Hypermobility - the little-known 'bendy disease' that causes pain
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Vivienne Duval has always been flexible. She can do every yoga pose there is, but it was not until she turned 58 that she realised that this bendiness was not a good thing.
In fact, it was the answer to all of the strange health problems she had been experiencing for years - issues with digestion, fatigue, and pain.
Earlier this year, when Vivienne came across a video on social media explaining the symptoms of Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder, it was like a light bulb switching on.
"I saw myself in everything they were saying," she tells me. "So I armed myself with all the information and went to my doctor."
Vivienne's hunch was confirmed - she had hypermobile joints. "I had all these separate things, but no one had ever put them all together. Now it's blindingly obvious."
The disorder may affect hundreds of thousands of people in the UK, but many - like Vivienne - face significant delays in getting a diagnosis.
Ratko Mladić: BBC correspondent on meeting dangerous fanatic early in Bosnian war
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Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladić, dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia" for his actions during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, has died in prison.
BBC special correspondent Allan Little was there throughout the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, and met Mladić in the early months of the Bosnian war.
At night, you could watch the fires of ethnic cleansing across the landscape. The flames provided the only light under the night sky and the black valley would glimmer with flecks of orange.
You could watch the men of our village move about silently in the shadows of their homes, each armed with some ancient weapon salvaged from wars long ago and, like the fears and the suspicions and the distrusts, handed down through the generations.
One morning I watched a procession of men and women emerge from a forest. They had been driven from their homes two days earlier and had fled with what they could carry.
Most were on foot. Some were crammed into the back of ancient farm vehicles drawn by donkeys. There were perhaps 40,000 of them. Their home town had fallen to a Serb advance that had come without warning.
Among them, one man seemed close to collapse. He stopped to speak to us.
The whole town had fled, he said. He had become separated from his wife in the long trek to safety and was now worried that she had not made it. His pale, almost translucently white skin was stretched across the bones of his face like parchment. His forehead was livid blue from a fall.
I asked him how old he was. He said he was 80. "May I ask" I said, "are you a Croat or a Muslim?"
The memory of it shames me even now as I hear, in my mind, his answer echo down the years.
"I am," he said, "a musician".
Our convenient ethnic shorthand reduced them to Serbs, Croats and Muslims. But they were also musicians and scientists and doctors and plumbers and farmers and mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and very often children.
Extra 200 police to aid Teesside crash and fire investigation
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Earlier Brown told Radio 4's Today programme that residents deserved to "feel safe in their own homes" and he understood people from the area might feel "left behind".
"I'm from an estate, from the same ilk," he said.
"You live around people that may be suffering poverty or other social issues, it can be that uniform sort of consciousness that 'we're left behind'.
"But I can assure the people of Grangetown and South Bank they're as important to me as people from any other estate in the borough."
Local Labour MPs Anna Turley, Luke Myer, Andy McDonald, Jonathan Brash and Chris McDonald issued a joint statement in which they welcomed the help of other police forces during the past week, but called for more long-term support to protect residents who had expressed "safety concerns" for "far too long".
Myer said current national funding formulas for the police and fire service did not take into account the "seriousness" of the crime people in Teesside faced.
"We essentially have a metropolitan style of crime and also risk of fire but with a sort of rural-style funding," he said.
"This is why we need to see a real overhaul of the funding formula."
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey told the Press Association the events in and around Middlesbrough over the last week were "deeply worrying".
On Saturday, PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough died when a Volkswagen Passat, which was going the wrong way on the A66 at South Bank, hit their vehicle.
The five young men in the Volkswagen also died and inquests into all seven deaths opened on Thursday.
Police said 17 people, aged between 18 and 61, had been arrested across Teesside as part of an investigation into the lead-up to the crash.
They have been held on a range of offences including possession of a firearm and being part of an organised crime group.
Clean-up of illegal Kidlington waste supersite costs £6m
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The clear-up of one of England's largest illegal waste tips has been completed - landing taxpayers with a £6m bill.
The government has vowed to recoup the clearance costs for the Kidlington dump in Oxfordshire - and seven other sites - from the criminals responsible.
In 2025, around 22,000 tonnes of domestic and commercial rubbish was dumped at the spot, between the River Cherwell and the A34. It is one of nearly 30 so-called "supersites" first uncovered by a BBC investigation.
The government, which launched a crackdown on waste crime last week, said it would do more to force criminals to pay for clean-up operations by confiscating their money and assets.
But figures obtained by the BBC show that, in the past five years, the Environment Agency has so far managed to claw back just over £7m from waste criminals using Proceeds of Crime Act (Poca) confiscation orders.
At the same time, the agency says waste crime costs the economy £1bn a year., external
Campaigners have labelled the amount taken from convicted criminals as "derisory" while the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), which represents rural landowners, asked: "Where is the deterrent?"
The amount paid by criminals so far was revealed by an Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) request to the Environment Agency by the BBC.
It shows there have been 66 confiscation orders between January 2021 and March 2026, totalling £7.3m.
Fourteen orders have yet to be fully paid, leaving around £1.4m still to be recovered.
The figures cover those larger illegal sites for which the Environment Agency is responsible, and do not include confiscation orders for smaller fly-tipping offences, which fall under the remit of local authorities.
GTA 6 extended look: What we know after Netflix preview
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After more than 18 months since the last official glimpse of Grand Theft Auto 6, developer Rockstar has shown fans a 26-minute preview of the upcoming blockbuster video game.
Its "extended look" debuted on Netflix, six hours before going live on YouTube, and was the first chance players have had to see detailed footage of the title in action.
The montage, with no commentary or explanatory captions, showed off improved graphics, detailed environments and a selection of car-chases and shoot-outs from the sequel.
The broadcast followed a week of unauthorised gameplay leaks, which the developer said it had been "heartbreaking" to see shared online.
After it got its chance to show the version of GTA 6 it wanted the world to see, here are some things we learned, and some things we still don't know.
Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America
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US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order seeking to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America.
The move comes after trade talks between the US and Canada collapsed late last week, and the US imposed new 50% tariffs on $20bn (C$28bn) worth of Canadian goods. Canada will implement "dollar for dollar" counter tariffs next month.
Trump has repeatedly posted threats about renaming the lake, one of the five Great Lakes that straddle both countries, on social media amid the trade dispute.
He said on Thursday the move was "official, effective immediately" and that his administration has "filed all the necessary papers, documents" to make the change.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney noted the name Lake Ontario can be traced back more than 400 years, adding in a social media post on Thursday that preceded the formation of the Canadian Confederation and the US Declaration of Independence.
"We know that the United States is changing. Their trade relations, their foreign policy, their national monuments, their hydronyms," he wrote. "Canadian women and men also know that things must be called by their name, and this lake is called Lake Ontario – today and forever."
When Trump took the White House in 2025, he signed a similar order that changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Mexico has rejected the name change, arguing a single country cannot rename a shared body of international water.
It also led to a legal dispute between Mexico and tech giant Google, which renamed the gulf in its maps application. , external
In that case, Google Maps users in the US see "Gulf of America", while those in Mexico see the "Gulf of Mexico". Those in other countries see the "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)".
The White House at the time also blocked Associated Press reporters from presidential events over the news agency's refusal to adopt the name "Gulf of America" in its coverage. The AP sued the Trump administration in response, and that legal battle is ongoing.
Sports Direct's Ashley attacks Burnham over 'populist' High Street revival plans
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Billionaire Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley has criticised recent cost of living and retail policies from Andy Burnham as "populist reactions".
In a letter to the prime minister, the entrepreneur accused him of "jumping on 'everyday fixes' or bandwagons", while "disastrous" business rates policies and increases to the cost of employing workers were causing businesses to struggle.
He also described a previous proposal of increasing business rates on large warehouses to help reduce them for pubs and clubs as "delusional".
A Downing Street spokesperson said Burnham would "build a new economy that backs British business, delivers growth in every postcode and ensures the essentials in life - like energy, water and housing - are affordable again."
Promises including cutting VAT from household electricity bills and reducing business rates for some firms is "just the start", they added.
Earlier this month, Burnham promised to revitalise Britain's "hollowed out" high streets by helping councils block new vaping and betting shops.
He also brought forward a plan to end subscription traps and ban shops using misleading recommended retail prices, which can make it seem like discounts are larger than they really are.
In Ashley's letter, seen by the BBC and first reported by the Financial Times,, external he hit out at announcements made since Burnham succeeded Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister.
The businessman called on Burnham to use his first Budget, scheduled for 27 October, to lower costs for employers and change the government's position on business rates.
Pubs, social clubs and live music venues will get a 20% business rates cut from April, while a review has been launched into how the tax, which high street firms have long called for reform to, is calculated.
"Shortsighted or populist reactions to underlying business challenges are not the answer," Ashley said in the letter.
Ashley has repeatedly called for a fundamental overhaul of the tax, including levelling the playing field between High Street retailers and online rivals.
"If your answer is to tax larger retailers even more, through hiking business rates on retailer owned or third-party warehouses whilst reducing rates for pubs and clubs, then that is simply delusional," he wrote.
Burnham previously said before he was prime minister that cuts for pubs, clubs and music venues could be paid for by higher levies on warehouses operated by online firms such as Amazon, and targeting the owners of empty high street properties.
Ashley built Frasers Group from a single Sports Direct store in Maidenhead in 1982 to a sprawling empire of dozens of brands employing 30,000 people.
The billionaire has frequently attracted controversy from investors and the media, with accusations over the years of building success by exploiting workers.
In 2016, Ashley admitted to MPs that workers at his Derbyshire warehouse had been paid below the minimum wage and a policy of fining staff for being late was unacceptable.
The business, still owned by Ashley but run by his son-in-law Michael Murray, this month bought luxury department store Harvey Nichols and promised a "significant restructuring" of the business.
Ashley also used his letter to ask Burnham how the prime minister intends to revive Harvey Nichols, which has faced financial challenges in recent years.
Referencing comments by Tory peer and former Marks & Spencer boss Lord Rose, who called the announcements "hot air", Ashley said "I agree with him".
"It is the disastrous business rates position (which I have raised many times over the years) and the dramatically increasing cost of employing people that are really causing business to struggle," Ashley said.
"You have the chance to make a difference or get it horribly wrong," he added.
Ashley said the High Street will be "further devastated" without major reforms, and warned Burnham's suggestion he will consider further business rates changes in the coming Budget are "too little, too late".
He also used the letter to attack Burnham's plans to clamp down on the use of recommended retail prices, saying instead the real issue is "price fixing in sporting goods and other markets" - where he cited the rising cost of official football merchandise.
Rape and sex offence specialists on all police forces by 2027, PM says
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Investigators specialising in rape and sex offences will be introduced to every police force in England and Wales by the end of 2027, the government has said.
Ministers are speeding up the rollout of the scheme, previously announced by Sir Keir Starmer's government, by 18 months as part of efforts to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG).
They are also offering more money for some forces to boost protection orders.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the previous plans were "too slow" and ministers should be "laser focused" on tackling such crimes.
One charity has welcomed the measures, but says they represent "only a small portion of what is needed" for victims.
The Home Office initially announced the plans last year and was due to have teams in place by summer 2029.
Burnham said: "The scale of violence and abuse suffered by women and girls in this country is unacceptable.
"We're taking action to accelerate the roll out of specialist rape and sexual offence teams, who will go after perpetrators, enforce strict new protection orders to protect survivors, and invest in programmes to intensively manage offenders to break the cycle of abuse."
Up to 10 police forces across England and Wales will also get a share of a £13.3m pot to boost the teams managing protection orders, where offenders are subject to electronic monitoring, exclusion zones and other measures, the Home Office has said.
Minister for Safeguarding Satvir Kaur said violence against women and girls was one of the "most critical challenges of our time" and the government was strengthening its response by "relentlessly pursuing perpetrators and helping victims live their life without fear".
The charity Refuge welcomed the changes, but suggested the government should go further.
Its head of policy and public affairs Ellie Butt said the measures "represent only a small portion of what is needed to ensure all survivors can access timely and effective support".
She said the charity hoped the announcement would be the "first step of many" in Burnham's plans to tackle VAWG, adding that protection orders were "highly underutilised" and "enforcement is often inadequate".
"Survivors often avoid reporting the abuse they've experienced to the police for fear of being disbelieved or undermined, so for protection order teams to increase uptake of these tools, genuine efforts are needed to build women's and girls' confidence in policing and ensure abuse does not go unreported," she added.
In December, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood described violence against women and girls as a "national emergency" as she announced plans for the specialist investigation teams.
She told the BBC at the time that the way police forces investigate cases was "too much of a postcode lottery".
The accelerated rollout comes as the prime minister has been facing pressure over the early release scheme, designed to avert overcrowding in the country's prisons.
Justice Secretary Alex Norris is expected to reveal the findings of a review of the scheme next week when MPs return to Parliament from their summer recess.
The plans were paused earlier in the summer, and the eligibility for the scheme was also changed, removing the right of those convicted of rape, serious child sex offences and grooming to have their sentences cut.
However, domestic abuse commissioner Nicole Jacobs said not excluding domestic abusers was "wrong and puts victims lives at risk".
She said earlier this month: "It is critical that no abuser is released in October unless I am confident that victims' safety is not being compromised."
Newspaper headlines: 'Town gripped by fear' and 'Nepal death toll climbs'
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What we know about the new GTA 6. 00:01:16, play video
What we know about the new GTA 6
King Charles 'heartbroken' by deadly Nepal flash floods
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The prime minister and the Foreign Office in the UK have urged people to follow local guidance and remain alert to the changing situation, as officials in Nepal warn of a possible secondary flood risk near the Bhote Koshi river.
The Foreign Office added it was working closely with Nepalese authorities.
A British woman from Slough, Leena Bector, has been confirmed by Fishtail Tours and Travels as missing. Her husband, Bhupesh Bector, told the Times he is flying out to the country.
"I know that she's in Nepal for sure, so even if they find her today or tomorrow, I need to be there," he said.
British resident Pramod Pudel, who lives in East Sussex but is originally from Nepal, told BBC Radio Sussex on Thursday that "nothing remains" where his family lives and he is flying back to search for his wife, mother, brother and uncle.
"It's a very, very difficult time for me and for my family and my country at this moment, but obviously I have to go and see what's happening there," he said.
"A lot of people are missing and there is no information regarding who is missing, where they are. Nobody can contact each other and all the bridges are broken, so you can't cross the land.
"There's no power, no electricity, so I can't contact anyone, so it's a very difficult time not knowing what's happening."
Essex nurse Rajendra Pudasaini said his relatives were "swept away" by the floods.
"My wife's auntie and uncle, and their granddaughter and her husband are missing, and my godson as well," he told PA Media.
"They're gone. The speed the water came, they couldn't be saved, they were just swept away."
Meanwhile, a Nepalese man living in Aberdeen Barun Lamichhane, 26, told BBC Scotland News his brother, uncle and cousin all died in the disaster - but his mother, father and grandmother managed to escape.
Lamichhane said they got away by "crawling like a baby" into the hillside.
Other families are waiting for news, including Tatajana Phillips, from Folkestone in Kent, who said the last known location of her sister Julija Jakovicka was in the border area an hour before the flash floods struck.
"We are really hoping that people hear us and try to find and locate [my sister]".
Phillips said her sister, a mother-of-two living in Germany, was in the country for a yoga and meditation retreat.
"We are terribly worried," added Phillips' husband Ben. "We just know where they were and that's really tough."
Peter Cullen: Optimus Prime and Eeyore voice actor dies
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Actor Peter Cullen, who voiced popular characters including Optimus Prime in Transformers and Eeyore in Disney's Winnie the Pooh franchise, has died at the age of 85.
The Canadian actor began his most famous role - as the heroic deep-voiced Optimus Prime - for the Transformers TV series in 1984, then returned for seven Hollywood films from 2007 to 2023 and other spin-offs.
He voiced depressive donkey Eeyore in TV animation The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh from the late 1980s as well as numerous related shows, films and games.
His other memorable voice parts included KARR, the evil counterpart to KITT in TV show Knight Rider; the clicking vocalisations of The Predator in Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1987 film; and the roars of King Kong in 1976.
What does the Meta settlement mean for the UK? Five things we learned
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The UK has its own measures in place to protect children online.
The Online Safety Act mainly put restrictions on what content young people can see online.
But the UK government has gone further than the US ban already.
Earlier this year, it announced an outright social media ban for under-16s, which will take effect in 2027.
Some other measures will apply to 16 and 17-year-olds, such as curfews and restrictions during certain hours of the day.
The US has to some extent followed the same path: Start by policing the content on the platforms, then move on to restricting access to social media.
But the core difference is children in the US will not be banned completely.
Instead, they will not have access to Facebook and Instagram overnight, have to follow time limits, and there will be prompts for children who use them for a long time.
Unlike in the UK, these are not put in by law, and will only apply to the two platforms so far (more on that below).
The UK government said it was "following developments closely" in the Meta settlement.
But now those safety features have been accepted by Meta in the US, other countries may start asking for them too.
"These tech platforms don't usually do anything unless they are told to do it," said Trevor Johnson, a former senior figure at Meta and TikTok, who spoke to Radio 4's Today programme.
"But I do think the UK will feel empowered to at least ask for the same restrictions."
Another former Meta director, Zvika Krieger, said Meta agreed to the changes because it saw "the writing on the wall".
"They're trying to demonstrate, 'Oh, you don't need to go and do a complete ban'," he told 5 Live Breakfast.
"I think that they probably would roll out a lot of these features to the rest of the world as well."
'Cowboy builders' targeted in new government clampdown
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People carrying out home renovations will gain greater protections against "cowboy builders" through a new database of trusted traders and a payment system offering more safeguards, the government has said.
Traders signing up to the scheme launching next month will need to demonstrate certain standards of customer service, transparency and dispute resolution.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said unscrupulous tradespeople "leave families with months of stress" as well as unfinished work.
The National Federation of Builders said the changes would not stop rogue operators while the Tories suggested there would be added paperwork for firms already operating legitimately.
Citizens Advice has said home renovations are one of its biggest sources of consumer complaints.
The government said more than a quarter of people who carried out home improvements in the past 18 months have experienced problems, such as builders disappearing after upfront payments were made.
It cited a survey carried out for the Competition and Markets Authority, external suggesting customers lost more £10bn in 2024 on home and garden maintenance services due to losses, overpriced costs or unfair practices by traders.
BBC News has previously reported on "bait-and-switch" locksmith scams, where customers were given an initial cheap quote before hidden charges and unnecessary work were added.
Under the new traders' scheme, customers' money will be held in an account and released in parts after certain milestones in projects are completed.
The National Federation of Builders (NFB) told BBC Breakfast there are already schemes in place to find trustworthy builders.
Adas Rico Wojtulewicz-Richmond, the NFB's director of policy, said: "Is this scheme going to stop bad actors operating and ripping people off? I don't think it will."
He said a better approach would be for every project to have a "passport" which records all the work done.
"It protects consumers because you can find out which companies are doing a poor job, and it brings up the industry standards," he said.
The prime minister said rogue tradespeople gave their "decent, hardworking" counterparts a bad name and would be "putting the cowboys out of business".
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said that, while home improvements can be stressful, "we're taking action to protect consumers, support reputable traders and make sure people can spend their money with greater confidence and security".
Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said the announcement looks like "the sort of government initiative that risks the unintended consequence of piling more paperwork onto the majority of businesses who already do the right thing".
He said: "The government would do far better to beef up law enforcement and have tougher sentences for the minority who fraudulently rip off customers. Those who break the rules will keep breaking them regardless of whether there is an app in the way."
Liberal Democrat business spokesperson Sarah Olney said: "Rogue builders cause real harm and ruin real lives every year. The current system is simply not fit for purpose and this half-baked announcement falls frustratingly short from fixing it.
"A voluntary code for tradespeople completely misses the mark. Rogue operators won't voluntarily sign up - they will simply keep exploiting families in the shadows."
Lindsay Clancy trial in hands of jury after closing arguments conclude
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Warning: This story contains distressing details and discussion of attempted suicide
The fate of US mother Lindsay Clancy is now in the hands of a Massachusetts jury, who must decide if she is guilty of first-degree murder - the intentional and premeditated killing of another person - in the deaths of her three children.
For five weeks, the trial has gripped the country as Clancy's lawyers have argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she killed her children, who ranged in age from eight months to five years. Clancy does not deny killing her two sons and daughter.
The prosecution argued she made a calculated decision to intentionally murder them.
The jury could find Clancy guilty of first-degree murder, guilty of lesser charges, or not guilty.
The jury of nine women and three men completed their first day of deliberations on Thursday. They will return on Friday.
In the state of Massachusetts, a first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory life in prison sentence without the possibility of parole.
The jury could instead find Clancy guilty of second-degree murder - committed with malice or extreme recklessness, but without prior planning - or involuntary manslaughter - causing death because of extreme carelessness. Those convictions, too, would lead to some prison time.
If Clancy is found not guilty by reason of insanity, then she will not be set free, but instead sent to a psychiatric hospital, where she possibly could remain for life.
Norwegians lay flowers at palace as King Harald's condition worsens
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Having been on the throne since 1991, King Harald is Europe's oldest head of state.
Crown Prince Haakon, 53, the successor to the Norwegian throne, has been serving as regent while his father is on leave.
King Harald has been treated in recent weeks with cortisone for haemolytic anaemia, a condition that causes the number of red blood cells in the body to be reduced, and leads to fatigue and shortness of breath.
There was a sombre mood in Oslo as Norwegians followed the comings and goings of the royal family. Crowds milled around in Palace Square throughout the day as Norwegian public TV scrapped its schedule to cover the story.
Although no-one in the royal family spoke, the message was clear that it had become an important moment to visit the king.
Among those visiting the hospital were Crown Princess Mette-Marit who arrived with Haakon, as well as her son Marius Borg Høiby, who is under house arrest during his appeal against a conviction for rape.
King Harald's sister, Princess Astrid, also visited the hospital, along with Haakon and Mette-Marit's children Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre cancelled a planned trip to Germany, where he was expected to meet Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday.
"The whole nation is with us as we send warm thoughts to the king and the rest of the royal family," he said in a statement.
Finchley teacher of indecent assaults against two pupils
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A chemistry teacher has been found guilty of indecently assaulting two teenage pupils at an all-boys school in the late 1980s.
Sally-Anne Bowen, who taught at Christ's College in Finchley, north London, assaulted the boys when they were aged around 14 to 15 and she was in her mid-20s.
On Thursday, a jury at Harrow Crown Court found the 65-year-old guilty of seven counts of indecent assault after deliberating for six hours and 29 minutes.
One complainant told the court he had sex with the teacher "about 20 or 30 times" over several months. He said he visited her at home, considered her his girlfriend and had fallen in love with her.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court she had "drummed it" into him that he must not tell anyone about them and to keep it a secret.
A second complainant told jurors he had kissed Bowen in a café after being "goaded" into it by other boys.
A former pupil at the school, Tobias Oliver, said during the trial that she acted like she was in "a Sabrina Carpenter video" while in the classroom and "dressed and behaved more like my teenage female friends than the other teachers".
"The topics of conversation in class often strayed away from chemistry and became quite sexual," said Oliver, who did not know the complainants.
He recalled incidents where Bowen flashed her underwear to a class while sitting on a table and went through and discussed a "sex manual" a student had brought in, which Oliver believed to be the Kama Sutra, with the class.
Richard Luker, who was head of science at the school in the late 1980s, told the court he remembered receiving a complaint from the first alleged victim's mother after she was worried that her son was planning to travel abroad with Bowen at the end of term.
During the trial, Bowen claimed the allegations were a "total fabrication" and that she had a medical condition which had not been diagnosed in the late 1980s and made sexual intercourse difficult and painful for her.
Bowen, of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, was granted bail.
She will be sentenced on 20 November.
Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, external, X, external and Instagram, external. Send your story ideas to [email protected], external
France relaxes strict cheese-making rules after prolonged drought
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France has temporarily relaxed rules for making some of its best-known cheeses after the summer drought drastically reduced the amount of grass available to feed milk herds.
Government decrees to grant dispensations to manufacturers of Abondance, Beaufort and Comté cheeses - which come from mountains in eastern France - appeared on Wednesday.
Several other cheeses are expected to receive similar waivers, allowing farmers to feed livestock with grass and hay brought in from outside their strict geographical zone.
These include Cantal, Bleu d'Auvergne, Fourme d'Ambert, Bleu du Vercors-Sassenage, Reblochon and the goats cheese Rocamadour.
The National Institute for Origin and Quality (INAO), which regulates France's labels of origin, has also approved temporary changes to the rules for other protected produce because of the effects of the summer heat.
Products that will benefit include some types of Calvados and cider from Normandy, Crémant d'Alsace fizzy wine, lamb from Poitou-Charentes, and Reine-Claude plums.
Has Social Media For Children Just Changed Forever?
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Available for over a year
Today, we discuss Meta’s decision to agree to an $18 billion settlement resolving claims from 29 US states that Facebook and Instagram harmed children. Technology and AI editor Zoe Kleinman joins Adam to discuss the short trial and why Meta have settled and not admitted any wrongdoing. New features will be implemented on Facebook and Instagram for children including two-hour daily time limits and a night mode - but Meta says other tech platforms should be made to adopt these features too. And, the Home Office has released its latest figures showing small boat arrivals have dropped by 23% on the previous year. Dominic Casciani, Home and Legal correspondent unpacks the story behind the latest migration statistics. You can now listen to Newscast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Newscast”. It works on most smart speakers. You can join our Newscast online community here: https://bbc.in/newscastdiscord Get in touch with Newscast by emailing [email protected] or send us a WhatsApp on +44 0330 123 9480. New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/4guXgXd Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. The presenter was Adam Fleming. It was made by Miranda Slade with Shiler Mahmoudi and Eleanor Harrison-Dengate. The social producer was Jem Westgate. The technical producer was Ben Andrews. The assistant editor is Jack Maclaren. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
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Rangers: 'Mortified' Derek McInnes takes responsibility for European exit
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Former Rangers midfielder Andy Halliday: "Rangers had no style, no desire, no movement, no tackles, no shots, no control. They offered absolutely nothing over 120 minutes. I'm not that shocked given what I've watched in the first few games.
"The questions are going to start coming Derek McInnes' way. Rangers played five different formations tonight and they offered nothing.
"They had a week to prepare for this game. I don't know what they did. I didn't see how they were going to score. They got played through far too easy.
"I think of Kaunas, Progres Niederkorn - that's up there with those defeats. This is one of the worst results in Rangers' recent history."
Former Rangers striker Steven Thompson: "One shot on target in 120 minutes. That tells a story about Rangers' threat.
"When players are on the pitch and things aren't going well and they look around them for someone to grab the game by the scruff of the neck, to lead, there's no answers.
"I could see Derek's frustration. He couldn't believe what he was watching. He tried numerous different things to bring about a better level of performance. But they need better quality on the pitch - and they need a gameplan."
BBC Scotland chief sportswriter Tom English: "They were passive and there was no get up and go about any of them. In a properly-functioning team, which this clearly is not, there would be one or two in there who, out of pure anger at their haplessness, would try and get something going but there was nobody.
"There was nobody out there berating, cajoling, encouraging, there was none of that. They all just went down with the ship. It didn't matter what Derek McInnes did, nobody responded.
"McInnes will be looking at this thinking they've put a lot of work into it, spent a lot of money, tried a lot of formations and nothing is working. What does he do now?"
Champions League draw: Champions Paris St-Germain to face Manchester City and Aston Villa
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European champions Paris St-Germain will face Premier League duo Manchester City and Aston Villa as well as five-time winners Barcelona in the league phase of this season's Champions League.
The back-to-back Champions League winners will welcome Barca to Parc des Princes, while they were also handed trips to Villa Park and Manchester in the draw for the league phase.
Premier League champions Arsenal, meanwhile, will host 15-time winners Real Madrid at Emirates Stadium, and have also been handed a trip to Bayern Munich.
Mikel Arteta's men, who were beaten by PSG on penalties in the final last season, will face Borussia Dortmund, Real Betis, Lille, Napoli, Azerbaijan champions Sabah and Slavia Prague as well.
Enzo Maresca's City will welcome PSG to Etihad Stadium and travel to Barcelona, where they will have a reunion with Spanish World Cup-winner Rodri, who moved to the Nou Camp in a £65m deal this summer.
City will also be up against another of their former midfielders in Kevin de Bruyne when Napoli visit Manchester, with Sporting, Porto, RB Leipzig, AEK Athens and Lens their other opponents.
Europa League winners Villa, returning to the competition after a season away, will host PSG and Dortmund and travel to Barcelona and Galatasaray.
Unai Emery's side also face Club Brugge, Fenerbahce, Viking and Slavia Prague.
Manchester United, returning after a two-year hiatus, will meet Bayern, Atletico Madrid, Roma, Sporting, Leipzig, Villarreal, Sabah and Como.
Liverpool, meanwhile, host Atletico, Porto, Villarreal and Lens while visiting Inter Milan, Brugge, Fenerbahce and LASK.
The first league-phase matches will be played on Tuesday, 8 September and the last round of games will take place on 27 January 2027, with the exact schedule to be released on Saturday.
This season's final will be held in Madrid on 5 June.
Emi Martinez transfer news: Chelsea agree £7.5m fee for Villa goalkeeper
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Chelsea have agreed a £7.5m fee to sign Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez.
The Argentina international, 33, is set to undergo a medical in London and strengthen the goalkeeping group at Stamford Bridge.
It follows concerns over the performances of Robert Sanchez, particularly in the wake of Monday's 3-2 win over Fulham.
Sanchez, who has been Chelsea's first-choice goalkeeper since 2023, allowed Josh King's shot to slip through his grasp at the near post. He then spilled another effort into a dangerous area in the second half, allowing striker Gonzalo Garcia to score.
The move represents a remarkable turnaround in opinion at Stamford Bridge. Those in charge had been keen to back Sanchez but have opted to move for Martinez days before the transfer deadline.
Chelsea also have Mike Penders, a £17m signing from Genk, among their options. He is line to make his debut in the Carabao Cup against Luton Town on Thursday night.
Villa have been willing to sell Martinez since signing Japan goalkeeper Zion Suzuki from Parma for about £30m earlier this month.
It is also the latest in a series of deals between Chelsea and Villa.
The Blues signed forward Morgan Rogers from Villa for a club-record £117m, while Alejandro Garnacho moved in the opposite direction on an initial loan deal last month.
Striker Nicolas Jackson, valued at about £65m, was completing a medical at Villa Park on Thursday as he prepares to reunite with his former Villarreal manager, Unai Emery.
The clubs are known to have a close relationship. They were also involved in a deal widely described as a 'PSR swap', which saw defender Ian Maatsen join Villa and Omari Kellyman, now at Strasbourg, move to Chelsea.
Juventus attempted to sign Martinez earlier in the transfer window, but the deal collapsed because of concerns over a finger injury.
The Italian club instead signed Tottenham goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario on loan.
Diamond League results: Audrey Werro comes up just short in 800m world record bid
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European champion Audrey Werro came tantalisingly close to downing the oldest outdoor world record in athletics, finishing a little more than four tenths of a second off Jarmila Kratochvilova's 800m mark of one minute 53.28 seconds, set 43 years ago.
Roared on by a 25,000-strong capacity crowd at the Zurich Diamond League, the Swiss hit the final 100m almost in stride with the infield pacing lights which had been set for a world record.
However Werro, straining hard against the clock, could not quite find the finishing pace she needed, clocking 1:53.70.
Still, the third-fastest time in history shaves another tenth of a second off the 22-year-old's personal best and only increases the sense that she will break the record sooner rather than later.
"As far as the world record is concerned, I saw the light, but there was a lot of movement during the race and it was not calm," said Werro, who caused second-placed Femke Broeders-Bol to check as she overtook the Dutchwoman at the start of her kick for home on the back straight.
"I still had enough energy at the end of the race to accelerate and to stay in the lead. Yes, it was tight for the world record, it was not meant for today.
"I am so proud to be able to run those sub-1:54 times, which shows that I can run consistently and fast now and this is good for the future."
Werro has improved every year of her top-level career and now, having finished her studies and concentrating on the track, has shown ruthless consistency. She has four of the top-10 all-time 800m times, all clocked this summer.
For Britain's Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson, who withdrew from the meeting after her exertions in taking continental silver behind Werro in Birmingham, it only emphasised the challenge she faces in the event.
England vs Pakistan: Jamie Smith and Jordan Cox battle in second Test at Lord's
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Second Rothesay Test, Lord's (day one of five)
England 248-9: Smith 61, Cox 55; Abbas 4-56
Pakistan: Yet to bat
Scorecard
Jamie Smith and Jordan Cox battled difficult conditions and an improved Pakistan performance to take England to a competitive total on the opening day of the second Test.
In the damp and gloom at Lord's, Smith made 61 and Cox 55 to take England to 248-9 on a first day that was delayed by rain and curtailed by bad light.
The value of the hosts' score will only be revealed in time. The Lord's pitch is much better than the poor surface used for England's win against New Zealand in June, while more rain is forecast for the next three days.
It could be that England have batted themselves into a position from where they can win this match and the series, which would be a successful end to a troubling week dominated by the Brydon Carse controversy.
Cox was again impressive in only his third Test. He added 67 for the sixth wicket with Smith, who looked fluent for a much-needed half-century.
England were boosted by a late cameo of 34 not out from Gus Atkinson, while Pakistan were led by four wickets from Muhammad Abbas and three from Mohammad Ali. Things could have better for the tourists had they not dropped three catches.
Under a dark sky and with the floodlights on, England would probably have wanted to bowl before the day was out, only for the light to end proceedings.
Nepal-Tibet: Tracing the deadly path of the flood
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Floods have devastated the Nepal-Tibet border region which have destroyed towns and swept away bridges.
Hundreds of people have been reported dead and hundreds more missing.
BBC Verify has traced the path of the deadly flash flood using verified videos and satellite imagery. Merlyn Thomas reports.
Produced by Aisha Sembhi. Graphics by Mesut Ersoz. Verification by Emma Pengelly, Paul Brown, Charlotte Green, Shayan Sardarizadeh, Yi Ma and Benedict Garman.
Gianni Infantino: Uefa pursuing criminal legal proceedings against Fifa president
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Uefa claims that the valuation of the stakes to be sold were not independently verified and would have been offered too cheaply, calling the proposed sale "a fraudulently off-market price promoted by Infantino for his own benefit".
The application adds: "Under the terms Infantino announced, those investors stood to acquire a permanent financial interest in Fifa's commercial arm for $4.2bn, implying an absurdly low enterprise value of only approximately $20bn, a figure that was neither the product of an open, competitive auction, nor tested by any independent valuer."
In the application, Uefa is applying to a court in Florida to attempt to access files held by two Fifa businesses - Fifa Americas and FWC2026 - to be used to pursue the criminal charges in Switzerland at a later stage.
The two businesses are based in Florida.
Uefa claims that its 55 member nations would have potentially been harmed by the sell-off plan, and that it may pursue criminal proceedings against other Fifa officials as well as Infantino.
"Uefa and other interested parties are preparing to bring criminal claims in Switzerland against Infantino and possibly other Fifa officials and advisors for criminal mismanagement," the application states.
"The secretive structuring, valuation, financing, and marketing inflicted direct and concrete injury on Fifa's reputation, governance authority, and commercial relationships to the detriment of Fifa as well as its 211 members, including Uefa's 55 member associations."
Uefa insists that the plan was concocted without the knowledge of them or other key stakeholders in football, and that it had been long in development.
The applications says: "On July 28, 2026, without consulting the Fifa Council, Uefa, or any of the other confederations, or any of the 211 Fifa member associations, Infantino, purportedly acting on behalf of Fifa, publicly announced a plan to place the commercial rights to the men's and women's World Cups and the Club World Cup into a new subsidiary: Fifa Forward Enterprise.
"That announcement by Infantino was the public unveiling of a plan that he and a small circle of co-conspirators had conceived and reportedly been developing in secret for more than a year."
Uefa states in the document that there has been "an enduring history of corruption among Fifa officials" and claims that world football's governing body only relents on its plans when pressure comes from outside the sport.
"Fifa's extraordinary power over world football has operated largely without meaningful internal constraint, with accountability coming principally through external forces, including political pressure, public scrutiny, and intervention through international criminal law enforcement," the application adds.
Fifa's headquarters are in the Swiss city of Zurich, and Uefa says that its plan to eventually pursue criminal charges against Infantino is backed up by Swiss law.
"Swiss counsel has confirmed [...] that the proceeding is within reasonable contemplation for purposes of Swiss law and that Uefa has standing, as a complainant, to file a criminal complaint for criminal mismanagement against Infantino and potentially other Fifa officials as may be warranted."
BBC Sport has been told that a separate filing has been lodged to a court in New York, where Uefa is seeking documentation from Thrive Capital, the business proposed to take up an interest in FFE, and its founder Josh Kushner, the brother of US president Donald Trump's son-in-law.
The American investment bank JP Morgan is also named in the application.
A third application has also been made in Colorado, relating to former Formula 1 chief Greg Maffei, who is referred to in the court filings as "the key commercial adviser" on the proposed FFE transaction, and his Bann Ventures firm.
BBC Sport has also approached Uefa for comment.
Greens call for temporary ban on new data centres
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Zack Polanski has called for a freeze on the approval of new data centres in England because of concerns about the amount of water and energy they use.
The Green Party leader said the government should introduce stricter environmental rules and give communities more say on whether the centres are built in their area.
Data centres can use significant amounts of water to cool their systems, although there are no official figures on how much water they consume in the UK.
The government said a pause would lead to the UK losing investment and being dependent on overseas computing for sensitive data processing.
A spokesman said: "It would be a disaster for jobs and national security."
There are hundreds of data centres in the UK – with plans for many more.
Exact numbers are hard to find, but the BBC reported last year there were around 477.
Many are clustered around London and the south of England – areas which are officially in drought at the moment.
The amount of water data centres consume can change based on size, design and local climate - the hotter the area the more water needed to cool the equipment.
Speaking on a visit to the site of a proposed data centre in East London, Polanski told the BBC: "We need to slam the breaks on these energy guzzling, water guzzling data centres.
"Essentially, we need basically a moratorium other than local scale data centres for the local community.
"At a time when three-quarters of the country are in drought, it is outrageous that these are being considered critical infrastructure.
"To most people critical infrastructure means hospitals, water, electricity. It doesn't mean Artificial Intelligence."
Data centres were classified as critical in 2024, meaning they get extra government support during incidents like cyber-attacks or extreme weather.
The Greens argue this means they could get priority over households for water. The government said data centres would not automatically get priority during shortages.
The BBC has also discovered that ministers have not carried out an environmental assessment on the impact of their "Delivering AI growth zones strategy, external".
A government official said it sees the paper as a statement of intent, rather than a formal policy moving towards implementation.
Data centres in the UK do not currently have to report the amount of water they use.
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