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Authorities at Vincenzo Bellini Airport said on Friday that flights will remain suspended until at least 2pm local time (12:00 GMT) on Saturday, with ash from the volcano causing the greatest disruption the airport has seen in more than two decades.

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Mount Etna’s eruption led to the cancellation of more than a third of the 1,974 flights between Thursday of last week and Wednesday of this week. Another 600 flights were diverted during the same period.

The volcano is Europe’s tallest and most active and has renewed questions about whether having a key airport nearby makes sense. Catania is located 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of the volcano.

Hundreds of passengers are waiting for flights that have been cancelled or delayed during the busiest travel week of the year. People planning to travel through Catania on Saturday have been contacting airlines to see whether their flights will still be running.

“We were due to leave on Wednesday, but our flight was cancelled; then they rescheduled it for Friday. Now that one’s been cancelled too,” Antonella Thirande Warnakulasuriya Costa, who is travelling to Sri Lanka via Dubai, told Reuters.

Catania airport usually handles at least 40,000 passengers a day. According to local media, about 300 passengers were waiting on Thursday evening to be transferred to another airport.

The ash from Mount Etna has not only affected Europeans; it has reached as far as North Africa.

The pause in flights has led the Italian train company Trenitalia to add six additional trains to the Palermo-Messina-Catania route.

Passengers can usually claim compensation if their travel plans are severely disrupted, but volcanic eruptions tend to come under what is known as extraordinary circumstances, meaning airlines are not legally obliged to compensate. %!s()

Prime Minister Andy Burnham told members of the public to take the warning "seriously", adding it was triggered at the request of firefighters.

West Midlands Fire Service chief fire officer Simon Tuhill said the Stourbridge blaze was one of the most significant incidents the service had ever dealt with.

It was one of several fires being dealt with across England and Wales on Friday.

• In Wales, a major incident was declared near Llandovery, Carmarthenshire, after dozens of homes were evacuated and roads closed

• In Hampshire, firefighters spent a sixth day tackling a wildfire in the New Forest, Hampshire, which broke out on Sunday.

• Sixteen emergencies were tackled by Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service on Thursday afternoon, including a fire at Mousehold Heath, off Gurney Road in the city.

• Elsewhere in the West Midlands fires caused extensive damage in Warstock and Kings Norton, Birmingham on Thursday. A 55-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life .

• In Stoke-on-Trent on Thursday four homes in Sandyford were destroyed, with other properties damaged. Two people were arrested on suspicion of arson. Six firefighters were taken to hospital due to smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion.

• In Willenhall, West Midlands, at least three homes and several gardens were destroyed in fires on Stonehouse Avenue and Harry Perks Street.

Investigators said they were working with other emergency services to establish how the Stourbridge fire started, with police saying they were keeping an open mind.

Some of the worst-affected areas have been cordoned off and many residents who were evacuated, including the Bishop of Dudley, the Right Reverand Martin Gorick, have not been able to return home. %!s()

Jason Arday, 41, was found unresponsive at a south London address on Friday, according to British media reports citing authorities.

London’s Met Police said in a statement, “At this time his death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious.”

Cambridge University vice-chancellor Professor Deborah Prentice said she was “desperately saddened” to hear news of Arday’s death.

The news comes just nine days after Arday resigned as a professor and fellow of Jesus College at the University of Cambridge, having been the youngest Black professor in the school’s history when he was appointed in 2023.

The sociology professor’s resignation followed several investigative articles into his academic work and personal life, as well as allegations that he plagiarised parts of his doctoral thesis.

In a statement released after his death, Arday’s family criticised a “campaign of harassment” that had targeted the academic.

“The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone. We are in shock to have lost this amazing father, partner, brother, uncle and son,” said the statement, released via his publisher Simon & Schuster late on Friday.

‘Personal cost’ of scrutiny

On July 24, British newspaper The Times of London published an analysis of Arday’s 2015 PhD thesis highlighting what it said were multiple examples of passages that were “identical or near-identical” to an earlier paper written by another researcher.

The British media also raised questions about Arday’s claims that he had raised 5.5 million pounds ($7.4m) for charity through feats such as running 30 marathons in 35 days and 965 kilometres (600 miles) in six days.

Arday had admitted to making mistakes, but he said he was being wrongly “portrayed to be a liar and a fantasist and an academic fraud”.

Announcing his resignation last week, he said the “personal cost” of the scrutiny of him had become “too great”.

“While criticism is an inevitable part of academic life, what I have experienced has gone far beyond scholarly disagreement,” he said.

Cambridge University initially dismissed claims of plagiarism made against Arday by a former colleague because they had already been investigated by Liverpool John Moores University. However, last week Cambridge said it would carry out an independent investigation into Arday’s appointment.

Glasgow University also announced a review into Arday’s previous academic work.

Arday’s new memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, was recently released in the United States and is set to be published in the United Kingdom later this month. The book, which details Arday’s childhood difficulties with autism and his later success, has also attracted scrutiny, but publisher Simon & Schuster has insisted that “no allegations of plagiarism have been made with respect” to it. %!s()

The 37-year-old from Brentwood said smoke entered the rear carriage and led to "panicked" people running in fear.

There was also confusion at Southend Airport, which is on the affected train line.

"Many passengers can't get to their onward destinations from the railway station here," said BBC Essex reporter Matt Knight, who had, himself, just landed from holiday.

An air ambulance landed close to the scene off Salcott Crescent as a precaution, alongside police, firefighters and paramedics.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) also deployed a team of investigators to gather evidence.

Martin Frobisher, of Network Rail, said the summer's hot weather had "presented exceptional challenges to the railway".

In an interview with the BBC Transport Correspondent Katy Austin, Frobisher also confirmed speed restrictions were not in place in either Wickford or Lewes.

On the possible impact of the hot weather, he said "yes, that's one of the things that we're looking at.

"We've got our investigations underway. We've got technical engineers on site, our best experts who are on site with the Rail Accident Investigation Branch.

"They're looking very thoroughly at what's happened. And based on that, we will act on what we learn."

However, he added it was "too early to speculate on the full findings".

The investigation would specifically assess "whether or not this was weather-related", said Mark Francois, the Conservative MP for Rayleigh and Wickford.

The Department for Transport stressed Britain's railways were "among the safest in the world" as it reacted to the incident.

It said derailments were "incredibly rare" events.

An East of England Ambulance Service spokesperson said: "Our crews assessed 62 patients who were on board the train.

"Following assessment, all patients were discharged at the scene.

"We also assisted with the evacuation of a second train that was unable to continue its journey due to the derailment.

"There were no casualties among those on board."

A spokesperson for BTP also confirmed there were no reported injuries.

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Andres Manuel Lopez Beltran made the allegation late on Thursday in a public letter addressed to US President Donald Trump and posted on social media.

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He accused US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his deputy, Christopher Landau, of ordering the visa revocation.

“There is no reason whatsoever to justify such an arrogant action,” Lopez Beltran wrote to Trump. “It is worth emphasising that these officials have no evidence against me regarding any immoral or criminal act.”

The US State Department has not publicly responded to his claim.

His letter comes as part of a trend of visa revocations from the US. Several Mexican officials, across the political spectrum, have had their visas cancelled, as part of what the Trump administration characterises as a broad crackdown on individuals linked to drug cartels.

Who is Lopez Beltran?

The 39-year-old Lopez Beltran is a prominent politician in Mexico, having recently stepped down from the leadership of the left-wing Morena party.

His father founded the party in 2011 and went on to govern Mexico as its president from 2018 to 2024.

Currently, another Morena politician, Claudia Sheinbaum, holds the presidency, and Morena boasts decisive majorities in both chambers of Mexico’s Congress.

Lopez Beltran is expected to run for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies next year.

For much of his father’s presidency, Lopez Beltran stayed out of party politics, instead focusing on his chocolate business.

However, he was elected Morena’s secretary of organisation in September 2024, just weeks before his father left office.

In his letter, Lopez Beltran called the revocation “a ⁠⁠crude and perverse act”, saying US officials target Mexican politicians by falsely labelling them as “communists”, “threats to US security” or “narco-terrorists”.

Sheinbaum reacts to letter

On Friday, Sheinbaum said she was unaware of any investigations by Mexican prosecutors into Lopez Beltran.

“This amounts to interference ⁠⁠in Mexican politics,” Sheinbaum said at her morning news briefing. “I see no other reason for it.”

Sheinbaum has also walked a careful line in responding to the Trump administration’s hardline approach to cartels and cross-border crime, pledging to cooperate.

But she has also said she would protect Mexico’s sovereignty from any foreign interference, and while she has welcomed collaboration with US intelligence, she has reportedly declined Trump’s offers of US military action on Mexican soil.

Last month, she also rejected a statement by the head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that her government has ties to organised crime, a frequent Trump talking point.

In April, she decried the US’s decision to charge Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha, another Morena party official, with drug trafficking and weapons-related offences.

She has argued that the indictment lacks evidence and that such investigations should be left to Mexican prosecutors.

The Trump administration has accused Rocha’s campaign of having worked with the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, the criminal organisation it considers a “foreign terrorist organisation”.

Rocha announced in May that he would take a temporary leave of absence from his position as governor to defend himself from the charges. %!s()