Britain’s support for Ukraine will “never waver”, Rishi Sunak has pledged after meeting Volodymyr Zelensky at the G7 summit in Hiroshima. The prime minister said he was glad the group of allies have agreed on the importance of providing the Ukrainian president with the advanced military equipment he needs as he pushes for F-16 fighter jets. Mr Zelensky will address the leaders of the major Western democracies during meetings on Sunday. He is on course to receive the boost of being donated advanced jets after US President Joe Biden authorised Western allies to transfer them to Kyiv. Mr Sunak updated Mr Zelensky on the “very positive progress” on fighter jets when they met in the Japanese city, Downing Street said. In a statement, Mr Sunak said: “The G7 was once the G8 – Russia was expelled in 2014 for its illegal annexation of Crimea and flagrant abuse of human rights and the rule of law. “Nine years on, it sends an incredibly powerful message to have my friend and Ukraine’s President Zelensky with us in Hiroshima today. “It tells the world that the G7 stands united with the people of Ukraine, in the face of a terrible onslaught. And it demonstrates that brute force and oppression will not triumph over freedom and sovereignty. “From providing Challenger tanks to long-range missiles and pilot training, the UK’s support for Ukraine’s defence will never waver. “I am delighted that the G7 has agreed on the importance of giving President Zelensky the advanced military equipment needed to win this war and prosper as a free and democratic nation.” The pair shared a warm informal meeting on Saturday after Mr Zelensky landed in Japan. “Good to see you,” the Prime Minister said, slapping him on the back after they greeted each other with an embrace. “You made it.” Asked by reporters if it was a good day for Ukraine, Mr Zelensky smiled, nodded and said “thank you so much”. Mr Zelensky tweeted: “Peace will become closer today.” G7 leaders vowed to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes” and to increase the costs to Russia and those who support its war. They also used their joint statement to be critical of China, saying they remain “seriously concerned” about the aggression shown towards Taiwan. Giving an account of Mr Sunak’s meeting with the Ukrainian leader, No 10 said: “The Prime Minister updated President Zelensky on the very positive progress at the G7 so far, including new sanctions against Russia and the provision of fighter jets. “The leaders looked forward to progressing talks with G7 countries and other partners on support for Ukraine and action against Russia’s destabilising and illegal behaviour.” Moscow warned that the “escalation” carries “enormous risks” for the countries involved. Russian deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko told the Tass news agency: “We can see that Western countries continue to stick to an escalation scenario, which carries enormous risks for them. “In any case, we will take it into account when making plans. “We have all the necessary means to achieve our goals.” Mr Biden informed his allies at the conference in Hiroshima that he will give legal authorisation to allow the American-made planes to be donated to Kyiv. The US president, who is attending the G7 with other members France, Italy, Germany, Japan and Canada, as well as the EU, also announced training for Ukrainian pilots. The Prime Minister welcomed the decision, having pressed allies to provide the Ukrainian president with the jets he has been calling for. Mr Sunak tweeted: “Ukraine, we’re not going anywhere.” The RAF does not have any US-manufactured F-16s. Washington must legally approve their export. Mr Zelensky met India’s Narendra Modi on Saturday and will potentially come into contact with Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Both have not supported Ukraine like their Western allies. Neither are G7 members, but India is being represented at the summit because it is the current G20 chair, while Brazil has been invited as a guest. Mr Sunak will meet Mr Modi on Sunday before addressing the media at a press conference. Read More Russia warns of ‘colossal risks’ if F-16 fighter jets sent to Ukraine Vatican: Pope Francis tasks cardinal with mission aimed at paving 'paths to peace' in Ukraine Ukraine-Russia war – live: Kyiv denies Putin has taken Bakhmut but warns ‘situation is critical’ G7 allies to set up team to counter Russia and China’s use of economic coercion Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

As Texas bakes under a sweltering heat dome, the power has stayed on and prices haven't spiked tremendously. Thank wind and solar, energy experts say.

Conspiracy theorists are suggesting Democratic Senator John Fetterman has been replaced by a body double, and Fetterman had the funniest response. The past week many conspiracy theorists have begun baselessly suggesting that Sen. Fetterman has been replaced with a body double or cloned. Theories have been posted across social media, with some claiming that Fetterman's tattoos have "disappeared", thus he has been replaced. Others claim he looks different in a range of photos, of course meaning the only explanation can be a body double. There seem to be a few reasons as to why conspiracy theorists believed Fetterman has been replaced. One is due to the change in facial hair, which has apparently completely stumped theorists: Others are claiming that the symptoms of his stroke which he suffered last year have suddenly disappeared, rather than being the result of speech therapy: Others have also falsely claimed that his tattoos have 'disappeared', when in reality they are just on a different part of his arm than the photo they used: There is, of course, no evidence to suggest that Fetterman has been replaced by a body double. Fetterman responded to the bizarre claims by joking they the theories are "all true" when speaking to reporters on Tuesday. He called himself "Senator Guy Incognito," referring to a Simpsons character that is a doppelgänger of Homer Simpson. In an even funnier move, Fetterman has begun selling t-shirt's with "John Fetterman's Body Double" written on them. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

In audio intercepts from the front lines in Ukraine, Russian soldiers speak in shorthand of 200s to mean dead, 300s to mean wounded. The urge to flee has become common enough that they also talk of 500s — people who refuse to fight. As the war grinds into its second winter, a growing number of Russian soldiers want out, as suggested in secret recordings obtained by The Associated Press of Russian soldiers calling home from the battlefields of the Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions in Ukraine. The calls offer a rare glimpse of the war as it looked through Russian eyes — a point of view that seldom makes its way into Western media, largely because Russia has made it a crime to speak honestly about the conflict in Ukraine. They also show clearly how the war has progressed, from the professional soldiers who initially powered Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion to men from all walks of life compelled to serve in grueling conditions. “There’s no f------ ‘dying the death of the brave’ here,” one soldier told his brother from the front in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. “You just die like a f------ earthworm.” The prospect of another wave of mobilization lingers, even as Moscow has been trying to lure people into signing contracts with the military. Russia’s annual autumn conscription draft kicked off in October, pulling in some 130,000 fresh young men. Though Moscow says conscripts won’t be sent to Ukraine, after a year of service they automatically become reservists — prime candidates for mobilization. The AP verified the identities of people in the calls by speaking with relatives and soldiers — some of whom are still at war in Ukraine — and researching open-source material linked to the phone numbers used by the soldiers. The conversations, picked up in January 2023 — some from near the longest and deadliest fight in Bakhmut — have been edited for length and clarity. Names have been omitted to protect the soldiers and their relatives. The voices in these calls are of men who didn’t or couldn’t flee mobilization. Some had no money, no education and no options. Others believed in patriotic duty. One worked in a meat processing plant, cutting bone. Another worked at a law firm. A third, who worked as a roofer and later at a supermarket company, had a string of debts and had defaulted on his utilities payments, records show. It is hard to say how representative these calls are of sentiment in Russia’s armed forces, but their desperation is matched by a spike in legal cases against soldiers in Russia who refuse to fight. What’s happening in Ukraine is “simply genocide,” the soldier in Kharkiv told his brother. “If this s--- doesn’t stop, then soon we’ll be leading the Ukrainians to the Kremlin ourselves,” he said. “This is just a huge testing ground, where the whole world is testing their weapons, f--- it, and sizing up their d----,” he went on. "That’s all.” But there are other voices, too, of men who remain committed to the fight. “As long as we are needed here, we will carry out our task,” a soldier named Artyom told AP from eastern Ukraine at the end of May, where he’d been stationed for eight months without break. “Just stop asking me these stupid questions.” The Kremlin and Russian Ministry of Defense did not respond to requests for comment. SOLDIER: ‘BONES, TEARS — ALL THE SAME, THEY ARE THE SAME AS WE ARE’ When he finally got to go home, it came at a terrible price: his brother’s life. Nicknamed “Crazy Professor” because of his disheveled hair, he was swept up in the first days of Russia’s September 2022 draft. The soldier said he was assured that he wouldn’t see combat and would get to go home every six months. Neither turned out to be true. After a few weeks of training, the Professor was sent to the front line near Bakhmut as a mortarman. He wanted out almost immediately. He was ill-equipped, at least compared to the well-camouflaged Wagner soldiers wandering around. “They have night vision and automatic rifles with cool silencers. I have an automatic rifle from 1986 or hell knows what year,” he told his brother in a January phone call. It was his job to aim, but the Russian army’s coordinates were so sloppy that soldiers ended up killing each other. The Professor said his commander instructed them not to kill civilians, but who was a civilian and who was a combatant? Even a kid could carry a grenade, he told his brother. Where did the mortars he fired land? Had he killed children? The worst was when he was out with young guys in his unit. There was just a strip of woods between them and the Ukrainians. “I imagined that there, on the other side, there could be young people just like us. And they have their whole lives ahead of them,” he told AP in June. “Bones, tears — all the same, they are the same as we are.” The Professor told himself he didn’t really have a choice: Either fire the mortar or face criminal charges and end up in a pit or a prison. “If you don’t like something, if you refuse to do something, you’re considered a refusenik," he told AP. "That is, you’re a ‘500’ right away. … So we had to follow orders. Whether we wanted to or not.” The Professor never thought he’d be a refusenik one day too. ___ The Professor: The worst thing is that there might even be children there, you know. Brother: And what can you do. … You have your orders. … It seems to me that if it had been voluntary, you wouldn’t have gone. The Professor: You know, I’m glad about that. Plus, we did such a good job that they gave us a car. The downside is, you know, how many lives were ruined for the sake of a car? Brother: Not of your own free will. The Professor: I’m already so tired. Brother: I believe it. Time to come home. I wish you could come home. Not so that you could home but so that all of this could be over already. ___ In the spring, as the Professor’s brothers drove down a road outside their hometown in Russia, a car made a U-turn into the side of their vehicle, sending it spinning as a semi bore down on them. One brother was killed. Another survived but now cannot walk, family members told AP. Desperate to go home to bury his brother, the Professor said he got approval from his commander for a 10-day leave. Military police in Russian-controlled territory in Luhansk let him through, he said, and he paid for his own taxi ride home. Once he got back to Russia, however, he was told he didn’t have the right paperwork. Not long after the funeral, the Professor got a message from his commanding officer: “What is happening there? Are you going to come back or stay there?” “I’ll collect the documents, and then we’ll decide everything,” he wrote back. Two hours later, around midnight, his commander responded: “I’m reporting you as AWOL, unauthorized abandonment of the unit. It was nice fighting together.” Now he faces up to 10 years in prison. He hired a lawyer. Months into a 10-day leave, he can’t even apply for an extension to legalize his stay and help his family because he doesn’t have the right documents. He said his brother can move around on his arms and mostly get into his wheelchair by himself, but can't function independently. People from the military came to his home, he said. Terrified they’d arrest him if he went outside, he passed documents attesting to the dire state of his family’s health to them through the window. His lawyer told him to look on the bright side. “You are the only, well, how do I put this … at least, you’re the only healthy person here.” His mother is at the end of her endurance. “I write everywhere, I call everywhere, too. Because he was told that he has to return to his unit,” his mother told AP. “But how can he leave his brother? I have no one.” Now, the Professor has visions of dead people. They stare back at him. He can almost hear them walking nearby. Sometimes he bolts awake at night, sweating, or dives under the covers at the sound of a whistle. He wants his old life back, that sweet time he had with his wife and baby. He has picked up some roofing work at construction sites, and his neighbor proposed a new side job: digging graves. ARTYOM: 'EVERYBODY'S F------ MAD, F------ GLOOMY AS HELL' Artyom left behind a string of debts in Russia. Things got even worse in Ukraine, where it was so cold he couldn’t wash his underwear and his lighter kept freezing. “It’s not like I’m having any f------ fun here, day in day out. It’s been f------ four months already,” he told his wife in January. “Everybody’s f------ mad, f------ gloomy as hell.” It was New Year’s Day, and the Russians were getting bombarded by Ukrainians and not even firing back, he said. “Yesterday we were f------ bombarded, for f---’s sake, we didn’t even get a single shell out, not a single f------ shell,” he told his wife. The war seemed senseless to him. Why wasn’t Putin satisfied with Crimea? What business did they have trying to take Kharkiv and Kyiv? Why was everyone lying about how great things were at the front? No one was saying the one thing he wanted to hear: that he could go home. ___ Artyom: Yesterday we were listening to the radio and someone f------ said, “the situation with mobilized soldiers is f------ wonderful.” I don’t know who the f------ idiot is who said that. “Only five thousand people died.” Wife: Mhm. Of course. Artyom: F------ s---heads. I think half of them are probably gone at this point. Wife: Right. Artyom: Five thousand people my ass. ___ Artyom doesn’t have much sympathy for draft dodgers and deserters, though he can see the wisdom in making a run for it. “That’s what you have to do, given the chance,” he told his wife. “This is not the best f------ place to be … But then they’re gonna say you’re a f------ freak who ran away. I don’t f------ need that.” He told her he’ll stay put and follow orders. “If God wills it so that you’re gonna f------ die, you’re gonna f------ die, can’t do much about it.” The AP reached Artyom by phone at the end of May. He was still in eastern Ukraine, where he’d been serving for eight months without break. Artyom said he’d been “a little worn out mentally” when he was speaking with his wife. He said he loved his family before the war and loved them even more now. He regrets he didn’t spend more time with them. “I have to save the guys who are with me in the trenches — and myself,” he said. “That’s what I want to do. And to put down the Ukrainians faster and go home.” ROMAN: ‘I ALREADY FEEL MORE PITY SHOOTING A BIRD THAN A PERSON’ After two months on the front lines north of Bakhmut, Roman had some advice for his friend and former colleague back in Russia: Avoid this war any way you can. “I’m telling you honestly, if there’s even a slight chance, get exempted from service. But if the summons comes for mobilization, f--- it to hell. Join Wagner or the contract soldiers, or wherever you can. God forbid the mobilized. The mobilized are the lowest.” Roman explained that professional contract soldiers are taken care of: They get to go on leave, launder their clothes and bathe. They don’t have to struggle for food and water. Meanwhile, mobilized soldiers like him are shoved in trenches with men from all walks of life, some of whom don’t even know how to hold guns. They never get to leave, and their commanders — “weak wusses,” he says — aren’t much help. He’s had to buy night vision goggles with his own money. There’s not enough to eat and no clean drinking water. Soldiers are licking at snowflakes and scooping up rainwater to drink. He said he lost 30 kilos (over 60 pounds). The diarrhea hasn’t helped. “It came to the point that there were puddles, it had rained, and the guys scooped up all the puddles and drank,” Roman told his friend. “Snow fell, f------ s---, and the snow didn’t even reach the ground, the guys caught it and ate it.” When he arrived in Ukraine in November 2022, Roman was part of a unit of 100 men. By early January, about a third were gone. Roman said he’s been lucky twice. Once he got food poisoning and stayed back while a group of scouts went out. They never came back. Another time, he was carrying water and tripped and fell just as a shell landed, killing others nearby. Surrounded by a horseshoe of Ukrainian troops, Roman said it was like being on the tip of a toilet seat, in constant fear that their supply lines, thin as they were, would get cut off. Roman had to scoop a man’s guts back into his body — an act that didn’t save the guy’s life. Another time, he went out to defecate in a field, and tanks started firing around him. He just kept squatting till he was done. After two months of living like this, so scared you’ll shoot at the softest sound in the dark, even the strongest minds started to fray. “We survive because we are on edge all the time,” he said. “Even guys from our own side don’t come close, especially at night. When we are on duty, we warn everyone that we will shoot at anything that rustles.” Roman said his cousin was killed by a shell that took out a dozen soldiers. His family managed to get his body — or at least half of his body — back to Russia, but the other 11 soldiers lay unclaimed in Ukraine. It wasn’t just the killing that did people in, it was the sense that they’d been forgotten. ___ Roman: Our group is made up of guys who are sufficiently strong, morally, and guys like that. It was the first wave. Guys came together who are sufficiently patriotic, roughly speaking, who knew what it was to fight. After two months, they start to lose it. For many of them, their psyche was broken. Friend: Yeah, I understand, all of the killing of course. Roman: Yes, the killing is everywhere. A f------ lot of corpses. Some were stabbed with a knife, but that’s not the point. Psyches are not broken because of this. These are people who are professionals, it’s our national army, these professionals come to our position. ‘F---, it’s f----- up here.’ They turn around and leave. That is, they are replaced, they have rotation, they are given leave, their clothes are washed and ironed, they wash in the bathhouse, they have no problem with food, they have no problem with water. It’s not like this for us. It once came to the point that there were puddles, it had rained, and the guys scooped up all the puddles and drank. ___ The “depressing, horrible” panic that attacked him at the beginning of his tour has subsided. The calls home help. One night, Roman got pulled into a special mission. They snuck into a Ukrainian dugout, knives drawn, hacked up a bunch of men and captured a Ukrainian officer for questioning. Death was everywhere, on both sides of the front. “F---, I already feel more pity shooting a bird than a person," Roman told his friend. Contacted by the AP, both men declined to comment. ANDREI: ‘THE MOBILIZED ARE NOT CONSIDERED HUMANS’ After four months in Ukraine, Andrei concluded that his life meant nothing to Moscow. Called up for military service from a small town in Russia’s far east, he soon found himself in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province, on the southern approach to Bakhmut. Andrei’s unit was taking heavy losses, and no one was even shooting back at the Ukrainians, he said. People were dying from friendly fire. Mobilized men like him were being forced to sign contracts. “The mobilized are not considered humans,” he told his mother. “No one gives a damn about us. They think that for 200,000 (rubles) we should die here.” Mutiny was in the air. ___ Andrei: Our boys are dying for nothing. It’s nonsense, I tell you. This is not a war at all. When I come back, I’ll tell you what’s going on here. It’s all bull----. I’m telling you, our boys are dying, going 300, and no one even shoots back. It’s all nonsense. Our artillery is hammering our own dugouts, not theirs. What is that? Mother: What for? Andrei: They, like, miss the mark. … Here, if they don’t get you, your own will. Mother: (Inaudible) Andrei: I’m telling you, you just start going nuts here, like everything pisses you off. Because you can’t do s--- about it. Nobody gives a s---. It’s a half year and that’s it. F--- them. If they don’t relieve us, if they don’t pull us out, the whole company will just walk away. They can’t put a crowd of 100 people on trial. Mother: They have no right to keep you longer. Andrei: No one gives a damn here. We were told the other day that they forgot about us a little bit here. But they didn’t just forget about us — they f----- us. ___ Mobilized soldiers like him are treated worst of all, he told his mom. They’re not allowed to leave — even if they get injured — because commanders fear they’ll never come back. ___ Andrei: Well, our guys are getting killed in droves. Mother: Judging by what I — Andrei: I’m telling you. In droves from our side. If a contract soldier is wounded, he’s sent home. If a mobilized soldier is wounded, they treat him, patch him up a bit, and tell him to go the f--- back, why the hell are you dodging? All in all, if you get sick here, you will not be sent home. They won’t give a damn, and you’ll die in this pit where you live in. You can’t get sick here at all. Mother: Better not get sick. (Inaudible) Andrei: This is how s--- works here. As long as you are useful, they like know who you are. And when you become useless, then nobody needs you. They forget about you. ___ He said the only reason he’s still alive is luck and regrets finding himself at war. “This is my only mistake in life,” he said. “I will not fall into the same trap twice.” “God gives you one chance,” his mother responded. “God willing, you’ll come home.” In September, Andrei’s mother told AP her son was home, keeping himself busy with his family and collecting pine cones from the taiga. She said she was born in Ukraine and her mother still lives there. She said it pains her that Ukraine is now filled with “traitors and fascists.” “I hate your current rulers,” she said. “Are you blind or stupid? Or can’t you see that there are no normal people? Or do you want your children to turn into monkeys, like in America? What is this? I don’t recognize my homeland, where I was born and went to school.” ___ AP reporters Lynn Berry in Washington and Alla Konstantinova in Vilnius, Lithuania, contributed to this report. Students from the Russian translation and interpretation program at Middlebury Institute of International Studies also contributed to this report. ___ More AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine Read More Ukraine and the Western Balkans top Blinken agenda for NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels More than half a million people left without power in Crimea, Russia and Ukraine after huge storm North Korea restores border guard posts amid rising tensions over its satellite launch, Seoul says Three dead as first heavy snowfall and blizzards of winter hit eastern Europe Russia forced to move air defences from Kaliningrad to Ukraine front after losses Ukraine is shipping more grain through the Black Sea despite threat from Russia

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Donald Tusk hailed a new era for Poland after liberal, pro-EU opposition parties appeared poised to oust the governing conservative party in the nation’s most pivotal election in decades. A late exit poll by Ipsos published on Monday afternoon gave incumbent Law and Justice (PiS) 36.1% of the vote, which would translate into 196 seats in the lower house of parliament. Opposition parties led by Mr Tusk’s liberal Civic Coalition (KO), were projected to win a combined 249 seats based on the highest turnout since the fall of communism in 1989. In Wroclaw, polling queues were so long that voting continued until nearly 3am. PiS repeatedly clashed with the EU over the rule of law, media freedom, migration and LGBT rights since it swept to power in 2015. KO, along with New Left and the centre-right Third Way, have pledged to mend ties with Brussels and scrap reforms they say have eroded Polish democracy. Mr Tusk, a former prime minister and European Council president, told supporters: “Poland won. Democracy has won. We have removed them from power. “I have been a politician for many years. I’m an athlete. Never in my life have I been so happy about taking second place.” Polish financial markets surged on the prospect of a government led by Mr Tusk. The blue-chip WIG 20 share index was up 6.2% at lunchtime, while the zloty currency was 1.3% stronger. But even if the exit polls prove accurate, Mr Tusk and his allies may have to wait weeks or even months before getting a turn at forming a government. President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, has said he would give the winning party the first chance at forming a coalition. PiS won more votes than any single party and said it would try to build a new government led by prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki. But the leader of the agrarian PSL party, a frequent kingmaker in past governments, ruled out cooperating with PiS after running with the Third Way coalition. “Those who voted for us want change, want a change of government, want PiS removed from power,” said Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Poland’s election had not been entirely free and fair. “The ruling party enjoyed a clear advantage through its undue influence over the use of state resources and public media,” said Pia Kauma, head of the OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly. Turnout among 18-29 year olds jumped to 71% from 46% in the last parliamentary election in 2019, according to Ipsos. In an aggressive campaign, PiS had cast the election as a choice between uncontrolled illegal migration under the rule of leaders it said were beholden to foreign interests and a government that would protect Poland’s borders and traditions. However, PiS faced accusations of democratic backsliding and undermining women’s rights after the government enforced a near-total abortion ban in 2021. PiS was also accused of using lucrative positions in state-controlled firms to reward supporters. “I expect that women will now have more rights, that they will feel safer,” said Iga Frackiewicz, 43, a banking administrator. “I also hope that nepotism will end, for example in state companies and in other places.” The outcome could also affect ties with neighbouring Ukraine, which Poland has been supporting in the war against Russia’s aggression. Good relations soured in September over Ukraine grain entering and affecting Poland’s market. Read More Poland waits for final election result after ruling party and opposition claim a win Ada Sagi was already dealing with the pain of loss. Then war came to her door Police in Warsaw seal off a large square after a man climbs a monument and reportedly makes threats The AP Interview: EU President Michel warns about spillover of Israel-Hamas war into Europe Parties running in Poland's Sunday parliamentary election hold final campaign rallies Germany is aiming to ease deportations as the government faces intense pressure on migration

Caitlin Clark scored 29 points and moved into the top 20 of Division I’s all-time scoring list, and No. 5 Iowa eased past Purdue Fort Wayne 98-59 in the quarterfinals of the Gulf Coast Showcase on Friday night

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Liverpool have agreed a British record transfer fee in the region of £110million for Moises Caicedo as the Reds look to shore up their midfield on the eve of the new season. The 21-year-old has been on Chelsea’s radar and the Blues – who will take on Liverpool in both sides’ Premier League opener on Sunday – were thought of as front-runners to sign the Ecuador international. But Brighton have held firm in their valuation of a player who joined them for just £4m from Ecuadorian side Independiente del Valle two years ago and now the Reds are now poised to sweep in. The PA news agency understands Liverpool, who are aiming to reinforce their options in the middle of the park following the departures of Jordan Henderson and Fabinho this summer, will pay upwards of the previous British record fee of £107m that Chelsea forked out for Enzo Fernandez in January. The fee for Caicedo dwarfs Liverpool’s own transfer record of £75m, which they paid Southampton for defender Virgil van Dijk in January 2018. Should Caicedo complete the move, he will be reunited with fellow midfielder Alexis Mac Allister, the Argentinian World Cup winner who left the Seagulls for Anfield in June. Liverpool have also signed Dominik Szoboszlai from RB Leipzig this summer after the departures of Henderson and Fabinho to Saudi Arabian clubs Al-Ettifaq and Al-Ittihad respectively. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

Buildings are lit blue and white in a show of support following violence in Israel and Gaza.