Five people have been injured, two of them seriously, after a driver “deliberately” mowed down pedestrians and cyclists on a small French island off the Atlantic coast, prosecutors say.
The incident happened around 9am local time (8:00 GMT) on Wednesday at the tourist hot spot of Ile d’Oleron, when the motorist smashed into people multiple times along a main road over the course of 35 minutes, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said from the scene.
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The alleged driver was arrested and is being investigated for attempted murder, Nunez said. Local media identified him as a 35-year-old French national living in a nearby fishing community.
Earlier in the day, prosecutor Arnaud Laraize said the suspect shouted “God is the greatest” in Arabic when he was arrested. Nunez told reporters the case is not being investigated for “terrorism”.
The sleepy isle of Oleron – home to about 21,000 full-time residents – was left reeling on Wednesday afternoon as two helicopters ferried the seriously injured victims to the mainland and a crisis centre was set up.
“We are extremely shocked,” Thibault Brechkoff, mayor of the island’s Dolus d’Oleron commune, told BFM-TV, adding that he personally contacted the mother of one of the victims.
“You’re never prepared to announce news like this,” he said.
Officials gave differing injury counts, but Nunez confirmed that one 22-year-old woman received multiple traumas. Others were treated for a range of injuries and psychological shock, officials said.
The mayor of nearby Saint-Pierre-d’Oleron, Christophe Sueur, told the Associated Press news agency that the driver was “fully aware of what he was doing”.
Another source told the AFP news agency that police used a taser to arrest the suspect as he set his car on fire.
Actress and model Nicola Peltz has gushed over her own family as she issued another snub to her in-laws following her husband Brooklyn’s dad David’s knighthood
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Nicola Peltz and husband Brooklyn Beckham have been locked in a ‘feud’ with his family(Image: Instagram)
Nicola Peltz has issued another blow to her famous in-laws as she continues to distance herself from her husband Brooklyn’s family. The actress and Brooklyn were once tight knit with the Beckham clan, having attended countless family events and public appearances together.
However, rumours of a rift swirled earlier this year when Brooklyn and Nicola skipped his dad David Beckham’s 50th birthday celebrations. They have not been seen with David and Victoria since Christmas last year and have stopped interacting with each other on social media.
In a tough blow for the Beckhams, Brooklyn and Nicola renewed their vows this summer with just her family present. Now, the couple have dealt another swipe as they failed to celebrate David’s long awaited knighthood. The football icon was officially made a Sir by King Charles on Tuesday in a ceremony at Windsor Castle. He celebrated with Victoria as well as their children Romeo, Cruz and Harper.
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Sadly, Brooklyn was the only one missing from the once in a lifetime moment, which has done little to quash the feud rumours. Hours after David’s celebration, Nicola returned to social media where she gushed over her own family, but offered no congratulations over the honour.
She shared a photo of a bunch of flowers sent to her by her sister Brittany. Alongside the post, Nicola said: “Omg @brittanyleahpeltz thank you so so so much these are breathtaking.”
Brooklyn has also failed to acknowledge his dad’s achievement on social media, while brothers Romeo and Cruz shared their own sweet tributes. Model Romeo shared photos from the big day as he wrote: “No one deserves this more than you, love you so much xxx. Congrats Sir dad @davidbeckham.”
Reports have claimed Nicola is still ‘not ready’ to make peace with her in-laws, despite David attempting to reach out to her and Brooklyn since June. Victoria is also said to be trying to make peace with her son and his wife.
However, all attempts at a truce have fallen flat so far. “Nicola’s not ready to make nice,” the source revealed. It has been claimed the fallout first stemmed from Nicola and Brooklyn’s 2022 wedding.
Nicola allegedly refused to wear a wedding gown designed by her mother-in-law Victoria. The actress-model told Variety in 2022 that she wanted Victoria to design her bridal gown, but months before her big day, Victoria realised ‘her atelier couldn’t do it.’
She decided to walk down the aisle in a Valentino couture dress instead. “She didn’t say you can’t wear it; I didn’t say I didn’t want to wear it. That’s where it started, and then they ran with that,” Nicola said of the feud origin.
Brooklyn has continued to stand by his wife amid the reports and issued a defiant message earlier this year. Posting a video of him and Nicola riding on a motorbike through Los Angeles, he gushed: “My whole world x I will love you forever x I always choose you baby x you’re the most amazing person I know xx me and you forever baby.”
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She is reportedly going to be hosting the BBC’s Saturday night juggernaut, but first, she flew to Florida for a few beers.
As Strictly Come Dancing rumors intensify, Holly Willoughby has revealed to fans what she did during her most recent trip to Florida. The 44-year-old TV star spent half-term in Orlando with her family and close friends, swapping British autumn drizzle for roller coasters, Disney castles, and cocktails.
The mother-of-three gushed about an “epic” trip on Instagram, saying there was “nothing better than family time and making the best memories together” with plenty of butterbeer and margaritas.
Sophie Hurcom, BBC Sport England and Paul Furley, BBC Radio Gloucestershire
England and Gloucester-Hartpury centre Tatyana Heard says she has never “felt more free”, having returned to her club as a World Cup winner.
The 30-year-old has been a constant in the Red Roses midfield in recent years and played in five of their six matches matches during the World Cup, including 65 minutes of the final, as England were crowned world champions.
She has since started both of Gloucester-Hartpury’s matches of the new Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) campaign, against Saracens and Exeter Chiefs, the latter in which she scored a hat-trick.
“It [the World Cup] was exceptional, the biggest dream come true, and it’s an interesting one, I’ve just achieved my biggest dream but then to come back into the PWR I’ve had a realisation that I can just chill out,” Heard told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.
“I don’t know why I was so stressed. I don’t know why I was so uptight for the past three or four years, trying to perform at my best and trying to peak at the right time.
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Heard, who has 36 international caps, is one of Gloucester-Hartpury’s longest-serving players, and has been a key cog in their trio of PWR title wins in the past three years.
In June, Heard signed a new deal to extend her stay with the club she joined in 2017.
She made her England debut in 2018 and was part of the side that reached the World Cup final in 2021 before winning the Six Nations in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
While Heard said she “loved every moment” of playing in a home World Cup this summer, she believed she did not play at her best, despite putting pressure on herself to do so.
“I wouldn’t say that I performed at my best in the World Cup, so to come away from it and wonder why I put that pressure on to not get the outcome I necessarily wanted in terms of performance is an interesting one,” she said.
“We still won a medal and the performance doesn’t really matter at the end of the day, nobody cares who played well in the final as long as you come out with the medal.”
Heard added that the realisation has shifted her perspective.
“I’ve been saying to the girls I’ve never felt more free in my life,” she said.
Residents of the central Philippines have slowly begun cleanup efforts after powerful Typhoon Kalmaegi swept through the region, killing at least 85 people and leaving dozens missing.
Scenes of widescale destruction emerged in the hard-hit province of Cebu on Wednesday as the storm receded, revealing ravaged homes, overturned vehicles and streets blocked with piles of debris.
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Among the 85 deaths were six military personnel whose helicopter crashed in Agusan del Sur on the island of Mindanao during a humanitarian mission. The country’s disaster agency also reported 75 people missing, and 17 injured.
In Cebu City, Marlon Enriquez, 58, was trying to salvage what was left of his family’s belongings as he scraped off the thick mud coating his house.
“This was the first time that has happened to us,” he told the Reuters news agency. “I’ve been living here for almost 16 years, and it was the first time I’ve experienced flooding [like this].”
Residents rebuild their damaged houses in Talisay, Cebu province, on November 5, 2025 [Jam Sta Rosa/AFP]
Another resident, 53-year-old Reynaldo Vergara, said his small shop in the city of Mandaue, also in Cebu province, had been lost when a nearby river overflowed.
“Around four or five in the morning, the water was so strong that you couldn’t even step outside,” he told the AFP news agency. “Nothing like this has ever happened. The water was raging.”
The storm hit as Cebu province was still recovering from a 6.9-magnitude earthquake last month that killed dozens of people and displaced thousands.
The area around Cebu City was deluged with 183mm (seven inches) of rain in the 24 hours before Kalmaegi’s landfall, well over its 131mm (five-inch) monthly average, according to weather specialist Charmagne Varilla.
Residents clean up their damaged houses in Talisay, Cebu province on November 5, 2025 [Jam Sta Rosa/AFP]
The massive rainfall set off flash floods and caused a river and other waterways to swell. More than 200,000 people were evacuated across the wider Visayas region, which includes Cebu Island and parts of southern Luzon and northern Mindanao.
Before noon on Wednesday, Kalmaegi blew away from western Palawan province into the South China Sea with sustained winds of up to 130km per hour (81 miles per hour) and gusts of up to 180km/h (112mph), according to forecasters.
The storm is forecast to gain strength while over the South China Sea before making its way to Vietnam, where preparations are under way in advance of Kalmaegi’s expected landfall on Friday.
Zohran Mamdani’s stunning victory in New York City’s mayoral race was built on a promise of hope and political change, a message that is resonating loudly with the people in Uganda, where he was born.
The 34-year-old leftist’s decisive win in the United States’ largest metropolis on Wednesday was celebrated by many in Uganda’s capital Kampala, the city where Mamdani was born in 1991.
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For many Ugandans, the unlikely rise of Mamdani – a young Muslim with roots in Africa and South Asia – in the world’s most powerful democracy carries an inspirational message in a country where an authoritarian leader has been ruling since even before Mamdani was born.
Uganda’s 81-year-old President Yoweri Museveni is seeking a seventh term in January elections as he looks to extend his nearly 40-year rule. He has rejected calls to retire, leading to fears of a volatile political transition.
“It’s a big encouragement even to us here in Uganda that it’s possible,” Joel Ssenyonyi, a 38-year-old opposition leader in the Parliament of Uganda, told The Associated Press.
He said that while Ugandans, who are facing repressive political conditions, had “a long way to get there”, Mamdani’s success “inspires us”.
Ugandan opposition politician Joel Ssenyonyi [File: Luke Dray/Getty Images]
Mamdani left Uganda when he was five to follow his father, political theorist Mahmood Mamdani, to South Africa, and later moved to the US. He kept his Ugandan citizenship even after he became a naturalised US citizen in 2018, according to AP.
The family maintains a home in Kampala, to which they regularly return and visited earlier this year to celebrate Mamdani’s marriage.
‘We celebrate and draw strength’
While Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, has vowed to tackle inequality and push back against the xenophobic rhetoric of US President Donald Trump, opposition politicians in Uganda face different challenges.
Museveni has been cracking down on his opponents ahead of next year’s elections, as he has in the lead-up to previous polls.
In November last year, veteran opposition figure Kizza Besigye, who has stood against Museveni in four elections, and his aide, Obeid Lutale, were abducted in Nairobi, Kenya, before being arraigned in a military court in Kampala on treason charges. The pair have since repeatedly been denied bail, despite concerns raised by the United Nations’ human rights officials.
Other opposition figures have also faced crackdowns.
Tens of supporters of the National Unity Platform (NUP) party, led by 43-year-old entertainer Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine, have been convicted by Uganda’s military courts for various offences.
“From Uganda, we celebrate and draw strength from your example as we work to build a country where every citizen can realise their grandest dreams regardless of means and background,” Wine wrote on X as he sent his “hearty congratulations” to Mamdani.
Robert Kabushenga, a retired Ugandan media executive who is friendly with the Mamdani family, told AP that Mamdani’s win was “a beacon of hope” for those fighting for change in Uganda, especially the younger generations.
Describing the new mayor-elect as belonging to “a tradition of very honest and clear thinkers who are willing to reimagine … politics”, Kabushenga said Mamdani’s victory underlined that “we should allow young people the opportunity to shape, and participate in, politics in a meaningful way”.
Okello Ogwang, an academic who once worked with Mamdani’s father at Kampala’s Makerere University, said his son’s success was an instructive reminder to Uganda “that we should invest in the youth”.
“He’s coming from here,” he said. “If we don’t invest in our youth, we are wasting our time.”
Anthony Kirabo, a 22-year-old psychology student at Makerere University, said Mamdani’s win “makes me feel good and proud of my country because it shows that Uganda can produce some good leaders”.
