halts

The localised ceasefire, secured by US First Lady Melania Trump, will allow evacuations and aid deliveries to Oleshky.

Russia has suspended strikes on the Ukrainian province of Kherson as a localised ceasefire takes effect ahead of a humanitarian mission led by the United States’ First Lady Melania Trump.

The pause in fighting started at 01:00 GMT on Tuesday, according to the Russian Defence Ministry, to allow for an aid mission into the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky in southern Kherson later this week.

The mission will enable aid deliveries and allow evacuations from the front-line town, which is suffering acute shortages of food, medicine and other basic supplies.

The agreement was announced on October ‌23 and brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump, with the additional involvement of Pope Leo, as Washington seeks to revive peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv after more than four and a half years of fighting.

Up to 2,000 people remain in Oleshky. They have been unable to leave because of explosive mines and drone attacks in the area, according to the United Nations.

The town, which had a pre-war population of 24,000 people, lies on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in the partially occupied Kherson region, opposite Kherson city, which is held by Ukrainian forces. Russian troops seized Oleshky during the first ⁠days of their February 2022 invasion and have controlled it ever since.

Oleshky has suffered extensive war damage and was hit hard by flooding after the destruction of the nearby Kakhovka Dam in 2023.

The localised ceasefire is due to last through Saturday, or longer, amid deep mistrust between Russia and Ukraine that has thwarted previous attempts at ceasefires.

Negotiators involved in the aid mission said doctors, medicines, food supplies and water would be taken to Oleshky before evacuation corridors are opened.

MILEY Cyrus broke down in tears on stage at the Hollywood Bowl as she paid an emotional tribute to her late “aunt” Dolly Parton.

The Wrecking Ball hitmaker, 33, halted proceedings at the Los Angeles venue for a heart-wrenching monologue in which she said she and the country music icon are “eternal”.

Miley, who rebranded herself with a new name after Dolly’s tragic passing, aged 80, in August, took to the stage for her Bass Persuades gig.

Just five songs in, she took a seat and referred to the I Will Always Love You singer’s death and said: “Me and Dolly, we are eternal.

“Nothing in this life could ever tear us apart.

“And I am going to see her again, and I can’t f**king wait because I miss her,” before dabbing her eye with a tissue.

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Disney Channel alum Miley added: “Some of the greatest music that we have today was written, produced, performed by my aunt Dolly.

“This is one of those songs,” before the band started to play Jolene as the sixth song in her set.

One fan confessed on TikTok: “Now I’m crying”.

Another put: “Miley was the first person I thought of when I heard about Dolly”.

A third added: “And now I’m bawling over Dolly Parton again”.

Miley kicked off her 18-track show with song Orbit, and wrapped with Flowers.

Fan favourites The Climb, We Can’t Stop and Party In The USA also featured.

After dolly’s passing, she said she no longer wants fans to call her by her full moniker and revealed the change on social media.

She now appears to have dropped “Cyrus” completely from her stage name.

Dolly sadly passed after battling health issues.

Miley later penned a heartfelt tribute to her “Aunt Dolly” on Instagram, saying that the late singer “would want me to feel it, write a song about it, and then continue on and be strong.”

Dolly had first gotten close to Miley’s father, Billy Ray Cyrus, 65, after the success of his 1992 country hit, Achy Breaky Heart.

The pair toured together that same year, and Billy asked the I Will Always Love You hitmaker to be Miley’s godmother.

Rumors have circulated that Dolly, who did not have children of her own, left behind the rights and royalties of her hit track, Jolene, to Miley.

However, The U.S. Sun confirmed that no court filings related to Dolly’s will or official plans for what will happen to her $650 million fortune have been made yet.

The halt to commercial shipments, including fruit and winter clothing, cuts off a key source of critical supplies.

Israeli authorities say no commercial goods have entered Gaza for two days, citing what they claim is a tax dispute between local merchants and Hamas.

COGAT, or the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli military body that “oversees humanitarian affairs” in Gaza, announced the halt on Wednesday.

COGAT claimed that local merchants “made the decision in response to a 10,000 shekel ($3,220) fee imposed by Hamas on each truck entering Gaza” as well as a demand for 30 percent of all sales in Gaza to be carried out in cash.

This decision is expected to impact a crucial source of food and goods for the 2.1 million people in the Strip, who are completely reliant on Israel’s border crossings in a territory that is still suffering from famine.

Gaza’s government media office refuted the claims on Thursday and condemned the “blatant disinformation campaign and false statement”.

The media office instead said it was an attempt “to hold the government apparatus in Gaza responsible for the disruption of truck entry” and that the fee was a voluntary payment to a fund providing aid for those in need, such as widows and orphans.

It also said that cash payments were encouraged due to what it described as an acute cash shortage in the war-torn territory, but were never a mandatory requirement.

An already dire humanitarian crisis

The halt to commercial shipments, including fruit and winter clothing, cuts off a key source of food and other critical supplies as fears mount ahead of the encroaching winter.

Aid groups generally bring in staples such as flour, while merchants import more perishable foods like fruits and meat, according to data released earlier this year by COGAT.

The suspension is raising fears about affordability, with humanitarian workers saying a combination of aid and a robust commercial market is needed to keep prices under control.

“The humanitarian sector on its own cannot meet the needs of all the people,” said Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council. “The markets need to be functioning.”

Local merchants step in

The head of Gaza’s private truckers union, Nahed Sheheiber, denied the Israeli narrative, saying: “The Israeli coordinator is claiming that Gaza’s merchants are responsible, but the truth is that the Israelis are the ones who imposed the restrictions.”

Following COGAT’s announcement, Sheheiber’s union met with Gaza’s Ministry of Economy to express concern and say Israel was citing fees levied by the ministry as a pretext to cut off commercial goods.

A global hunger monitor in July warned that more than two-thirds of people in Gaza could face acute hunger by the year-end.

Israel is obliged under a US-mediated agreement to allow a minimum of 600 trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter Gaza each day.

Diplomats say that far fewer than 600 trucks normally enter Gaza each day. Sheheiber said the figure was closer to 300, with two-thirds carrying commercial goods.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to make public address after hundreds of thousands rally to demand more funding for education.

France has temporarily banned police from using stun grenades at student-led protests, the interior minister said, amid growing accusations of police brutality following several days of student demonstrations nationwide.

The announcement on Wednesday came a day after hundreds of thousands of students and supporters marched across France to demand more funding for education and better conditions in high schools, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to convene an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu and other key ministers to try to defuse the crisis.

Lecornu will make a public address later on Wednesday on the school protests as well as the country’s finances, his office said.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told radio broadcaster RTL early on Wednesday that he had suspended police use of stun grenades at the protests.

A 15-year-old lost a hand in the northern city of Lens on Monday after police fired a stun grenade.

Earlier, a 14-year-old student was hit in the face by a tear gas grenade at such close range that he lost several teeth. A policeman was charged on Tuesday over the incident in the capital, Paris.

Police have opened 18 internal investigations into allegations of misconduct since the protests began, Nunez said.

Rights groups, students and parents’ groups have accused authorities of using disproportionate force against minors. The government says the protest movement has been hijacked by outsiders and morphed into urban violence.

The Ministry of the Interior said 6,100 people have been arrested since the protests began last month, the overwhelming majority of them minors.

More than 1,800 people are being prosecuted, including 1,483 minors, the Ministry of Justice said, without specifying the crimes.

At least 715 police officers and 215 teenagers have been injured in clashes, according to Lecornu’s office.

Students demand school funding

Protests started in late September with students blocking entrances to hundreds of high schools for 15- to 17-year-olds over complaints of dilapidated facilities and teacher shortages and demands for more funding for education.

Parents, teachers and union workers joined the demonstrations in Paris and other cities on Tuesday amid accusations that police were using disproportionate force.

Sporadic violent clashes have broken out between police and protesters at what otherwise have been largely peaceful demonstrations.

Lecornu on Tuesday condemned the violence and told lawmakers that it would not be tolerated, while also rejecting accusations that the government had ordered “police repression” against protesters.

Executions in Tennessee have been halted for the rest of the year, Governor Bill Lee has said, after two attempts to execute death row inmate Christa Pike by lethal injection failed.

In a statement to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, Lee said lawful executions were among the state’s “most serious responsibilities”, adding that he has ordered a third-party review “to determine exactly what occurred”.

Tennessee prison officials on Wednesday attempted to administer two lethal doses of pentobarbital to Pike but she survived and was taken to hospital. Her medical condition is unclear.

Pike, 50 was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer.

She was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Slemmer.

Pike would have been the first woman to be executed in Tennessee for over 200 years.

Speaking to reporters at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday morning, Lee said: “I’m highly disappointed, along with Tennesseans, about what happened last night.”

Governor Lee has not made clear who will conduct the independent review of the state’s execution procedures.

His order to pause all executions will overlap with the planned 3 December execution of convicted murderer Gary Sutton.

In court filings, Pike’s lawyers said she needed “life-saving measures” after her botched execution.

The Tennessee Department of Correction, which handled the execution, issued a statement defending its handling of the case.

“The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the attorney general’s office,” the statement said.

“The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening.”

This is the second time in 2026 Tennessee officials attempted and failed to execute a prisoner.

In May, the execution of Tony Carruthers was called off after staff were unable to find a vein to administer a lethal drug. Carruthers was given a one-year reprieve.