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Bosnia’s Serb entity names an interim president after separatist Milorad Dodik is barred from politics by a state court.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Serb-majority entity has appointed Ana Trisic Babic as interim president, marking the first formal acknowledgement that Milorad Dodik is stepping aside after being barred from politics by a state court.

The Republika Srpska parliament confirmed Babic’s appointment on Saturday, saying she would serve until the early presidential elections scheduled for November 23.

Lawmakers also annulled several separatist laws passed under Dodik that had challenged the authority of an international envoy and Bosnia’s constitutional court.

Dodik, a pro-Russian nationalist who has pushed for Republika Srpska to break away and join Serbia, had refused to vacate office despite receiving a political ban. He has continued to travel abroad and claim presidential powers while appealing the court’s ruling.

The US Department of the Treasury announced on Friday that it had removed four Dodik allies from its sanctions list, a move he publicly welcomed as he campaigns to have sanctions against himself lifted.

Dodik is currently sanctioned by the United States, United Kingdom and several European governments for actions that undermine the Dayton peace agreement that ended Bosnia’s 1992–95 war.

Separatist moves

Bosnia’s electoral authorities stripped Dodik of his presidential mandate in August following an appeals court verdict that sentenced him to one year in prison and barred him from political office for six years.

The Central Electoral Commission acted under a rule that forces the removal of any elected official sentenced to more than six months in jail.

A Sarajevo court had convicted Dodik in February for refusing to comply with decisions issued by the international envoy, Christian Schmidt, who oversees implementation of the Dayton accords.

Dodik dismissed the ruling at the time, saying he would remain in power as long as he retained the backing of the Bosnian Serb parliament, which his allies control. The Republika Srpska government called the verdict “unconstitutional and politically motivated”.

Dodik maintains strong support from regional allies, including Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. He has repeatedly threatened to separate Republika Srpska from Bosnia, raising fears among Bosniak communities and prompting previous US administrations to impose sanctions.

Bosnia remains governed by the US-brokered Dayton Accords, which ended a devastating war that killed about 100,000 people. The agreement created two largely autonomous entities – Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation – with shared national institutions, including the presidency, military, judiciary and taxation system.

Tensions have surged in recent years as Dodik openly rejects the authority of the international envoy, declaring Schmidt’s decisions invalid inside Republika Srpska.

Music mogul Simon Cowell has finally explained his recent Britain’s Got Talent absence, revealing he suffered a fall that left him with a head injury

Simon Cowell has revealed that his recent no-show at Britain’s Got Talent auditions came after he fell down another set of steps – the latest in a series of mishaps for the long-time judge.

The 66-year-old music mogul missed the first two days of filming in Birmingham after the incident, leaving producers to call in Stacey Solomon to temporarily fill his place on the panel.

Cowell then later reappeared on the third day of auditions with a visible graze on his forehead, explaining only that he’d had “an accident.”

His absence was finally addressed during the show’s Blackpool auditions, when a choir made up of ambulance staff took to the stage. Amanda Holden joked: “I thought they might be here in case anything went wrong with you again because you were poorly last week.”

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Laughing off the comment, Cowell clarified what actually had happened as he finally shared the truth.

Speaking to the audience at the Winter Gardens, he said: “I fell down some steps, that wasn’t poorly, and I bumped my head, but I’m fine now.

“I wish you had been around a couple of weeks ago when I actually bashed my head. Seriously, no one sang for me then,” he added.

A show insider said the fall was a minor accident. They told The Sun: “Simon bumped his head when he stumbled on some steps. It’s the sort of thing that can happen to anyone. And, thankfully, he’s absolutely fine now.”

The timing of the incident, which occurred on October 1 and just a day before Birmingham auditions were due to begin, forced the show to cancel the opening session.

Rather than pause production entirely, Stacey Solomon was drafted in to maintain the four-judge panel, with Amanda Holden briefly stepping up as head judge.

Cowell later reassured fans via a short video, showing off the mark on his forehead and saying: “It’s Simon, I’m alive and I’m in Birmingham, I just want to say thank you for all your get well messages.”

It’s not the first time Cowell has been injured in a fall. In 2017, he was taken from his London home on a stretcher wearing a neck brace after tumbling down stairs just before The X Factor live shows.

Three years later, he broke his back testing an electric bike in Los Angeles, requiring major surgery and months of recovery.

Despite his latest setback, Cowell appeared in good spirits this week as he joined judges Amanda Holden, KSI, and Alesha Dixon on the red carpet for the Blackpool auditions.

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On a blue-sky afternoon, kayakers paddle past dozens of sea lions lolling in the sun and make a beeline toward the sea otters lounging on beds of eel grass at Elkhorn Slough on California’s central coast. The playful predators not only generate millions of dollars in tourism revenue, but their voracious appetite for destructive species has revived this sprawling estuary while making the region’s carbon-sequestering kelp forests more resistant to climate change.

The U.S. government determined in 2022 that reintroducing sea otters to their historic range on the West Coast would be a boon to biodiversity and climate resilience, laying out a road map to restoration that would cost up to $43 million.

But as the Trump administration moves to slash funding for wildlife programs, a nonprofit co-founded by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur is stepping in to raise nearly that amount to finance and coordinate what would be a complicated, years-long effort to connect isolated populations of sea otters. So far it’s raised more than $1.4 million of its $40-million target.

“We are coming in at a time when we’ve seen these dramatic cuts from the federal government and conservationists are facing major funding gaps,” says Paul Thomson, chief programs officer at the Wildlife Conservation Network, the San Francisco nonprofit that launched the Sea Otter Fund earlier this year. In August, a veteran U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official, Jen Miller, left the government to run the fund.

Sea otters prey on invasive green crabs, which fostered the return of eel grass at Elkhorn Slough.

(Rachel Bujalski/Bloomberg)

The initiative could be a harbinger of a future where private donors assume a more prominent role in financing and advancing wildlife restoration as climate impacts multiply.

While philanthropies have helped fund sea otter work, the Fish and Wildlife Service, which listed the Southern sea otter in California as threatened in 1977, assumes the cost of the species’ recovery as well as funding state and private research. “Sea otter recovery and supporting healthy coastlines go hand in hand, including finding ways to support the needs of our local fisheries,” a Wildlife Service spokesperson said in a statement, noting the agency has funded ongoing research.

Future support is uncertain, though, as the Trump administration proposes eliminating programs that underwrite sea otter science, including grants for state endangered species programs.

Understanding otter networks

Sea otters once inhabited the Pacific Rim from Japan to Mexico. By the turn of the 20th century, hunters had wiped out 99% of the population to satisfy demand for the animal’s pelt, known as “soft gold” for its luxurious warmth.

Since then, scientists successfully reintroduced otters to Alaska, British Columbia and Washington State, but that leaves a nearly thousand-mile stretch of coast from central California through Oregon without the animals.

“Adding sea otters completely changes the configuration of the food web and that has profound consequences for the structure of the nearshore ecosystem,” says Tim Tinker, an independent sea otter scientist who does research for the University of California at Santa Cruz.

He’s developing computer models to simulate the myriad factors that will determine where and which animals should be reintroduced, as well as risks and survival rates. Future versions of the model could also project the potential impact on fisheries.

The Sea Otter Fund is financing Tinker’s work, recruiting him to model restoration scenarios, the kind of research he previously has conducted with government funding. It’s the latest animal fund from the Wildlife Conservation Network, co-founded in 2002 by former software entrepreneur Charles Knowles. Ongoing campaigns fund the recovery of African elephants, lions, pangolins and other animals.

Michelle Staedler studies sea otters at Elkhorn Slough.

(Rachel Bujalski/Bloomberg)

The fund also underwrites marine biologist Michelle Staedler’s position on an Elkhorn Slough research team run out of UC Santa Cruz. “We’re really trying to understand the sea otters’ social networks,” she says.

Charting otters’ social graph is key to future restoration efforts. Past reintroductions have involved capturing random sea otters in the wild and relocating up to hundreds at a time, which resulted in high mortality of resettled animals. Of the 140 otters relocated off Southern California’s San Nicolas Island between 1987 and 1990 in a federally funded project, only about 15 animals initially survived. More than a quarter of the transported otters swam more than 150 miles back home.

Scientists say any future reintroductions will be highly targeted, selecting sea otters that are part of social groups whose bonds make them more likely to stay put and thrive. To lay that groundwork, Staedler spends a day on Elkhorn Slough twice a week, motoring through the estuary on an electric skiff to record the genders, locations, relationships, interactions, diets and caloric intake of tagged otters.

“Elkhorn Slough serves as a petri dish and the research work there will be critical for doing restoration,” says Knowles. State funding for that project has expired, however, and the Sea Otter Fund is considering replacing the loss.

Staedler keeps records of the sea otters on Elkhorn Slough.

(Rachel Bujalski/Bloomberg)

“This wave has been building”

Elkhorn Slough is California’s second-largest estuary, and the 7-mile-long outlet to Monterey Bay also serves as a real-time laboratory for how sea otters can rehabilitate degraded coastal ecosystems and benefit local economies.

In the early 1990s, invasive green crabs that made their way there destroyed eel grass meadows that serve as habitats for fish, shellfish, sea turtles and birds. Then a few sea otters began to venture in just as the Monterey Bay Aquarium began to release rehabilitated orphaned otters there. They feasted on the green crabs, consuming an estimated 120,000 of them a year, according to a 2024 paper.

As crab numbers plummeted, the eel grass returned and spawned an aquatic Serengeti. Today, there’s more than 120 sea otters at the estuary, which has fostered local ecotourism businesses that rent kayaks to visitors and take them on otter-spotting excursions, generating $5 million in revenues annually and creating more than 300 jobs, according to a 2023 study.

Kayakers approach a sea otter in Elkhorn Slough.

(Rachel Bujalski/Bloomberg)

Sea otters also have kept kelp-eating purple urchins in check on the central California coast when one of its other predators, the sunflower sea star, died off during a marine heat wave a decade ago. On California’s otter-less North Coast, the loss of sunflower sea stars wiped out more than 90% of the region’s kelp forests, triggering the collapse of fisheries.

But the competition that relocated otters’ prodigious appetites could pose to Northern California and Oregon commercial shellfish fishers worries Lori Steele, executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Assn. “It’s very difficult to really fully understand and account for the potential damage to a shellfish population that a very small number of sea otters could do,” she says.

The Wildlife Service found that impacts on fishing communities pose the biggest risk of sea otter introduction. If relocation moves forward, the agency will conduct an extensive review and consultations with state and federal agencies and tribal groups.

Until then, Jen Miller, the senior manager of the Sea Otter Fund, aims to keep the money for the work flowing. “It feels like this wave has been building and building and with just the right resources could crest to surf sea otter restoration to success,” she says.

Woody writes for Bloomberg.

PRINCE William has been seen boarding Doctor Who’s Tardis.

The future king stepped into the iconic time travel device during a studio visit – though he’s not making a surprise switch to acting or pursuing adventures through time.

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The Prince of Wales, 43, was a special guest at the Bad Wolf Studios in Cardiff which produces the BBC sci-fi show.

Wills was given a tour around the set of the upcoming Beeb series The Other Bennet Sister by studio chief Jane Tranter – which included a look around the Tardis police phone box.

In a series of posts on The Prince and Princess of Wales X account today, the royal was seen in a video entering the famous set and posing near the control panel.

It said: “From period pieces to all of time and space, both the BAFTA bursary and @BadWolf_TV are inspiring the next generation of creative talent.”

Wills was following somewhat in his dad’s footsteps after King Charles was snapped in 2017 entering a replica Tardis during a visit to Worq co-working space for young entrepreneurs in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

The royal was introduced to trainees who have come through Bad Wolf’s Screen Alliance Wales (SAW) training initiative and built careers in TV by scheme boss Allison Dowzell.

They were recipients of The Prince William Bafta Bursary programme.

Tranter said: “It was a complete joy to show Prince William around Bad Wolf.

“We are so incredibly proud of the outreach work being done by Allison Dowzell and the team at Screen Alliance Wales, and for Prince William to help highlight the work being done at the studios means a great deal.

“He was introduced to trainees from a wide range of departments, and it was fantastic to see him take such an interest in the new generation of TV creatives.

“We are so proud that many of the SAW trainees have gone on to be awarded Prince William Bafta bursaries, and His Royal Highness was fascinated to hear how each of the trainees was using their bursary to further their careers.”

The visit on September 10 came as part of the studios’ 10th anniversary, and came on the day William visited the Jac Lewis Foundation centre at the city’s Principality Stadium to mark World Suicide Prevention Day.

During the engagement, William also met schoolchildren from St Albans RC Primary School in Tremorfa, Cardiff, during a puppetry workshop held by SAW education and training executive Sarah O’Keefe.

The puppets were used to represent characters’ daemons in the BBC series His Dark Materials and the workshop aimed to introduce children to the TV industry.

SAW has arranged 3,772 studio visits, including classroom lessons, since its inception, and created 149 paid traineeships on Welsh TV productions including Industry, Doctor Who and The Other Bennet Sister.

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The contradictions of mixed martial arts brawler Mark Kerr can’t be contained by a ring, an octagon or a film. A vulnerable man with a brutal career, he went undefeated on the mat while struggling in his private relationships and public addiction to painkillers, which he bravely revealed in John Hyams’ 2002 HBO documentary “The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr.” In that footage, shot between 1997 and 2000, you’re continually startled by how Kerr could clobber his opponents until some lost teeth — putting himself in a mental state he once likened to being a shark in a feeding frenzy — and then after the bell, flash a smile so wide and happy, it split his own head in half.

That’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s whole thing, too: Kill ’em with charm. So it’s as all-natural as his daily diet of organic chicken breast that the wrestler-turned-blockbuster-star would want to play Kerr in his own pursuit of excellence. He’s overdue for a sincere indie movie. Fair enough. Yet bizarrely, Johnson and writer-director Benny Safdie (“Uncut Gems,” “Good Time”), working solo without his brother Josh, have decided to simply shoot Hyams’ documentary again.

These two high-intensity talents, each with something to prove, seem to have egged each other on to be exhaustingly photorealistic. Johnson, squeezed into a wig so tight we get a vicarious headache, has pumped up his deltoids to nearly reach his prosthetic cauliflower ears. And Safdie is so devoted to duplicating the earthy brown decor of Kerr’s late-’90s nouveau riche Phoenix home that you’d think he was restoring Notre Dame. In setting out to establish his own style, Safdie just mimics another.

Their version of “The Smashing Machine” tells the same story that Hyams did, across the same years with the same handheld aesthetics and rattle-snap jazz score (by composer Nala Sinephro). It’s stiff karaoke that earns a confounded polite clap. That can’t possibly have been the intention, yet even the songs used as needle-drops are conspicuously borrowed: covers of the country crooner Billy Swan singing Elvis, and Elvis singing Frank Sinatra. Meanwhile, Johnson’s Kerr huffs up a set of stairs in a training montage that already belongs to “Rocky.”

Once again, Kerr gets shaken by his first defeat to Igor Vovchanchyn (played by Oleksandr Usyk, the current heavyweight boxing champion) in Japan’s Yokohama Arena, and responds by bottoming out, getting sober and committing to win his next tournament. All the while he bickers with his on-again, off-again alcoholic girlfriend, Dawn (Emily Blunt), who gets blamed for everything that goes wrong in the ring. A teeth-grindingly mismatched couple, they can’t get through a conversation without arguing. Even trying her best to empathize, she’s overbearing. When Dawn alerts his friend and colleague Mark “The Hammer” Coleman (MMA fighter Ryan Bader in his acting debut) that her battering ram of a boyfriend was drinking before a bout, Coleman snaps at her for letting him act so stupid.

Safdie frames Dawn as a force of domestic destruction (although Kerr tears down doors like wet cardboard). In her introduction, she — horrors! — makes his smoothie with the wrong milk and, a beat later, insists on cuddling the cat on their leather sofa. A shattered Japanese kintsugi bowl is a newly added visual metaphor of their relationship, as is Dawn’s attempt to fix it with Krazy glue, a wink-wink at her emotional volatility. Still, we never understand what holds them together. Blunt is stuck in a reprise of her Oscar-nominated supporting role in “Oppenheimer” as the drunk whose cruelty pardons the male lead’s flaws. Yeah, Mark fizzled in Yokohama, but boy was she awful.

What’s the point? Having stripped away most of the documentary’s narration and sit-down interviews with Kerr’s family and friends, the film barely explores anyone’s psychology — and Blunt’s railroaded Dawn loses her chance to speak for herself. “I don’t think you know a damn thing about me,” she snipes mid-screaming match. She’s right. We don’t know much about her either, nor any of the noisy things onscreen, from the bloodrush of combat to the pull of their co-dependent affair.

We’re supposed to find depth in Johnson’s weary, pinched grin as he appreciates the sunset on a flight to Japan or watches fans at demolition derby cheer just as loudly for mindless chunks of metal getting crushed. He’s quieter than the real Kerr, who could come across like a guileless chatterbox, and when he does talk, it’s often about the control he must exert on his body and his backyard — the diet, the exercise, the sobriety, the gardening — delivered with the conviction of someone giving motivational advice to the manosphere.

If you squint, there’s an idea here that his personal needs set an unyielding tempo in their home, a notion Johnson must resonate with as someone who sets his morning alarm for 3:30 a.m. But we become better acquainted with how light ripples across Johnson’s shirtless back in a tracking shot than with whatever’s going on in his character’s head. More often than not, we’re just watching him walk around in a skin suit of Kerr, trying and failing not to see the movie star underneath. I wonder if Johnson might have channeled the open-faced Kerr better without the fake eyebrows, if he’d trusted his own inner glow instead of immediately going for the dramatic kill.

Look at how dutifully Safdie and Johnson have worked to re-create this world, the movie seems to be saying. Appreciate the intentionally cruddy camerawork by Maceo Bishop that duplicates Hyams’ low-budget limitations. Enjoy how costume designer Heidi Bivens has put Johnson in another silver-buckled black leather belt similar to the one in his infamous, much-memed Y2K-era photo, the one with the turtleneck, chain jewelry and fanny pack. You know without doing the math that, at this time, 39-year-old Safdie was in his early teens, an age that’s a sweet spot for nostalgia. This is his chance to go back to the future. No wonder he doesn’t want to change a thing.

But “The Smashing Machine” should be about change. For the MMA, this was an era of evolution as it transitioned from a contest of raw strength to one of endurance and skill. Former collegiate wrestlers like Kerr and Coleman could no longer win with their signature ground-and-pound techniques. Organizers forbade several of their key moves as their brusque victories weren’t telegenic. Kerr’s early contests often ended in less than two minutes, an oops-I-missed-it-grabbing-a-beer brevity that would have made pay-per-view buyers grumble. Headbutts were disallowed in part to draw the action out, and also because John McCain didn’t want what he called “human cockfighting” on TV.

These underlying tensions were just coming into focus. The original documentary felt blurry because Hyams didn’t yet know how the off-camera legalities would play out. He would have never guessed that the once-maligned Ultimate Fighting Championship league, purchased in 2001 for $2 million, would become a powerhouse with the clout to ink a $7.7-billion television deal just this summer. He also didn’t know that the cash payments Kerr earned in Japan would be revealed to have the yakuza’s fingerprints on them, or that Kerr’s opioid addiction was start of a burgeoning national health crisis that would soon have America in a chokehold.

Surely, Safdie with his two decades of perspective and his own knack for movies about hard-charging, charismatic screwups like Adam Sandler’s gambling addict Howard Ratner in “Uncut Gems” has something to add? Nope, just tell the same tale twice.

Hyams stopped filming in May 2000, at a point when it appeared that Kerr had chosen love over war. Safdie is aware that Kerr would live on to make more choices and that love doesn’t win, either. But despite the benefit of hindsight, Safdie doesn’t seem to have considered that the old narrative no longer fits. He just updates the title cards on the end: a sentence about Kerr and Dana’s future, a note that today’s MMA stars are better paid, a point undermined by a shot of the actual Kerr climbing into an exorbitantly glossy new truck. Turns out Kerr has been a car salesman for the last 15 years, but you wouldn’t know that leaving “The Smashing Machine.” You wouldn’t know why this movie existed at all.

The Pentagon says it will require credentialed journalists at the military headquarters to sign a pledge to refrain from reporting information that has not been authorized for release — including unclassified information.

Journalists who don’t abide by the policy risk losing credentials that provide access to the Pentagon, under a 17-page memo distributed Friday that steps up media restrictions imposed by the administration of President Trump.

“Information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified,” the directive states. The signature form includes an array of security requirements for credentialed media at the Defense Department, which Trump has moved to rename the War Department.

Advocates for press freedoms denounced the nondisclosure requirement as an assault on independent journalism. The new Pentagon restrictions arrive as Trump expands threats, lawsuits and government pressure as he remakes the American media landscape.

“If the news about our military must first be approved by the government, then the public is no longer getting independent reporting. It is getting only what officials want them to see,” said National Press Club President Mike Balsamo, also national law enforcement editor at the Associated Press. “That should alarm every American.”

No more permission to ‘roam the halls’

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News Channel personality, highlighted the restrictions in a social media post on X.

“The ‘press’ does not run the Pentagon — the people do. The press is no longer allowed to roam the halls of a secure facility,” Hegseth said. “Wear a badge and follow the rules — or go home.”

The Pentagon this year has evicted many news organizations while imposing a series of restrictions that include banning reporters from entering wide areas of the complex without a government escort — areas where the press had access in past administrations as it covers the activities of the world’s most powerful military.

The Pentagon was embarrassed early in Hegseth’s tenure when the editor in chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently included in a group chat on the Signal messaging app where the Defense secretary discussed plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen. Trump’s then-national security advisor, Mike Waltz, took responsibility for Goldberg being included and was shifted to another job.

The Defense Department also was embarrassed by a leak to the New York Times that billionaire Elon Musk was to get a briefing on the U.S. military’s plans in case a war broke out with China. That briefing never took place, on Trump’s orders, and Hegseth suspended two Pentagon officials as part of an investigation into how that news got out.

On Saturday, the Society of Professional Journalists also objected to the Pentagon’s move, calling it “alarming.”

“This policy reeks of prior restraint — the most egregious violation of press freedom under the First Amendment — and is a dangerous step toward government censorship,” it said in a statement Saturday. “Attempts to silence the press under the guise of ‘security’ are part of a disturbing pattern of growing government hostility toward transparency and democratic norms.”

And Matt Murray, executive editor of the Washington Post, said in the paper Saturday that the new policy runs counter to what’s good for the American public.

“The Constitution protects the right to report on the activities of democratically elected and appointed government officials,” Murray said. “Any attempt to control messaging and curb access by the government is counter to the First Amendment and against the public interest.”

Lee writes for the Associated Press.

Kyiv in sanctions push as NATO states on Europe’s eastern flank take preventive action after Moscow’s air incursions.

Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyy is preparing to meet US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City next week in a bid to urge him to impose stronger sanctions on Russia.

The Ukrainian president shared his plans on Saturday, as Russia intensified attacks on his country following air incursions into Europe’s eastern flank that have sparked anxiety over a potential spillover of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The announcement, reported by the AFP news agency, came the day after the European Union presented its 19th sanctions package.

“We now expect strong sanctions steps from the United States as well – Europe is doing its part,” Zelenskyy posted on X on Saturday.

This week brought us closer to finalizing the 19th sanctions package – we expect its approval soon. We will quickly synchronize the package in Ukraine. Russia’s energy resources are being restricted. The infrastructure of the “shadow fleet” will face new pressure. Cryptocurrency… pic.twitter.com/JzgvsQQHHQ

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 20, 2025

Trump already signalled last week that he was ready to impose “major sanctions” on Russia, which has so far evaded his attempts for a ceasefire, but only if all NATO allies agree to completely halt buying oil from Moscow.

Zelenskyy is also expected to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine to prevent future Russian attacks after an eventual truce, though Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that he would not accept the presence of Western troops in Ukraine.

Moscow stepped up attacks on Ukraine overnight, firing 40 missiles and some 580 drones in one of the biggest barrages of Russia’s war on its neighbour, killing at least three people and wounding dozens.

Preventive operations in east

NATO countries took measures to strengthen defences on Europe’s eastern flank after Russian drone incursions in Poland and Romania over the past two weeks, and unprecedented reports of three Russian fighter jets entering Estonian airspace on Friday.

Poland’s army said that Polish and allied aircraft were deployed early on Saturday in a “preventative operation” to ensure the safety of Polish airspace after Russia launched air strikes targeting western Ukraine, near the Polish border.

The United Kingdom said that its fighter jets had flown their first NATO air defence sortie to patrol Polish skies and defend against potential aerial threats from Russia as part of the alliance’s Eastern Sentry mission.

On Saturday, Russia’s Ministry of Defence denied that its aircraft flew into Estonia’s airspace the day before, but Estonian officials said the 12-minute violation was confirmed by radar and visual contact.

Colonel Ants Kiviselg, the commander of Estonia’s Military Intelligence Centre, said that it still “needs to be confirmed” whether the border violation was deliberate.

This is what Palestinians in Gaza City are facing as Israeli forces relentlessly bomb the area as part of the ‘second phase’ of their plan to capture it.

SINGER Dua Lipa looks all strung out in a black dress — but manages to hold it all together.

The 30-year-old showed off her fringe benefits in the stunning gown, which she wore to the Harper’s Bazaar Icons dinner in New York City.

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The Levitating singer is in the United States for her Radical Optimism world tour but took a break to party with stars including Benny Blanco and Sadie Sink.

Earlier, she posted pictures on Instagram of herself doing yoga in her hotel room.

We recently revealed how Dua and her fiance Callum Turner are on the look out for a place in the sun – after spending last month soaking up the rays on Ibiza.

The couple, who got engaged last Christmas, have called on a property expert to tap up a series of very posh holiday homes in Andalusia in southern Spain.

A source said: “Dua and Callum are looking for a sunny bolthole to enjoy with their families.

“Their preference has been pretty clear: nice weather and properties that have space.

“They have a man scouting for homes in Portugal and Andalusia, which have amazing weather all-year round.

“The house has to be able to comfortably fit Dua and Callum, as well as their family and friends.

“They also want peace and tranquility, that has been made very clear.

“Dua and Callum have a healthy budget too. They’ve been sent details on properties priced between £3million and £9million and are weighing them up.