The mother of Jay Slater, the British teenager missing in Tenerife, says she spent eight hours in a police station on Friday as police outlined their search plans.
Debbie Duncan told the Guardian she still thinks “something untoward” may have happened to her son.
She flew to the Spanish island on Tuesday, the day after the 19-year-old went missing, to help look for him.
On Saturday, the sixth day of the search, police, rescue dogs and firefighters reconvened at Rural de Teno Park, the last location logged by Mr Slater’s phone.
Ms Duncan told the Guardian police have said the “noise” around the case was affecting their investigation, but said she believes they are “stepping up” their search.
It comes after reports somebody logged into Mr Slater‘s Instagram account who was not him.
Rachel Louise Harg set up a GoFundMe page to go towards search efforts and a Facebook page to help find him, which had raised more than £26,000 of its £30,000 target by Saturday afternoon.
She said people who had been “hacking” the social media accounts of Mr Slater’s family were “sick in the head”.
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Tenerife local was last person to see Jay Slater
Ms Duncan said police had told her they were “investigating all leads”.
“They’ve got all the plans, their locations,” she added.
“They have got this map they were showing us, shaded different colours.”
She renewed calls for British police to help with the search, saying there had been a “problem with the language barrier”.
But Spanish police have rejected an offer by Lancashire Constabulary to assist. The force said while the case “falls outside the jurisdiction of UK policing”, it offered to support Spanish police “if they need any additional resources”.
Image: Search and rescue teams on the sixth day of the hunt. Pic: PA
The force added: “They have confirmed that at this time they are satisfied that they have the resources they need, but that offer remains open and they will contact us should that position change.”
Mr Slater is from the Lancashire town of Oswaldtwistle, where specialist officers are continuing to support his family, the force said.
The apprentice bricklayer was holidaying with friends on Tenerifebefore he disappeared, and had been at the NRG music festival on Sunday.
He was last heard from just after 8am on Monday, when he called his friend Lucy Law to say he was setting off on an 11-hour walk to get home after missing a bus.
She said he told her he was lost, in need of water, and only had 1% charge on his phone.
Voters in France are heading to the polls today for a parliamentary election that could usher in the country’s first far-right government since the Second World War.
French President Emmanuel Macron called a surprise vote after his centrist alliance was soundly beaten in the European elections by Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally earlier this month.
Voting began at 8am (7am UK time), closing at 4pm in smaller towns and 6pm in bigger cities. A winner may be apparent on Sunday night.
France has a semi-presidential system, which means it has both a president and a prime minister.
The voting taking place today will determine who is prime minister but not president, with Mr Macron already set on remaining in his role until the end of his term in 2027.
If Ms Le Pen’s party wins an absolute majority, France would have a government and president from opposing political camps for only the fourth time in post-war history.
How does the election work?
There are 577 constituency contests, one for each seat in the National Assembly, which is the lower house of parliament.
Candidates with an absolute majority of votes in their constituency are elected in the first round.
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In most cases, no candidate meets this criteria and a second round is held, which will be next Sunday – 7 July – when the final outcome will be confirmed.
To qualify for the run-off, candidates need first-round votes amounting to at least 12.5% of registered voters.
The top scorer wins the second round.
When will we have a result?
Voting ends at 8pm (7pm UK time), when pollsters publish nationwide projections based on a partial vote count.
Official results start trickling in, with counting usually fast and efficient and the winners of almost all seats likely to be known by the end of the evening.
Adding to those calls, The New York Times urged the president to quit the race to give another candidate a better chance at defeating Trump.
“Mr Biden has been an admirable president,” the newspaper said in a piece by its editorial board.
“But the greatest public service Mr Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election.”
It added: “As it stands, the president is engaged in a reckless gamble. There are Democratic leaders better equipped to present clear, compelling and energetic alternatives to a second Trump presidency.
“There is no reason for the party to risk the stability and security of the country by forcing voters to choose between Mr Trump’s deficiencies and those of Mr Biden.”
More on Joe Biden
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‘I can do this job’
Mr Biden has tried to quell anxieties since his performance. At a rally in North Carolina, he appeared to acknowledge the criticism, but struck a defiant tone.
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“I don’t walk as easy as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to, but I know what I do know,” said Mr Biden. “I know how to tell the truth.”
“I give you my word as a Biden, I wouldn’t be running again if I did not believe, with all my heart and soul, I can do this job,” he told the rally.
Mr Biden attacked the former president’s criminal record, calling Trump a “one-man crimewave”.
Image: President Biden greets supporters as he arrives in Raleigh. Pic: AP
“My guess is he set a new record for the most lies told in a single debate,” he added, telling the crowd he spent “90 minutes on the stage debating a guy with the morals of an alley cat”.
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‘Biden, you are fired’
Hours later, Donald Trump was jubilant at a rally in Chesapeake, Virginia.
“Never mind that crooked Joe Biden spent a week at Camp David, resting, working, studying – he studied so hard he didn’t know what the hell he was doing,” Mr Trump told the crowd.
“Biden’s problem is not his age, […] he’s got no problem other than his competence. He’s grossly incompetent,” he added.
Bad debate nights happen
Barack Obama tweeted his support for President Biden on Friday evening, saying: “Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know.”
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Joe Biden had a cold and sore throat during last night’s debate, the White House said.
But others remained unconvinced he should run for president.
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Joe Biden appears to stall during debate
“I do not think President Joe Biden can be the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer in 2024,” former White House director of global engagement Brett Bruen told Sky News’ Yalda Hakim.
“Last night’s performance was astonishingly bad. You cannot just be strong on the teleprompter,” he said.
But Anthony Scaramucci, former White House communications director, blamed the president’s poor performance on his preparation.
“He wasn’t prepped right for that debate. He’s an older man,” Mr Scaramucci told Yalda Hakim.
“You don’t fill his head with facts and figures he’s never going to remember.”
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Biden v Trump: What you need to know
There have been repeated calls for President Biden to step down.
It’s “time to talk about an open convention and a new Democratic nominee,” one Democratic politician told Sky’s US partner network NBC News.
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Kamala Harris says Biden had a ‘slow start’ but he ‘pushed facts’ while Donald Trump ‘pushed lies’.
However, while Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged that President Joe Biden had a “slow start” in the debate, she insisted that he finished “strong”.
President Biden’s campaign spokesperson said there are no conversations taking place about the president stepping aside from his re-election bid.
He also still plans to take part in the next debate against Donald Trump, which is slated for 10 September, said the spokesperson. They added that last night’s debate has not changed the campaign strategy.
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At a Waffle House restaurant in Atlanta after the debate, Biden told reporters he did not have concerns about his performance. “It’s hard to debate a liar,” he said.
On the pier in California’s Manhattan Beach, 21-year-old Stella and her friends are crowded round a phone watching videos of two old men rowing about their golf handicap.
It’s not the level of discourse they, or anyone else, hoped for from the presidential debate.
“It sounds like a drunk, blackout conversation they’re having at 3am,” one young woman says.
“I think Joe Biden is cognitively declining,” says another. “I think he was never fit to be president, and I don’t think he is now. I think there’s a clear, obvious answer to who is fit and that is Trump 2024.”
Image: Stella (right) and her friends looking at clips of the debate on a phone
In affluent Manhattan Beach, 65% voted for Joe Biden in 2020 but some Democrat voters here are troubled by the version of the president they saw during the debate: Feeble voiced, stumbling over his words and unable to sell his vision for America.
“I felt disappointed, forlorn, despairing,” says Loretta. “He didn’t speak well at all. I believe that he’s not demented as people accuse him of, but his communication difficulties were evident.”
Loretta is a lifelong Democrat voter, but Biden’s debate performance might have changed her mind.
“I might have to hold my nose and vote for Trump,” she says. “He has bad character traits. But it’s certainly given me food for thought. Bad food, food poisoning.”
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Biden’s debate performance is one that has already spawned a thousand memes as well as panic in his own party that he might not have the vitality to prevail over Trump in an election campaign.
Genie, from Manhattan Beach, is 81, the same age as Biden. “Maybe at our age we’re a bit slower to articulate what we’re thinking, but I think he’s still viable and has the mental capacity to do the job,” she says. “My concern is the energy level.”
Image: Genie, 81, thinks Biden is ‘still viable’ but is concerned about ‘the energy level’
Harry Swanson, a Trump voter from New York, visiting his daughter in California, was not so forgiving in his assessment. “Biden’s out to lunch,” he says. “It’s no fault of his own. He’s just an older guy, put in an awkward position.”
“I don’t know who pulls the strings to put these people where they are,” he adds. “If Trump, who I like, was mentally like Biden, there’s not a chance I’d consider him. I mean, how could you?”
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1:03
‘I don’t walk as easy as I used to’
Biden has insisted he won’t step down as the Democratic Party’s nominee, but chatter has intensified about potential alternatives, including the governor of California.
Gavin Newsom is a rising star in the Democratic Party, tipped as a successor to Biden. But he’s standing squarely behind the leader for now.
“We’ve got to have the back of this president,” he says. “You don’t turn your back because of one performance.”
Scott, from Manhattan Beach, says he would prefer to see Newsom as the nominee. “He’s a very powerful presence and someone younger would be good,” he says. “I think he’d have more chance of beating Trump.”
Martin, from Chicago, agrees. “It would be in their best interests to get Biden to step down and have somebody else run for the Democrats because by the looks of it, it’s not looking good,” he says. “I just know that I would vote for anyone but Biden or Trump.”
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Trump at a campaign rally in Chesapeake, Virginia, after facing off against Biden in the debate