Member of army squad sent with medics to assist suspected hantavirus patient recounts descent to remote island

The hardest part of the parachute jump, according to Capt George Lacey, is falling backwards through the air. It is Saturday and Lacey, and his squad of six plus two medics, have just leapt out of an RAF transport, 2,500 metres over the south Atlantic.

“The parachute can only go forward so quickly,” he says, meaning that it has to be pulled at precisely the right moment. “So you have to turn into the wind and basically fly backwards, which is a very weird sensation, as you can imagine.”

Dutch husband and wife and third unidentified person reported to have died, with three further people taken ill

• What is hantavirus, the infection that has killed three people on a cruise ship?

A suspected outbreak of the rare hantavirus infection on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean killed three people – including an elderly married couple – and sickened at least three others, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and South Africa’s health department said on Sunday.

The WHO said an investigation was under way but that at least one case of hantavirus had been confirmed. One of the patients was in intensive care in a South African hospital, the UN’s health agency said in a statement to the Associated Press, and the WHO was working with authorities to evacuate two others with symptoms from the ship.

Fake X account posing as his vet sparked global false reports of Jonathan’s death while soliciting crypto donations

At 194 years old, Jonathan the giant tortoise was a youngster when Queen Victoria ascended to the throne – and has now lived long enough to fall victim to a crypto scam.

News outlets including the BBC, Daily Mail and USA Today falsely reported his death after an X account posing as Jonathan’s vet broke the news.