The United States has restricted travel for its employees in Israel amid fears of an attack by Iran.

The US embassy said staff had been told not to travel outside the greater Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Be’er Sheva areas “out of an abundance of caution”.

Iran has vowed to retaliate after Israel struck the Iranian consulate in Syria 11 days ago, killing 13 people.

UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron has phoned his Iranian counterpart to urge against further escalation.

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the consulate attack but is widely considered to have been behind it.

Iran backs Hamas, the Palestinian group fighting Israel in Gaza, as well as various proxy groups throughout the region, including some – such as Hezbollah in Lebanon – that frequently carry out strikes against the Israelis.

Those killed in the consulate attack included a senior commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon, as well as other military figures.

The attack came at a time of continuing diplomatic efforts to prevent the war in Gaza spreading across the region.

Speaking on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden warned Iran was threatening to launch a “significant attack” and vowed to offer “ironclad” support to Israel.

The commander responsible for US operations in the Middle East, Erik Kurilla, has travelled to Israel for talks with officials on security threats.

The Pentagon said the visit had been scheduled previously but had been brought forward “due to recent developments.”

Following a call with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Lord Cameron said he had “made clear… that Iran must not draw the Middle East into a wider conflict”.

“I am deeply concerned about the potential for miscalculation leading to further violence,” he said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken to the foreign ministers of China, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey to argue that further escalation is not in anyone’s interest.

It is not clear what form any reprisal attack would take nor whether it would come directly from Iran or via one of its proxies.

On Sunday an Iranian official warned Israel’s embassies were “no longer safe”, suggesting a consulate building could be a possible target.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has told his US counterpart that “any direct Iranian attack” on Israeli territory would “require an appropriate Israeli response against Iran”.

Asked about the travel restrictions on Thursday, state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said he would not disclose the “specific assessments” behind them, but added: “Clearly we are monitoring the threat environment in the Middle East and specifically in Israel.”

The UK Foreign Office has also updated its travel advice for Israel to state that the country’s government has raised the “possibility of an attack on Israeli territory from Iran, and that such an attack could trigger wider escalation”.

Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October, the Foreign Office has warned against travel to large parts of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

German airline Lufthansa has extended a suspension of flights to the Iranian capital Tehran until Saturday.

The October attack saw gunmen kill 1,200 people and take more than 250 hostage after crossing into Israel from Gaza.

Israel says that of 130 hostages still in Gaza, at least 34 are dead.

More than 33,000 Gazans, the majority of them civilians, have been killed during Israel’s subsequent offensive in Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

OJ Simpson, the former American footballer who was controversially cleared of double murder, has died aged 76, his family says.

Orenthal James Simpson rose to fame as a college footballer before playing in the NFL.

In 1995, he was acquitted of the murder of his former wife Nicole Brown and a friend in a trial that gripped America.

In 2008, he was sentenced to 33 years’ imprisonment on charges of armed robbery. He was released in 2017.

Simpson died of cancer on Wednesday, his family wrote on Twitter/X.

“He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren,” the statement read.

In 1994, Simpson was arrested as a suspect in the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman. The ensuing trial gripped the nation.

In what was dubbed the “trial of the century” by US media, prosecutors argued Simpson killed Brown in a jealous fury. Evidence included blood, hair and fibre tests linking Simpson to the murders.

The defence argued Simpson had been framed by police motivated by racism.

In one of the most memorable moments in the trial, prosecutors asked Simpson to wear a pair of blood-stained gloves allegedly found at the scene of the murder, but Simpson struggled to put on the gloves. The blunder led to one of Simpson’s lawyers, Johnnie Cochrane, telling the jury in his closing arguments: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

The jury ultimately sided with Simpson, who declared he was “absolutely 100% not guilty”. The acquittal proved hugely controversial.

In 2008, he was convicted of armed robbery. He was sentenced to 33 years in jail, but was granted parole after serving the minimum of nine years.

Before his arrest on suspicion of murder, Simpson was regarded with affection by the public, well known as a professional athlete, actor and million-dollar spokesman for several US companies.

He played football at college before being signed to the Buffalo Bills NFL team in 1969, where he played until 1977.

He became one of the greatest ball carriers in NFL history. In 1973, he became the first NFL player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season. He retired in 1979.

President Joe Biden has promised Israel “ironclad” US support amid fears that Tehran could launch reprisals for an attack that killed senior Iranians.

Mr Biden warned that Iran is threatening to launch a “significant attack” after Israel struck the Iranian consulate in Syria ten days ago.

“We’re going to do all we can to protect Israel’s security,” he added.

Earlier on Wednesday, Iran’s leader said the Israeli attack in Damascus was equivalent to an attack on Iran itself.

“When they attacked our consulate area, it was like they attacked our territory,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised speech.

“The evil regime must be punished, and it will be punished.”

Thirteen people were killed in the 1 April attack on the Iranian consulate building, including senior Iranian military leaders.

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, but is widely considered to have been behind it.

US and Israeli forces in the region have been put on high alert in the days since.

Mr Biden’s remarks came as he was speaking to journalists at the White House on Wednesday alongside Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

“As I told Prime Minister Netanyahu, our commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad — let me say it again, ironclad,” Mr Biden said.

His comments come one day after Mr Biden, in an interview, called for a ceasefire in Gaza and said he disagreed with Mr Netanyahu’s war strategy.

“I think what he’s doing is a mistake. I don’t agree with his approach,” he said in an interview with Univision that was recorded a week ago.

It also comes nearly a week after a tense phone call between Mr Biden and Mr Netanyahu in the wake of the Israeli killing of seven humanitarian aid workers in Gaza.

Mr Biden has sharpened his rhetoric over Israel’s conduct in the nearly six-month-old war sparked by Hamas’s 7 October attack, and voiced his growing frustration with Mr Netanyahu.

US officials have been attempting to send a message to the Iranians that, despite differences of opinion between Mr Biden and Mr Netanyahu, any attack on Israel will met with an aggressive US response.

In an effort to ease tensions, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Iraq spoke to their Iranian counterpart this week, according to Axios.

The ministers were asked to convey a message from Mr Biden’s senior Middle East advisor, Brett McGurk, about the need to de-escalate.

According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, more than 33,000 people – mostly women and children – have been killed in the Israeli incursion.

The conflict was sparked by Hamas’s killing of more than 1,200 people in Israel and the taking of 240 hostages in its October attack.

Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh has confirmed that three of his sons and at least two of his grandchildren were killed in an air strike in Gaza.

Hamas-linked media said the car his sons were travelling in was hit in Al-Shati camp near Gaza City.

Haniyeh said that the incident would not change Hamas’s demands in talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire deal.

Israel’s military said the three men were members of Hamas’s military wing.

News of the deadly strike came as Palestinians in Gaza marked Eid-al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, amid the continuing conflict.

Haniyeh told the broadcaster Al Jazeera that three sons – Hazem, Amir, and Muhammad – had remained in Gaza during the war.

He said he heard the news as he was visiting wounded Palestinians who had been taken for treatment to the Qatari capital, Doha, which is where the Hamas leader lives.

“The enemy will be delusional if it thinks that targeting my sons, at the climax of the [ceasefire] negotiations and before the movement sends its response, will push Hamas to change its position,” he told Al Jazeera.

In comments reported on Hamas’s Telegram channel, he thanked God for the “honour” bestowed on him by what he called the “martyrdom of his children and grandchildren”.

Israel’s military said it had “eliminated three Hamas military wing operatives in the central Gaza Strip”, adding that they were the sons of Ismail Haniyeh. The statement did not mention the reported deaths of Haniyeh’s grandchildren.

As international pressure to reach a ceasefire deal grows, US President Joe Biden has sent the head of the CIA, William Burns, for the latest round of talks in Cairo.

The latest proposal, which Hamas says it is analysing, reportedly includes the release of 40 Israeli hostages being held in Gaza in return for 900 Palestinians from Israeli jails.

Mr Haniyeh is widely considered Hamas’s overall leader and has been a prominent member of the movement since 1980. He was elected head of Hamas’s political bureau in 2017 and the US Department of State designated him a terrorist in 2018.

These are not the first members of Mr Haniyeh’s family to have been killed in the war. Another son was reportedly killed in February, while his brother and nephew were killed in October, followed by a grandson in November.

Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostage.

Israel says that of 130 hostages still in Gaza, at least 34 are dead.

More than 33,000 Gazans, the majority of them civilians, have been killed during Israel’s offensive in Gaza since the October attack, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

Children have been let down by a lack of research and “remarkably weak” evidence on medical interventions in gender care, a landmark review says.

The Cass Review, published on Wednesday by paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, calls for gender services for young people to match the standards of other NHS care.

She says the “toxicity” of the debate around gender meant professionals were “afraid” to openly discuss their views.

NHS England says it has already made significant progress in making changes.

The Cass Review, which looked at gender identity services for under-18s, was commissioned by NHS England in 2020 after a sharp rise in the number of patients referred to the NHS who were questioning their gender.

It was announced after whistleblowers raised concerns about care at the Gender Identity and Development Service (Gids) – which was the only specialist gender clinic for children and young people in England and Wales.

Gids closed last week, four years after it was rated as “inadequate” by inspectors.

Regional hubs have now opened in London and Liverpool in an effort to move away from a single-service model and to tackle long waiting lists, which are currently around four years long.

The Cass Review’s conclusions are documented in a 388-page report, which makes 32 recommendations on how gender services for children and young people should operate. They include considerations around medical interventions, further research, and safeguarding measures.

Dr Cass calls for better research into the characteristics of children seeking treatment and to look at outcomes for every young person.

In essence, she says children have been let down by a failure to base gender care on evidence-based research.

She is clear that children and young adults using the services deserve the highest standards of care and research, which are expected elsewhere in the NHS.

Addressing children and young people in the foreword to her report, she wrote: “I have been disappointed by the lack of evidence on the long-term impact of taking hormones from an early age; research has let us all down, most importantly you.”

“The reality is we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”

Dr Cass also raised concerns about what she called “diagnostic overshadowing” – when patients’ other healthcare issues were overlooked in cases of patients questioning their gender.

The report recommends that young people referred to the new clinics should have a “holistic assessment”, which Dr Cass says should include screening for neurodevelopment conditions such as autism, and a mental health assessment.

It also says representatives from the regional centres should form a national group to oversee ethics, training and to ensure everyone receives “the same high standards of evidence-based care”.

The report warns the “toxicity of the debate” around gender has been “exceptional” and has had a negative impact on the quality and availability of evidence.

Young people have been “caught in the middle of a stormy social discourse”, Dr Cass says.

“There are few other areas of healthcare where professionals are so afraid to openly discuss their views, where people are vilified on social media, and where name-calling echoes the worst bullying behaviour.”

In the weeks leading up to the review’s publication, NHS England announced new policies around the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

It said puberty blockers – which Dr Cass defines as hormones that “stop the progress of puberty” – would no longer be routinely prescribed, and that they should only be given to gender-distressed children as part of clinical trials.

Details of those trials are yet to be announced.

Under NHS England’s latest policy on cross-sex hormones, 16-year-olds can be prescribed feminising or masculinising hormones in the form of testosterone or oestrogen.

Dr Cass’ report warns that this should only be done with “extreme caution” and there should be a “clear clinical rationale for providing hormones at this stage rather than waiting until an individual reaches 18”.

The report also warns that younger children should be treated with a “more cautious approach” than adolescents when considering whether to allow them to change their names, pronouns or clothing – known as socially transitioning.

It says those who have not yet reached puberty should be “prioritised for early discussion with a professional with relevant experience” and they should be put on a separate care pathway than older, adolescent patients.

Dr Cass repeats previous warnings there was no clear evidence on whether social transitioning had positive or negative mental health outcomes.

She says those who have done so at an earlier age, or before being seen by a clinic, were more likely to go down a medical pathway.

Dr Cass also warns parents should be mindful they are not “unconsciously influencing the child’s gender expression”.

She also recommends that young people aged 17-25 should have a “follow-through” service rather than going straight into adult services, as it recognised the age group as being at a “potentially vulnerable” stage of their journey.

About 15 years ago, gender identity services were seeing about 50 predominantly birth-registered boys in childhood, according to Dr Cass.

But over the last 10 years, that number has grown to more than 3,000 young people, she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “And it’s mainly birth-registered girls presenting in early teens, and often with quite complex additional problems.”

She added: “What’s unfortunately happened for these young people is that because of the toxicity of the debate, they’ve often been bypassed by local services who’ve been really nervous about seeing them.

“So rather than doing the things that they would do for other young people with depression, or anxiety, or perhaps undiagnosed autistic spectrum disorder, they’ve tended to pass them straight on to the Gid service.”

An NHS spokesperson said it had made “significant progress” towards establishing “fundamentally different” gender services for children and young people.

They added: “We will set out a full implementation plan following careful consideration of this final report and its recommendations.

“The NHS is also bringing forward its systemic review of adult gender services and has written to local NHS leaders to ask them to pause offering first appointments at adult gender clinics to young people below their 18th birthday.”

William Wragg, the MP who admitted sharing MPs’ personal phone numbers with someone on a dating app, has “voluntarily” given up the Conservative whip.

He will now sit as an independent MP in the House of Commons.

Mr Wragg has also given up his roles on the 1922 backbench committee and the Public Administration Committee.

Last week, he told The Times he had been targeted by a suspected Westminster honeytrap plot.

He said he had been chatting with someone on an app who subsequently asked him for the numbers of others.

“They had compromising things on me. They wouldn’t leave me alone…. I gave them some numbers, not all of them.”

He told the newspaper he was “mortified”, adding: “I’m so sorry my weakness has caused other people hurt.”

Up to 20 people in political circles are reported to have received unsolicited messages, which have included explicit photos.

The Metropolitan Police has confirmed it is investigating reports of the messages being sent to MPs.

Last week, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt praised Mr Wragg for his apology, adding that he had been “courageous”.

However, other Conservative MPs have criticised their colleague for his actions.

Andrea Jenkyns MP said he was an “idiot for compromising security” and on GB News, Jacob Rees-Mogg questioned whether he should keep his roles on committees in Parliament.

Some MPs had also privately expressed surprise that Mr Wragg has not lost the Conservative whip and at least one Tory MP had contacted the whips’ office to say he should be suspended from the parliamentary party.

A spokesperson for the Conservative whips – who are in charge of party discipline – said: “Following Will Wragg’s decision to step back from his roles on the Public Administration and 1922 committees, he has also notified the chief whip that he is voluntarily relinquishing the Conservative Whip.”

Conservative chair Richard Holden later told Sky News it was “right” for Mr Wragg to resign the Conservative whip.

He said the 36-year-old MP had made a “fulsome apology”, adding: “It’s quite clear his career in public life is at an end.”

Pat McFadden MP, Labour’s national campaign co-ordinator said: “The fact it was left to William Wragg to resign is another indictment of Rishi Sunak’s weakness.”

Mr Wragg, who represents the Greater Manchester constituency of Hazel Grove, had already announced in 2022 that he would not be standing to be an MP again at the next general election, expected this year.

Across Mexico, the US and Canada, inside a ribbon of land stretching 155 miles wide but more than 4,000 miles long, tens of millions of people craned their necks, tilted their heads to the sky and watched in wonder as the day turned to night.

What many saw on Monday was a phenomenon like no other: the Moon moving between the Earth and the Sun, extinguishing its light in a total solar eclipse.

The path of totality spanned the continent, beginning over the warm sands of a Mexican beach town and darkening the skies above the crashing waters of Niagara Falls before ending its journey on the shores of Canada’s Newfoundland.

It left a sense of awe in its wake, a reminder of our planet’s place in the universe.

The eclipse was first seen around Mazatlán, Mexico, on the country’s western shores at 11:07 local time (18:07 GMT).

At first, the Moon’s outer edge seemed to just be touching the Sun. Then it devoured more and more until cheers erupted as all finally went dark – save for the silvery glow of the “corona” effect of the Sun around the Moon’s outline.

A thousand miles away in Dallas, Texas, 11-year-old Ady Walton-King was waiting, weeks of pent-up excitement ready to burst.

She had learned all about the eclipse in her fifth-grade class at Dallas Academy and on Monday morning she laced up her shoes and tucked four pairs of eclipse glasses into her pink purse – one for herself, one for each parent and one for her little sister, Abigail.

Just before it started, Ady sat down beside her dad, Ryan, on a school field in central Dallas and lifted her gaze upward.

And then it happened.

It all felt slow, she said, as she described the Texas afternoon turning dark. “It looked like the Moon was biting the Sun, but without the teeth marks.”

Clouds slid in and out, occasionally blocking the eclipse from view until the Sun had vanished, nothing left but little flares of light around the Moon.

“I didn’t think it would be like that,” Ady said. “It was really dark out. I thought it would be like evening dark, but it was pretty close to pitch black.”

The temperature dropped suddenly and, just as she had been taught, animals fell silent.

“As it started to get lighter the crickets were there, and the birds started singing. It was really crazy,” she said. “I’m sad it’s over.”

From there, the eclipse moved on, carving its path north-east through the United States.

For some, the solar phenomenon was marked by a personal milestone, with hundreds of Americans joining one of several mass wedding events dotted across the path of totality.

In Russellville, Arkansas, 300 couples from across the country signed up, saying “I do” just before the sky went black. As the sky brightened, the group cut wedding cakes and danced – all part of the aptly named Total Eclipse of the Heart festival.

Following the Moon one state over, in Ellsinore, Missouri, was amateur astronomer Darcy Howard, who had driven from her home in central Arkansas to be sure bad weather didn’t block her view.

She had seen many eclipses before today, two totals, one annular and two partials. “Each one has its own fingerprint,” she said.

Totality today, at around 13:56 local time (18:56 GMT) brought an “eerie twilight”, Ms Howard said, with dusky colours dotted all along the horizon. The corona was nearly as bright as a full moon. “The sense of other-worldliness was all around,” she said.

The 70-year-old has loved the cosmos since her childhood, since her father showed her the Big Dipper, the North Star and the Milky Way, and bought her her first telescope.

“I was hooked,” she said. “I can look through a telescope and see Jupiter… I can see Saturn. And when I see that in space, I know all is right with the world.”

By 15:13 local time (20:13 GMT), the total eclipse had plunged the midwestern state of Ohio into darkness.

In Cleveland, where eclipse-watchers were graced by clear skies, the Sun’s corona was clearly visible, a brilliant halo framing the Moon.

The stars came out in the middle of the day, a sight met with cheers and fireworks, a mid-April New Years Eve.

Many big American cities were not lucky enough to be on the path of totality – but the spectacles were still awe-inspiring. In New York, hundreds of people crowded on to the viewing platform of the Edge skyscraper in Manhattan to see what they could see.

They did not leave disappointed as the sun shrank to a crescent-like sliver of light that cast an unearthly pale gloom over the city.

Tourists had crowded along both sides of the border at Niagara Falls, where the eclipse path crossed from the US into Canada.

Here, the weather offered a formidable challenge, with thick grey clouds mostly obscuring the sky from view.

But just in time for totality – to the audible delight of the crowd – the clouds parted to reveal the black-hole Sun.

Nearby, on a Niagara City Cruise, 309 people celebrated by record-breaking – dressing up as the Sun to break the Guinness World Record for “Largest gathering of people dressed as the Sun”.

The relentless motion of the heavenly bodies meant that the phenomenon did not last long, and it was Montreal that next got its chance to be plunged into temporary night.

In Montreal, 20,000 people crowded onto a field on McGill University’s campus for an event held by the school’s Trottier Space Institute.

“We had been expecting 8,000,” programme administrator Caroina Cruz-Vinaccia said after. The weather was perfect, clear and bright skies. At the moment of totality, the crowd erupted at once, she said.

“I still can’t quite find the words for how cool this was,” she said. “We’re still coming down.”

Crowds were smaller on Newfoundland’s Fogo Island, on Canada’s east coast – one of the last places the totality could be viewed.

Bethany Downery, a Newfoundland native who works for the European Space Agency, tuned into the spectacular view from the Fogo Island Inn, nestled right against the Atlantic Ocean.

The skies were overcast, she said, but the clouds moved miraculously in time to catch near totality.

And with that, a day of collective wonder and celebration reached its conclusion. But it had left a permanent mark on many of those who had witnessed it.

In Dallas, a few thousand miles back along the path, Ady Walton-King was making plans.

Texas will not be in the path of totality again for another 300 years, so she’ll have to travel for the next one in North America, in 2044.

And by that time, she’ll even more an expert on total eclipses. “I want to be a scientist by the time that happens,” she said.

– With additional reporting from Brandon Livesay, Nada Tawfik, Nadine Yousif and Helena Humphrey

A new drone attack on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia power plant has raised the risk of a “major nuclear accident”, the UN’s atomic watchdog has warned.

Russia said Ukraine was behind the attack, which it said injured three people. Ukraine has denied involvement.

The giant Russian-held nuclear plant, with six reactors, is on the frontline of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly warned against such attacks.

IAEA head Rafael Grossi said Sunday’s drone strike was “reckless” and “a major escalation of the nuclear safety and security dangers” facing the plant.

The Zaporizhzhia plant, in southern Ukraine, is the largest in Europe. Russian forces seized it shortly after launching their February 2022 full-scale invasion and have occupied it ever since.

The IAEA, which has a team of experts at Zaporizhzhia, confirmed “physical impact of drone attacks” at the plant, including at one of the reactors.

The plant’s Russian-installed administration said radiation levels were normal and that there was no serious damage.

The IAEA said the damage had not compromised nuclear safety, but it warned that “this is a serious incident with potential to undermine [the] integrity of the reactor’s containment system”.

Mr Grossi specified there had been “at least three direct hits” against the plant’s “main reactor containment structures”.

“This cannot happen,” he said. “No one can conceivably benefit or get any military or political advantage from attacks against nuclear facilities. This is a no go.”

Both Russia and Ukraine regularly accuse each other of shelling the plant and risking a serious nuclear accident.

The plant’s Russian administration has said Ukraine’s armed forces were behind the attack, but Ukraine has denied the allegation.

“Ukraine was not involved in any armed provocations on the site,” Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate spokesman Andriy Yusov told the Ukrainska Pravda news website. The plant is “illegally occupied by Russia,” he added.

Mr Yusov accused Russia of endangering the nuclear facility, the civilian population and the environment by carrying out strikes on the plant itself.

Last month the IAEA said its team of experts at the plant had heard explosions every day for a week.

At the time, Mr Grossi said: “For more than two years now, nuclear safety and security in Ukraine has been in constant jeopardy. We remain determined to do everything we can to help minimise the risk of a nuclear accident that could harm people and the environment, not only in Ukraine.”