Chimpanzees in Uganda have been observed using medicinal plants – in multiple ways – to treat open wounds and other injuries.

University of Oxford scientists, working with a local team in the Budongo Forest, filmed and recorded incidents of the animals using plants for first aid, both on themselves and occasionally on each other.

Their research builds on the discovery last year that chimps seek out and eat certain plants to self-medicate.

The scientists also compiled decades of scientific observations to create a catalogue of the different ways in which chimpanzees use “forest first aid”.

Researchers say the study, which is published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, adds to a growing body of evidence that primates, including chimps, orangutans and gorillas, use natural medicines in a number of ways to stay healthy in the wild.

Lead researcher Elodie Freymann explained there was “a whole behavioural repertoire that chimpanzees use when they’re sick or injured in the wild – to treat themselves and to maintain hygiene”.

“Some of these include the use of plants that can be found here,” she explained. “The chimpanzees dab them on their wounds or chew the plants up, and then apply the chewed material to the open injury.”

The researchers studied footage of a very young, female chimpanzee chewing plant material and applying it to an injury on its mother’s body.

They also found records of chimpanzees tending to the wounds of other animals they weren’t related to. This is particularly exciting, explained Dr Freymann, “because it adds to the evidence that wild chimpanzees have the capacity for empathy”.

Some of the hundreds of written observations that Dr Freymann and her colleagues studied came from a log book at the field station in the forest site, which is northwest of the capital, Kampala.

This record of anecdotal evidence dates back to the 1990s – local field staff, researchers and visitors have written in, describing any interesting behaviour they have observed.

There are stories in that book of leaf-dabbing on injuries and chimps helping other chimps to remove snares from their limbs.

There are some surprisingly human-like hygiene habits: One note describes a chimpanzee using leaves to wipe itself after defecating.

This team of researchers has previously identified some of the plants that chimpanzees sought out and ate when they were injured. The scientists took samples of those plants, tested them and discovered most had antibacterial properties.

Chimpanzees are not the only non-human apes with apparent knowledge of plant-based medicine. A recent study showed a wild oranguatan using chewed leaf material to heal a facial wound.

Scientists think studying this wild ape behaviour – and understanding more about the plants the chimps use when they are sick or injured – could help in the search for new medicines.

“The more we learn about chimpanzee behaviour and intelligence, the more I think we come to understand how little we as humans actually know about the natural world,” Dr Freymann told BBC News.

“If I were plopped down here in this forest with no food and no medicine, I doubt that I’d be able to survive very long, especially if I were injured or sick.”

“But chimpanzees thrive here because they know how to access the secrets of this place, and how to find all they need to survive from their surroundings.”

Svitlana says her daughter loved her school in Poland.

“Even when we moved to another area, she didn’t want to change schools,” says the 31-year-old Ukrainian mother. “She liked it so much. There was no bullying.”

Now she says the atmosphere at the school – and in Poland overall – has changed.

“Two weeks ago, she came home and said “One boy said to me today, ‘Go back to Ukraine’.” Svitlana was astonished.

She is one of dozens of Ukrainians living in Poland who have told the BBC that anti-Ukrainian sentiment has risen considerably in recent months.

Many described experiencing abuse on public transport, bullying in schools and xenophobic material online.

A polarising presidential election campaign has added to the tension, with the first round of voting taking place on Sunday.

The day after Svitlana’s daughter was told to go back to Ukraine, the abuse became even worse.

“Girls from the class above started complaining about her speaking Ukrainian. Then they pretended to fall to the ground shouting ‘Missile! Get down!’ and laughing,” Svitlana says. “She came home crying.”

A Russian missile had slammed into Svitlana’s hometown in Ukraine days before, killing scores of civilians, including children. Her daughter was traumatised.

Svitlana – not her real name did not want to be identified as she fears reprisals. She showed us screenshots of messages with school staff where she complains about her daughter’s treatment.

She said she had noticed attitudes changing towards Ukrainians in other places, too: “At work, many people have been saying Ukrainians come here and behave badly. And my Ukrainian friends say they want to go home because Polish people don’t accept us. It’s frightening to live here now.”

According to government statistics, at least 2.5 million Ukrainians live in Poland, comprising almost 7% of the total population of Poland.

When the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, there was an outpouring of compassion from Poles. “It was amazing. Every day people were calling, asking, ‘How can we help?'” says activist Natalia Panchenko, head of the Warsaw-based ‘Stand with Ukraine’ Foundation.

“Some of them organised humanitarian convoys or brought refugees here. They gave their houses, food, everything they have – and their hearts, too.”

Three years later, Natalia says she believes the majority of Poles still support Ukraine. But some don’t – and her organisation has noticed an upsurge of anti-Ukrainian online abuse that began several months ago.

“Then it started to come to real life,” she says. “Recently, we have more and more of these kinds of situations… xenophobic [abuse] of people working in shops or hotels just because they speak with a Ukrainian accent.”

Natalia says that many Ukrainian refugees are traumatised. “These groups of women and children are in Poland because of the war, very often their relatives are on the front line, in captivity or dead… and this is the group of people being targeted.”

Research suggests that Poland’s public opinion of Ukrainians is indeed worsening. According to a March 2025 poll by the respected CBOS Centre, just 50% of Poles are in favour of accepting Ukrainian refugees, a fall of seven percentage points in four months. Two years ago, the figure was 81%.

Around a million Ukrainians are officially registered as having arrived after the start of the full-scale invasion. Poland spends 4.2% of its GDP on Ukrainian refugees.

Ukraine has become a hot-button political issue in Poland’s crucial presidential election campaign.

Far-right populist Slawomir Mentzen, currently polling third, is virulently anti-Ukrainian and supports an “agreement” with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

In second place is conservative Karol Nawrocki, who opposes EU and Nato membership for Ukraine and financial assistance for refugees, but supports the war effort.

The most pro-Ukraine candidate is front-runner Rafal Trzaskowski from Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s coalition, although even he has promised a reduction in social welfare for Ukrainians.

Trzaskowski has refrained from espousing his pro-Ukrainian credentials in order to attract the centrist vote in the elections, says political analyst Marcin Zaborowski.

“He’s responding to the change in public attitudes. The initial enthusiasm for supporting war victims is disappearing, negative sentiments are taking over and it’s not an entirely comfortable issue for him.”

Another far-right candidate, Grzegorz Braun, is under investigation by police for tearing down a Ukrainian flag from a city hall building during an election rally in April. Braun, who is polling at just 3%, regularly fulminates against what he calls the “Ukrainisation of Poland”.

Last week, the Polish government warned of an “unprecedented attempt” by Russia to interfere in the Polish elections by spreading “false information among Polish citizens online”. Moscow denies all allegations of election interference.

Michal Marek, who runs an NGO that monitors disinformation and propaganda in Poland, offers some examples of the anti-Ukraine material being circulated on social media.

“The main narratives are that Ukrainians are stealing money from the Polish budget, that Ukrainians do not respect us, that they want to rob and kill us and are responsible for the war,” he says.

“This information starts in Russian-speaking Telegram channels, and, after that, we see the same photos and the same text just translated by Google Translate. And they are pushing [the material] into the Polish infosphere.”

Mr Marek links such disinformation directly with the increase in anti-Ukraine sentiment in Poland, and says an increasing number of Poles are becoming influenced by propaganda.

“But we will only see the effect after the election – what percentage of Poles want to vote for openly pro-Russian candidates.”

Rosemary Coogan is surrounded by a team of people pushing, pulling, squishing and squeezing her into a spacesuit.

It takes about 45 minutes to get all her gear on before a helmet is carefully lowered over her head.

The British astronaut is about to undergo her toughest challenge yet – assessing whether she is ready for a spacewalk. The test will take place in one of the largest pools in the world: Nasa’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

The pool – which is 12m deep (40ft) – contains a life-sized replica of the International Space Station (ISS), and a “spacewalk” here is as close as it gets to mimicking weightlessness on Earth.

“It’s a big day,” Rosemary says before the dive, which is going to last more than six hours. “It’s very physically intense – and it’s very psychologically intense.”

But Rosemary doesn’t seem too fazed. She smiles and waves as the platform she’s standing on is slowly lowered into the water.

Being an astronaut was Dr Rosemary Coogan’s dream from a young age, she says. But it was a dream that seemed out of reach.

“At the careers day at school, you don’t tend to meet astronauts,” Rosemary says. “You don’t get to meet people who’ve done it, you don’t really get to hear their stories.”

So she decided to study the stars instead, opting for a career in astrophysics. But when the European Space Agency (ESA) announced it was looking for new recruits to go to space, Rosemary applied and was chosen from more than 22,000 people.

ESA aims to get Rosemary to the International Space Station (ISS) by 2030. She’ll be following in the footsteps of Britons Helen Sharman, who visited the Soviet’s Mir Space Station in 1991, and Tim Peake who launched to the ISS in 2015.

Rosemary has spent the last six months training at the Johnson Space Center. As well as exploring the outside of the submerged ISS, she can head inside the orbiting lab in another life-sized mock-up located in a huge hangar.

She takes us on a tour of the lab’s interconnected modules. It feels very cramped, especially considering astronauts usually spend many months on board. But Rosemary reminds us about the spectacular views.

“It is an isolated environment, but I think this helps to give that kind of connection to being outside – to alleviate that sense of claustrophobia.”

Rosemary’s training here covers every aspect of going to space – including learning how to use the onboard toilet.

“The lower part is where you put your solid waste,” she says, pointing to a loo in a small cubicle that looks like something you might find at a very old campsite. “And this funnel here is actually attached to an air suction system, and that is where you put your liquid waste.”

Female astronauts have the option of suppressing their periods using drugs, Rosemary says, but can also opt not to.

“There’s essentially a filter that you put on top of the cone in which you urinate and it’s to stop any particles, any blood, from going into the urine system.”

Urine needs to be kept separate because it’s purified and treated to be re-used as drinking water, she explains.

Back in the pool, divers are constantly adjusting Rosemary’s buoyancy in the water to make the experience as close as possible to microgravity.

She moves around painstakingly, making sure she’s always attached to the submerged structure using two hooks.

Every hand-hold is carefully chosen along the bars on the outside of each module. They’re in exactly the same positions as the ones on the real thing, vital muscle memory if she gets to carry out a spacewalk 200 miles (322km) above the Earth.

It’s slow and difficult work, requiring plenty of upper body strength and physical effort in the hot, bulky spacesuit.

“You do a lot of mental preparation – you really think through every single movement,” Rosemary explains. “You have to be really efficient with your energy. You don’t want to do something and realise it wasn’t quite right and have to do it again.”

Rosemary is working alongside another astronaut to complete a list of space station repairs and maintenance for the test. Her every move is monitored by a team in a control room overlooking the pool. They’re in constant communication with her as she works through her tasks.

Former space station commander Aki Hoshide, from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, is on hand for advice. He has completed four spacewalks and says it’s a steep learning curve for new astronauts.

“When we first start out, there’s so much information thrown at you, so many skills that you have to learn and show and demonstrate,” he says. “It is baby steps, but they are moving forward – and I can see their excitement every time they come here and jump in the pool.”

Rosemary takes us to see a Saturn V – the rocket that took the Apollo astronauts to the Moon in 1969. More than 50 years on, Nasa is planning an imminent return to the lunar surface with its Artemis programme. European astronauts will join later missions. With an expected 35-year space career ahead, Rosemary may one day get the chance to become the first Briton to walk on the Moon.

“It’s incredibly exciting that we, as humanity, are going back to the Moon, and of course, any way that I could be a part of that, I would be absolutely delighted. I think it’s absolutely thrilling,” she says.

After six gruelling hours underwater, Rosemary is nearing the end of her spacewalk test – but then she’s thrown a curve ball.

In the control room, we hear her call out for a comms check with her astronaut partner who’s working on another part of the space station. But she’s met with silence.

On a video screen, we can see he’s motionless. Rosemary doesn’t know it, but he’s been asked to pretend to lose consciousness. Rosemary’s job is to reach him, check his condition – and tow him back to the airlock.

After so long under water, we can see how exhausted she is – but working slowly and steadily, she gets him safely to the airlock.

“Rosemary has the endurance of a champion. She crushed it today,” says Jenna Hanson, one of Nasa’s spacewalk instructors who’s been assessing Rosemary. “We’re really happy with where she’s at – she’s doing awesome.”

The spacewalk is finally over. Rosemary’s platform is hoisted out of the pool and the support team help her out of her suit. As her helmet is removed, we can see she’s clearly very tired, but still smiling.

“It was a challenging one, it really was, and a challenging rescue,” she tells us, “But yeah, it was a really enjoyable day.”

Rosemary’s hard work is bringing her ever closer to her dream of getting to space.

“It’s amazing,” Rosemary says, “If I could do that for the real space station – where you can look out and see the stars and see the Earth at the same time – that would just be the cherry on top.”

Thousands of civil servants are to be moved out of London under plans to save money and shift government jobs to offices across the country.

The government is aiming to cut the number of roles in London by 12,000 and close 11 offices in the capital to save £94m a year by 2032.

The changes will see two new government campuses opened in Manchester and Aberdeen, and roles created in other towns and cities.

Unions welcomed proposals to relocate officials but said they wanted more details on how civil servants would be impacted.

Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden said the government wanted to move decision-making “closer to communities all across the UK”.

He said: “By relocating thousands of civil service roles we will not only save taxpayers money, we will make this government one that better reflects the country it serves.”

Speaking to BBC 5 Live, McFadden said he wanted to embrace new technology allowing meetings to take place online, but that this would not mean civil servants would be remote working all the time.

“The same rule will apply wherever people are working in terms of the working from home question, which is we expect people to be in at least 60% of the time,” he said, adding, “people don’t all have to be in the same place anymore”.

McFadden added he wanted to create “a civil service that speaks with all the accents of the country, not just one” and allows career progression outside London.

Shadow Conservative Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart said the plans showed Labour was “fundamentally unserious about reducing the size of the state and working more efficiently on behalf of taxpayers”.

He accused Labour of “shuffling things around and making empty promises”.

“Only the Conservatives are serious about reducing the size of the state and making it work more efficiently for British taxpayers,” he said.

Government departments are being asked to submit their plans for relocating staff, including senior civil servants, as part of a spending review.

A government source told the BBC the exact number of civil servants relocated will be determined by the spending review, which is due to be completed in June.

The Labour government has set out a number of reforms to shrink the size of the civil service, which ministers believe is bloated and inefficient.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has promised to reduce government running costs by 15% by the end of the decade, and the Cabinet Office is looking to cut 2,100 jobs in its department over the next two years.

The number of civil service staff has increased considerably since 2016, with the headcount topping 514,000 at the end of last year, according to the Institute for Government.

Last year, a government source told the BBC more than 10,000 civil servants jobs could be cut as part of Labour’s push for savings across all departments.

On Wednesday, the government will outline plans to locate 50% of UK-based senior civil servants in regional offices by 2030.

The government wants to create three new regional campuses, one in Manchester focused on digital innovation and AI and a second in Aberdeen focused on energy. The third location is yet to be announced.

Manchester is already home to major offices of the science and culture departments, while Aberdeen houses the new Great British Energy headquarters.

Other roles will be created in Birmingham, Leeds, Cardiff, Glasgow, Darlington, Newcastle and Tyneside, Sheffield, Bristol, Edinburgh, Belfast and York, with the changes expected to bring £729m to the local economy by 2030.

Among the offices being closed in London is 102 Petty France, one of the largest government offices in the capital and home to around 7,000 civil servants in the Ministry of Justice, HM Courts and Tribunal Service, Crown Prosecution Service and the Government Legal Department.

The Government will also close 39 Victoria Street, which has been home to the Department of Health and Social Care since the end of 2017.

Prospect union general secretary Mike Clancy said hundreds of thousands of civil servants already work outside of London and welcomed plans to “empower” them.

But he added: “We have been here before with similar announcements, if this one is to be different, government needs to work closely with unions both on specific relocation plans and on the wider civil service reform agenda.”

Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, said civil servants “need to be able to build careers for the longer-term across the UK, including in London where there will now be fewer opportunities”.

Penman said Wednesday’s announcement meant “uncertainty” for “civil servants working in offices whose closures have been announced today” and the FDA looked forward to seeing more detail.

Detectives have said there is a “very real chance” the killer of a young woman who was murdered in 1986 is still at large after a man wrongfully convicted of the frenzied sexual attack was freed.

Peter Sullivan spent the last 38 years behind bars for murdering 21-year-old Diane Sindall in Birkenhead, Merseyside, before he was acquitted at the Court of Appeal on Tuesday.

Now 68, Mr Sullivan was released from prison after judges heard a DNA profile pointing to an unknown attacker was found after new testing on semen samples preserved from the crime scene.

Merseyside Police said more than 260 men identified in the original investigation had been tested and eliminated as suspects.

The force’s head of investigations, Det Ch Supt Karen Jaundrill, said officers “had not met with any resistance” to DNA screening.

She has now appealed for people in the community to come forward if they can think of anyone whose “behaviour they were not happy with” at the time, admitting there was a “very real chance” the killer was still at large.

Miss Sindall was dragged into an alley and beaten to death on 2 August 1986 in an attack detectives described at the time as the worst they had ever been involved in.

Merseyside Police said it had immediately reopened Miss Sindall’s case after being told there was a new DNA profile in 2023, despite Mr Sullivan’s appeal still being in progress at the time.

Det Ch Supt Jaundrill said that while the DNA was the main focus of investigative efforts, her team will rely heavily on people who lived in Birkenhead at the time for answers.

“I’m really hopeful with the work that we are doing but we really are relying on the community, particularly Birkenhead, just to really think about the nature of that investigation at the time,” she said.

“Try and reflect on any individuals that you weren’t happy with at the time.

“It may be that somebody has passed away and you weren’t happy with their behaviour at the time and you think they were linked.

“My ask would be please contact us, regardless of how insignificant you think the information is, and let us judge where that fits into our investigation.”

Miss Sindall, who worked as a florist, had also been doing part-time bar work at the Wellington Pub in Bebington to save up for her upcoming wedding to her fiancé, David Beattie.

She began driving to her home in Seacombe in her blue Fiat van but seemingly ran out of petrol, and began walking to what police believe was either a bus stop or an all-night garage shortly after 00:00 BST.

Her semi-naked body was discovered partially concealed in an alleyway by a woman walking her dog at about 12:30 that day.

The victim had suffered severe injuries and her death was found to have been caused by repeated blows to the head.

Det Ch Supt Jaundrill said Miss Sindall’s family and fiancé were “fully supportive” of the new investigation and “very much want us” to find her real killer.

Asked about the chances of the young woman’s attacker still being on the streets nearly four decades later, she added: “There is a very real chance.

“That’s where I reiterate our dedicated team of investigators are working tirelessly.

“We’re exploiting every opportunity to try and identify who the person is in relation to that DNA sample, but it does come back to that point – we are reliant on the communities, particularly [in] Birkenhead, to provide information.”

The force has defended how it investigated the original case, and highlighted that the technology to extract a DNA profile from the semen samples recovered from Miss Sindall’s body was still many years away at the time of her murder.

It has also pointed to the fact that two other grounds of appeal, related to how Mr Sullivan was interrogated and the admissibility of bite mark evidence, were rejected by appeal court judges.

Det Ch Supt Jaundrill said: “Nobody at Merseyside Police underestimates the impact on Peter Sullivan and I am grateful that the outcome at court will allow him to go out and rebuild his life.

“Our focus remains on finding justice for Diane.”

Mr Sullivan’s solicitor Sarah Myatt said her client was a “private man” and wanted to be “left in peace” to rebuild his life.

Mr Sullivan, in a statement read to the media by Ms Myatt outside the Court of Appeal, said he was not “angry or bitter” and expressed his wish that the Sindall family get justice.

Ms Myatt, who has represented him for 20 years, said she had been “honoured” to read those words on his behalf.

“The comments he made about wanting the family to get a resolution, to find peace, that is a true reflection on the man that he is,” she said.

Another man who spent time in prison for a crime he did not commit, John Actie, said he could not understand why Mr Sullivan was not angry about everything he had gone through.

While on remand, Mr Actie was in jail for two years while accused of the murder of Lynette White in a Cardiff flat on 14 February 1988.

He was cleared at trial.

Three of his co-defendants were found guilty of her murder, but later had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal in a case that garnered national attention and became known as the Cardiff Five in the media.

Mr Actie told BBC Radio Wales: “It just made my stomach go over. It could have happened to us, we could have been in jail for a lot longer.

“Fortunately we were lucky and we got out because they came to the right decision.

“He’s not bitter? Well I’m bitter, and I spent two years in jail. I have nightmares about it still.

“He’s got to start his life again now, at 68. It’s absolutely terrible.

“I’m flabbergasted that he’s not angry with what’s happened to him – I just can’t believe that he’s not angry. I’m choking up thinking about it.”

In 1989, brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents by shooting them multiple times at close range at their mansion in Beverly Hills.

They were found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder in 1996, and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

On Tuesday, a Los Angeles judge reduced their sentence, making them eligible for parole.

There has been renewed public interest in the case after a new Netflix drama, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, was released in September.

Last year, the previous district attorney of Los Angeles, George Gascón, requested a change to the brothers’ sentence from life without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life.

The hearing was put to Los Angeles County superior court Judge Michael Jesic on Tuesday who resentenced the brothers.

“I do believe they’ve done enough in the past 35 years that they should get that chance,” he said, concluding a day-long hearing.

The brothers are eligible for parole under California’s youthful offender law which allows individuals who committed crimes before the age of 26 to seek a reduced sentence.

The siblings were aged 18 and 21 at the time. They are now aged 54 and 57.

During the hearing, family members and a former fellow inmate were among those who testified in support of the resentencing.

People who worked with the brothers in prison spoke about the educational courses they had completed and how they created a hospice initiative for the elderly and sick.

The district attorney’s office, which fiercely opposes a lower sentence, said the brothers have continued to “make excuses” for their conduct instead of taking full responsibility and were not rehabilitated.

The brothers spoke to the court via video and apologised for their actions.

They also spoke about their hopes of working with sex abuse victims and helping those incarcerated if they were given a second chance outside prison.

The California parole board will now decide whether to release the brothers from prison.

Separately, the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is considering a request from the brothers for clemency. If approved, it could lead to a reduced sentence or a pardon.

Governor Newsom requested that the parole board conduct a risk assessment that examines whether the brothers pose a risk to the general public if released.

The full report has not been released, but the district attorney said it indicated a “moderate risk of violence”.

The parole board hearing on the clemency petition is set to take place on 13 June.

It is unclear whether the board will also consider the possibility of parole based on Judge Jesic’s resentencing at the same hearing.

Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, on 20 August 1989 at their home in Beverly Hills.

Their father, a 45-year-old Hollywood executive, was shot six times with a shotgun the brothers had purchased days before the attack.

Their mother died after suffering 10 shotgun blasts to several parts of her body.

The brothers initially told police they found their parents dead when they arrived home.

They were arrested after the girlfriend of a psychologist that had been treating Erik Menendez went to police to say that he had physically threatened the doctor.

The brothers claimed they committed the murders in self defence after years of alleged physical, emotional and sexual abuse, although no molestation was ever proven in court.

They said they feared their father would kill them after they threatened to expose him.

However, prosecutors argued that the young men had killed their successful parents to inherit their multi-million-dollar estate.

The brothers were taken into custody in 1990 and in 1993 they were tried for the murders, first individually, with one jury for each brother.

However, both juries were deadlocked in 1994, resulting in a mistrial, and the pair were later tried again together in 1995.

During their joint trial the judge excluded apparent evidence of abuse from their defence case. Taped sessions with a doctor, in which the killings were discussed, were ruled admissible in court by the judge.

A jury found them guilty and the pair were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder in 1996.

The brothers, who were separated during their detention after a detective who investigated the slayings said they may conspire to escape if housed together, reunited in jail in 2018.

The case was thrust back into the spotlight after Netflix released a drama series about the brothers in September.

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, shot to the top of the platform’s streaming chart and was reported to have had 12.3 million views in its first weekend of release.

It explores what might have led the siblings to kill their parents and it presents the murders from different perspectives.

Its creators said the series was based on extensive research and it follows the events surrounding the murders.

It includes the brothers’ claims of abuse as well as showing things from the parents’ point of view.

The show introduced the case to a new generation and garnered attention from celebrities – including Kim Kardashian and Rosie O’Donnell – who called for the brothers to be released.

The series was a follow-up to the controversial first Monsters series about US serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Following its release, Erik Menendez shared a statement, released on X by his wife.

He said the show was “disheartening slander” and he “believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle”.

“It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward – back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women,” he added.

Members of the family also spoke out and said the brothers had been “victimised by this grotesque shockadrama,” and the show was “riddled with mistruths”.

Ryan Murphy, who created the show, told Variety that the comments were “predictable at best”.

He added that the family’s response was “interesting because I would like specifics about what they think is shocking or not shocking. It’s not like we’re making any of this stuff up. It’s all been presented before”.

Seven-year-old Archie York was killed in a blast in Newcastle caused by his neighbour’s illegal attempts to make cannabis sweets. As one of his killers is jailed, Archie’s mother says her son’s death should serve as a warning to other criminals.

Shortly before 01:00 BST on 16 October, the slumbering streets of Benwell were rent by the roar of an enormous explosion.

Katherine Errington had been asleep in her bedroom with her seven-week-old son Finley, when the pair were suddenly bombarded with and buried beneath the walls and contents of their flat.

She initially thought she was having a nightmare, but the taste of blood in her mouth quickly confirmed this was all too real. The utter panic and confusion was replaced by a realisation she was trapped beneath the debris of her home.

She could hear her baby son crying but could not find him in the darkness and destruction – his cries soon gave way to a chilling silence.

“I closed my eyes,” Katherine recalls. “I thought ‘if my son’s gone, as in unalive, I’ll close my eyes and whatever happens I’ll not remember it, I’ll be asleep’.”

Then she heard the shouts of her partner Robbie, desperately searching for her and their baby, and she called back to him so he could zero in on her voice.

Katherine managed to push her foot through the bricks into the dust-filled air, Robbie seizing it gratefully and starting to frantically dig her out, also, miraculously, finding Finley alive and pulling him to safety.

“I got out and looked at where my flat was supposed to be,” she says. “There was nothing left of it.”

The street outside had rapidly filled with neighbours and emergency services, with Katherine and her baby quickly rushed away for medical treatment.

It was at the hospital where police officers told her the explosion had been even more devastating than she had imagined. Her eldest son, Archie, was “gone”.

The last time she had seen him, her “perfect little boy” and Robbie had been asleep on the living room settee.

Seven-year-old Archie had been the dictionary definition of a “mischievous cheeky boy”, his mum says. “He was just a normal, happy little boy.”

He loved superheroes, computer games and school, where “everybody loved him”, Katherine says.

Archie had been overjoyed at the arrival of Finley almost two months earlier, wanting to feed him and change his nappies, maturing overnight into a proper big brother.

“It was just how a family should be,” Katherine recalls. “It was the best seven weeks of my life.”

Within seconds, several houses on Violet Close were practically demolished and a huge fire was raging, with more than 100 people having to be evacuated from their homes.

Initial suspicions were that it was a gas leak, a faulty boiler somewhere, but investigators quickly honed in on the activities of Katherine and Robbie’s downstairs neighbour, 35-year-old Jason Laws, who was also killed in the blast, and his associate Reece Galbraith.

“The scene was hell for almost two months,” Det Ch Insp Katie Smith of Northumbria Police says, detailing the “harrowing” finger-tip searches officers had to make in the rubble in the days and weeks after the blast.

A suspiciously large number of butane cannisters were discovered scattered throughout the debris which, along with other industrial items such as a vacuum oven, indicated a factory making so-called shatter – a glassy-type substance used to form cannabis sweets – was operating in one of the flats.

The blast was caused by a build-up of the highly flammable butane, the gas used in the production process, which was taking place while the neighbours all slept peacefully nearby.

“The dangers go without saying,” Det Ch Insp Smith says. “[Galbraith and his associates] knew about the risks that night, it says on the side of the gas cannister how highly flammable it is.

“They disregarded that to make some money from drugs.

“It caused utter devastation.”

For Katherine, finding out her son had been killed because of the illegal activities of a criminal neighbour only worsened her grief.

“It sickens me that it could have been prevented,” she says. “You are supposed to trust your neighbours.

“This is more upsetting for us because someone chose to do that, it was their choice, not ours.”

The day she was burying her boy, 33-year-old Galbraith was in court denying being responsible for his death.

It was only later, when confronted with the wealth of prosecution evidence against him including DNA, finger prints and mobile phone data, that Galbraith changed his plea and admitted manslaughter.

His initial denials caused further pain and consternation for Katherine.

“He’s got no compassion whatsoever, no remorse for anything he has done,” she says.

She says her life now is indescribable, the shock and grief at the loss of Archie still all-consuming.

Katherine never would have thought the routine of kissing her son goodnight and laying out his school clothes for the next morning would be obliterated in such a violent manner.

But she is also keen to ensure he is remembered for being the “funny little cheeky boy” who “touched so many hearts” rather than for the way he was killed.

Katherine is also keen other criminals heed what happened.

“This should be enough to stop anyone trying to do any illegal activities,” she says.

“[Galbraith] has now got a seven-year-old’s death on his hands from his choice.”

Neither Katherine nor Robbie ever saw a future without Archie.

Their son was going to be a rock for Finley, but the baby is now an only child with no memory of the brother who doted on him.

“I don’t think we will ever move on from this,” Katherine says.

“That day is going to haunt us to the day we die.”

Luxury fashion firm Burberry has said it could cut some 1,700 jobs as part of plans to reduce costs by 2027.

The British designer brand – famed for its distinctive camel, red and black check pattern – announced the proposed savings on Wednesday as it reported a £66m loss in the last financial year.

The proposed job cuts would reduce its global workforce by almost a fifth and include potential redundancies at its Castleford factory in West Yorkshire.

Burberry chief executive Joshua Schulman said the majority of job losses would come from its head office teams around the world, but said the cuts would “naturally” be focused in the UK, where most of its staff are based.

He confirmed staff rotas would be reorganised and that night shifts at its factory in Castleford, which makes trench coats priced from £1,000 to £10,000 each, would be scrapped.

“For a long time we have had overcapacity at that facility, and that is simply not sustainable,” Mr Schulman said.

“But I want to be very clear that we are making this change to safeguard our UK manufacturing, and in fact we will be making a significant investment to renovate this factory in the second half.”

Burberry said it would align “schedules with peak store traffic” in its shops, which would result in the reduction of some jobs.

It added savings would also come from “operating expenses, with increased efficiency of spend in procurement and real estate”.

The company said the cuts were “subject to consultation where applicable”.

Burberry was founded in 1856 and has been making its famous raincoats in Yorkshire since 1972.

The designer brand previously announced £40m cost-savings programme in November, meaning it now plans to create the combined annualised savings of £100m by Spring 2027.

“The continued resilience of our outerwear and scarf categories reaffirms my belief that we have the most opportunity where we have the most authenticity,” said Mr Schulman, who was appointed chief executive in July last year.

“While we are operating against a difficult macroeconomic backdrop and are still in the early stages of our turnaround, I am more optimistic than ever that Burberry’s best days are ahead,” he added.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell said Burberry’s plans were “some pretty radical steps in its continuing recovery effort”.

He said Mr Schulman, who was the former boss of Coach and Jimmy Choo, was “pulling the classic turnaround lever of cutting costs, including a drastic planned reduction in the firm’s headcount”.

“A strategy of trying to compete with higher-end rivals hasn’t worked out so it makes sense that under Schulman the company is returning to its historic strengths in classic outerwear products like trench coats and scarves,” he added.

Mr Schulman replaced former Burberry chief executive Jonathan Akeroyd after the brand saw plunging sales.

Mr Akeroyd had attempted to move Burberry more upmarket.

Once Mr Akeroyd left, chairman Gerry Murphy said Burberry would take “decisive action to rebalance our offer to be more familiar to Burberry’s core customers whilst delivering relevant newness”.

Burberry’s sales have been struggling amid weaker demand for luxury goods in general, with trading in China and the Americas seeing some of the biggest falls last year.