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Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party is leading the polls ahead of 25 September elections - and if she wins, she will look to form a right-wing government. Two months after the collapse of Mario Draghi's unity government, here's what you need to know about the main challengers and how Italy's revamped elections work. Giorgia Meloni Four years ago, her party attracted little more than 4% of the vote in the last general election and yet she's now is in pole position to win, with a possible quarter of the vote. Backed by two other parties, the League and Forza Italia, polls suggest she is heading for a majority coalition in Italy's two houses of parliament. Giorgia Meloni, 45, was the only major party leader who refused to go into popular technocr...

John Kirby said the US was not changing its "strategic deterrent posture", but that Mr Putin spoke irresponsibly. On Wednesday Russia's leader warned his country would use all the means at its disposal to protect its territory. It came as four Ukrainian regions part-occupied by Russian forces are about to stage snap votes on joining Russia. Ukraine and its allies call these votes a sham exercise, designed to give spurious legitimacy to an illegal annexation. "It is a dangerous precedent for Mr Putin to be using this kind of rhetoric in the context of a war clearly that he's losing inside Ukraine," National Security Council spokesman Mr Kirby told the BBC. "We have to take these threats seriously and we do... We've been monitoring...

"The very international order we've gathered here to uphold is being shredded before our eyes," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the gathering in New York. "We can't let President Putin get away with it." UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that talk of nuclear conflict was "totally unacceptable". And he was deeply concerned about Russia's plans for so-called referendums on joining Russia in occupied parts of Ukraine, saying the annexation of a country's territory through force - or the threat of it - was a violation of the UN charter. But Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, used his speech to attack Ukraine in turn - accusing the West of "connivance" with human rights groups in "covering the crimes of the Kyiv regime". US nationa...

Prof Tom Marsh, a University of Warwick academic from Rugby, had been visiting La Silla Observatory in Chile. He was last spoken to on Friday evening. Warwickshire Police said it was liaising with the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Interpol, and Chilean authorities. The 60-year-old's family said they were "deeply concerned". In a statement issued through the Warwickshire force, relatives said: "We are deeply concerned for Tom and miss him, and would ask anyone who may have information on his whereabouts to please help." Specialist police officers were supporting the family, police said. Prof Marsh is described as white, approximately 6ft 3ins, with balding grey hair and a beard. He was likely to have been wea...

President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilisation on Wednesday, which could see 300,000 people summoned to serve in the war. The Kremlin says reports of fighting-age men fleeing are exaggerated. But on the border with Georgia, miles-long queues of vehicles have formed including men trying to escape the war. One man, who did not want to be named, told the BBC's Rayhan Demytrie he had grabbed his passport and headed to the border, without packing anything else, immediately after President' Putin's announcement - because he fell into the group that could potentially be sent to the war. Some witnesses estimated the queue of cars at the Upper Lars checkpoint to be some 5km (3 miles) long, while another group said it had taken se...

Attorney General Letitia James sued Mr Trump and three of his adult children on Wednesday, on claims they engaged in years of financial fraud to secure favourable loans, tax benefits and other economic advantages. Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing, slamming the civil suit brought by the Democrat as "another witch hunt". The lawsuit alleges misconduct across nearly two dozen Trump-owned properties in the US and overseas, many of them well-known. They include New York City's Trump Tower, where the family business is headquartered, and the sprawling Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that the ex-president now calls home. Here is a closer look at some of the claims made by Ms James' office: Trump International Golf Links IMAGE SOURCE...