is by far the most active.

Anderson said that the group’s local command structure and its wider global network had both been disrupted by the joint operation, limiting its ability to communicate.

Despite the withdrawal, US military personnel stationed in Nigeria before the Lake Chad Basin operation have remained in the country, military spokesperson Major General Samaila Uba told the BBC.

Nigeria faces multiple security challenges. Along with Islamist militants, banditry and criminal violence plague the country, having spread from the north into parts of central and southern Nigeria.

The former Ayatollah’s body is currently lying in state at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla, ahead of his burial in his hometown of Mashhad next Thursday.

Iranian authorities said 12 to 20 million people were expected to attend the ceremonies, which are part of what they are calling the “funeral of the century”.

It comes as Iran and the United States observe a fragile ceasefire after signing a preliminary deal to halt their conflict in June.

Footage showed Khamenei’s coffin, bearing the colours of the Islamic Republic, being carried aloft at the Grand Mosalla on Friday.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian was among those paying their respects after the coffin was placed at the vast religious complex.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country has mediated peace talks between the US and Iran, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and the Afghan Taliban’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi were in attendance.

Representatives from Iraq, Armenia, Turkey and several Gulf states – Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman among them, have also arrived for the processions.

There will be an official funeral ceremony in Tehran on Saturday, which the Tehran-based Mohammad Rasulullah Corps is leading, as part of six days of ceremonies.

Khamenei’s body will lie in the Grand Mosalla for three days, alongside the remains of family members who were also killed in the US and Israeli strikes in February.

Mohammad Rasulullah Corps commander Hassan Hassanzadeh said Khamenei’s coffin would be displayed on an elevated platform, with crowd flows designed to allow visitors to enter and leave within 15 to 20 minutes.

The supreme leader was killed during joint Israeli and US strikes on Iran in late February, precipitating a major regional war in the following months.

Speaking on Friday night in the US, President Donald Trump acknowledged the week of mourning taking place in Iran, adding that the country was “dying to settle” as negotiations to end the war continue.

“We gave them [Iran] a week off for a funeral because we’re nice,” he told a crowd gathered at Mount Rushmore for his address on the eve of 4 July celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of US independence.

Authorities have ordered public and private offices in Tehran to close from Saturday through Monday, while traffic restrictions will shut down most of the city centre to private vehicles, AFP reported. The airspace over Tehran was partially closed on Friday and will be fully closed on Monday.

On Tuesday, events will move to Qom, just south of Tehran, where a senior Shia cleric will lead funeral prayers at Jamkaran – one of Iran’s most prominent and symbolic religious sites.

Khamenei’s body will then travel to Najaf in Iraq on Wednesday. Following a procession at the shrine of Imam Ali, Shia Islam’s first imam, ceremonies will continue in Karbala before the body returns to Iran.

Iranian officials say the Iraq events follow requests from Iraqi groups, with some analysts seeing them as representative of Khamenei’s influence across the Shia Muslim world and Iran’s religious and political ties across the region.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Baghdad to coordinate the arrangements, saying the funeral had a “symbolic importance”.

On Thursday, Khamenei will be buried in the city of his birth, Mashhad, at the Imam Reza Shrine, the mausoleum of Shia Islam’s eighth imam and Iran’s most important pilgrimage site, which attracts millions of visitors each year.

Ceremonies will continue across the country for 40 days, with commemorative events planned until the first anniversary of Khamenei’s burial.

Khamenei was succeeded by his son, Mojtaba, who has not been seen in public since becoming supreme leader.

Key questions around the ceremony centre on whether Mojtaba will attend the funeral.

Last week, secretary of the organising committee, Ali Akbar Pourjamshidian, said any decision on Mojtaba’s attendance would be announced by the offices of the armed forces commander-in-chief and the supreme leader.

Questions also remain about who will lead the funeral prayer, as in Shia tradition the role carries religious and political significance.

The court ordered the couple, a 22-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman, to be whipped with a rattan cane 21 times each for kissing without being married. At least 100 people witnessed the caning, carried out by a group of people wearing robes and hoods on a stage in Bustanussalatin City Park in Banda Aceh.

The couple were arrested in April after a livestream from 27 February, in which they kissed in a car in Banda Aceh, went viral and prompted reports to local sharia authorities.

Aceh is the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia that enforces a version of Islamic law. The country’s secular central government granted the province the right to implement religious law in 2006 as part of a peace deal to end a separatist war.

In 2015, Aceh expanded the law to apply to non-Muslims, who account for about 1% of the province’s population.

The law allows up to 100 lashes for morality offences including adultery and gay sex. Caning is also allowed to punish people for gambling and drinking, and for women who wear tight clothes or men who skip Friday prayers.

The couple caned on Thursday were sentenced to 25 lashes each, which was reduced to 21 as they had already spent four months in prison.

The court also seized a mobile phone and a USB flash drive containing the TikTok live video as evidence to be destroyed.

Four other people were also publicly caned on Thursday for online gambling and adultery.

Amnesty International Indonesia said the public caning in Aceh was a form of human rights violation that was cruel, inhumane and degrading to human dignity, carried out despite the fact Indonesia had ratified a convention mandating the abolition of inhumane punishments.

“Such behaviour might be considered inappropriate because social media is viewed by people of various age groups, including children. But is it a crime that warrants imprisonment or even caning? That would be excessive,” said Usman Hamid, the executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia.

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The convict, 40-year-old Kwabena Kissi, was sentenced by the Snaresbrook Crown Court after admitting a charge of fraud by false representation arising from an elaborate deception carried out in July 2022.

Court proceedings heard that on July 5, 2022, Kissi entered a Santander UK branch in Brixton, south London, dressed in a G4S security uniform from a company he had left two years earlier. To conceal his identity, he wore a crash helmet with the visor lowered and a face mask, giving staff the impression that he was a legitimate cash collection officer.

Security camera footage presented during the trial showed bank employees granting him access to a secure area before handing over bags containing cash, believing he had arrived for a scheduled collection.

After receiving the money, Kissi quietly exited the banking hall carrying a briefcase. Investigators told the court that he later changed out of the uniform nearby, transferred the cash into a bin bag and left the area in an Uber vehicle.

Prosecutor Imogen Nelson told the court that the bank’s vault manager, Otis Williams, had prepared £256,000 for collection that day in 11 separate cash bags.

Although one member of staff questioned why Kissi had arrived earlier than expected, he reportedly explained that he had been assigned to “a new route”, an explanation that allayed any immediate concerns.

The deception was only uncovered after Kissi failed to return for a subsequent collection and the genuine G4S cash collection officer later arrived to collect the funds.

The court heard that Kissi departed the United Kingdom for Accra a day after the theft and remained in Ghana for nearly four years, where he reportedly lived with his ailing mother.

However, his attempt to evade justice came to an end when he travelled back to Britain on March 26 this year.

According to investigators, police officers had been monitoring for his return. His arrest was triggered after he booked an Uber using his real name and mobile telephone number—the same handset investigators had linked to the 2022 fraud.

He was arrested shortly after arriving at Gatwick Airport.

During questioning, Kissi initially denied being the suspect and claimed that officers had mistaken his identity. Investigators, however, matched the recovered mobile phone with evidence gathered during the original investigation, linking him directly to the offence.

In April this year, Kissi pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation. A separate count of possessing criminal property was subsequently discontinued.

The sentence brings to an end a case that investigators said involved careful planning, the misuse of a former employer’s uniform and the exploitation of established security procedures to gain the confidence of bank staff before making away with a substantial amount of cash.