US-backed forces say they have fully encircled Islamic State fighters in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the capital of the group's self-proclaimed caliphate.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, say they have now sealed off escape routes to the south.
IS seized Raqqa in early 2014 and established its headquarters there.
The SDF have been gradually advancing on the city since November and launched an offensive to take it on 6 June.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group confirmed the last route out of the city had now been cut off.
Col Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led coalition against IS, said that the SDF now controlled "all high speed avenues of approach into Raqqa from the south".
He said that IS fighters "abandoned by their leadership, are being pressured by the SDF from multiple axes around the city".
Col Ryan also said the forces had "cleared about 7.5 sq miles (19.4 sq km) from IS in and around Raqqa this week".
Ali Shervan, a Kurdish SDF fighter, told Kurdistan24: "The city centre is completely besieged, and our forces are fighting from all sides."
The SDF say they have discovered an extensive network of tunnels used by IS fighters in the city.
Another SDF fighter, Bave Delil, said: "[IS] militants do not fight face to face, rather they send suicide bombers or plant mines to impede the advance of our troops."
The coalition has said the capture of Raqqa will deliver a "decisive blow" to the caliphate proclaimed by IS in June 2014, months after it took control of the city.
The battle for the city has been brutal for the civilians there.
The UN said on Wednesday that at least 173 had been killed this month, and that the actual figure could be far higher, stressing that "civilians must not be sacrificed for the sake of rapid military victories".
It is believed that up to 100,000 people are trapped by the fighting. Reports continue to emerge of IS militants preventing civilians from fleeing.
Up to 4,000 militants are believed to be holed up inside Raqqa.
More than 300,000 people have lost their lives in six years of conflict in Syria, which began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad before escalating into a full-scale civil war. Eleven million other people have been displaced by the fighting.
People from six mainly Muslim countries and all refugees now face tougher US entry due to President Donald Trump's controversial travel ban.
It means people without close family or business relationships in the US could be denied visas and barred entry.
Grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces are not considered to be "bona fide" relations.
The rules apply to people in Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, as well as all refugees.
Moments before the ban began at 20:00 Washington time (00:00 GMT), it emerged that the state of Hawaii had asked a federal judge for clarification.
It has in the past accused the US government of violating the Supreme Court's instructions by improperly excluding people.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court partially upheld the ban, lifting injunctions that had halted one of the president's key policies.
The court ruled that people seeking visas to travel to the US from the six restricted countries, and all refugees, would have to prove a "bona fide relationship" to someone in the country.
The Supreme Court is expected to make a final decision on the ban in October.
According to the new rules, for the next 90 days those from the six countries without a close relationship will not be able to enter the US.
IN - a parent, spouse, child, son or daughter-in-law, or sibling, including step- or half-siblings.
OUT - grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, in-laws, extended family and grandchildren.
Also exempt from the new rules are those with business or educational ties to the US.
However, the guidelines specifically state that the relationship must be formal, documented and not formed for the purpose of evading the order.
Those who already hold valid visas are not affected. Dual nationals who travel on their passport from the unaffected country will also be allowed entry.
The court also approved a 120-day ban on refugees entering the US, allowing the government to bar entry to refugee claimants who cannot prove the same ties to an American individual or entity.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said "the threat to our national security is real and becoming increasingly dangerous". He said the ruling was "an important step towards restoring the separation of powers between the branches of the federal government"
Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants' Rights Project, said that "in practical terms most of the people who stood to be affected by the ban will still be allowed to come in"
David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), said "the court's decision threatens damage to vulnerable people waiting to come to the US: people with urgent medical conditions blocked, innocent people left adrift, all of whom have been extensively vetted"
How did we get here?
The US president insisted his ban was necessary for national security and pointed to terrorist attacks in Paris, London, Brussels and Berlin as evidence.
However, critics called the policy un-American and Islamophobic, and that this ban would not have stopped atrocities in the US perpetrated by American-born attackers.
The original ban, released on 27 January, provoked mass protests at American airports.
It included Iraq among nations whose travellers would be barred from the US, and imposed a full ban on refugees from Syria.
The president issued a revised version with a narrower scope on 6 March to overcome some of the legal problems.
The policy was left in limbo after it was struck down by federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland.
In Tunisia, young women are expected to be virgins when they marry, leading to a growing trade in hymen reconstruction surgery.
Yasmine (not her real name) looks nervous. She's biting her nails and checks her mobile phone constantly.
"I consider this to be deception and I'm really worried," she says.
We're on the fourth floor of a private clinic in Tunis - the gynaecology service. Around us in the pink waiting room, other women wait patiently to be seen.
Yasmine confides in me that she is having a hymenoplasty, a short procedure that promises to reconstruct her virginity surgically.
Her wedding is due to take place in two months' time and the 28-year-old is worried that her husband will find out she is not a virgin.
She has come here to turn back the clock but is concerned that at some point in the future the truth may come out.
"I might one day inadvertently betray myself in a conversation with my husband," she says. "Or my husband may have... suspicions."
Pressure
There have been some reports of young women here being divorced shortly after marrying because their husbands suspected they were not virgins.
"I had an affair once with a man," she says. "At that time, I couldn't imagine how huge the pressure was in my society and what the consequences could be.
The doctor who will carry out the procedure for Yasmine is a gynaecologist, whom we will call Rachid. He does two hymenoplasties a week, on average.
Rachid says 99% of his patients are motivated by the fear that they might otherwise bring shame to their family and relatives.
Many, like Yasmine, are seeking to disguise the fact that they are not virgins.
But hymens can tear for other reasons too, such as tampon use, leaving women worried that they may be accused, falsely, of having had sex before marriage.
"Gynaecologists do hymen repair. This is nothing exceptional," Rachid says. "But here some doctors refuse to do it. I personally do it because I disagree with those who make virginity a sort of sacred thing.
"It really annoys me. This is a manifestation of a male-dominated society covered up in some religious principles. I mean it when I say it's male dominance and I'll continue to wage an all-out war against it."
'Hypocritical'
Tunisia is regarded as a leader in women's rights in North Africa but religion and tradition here dictate that young women have to remain virgins until they are married.
There is also provision in Tunisian law for divorce in cases where women are discovered not to be virgins.
Sociologist Samia Elloumi says: "In this Tunisian society, which is an open society, we are becoming hypocritical.
"There is a sort of predominant social conservatism which is hard to justify because we claim to live in a modern society. But there's not much modernity when it comes to women's sexuality and freedom."
"If I find out that she's not a virgin after the wedding, I'll never trust her again. I'll consider it a betrayal. And I don't believe in hymenoplasty operations. I don't think it works."
Sitting next to him is Radhouam, another student. He says that Tunisian tradition is too harsh on women.
"For me, this is pure hypocrisy," he says. "Young men can freely have sex before marriage, so why do we blame young girls when they do so?"
A Spanish bullfighter has died after being gored during a festival in southwest France.
Ivan Fandino, 36, caught his feet in his cloak and fell to the floor, where he was gored by the bull.
He suffered a lung injury and died on his way to hospital from a heart attack on Saturday, French media say.
Fandino, who was taking part in the Aire-sur-l'Adour bullfighting festival near Pau, is reportedly the first matador to die in France in a century.
The Basque-born matador had already taken part in a competition earlier in the day before he was injured.
Photographs showed he was conscious, but bleeding heavily, as he was led away from the ring.
Last July, bullfighter Victor Barrio, 29, became the first matador to die in Spain in 30 years after he was gored during an event being aired live on television.
Fandino had been injured at least twice in previous events - once in 2015, when thrown into the air by a bull in Pamplona, Spain, but more seriously the year before when he was knocked unconscious in Bayonne, France.
Opponents describe the blood-soaked pageants as barbaric, while fans say the tradition is an ancient art form deeply rooted in national history.
Bullfighting was declared legal in France in 2012 after the Constitutional Council rejected a plea from animal rights campaigners to ban the practice.
More than 1,000 bulls are killed annually in French bullfights, the AFP news agency reported at the time.
Although bullfighting originated in neighbouring Spain, it took root in France a century and a half ago. Fights - known as corridas in Spain - are especially popular in the Nimes and Arles areas.
A number of metals are crucial components in a range of technologies, from smartphone batteries to electric cars. So could a market shortage and spiralling prices put the brakes on the global tech industry?
Cobalt has been used for thousands of years to give a deep blue-ish hue to pottery, paint and jewellery. But more recently, it has become a crucial metal used in the batteries powering millions of tech gadgets, including the electric cars made by Tesla and others.
About half of all cobalt demand comes from the expansion of electric vehicle production and development worldwide.
The problem is, we can't get enough of it. No wonder its price has doubled in the last year alone.
"We are definitely entering a period of deficit and that will start this year," says Lara Smith, managing director of Core Consultants, a commodities researcher.
"In 2016, the supply of cobalt was about 104,000 tonnes and demand was about 103,500. The hybrid and electric vehicles are in a nascent growth phase, so as we continue along this track we expect there to be a greater and greater deficit."
Only 2% of cobalt is mined directly - 98% of it is produced as a by-product of nickel and copper mining. Unlike other battery metals like lithium, cobalt is quite rare and its quality can vary geographically. About two thirds of the supply comes from Africa's Congo region.
It's little wonder then that First Cobalt Corporation in Toronto recently invested in seven large areas of land in the Central African "copperbelt" with the intention of finding more copper and cobalt reserves in the ground.
"Electric vehicle market penetration around the world is projected to grow 26% this year alone," chief executive Trent Mell tells the BBC.
"We are predicting a growth rate in cobalt demand of 5% per year for the next five years. On the supply side the pipeline of new production is pretty scarce.
"To bring up a mine to full production can take up to 10 years."
Efforts to mine cobalt in North America are under way, but any increase in US and Canadian production is expected to be small compared with future anticipated demand globally.
And the Congo mining region has also been under scrutiny as it deals with accusations of child labour and other human rights abuses, summarised in an Amnesty International report last year.
In other words, ramping up supply could take quite some time.
And this shortage in the supply of tech-dependent metals is not limited to cobalt.
Many modern electronics rely on so-called "technology metals" - neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium to name but a few - which make them faster, lighter, stronger, and more energy efficient.
These rare earth metals along with minor metals such as lithium and tantalum are now just as important as the traditional base metals and precious metals.
"The colour red on a MacBook Pro screen is made from europium; the colour green is because of a metal called terbium; touch screen technology relies on indium," explains David Abraham, author of a book called The Elements of Power.
"A lot of these metals have only been discovered in the past 100 years. We've had a long time to play with copper and iron. But we are just beginning to understand the power of these newer materials."
Unlike cobalt, most other technology metals are not rare. It's getting them out of the ground and in to manufacturing locations that's tricky.
Again, most are by-products of other base metal mining activity and involve additional complex chemical extraction processes.
China dominates the mining and production of many technology metals, due in part to weak environmental codes. It produces 100% of the world's dysprosium for example.
While there is lots of talk among other nations - notably Australia - about starting their own mines and processing centres, there is little real appetite for it, believes Mr Abraham.
A lot of countries don't want to open new mining and processing facilities because they are deemed "dirty" and environmentally unpopular, he says.
The alarm bells for tech companies sounded in 2010-11 when the prices of several rare and minor metals sky-rocketed.
"There was a major price spike in some of these materials," says Gareth Hatch, co-founder of consultancy group Technology Metals Research.
"Some went up anywhere from 300% to 1,000% in price for a variety of reasons, and that alerted everyone to the fact that we are dependent on these materials and they are all coming from China - and that could be a problem."
Although prices of most elements have normalised again, the fact that China has so much influence over supplies is a cause of increasing concern.
Political and economic differences between China and the West are a constant conversation topic in the US and elsewhere. Find yourself on China's "less than co-operative" list and you could potentially see your essential supply of tech metals dry up overnight.
One way of breaking China's stranglehold is to recycle the materials.
Apple is a leader in this field, marshalling a line of robots called Liam to disassemble used iPhones in a few seconds, enabling recovery and reuse of many of the materials used, such as cobalt, indium and gold.
But it's hard for the technology companies to predict what will happen in a decade from now.
If supplies of crucial elements dwindle, prices of new gadgets are likely to rise if supply cannot match demand.
Perhaps then, we may have to learn to live with with our existing gadgets for longer.
The UK's wealth gap has been widening over the past decade, a report says.
Think tank the Resolution Foundation estimates 1% of adults, some 488,000 people, own 14% of the nation's assets - worth about £11 trillion.
At the other end of the financial scale, 15% (7.3 million people) either own no assets at all, or are in debt.
The government has responded to the findings by insisting that income inequality is at its lowest level since the mid-1980s.
The Resolution Foundation says it is non-partisan and was founded in 2005, with "the goal of improving living standards for the 15 million people in Britain on low and middle incomes".
'Wealth gap'
The foundation says the spreading of property wealth in the mid-1990s and mid-2000s fuelled a decade-long fall in wealth inequality - but that progress has since gone into reverse.
The proportion of property wealth owned by the bottom four-fifths of adults grew from 35% in 1995 to 40% in 2005.
However, the foundation warns "that with home ownership steadily falling since its mid-2000s peak, the proportion of property wealth owned by the bottom four-fifths of the population has started to fall again".
"Given the hugely unequal distribution of wealth across Britain, it's time we looked into how the nation's wealth is divided up and what the consequences are for those who never build up assets of any significance," said Conor D'Arcy, policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation.
"Falling levels of home ownership mean that, having once been a great force in driving down inequality, shifts in who owns what property are now fuelling the wealth gap between rich and poor, while also creating sharp wealth divides between young and old."
'More homes'
A government spokesperson said: "We want to build an economy that works for everyone.
"Income inequality is now at its lowest level since the mid-1980s and the lowest paid saw their wages grow faster than for 20 years.
"The next step is to get Britain building more homes and halt the decline in housing affordability.
"The Housing White Paper which sets out a bold package of reforms, following a £7.2bn investment at Autumn Statement, will help ensure more working people have the security of a decent place to live."
Five major UK business bodies have come together to call for continued access to the European single market until a final Brexit deal is made with the EU.
In a letter to Business Secretary Greg Clark, they also ask the government to "put the economy first".
The letter is from the British Chambers of Commerce, Confederation of British Industry, EEF, Federation of Small Businesses and Institute of Directors.
Formal Brexit negotiations between the EU and the UK begin on Monday.
'Flexible'
The signatories say the "economic benefits" of the European Union single market, which allows free movement of goods, services, capital and people, and the customs union, which enables tariff-free trading within the EU, should be maintained until a final settlement between the UK and the EU is "agreed and implemented".
They have also called for a final trade deal that will allow tariff-free goods to be traded between the UK and the EU.
In addition, they want that deal to include "minimal customs formalities", mutual recognition of standards and regulation, and a "flexible system" for the movement of labour and skills.
"We have come together to urge the government to put the economy first as it prepares to start formal negotiations," says the letter to Mr Clark.
"This is a deal that when finally agreed will matter fundamentally for the UK economy, for UK companies and for citizens of the UK."
Monday's talks between Brexit Secretary David Davis and EU negotiator Michel Barnier follow preliminary negotiations in Brussels between officials.
