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The German government on Wednesday banned a far-right, racist group known for its indoctrination of children as police raided dozens of homes of its members and other buildings early in the morning. A statement from the German interior ministry said it banned the Artgemeinschaft group, an anti-democratic association with around 150 members. All of its sub-organizations, including the Gefaehrtschaften, Gilden, Freundeskreise, and Familienwerk e.V., were also banned, the ministry said. “We are banning a sectarian, deeply racist and antisemitic association,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said. “This is another hard blow against right-wing extremism and (those) who continue to spread Nazi ideologies to this day,” she said, adding that the organization had attempted to indoctrinate their children and young people with their anti-democratic ideology. Under the cover of a pseudo-religious Germanic belief in gods, the Artgemeinschaft spread its Nazi world view, the ministry said. “The group’s central goal was the preservation and promotion of one’s own ‘kind,’ which can be equated with the National Socialist term ‘race’,” according to the statement. In addition to the ideology of racial doctrine, the symbolism, narratives and activities of the group showed further parallels to the Nazis’ ideology. The group gave its members instructions on how to choose a “proper spouse” within the Northern and Central European “human kind” in order to pass on the “correct” genetic makeup according to the association’s racist ideology. People of other origins were degraded, the ministry said in its statement. In early morning raids across 12 states, police searched 26 apartments of 39 group members as well as the organization’s club houses. Last week, the German government banned the neo-Nazi group Hammerskins Germany and raided homes of dozens of its members. The group was an offshoot of an American ring-wing extremist group and played a prominent role in the far-right scene across Europe. FULL STORY

Ramaswamy calls transgenderism 'a mental health disorder' Vivek Ramaswamy says that transgenderism "a mental health disorder" and said it was cruel to "affirm a kid's confusion" about their gender -- in response to a question about parents' rights in schools. "Transgenderism, especially in kids, is a mental health disorder. We have to acknowledge the truth of that for what it is," the entrepreneur said. "Parents have the right to know," he went on to say when pushed about parental rights. "The very people who say that this increases the risk of suicide are also the ones saying that parents don't have the right to know about that increased risk of suicide," he said. "And sorry, it is not compassionate to affirm a kid's confusion, that is not compassion, that is cruelty. I met two young women, Chloe and Katie, early in this campaign who are in their twenties now regret getting double mastectomies and a hysterectomy. One of them will never have children and the fact that we allowed that to happen in this country is barbaric. So I will ban genital mutilation or chemical castration under the age of 18." FULL STORY

Former Vice President Mike Pence during Wednesday night’s second GOP debate called for an expedited federal death penalty as punishment for the perpetrators of mass shootings. “I’m someone that believes that justice delayed is justice denied. … As a grandfather of three beautiful little girls, I’m sick and tired of the mass shootings happening in the United States of America,” Pence said from his podium on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library stage in Simi Valley, Calif. “And if I’m president of the United States, I’m going to go to the Congress of the United States and we’re going to pass a federal expedited death penalty for anyone involved in a mass shooting so they will meet their fate in months, not years,” Pence said. The former vice president said it’s “unconscionable” that the perpetrator of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman-Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., was sentenced to life in prison. “That’s not justice. We have to meet out justice and send a message to the would-be killers that you are not going to live out your days behind bars,” Pence said. Pence has made the push for an expedited death penalty before. He’s also argued the U.S. should place more focus on institutionalizing the mentally ill as a means of addressing gun violence. FULL STORY

The judge in Donald Trump's federal election meddling case has said she will not recuse herself, despite the ex-president's requests she step aside. His legal team argued some of her past comments create a perception of bias against the former president. She has now ruled his lawyers failed to present evidence of those claims. Judge Tanya Chutkan is overseeing the federal case in which Mr Trump is accused of a conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election loss. Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges in the case, which is being brought by special counsel Jack Smith. Last month's filing by Mr Trump's lawyers did not expressly call the judge prejudiced against him, but says certain statements she has made in her court "create a perception of pre-judgement incompatible with our justice system". How big are Donald Trump's legal problems? In her ruling on Wednesday, Judge Chutkan said the comments cited by his legal team "certainly do not manifest a deep-seated prejudice that would make fair judgement impossible". "It bears noting that the court has never taken the position the defence ascribes to it: that former 'President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned,'" Judge Chutkan wrote. "And the defence does not cite any instance of the court ever uttering those words or anything similar." Under US federal law, any judge of the United States must voluntarily recuse themselves in any proceeding in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. FULL STORY

OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed creator of ChatGPT, has confirmed the chatbot can now browse the internet to provide users with current information. The artificial intelligence-powered system was previously trained only using data up to September 2021. The move means some premium users will be able to ask the chatbot questions about current affairs, and access news. OpenAI said the feature would open up to all users soon. Earlier in the week, OpenAI also revealed the chatbot will soon be able to have voice conversations with users. ChatGPT and other similar systems use huge amounts of data to create convincing human-like responses to user queries. They are expected to dramatically change the way people search for information online. Can an AI chatbot write a joke about the news? But until now the viral chatbot's "knowledge" has been frozen in time. Its database has been drawn from the contents of the internet as it was in September 2021. It could not browse the net in real time. So, for example, ask the free version when an earthquake last struck Turkey, or whether Donald Trump is still alive and it replies "'I'm sorry, but I cannot provide real-time information". ChatGPT's inability to take recent events into account has been a turn-off for some potential users. FULL STORY

Meta has announced a series of new chatbots to be used in its Messenger service. The chatbots will have "personality" and specialise in certain subjects, like holidays or cooking advice. It is the latest salvo in a chatbot arms race between tech companies desperate to produce more accurate and personalised artificial intelligence. The chatbots are still a work in progress with "limitations", said boss Mark Zuckerberg. In California, during Meta's first in-person event since before the pandemic, Mr Zuckerberg said that it had been an "amazing year for AI". The company is calling its main chatbot "Meta AI" and can be used in messaging. For example, users can ask Meta AI questions in chat "to settle arguments" or ask other questions. The BBC has not yet tested the chatbot which is based on Llama 2, the large language model that the company released for public commercial use in July. Several celebrities have also signed up to lend their personalities to different types of chatbots, including Snoop Dogg and Kendall Jenner. The idea is to create chatbots that are not just designed to answer questions. "This isn't just going to be about answering queries," Zuckerberg said. "This is about entertainment". According to Meta, NFL star Tom Brady will play an AI character called 'Bru', "a wisecracking sports debater" and YouTube star MrBeast will play 'Zach', a big brother "who will roast you". FULL STORY

Apple has provided a software update for its iPhone 12 to French regulators following concerns about radiation levels of the smartphone. France suspended sales of iPhone 12 handsets last week after claiming it failed to pass tests relating to electromagnetic radiation exposure limits. The US tech giant risked a product recall if a fix was not found, while other European countries warned they may follow France’s initiative. French authorities received a software update from Apple for its iPhone 12 on Tuesday, a source at the French digital ministry told Reuters. Apple had earlier contested the French findings, saying the iPhone 12 was certified by multiple international bodies as compliant with global standards. A spokesperson for Apple told The Independent that it was engaging with regulators in an effort to prove that its iPhone 12 is compliant. The US tech giant said it has provided France’s National Frequency Agency (ANFR) with independent third-party lab results proving the iPhone 12’s compliance, and met SAR regulations. Apple then said on 15 September it would issue a software update to accommodate the testing methods used in France. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. The move by Paris to suspend sales of the iPhone 12 handsets had prompted concerns in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. Belgium also reportedly requested the software update but it was limited to France, Belgian industry regulator said in an emailed statement. The Belgian regulator also said it expected more steps at a European level after the French authorities inform their peers about the fix and the fact that is not available widely in the European Union. French regulator Agence Nationale des Frequences did not immediately respond to a request for comment. FULL STORY

The UK economy will shrink this year and in 2024, according to a report by a leading US thinktank that said stubborn inflation and a shortage of workers would damage the prospects for growth more than most analysts expect. The Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) said a drop in GDP this year of 0.3% would be followed by a fall of 0.2% next year while the eurozone and the US were on course for growth this year and next. Ahead of revised forecasts by the International Monetary Fund in a fortnight, which are expected to show the UK expanding this year and staging a modest recovery in 2024, the PIIE president, Adam Posen, said he was gloomy about the UK’s prospects. Posen, who spent three years on the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, said factors related to the underlying weakness of the UK economy and the fallout from Brexit would leave the UK behind while most other developed economies expanded. He said the UK was also suffering from an unequal recovery that benefited better-off households while the bottom half of the income scale continued to be affected by falling real incomes. Low-income households in the US and the eurozone had, by contrast, fared better in the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Posen said: “The UK won’t be in recession all of next year, but the recovery will be held back by higher-than-expected inflation and in response, the Bank of England will need to keep interest rates higher for longer.” Cuts to government spending next year will also drag on economic growth as Jeremy Hunt soothes jittery financial markets with austerity measures, including tax increases, he added. The central bank held rates at 5.25% at its meeting last week, and betting on financial markets showed investors expect there will be no change at the next meeting in November. Posen said the next move could be upwards should inflation prove to be more stubborn than the central bank’s forecasts predict, despite a weakening of economic growth. FULL STORY

There are less than five days to go before the US government shuts down and Kevin McCarthy has a choice to make. The Speaker of the US House of Representatives must either find a way for his narrow Republican majority to fund federal agencies or seek the help of Democrats to do so. If he opts for the former, he will likely pass a bill that cannot make it through a Democrat-controlled Senate, practically ensuring a shutdown. But if Mr McCarthy decides on the latter, he is at risk of being ousted from the job that has been the pinnacle of his two decades in politics. Whichever way the California congressman goes, he will have to do it sooner rather than later. If Congress fails to provide funding by midnight on Saturday, hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be furloughed without pay and government services will be disrupted. What happens in a US government shutdown? Republicans leave Washington with shutdown looming On Tuesday, with House negotiations facing an uncertain future, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a bipartisan group in his chamber was close to finishing work on a short-term funding bill. The House Speaker, however, has not yet committed to bringing that proposal to the floor if his own efforts fail. FULL STORY

Former US President Donald Trump has claimed that wind turbines off the coast of the US "are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before". These claims have attracted significant attention on social media, where a clip of Mr Trump's speech has now been viewed more than nine million times. But Mr Trump's claims are not backed up by evidence. What is being claimed? Speaking at a rally in South Carolina on Monday, Mr Trump suggested that "windmills" used to generate electricity are driving whales "crazy", and dead whales are washing ashore "on a weekly basis". Some conservationists have raised concerns about whale deaths near the development of an offshore wind farm off the US east coast. This series of strandings led some Republican lawmakers to call for a temporary halt to all development of offshore wind farms, and further research into possible links to humpback whale deaths. Since then, hundreds of posts wrongly linking wind farms to whale deaths have been spreading on social media, with hundreds of thousands of views. How many whales are dying? The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says that, since 2016, a total of 208 humpback whales have been stranded along the country's east coast. The problem was deemed so serious that, in 2017, the US agency dubbed it an "unusual mortality event". FULL STORY

US President Joe Biden has backed striking cars workers in Michigan during a visit to their picket line - a first for a sitting US president. Mr Biden said that the workers "deserve" raises and other concessions they are seeking. The visit comes a day before his would-be challenger, Donald Trump, is due to arrive. But workers told the BBC they felt the rivals might politicise the strike, and urged them to "just stay away". In brief remarks to the picketing workers on Tuesday, the Democratic president said that they "deserve the significant raise you need and other benefits". He added that the workers should be doing as "incredibly well" as the companies that employ them. While US lawmakers - and presidential candidates - frequently appear at strikes to express solidarity with American workers, it is considered unprecedented for a sitting president to do so. Some workers said they hoped the attention from Mr Biden and his rival would help their cause, but others dismissed the visits as political stunts aimed at getting votes, which would have little practical impact on the negotiations. "We would much rather neither of them showed up," longtime Ford worker Billy Rowe told the BBC. "We don't want to divide people and when you bring politics into it, it's going to cause an argument." FULL STORY Get our Daily Newsletter - Click HERE to subscribe

Donald Trump "repeatedly" misrepresented his wealth by hundreds of millions to banks and insurers, a New York judge has ruled. The decision resolves the key claim made by New York's attorney general in her civil lawsuit against the former president. "The documents here clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business," the judge wrote. It is a major blow for Mr Trump before the case goes to trial next Monday. An attorney for Mr Trump called the judge's decision "a miscarriage of justice" in a statement on Tuesday evening. Attorney General Letitia James sued Mr Trump last September, accusing him, his two adult sons and the Trump Organization of lying about his net worth and asset values between 2011 and 2021. Ms James claimed the defendants issued false business records and financial statements in order to get better terms on bank loans and insurance deals, and to pay less tax. In a trial that will now resolve six remaining claims in her suit, she will seek $250m in penalties and a ban on Mr Trump doing business in his home state. The non-jury trial is scheduled to begin 2 October and last until at least December. Who is NY prosecutor and Trump foe Letitia James? Trumps 'inflated net worth by billions' - lawsuit Trumps accused of inflating value of Scots resorts In a pre-trial phase of the case known as summary judgement, Ms James had asked Justice Arthur Engoron of the New York state court in Manhattan to rule on her claims. FULL STORY Get our Daily Newsletter - Click HERE to subscribe

Exclusive: Levelling up secretary Michael Gove and transport secretary Mark Harper ‘very unhappy’ over plan to axe northern leg – first revealed by this newspaper – as George Osborne attacks ‘economic self-harm’ A major cabinet split has opened up over Rishi Sunak’s plan to ditch the northern leg of HS2, as top Tory grandees join ministers in pushing the prime minister to rethink the cancellation. The Independent understands levelling up secretary Michael Gove and transport secretary Mark Harper are “very unhappy” about the prime minister’s plot to axe the route from Birmingham to Manchester. In one of the biggest political stories of the year, this publication first revealed Mr Sunak was in secret talks – dubbed Project Redwood – with his chancellor Jeremy Hunt to scrap the second phase of the project. Former chancellor George Osborne and ex-deputy PM Lord Heseltine described the proposal as a “gross act of vandalism”, which would end up being a case of “economic self-harm”. After the story broke on September 14, Downing Street repeatedly stone-walled before ministers accepted talks over the most dramatic decision in years to stop a £34bn infrastructure spend were taking place. The story has prompted unprecedented fallout, with two former prime ministers attacking Mr Sunak amid a cascade of criticism and cabinet divides. Boris Johnson and David Cameron were joined by ex-chancellor Philip Hammond in urging the PM not to cut the high-speed rail route. FULL STORY

The former president endorses the tactics of far-right GOP members, telling them to force a shutdown unless Democrats give them “EVERYTHING” in negotiations. WASHINGTON — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s attempts to avoid a government shutdown just became more complicated after former President Donald Trump stepped in to endorse the tactics of far-right House Republicans, who prefer to see a funding lapse than compromise with the Democratic-led Senate and White House. Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination who backed McCarthy for speaker, made the comments in a post on his social media platform. “The Republicans lost big on Debt Ceiling, got NOTHING, and now are worried that they will be BLAMED for the Budget Shutdown. Wrong!!! Whoever is President will be blamed,” Trump wrote in the post, adding: “UNLESS YOU GET EVERYTHING, SHUT IT DOWN! Close the Border, stop the Weaponization of ‘Justice,’ and End Election Interference.” His remarks contradict the views of McCarthy and many House Republicans, who say a shutdown would be politically self-defeating and do more to hinder conservative goals. They note that shutdowns routinely fail to achieve their stated policy aims. In this case, far-right demands — to defund Trump's prosecutors, add provisions on immigration and cut spending below levels in a two-year budget agreement — have no chance of passing the Senate. Asked about Trump’s comments on Monday, McCarthy responded: “I think we’re much stronger when we stay open. I don’t understand how not paying the troops and not paying our border agents ... what we’re trying to do is secure our border. That would be a part of funding the government, would be securing the border.” FULL STORY

More than three years into the pandemic, the millions of people who have suffered from long Covid finally have scientific proof that their condition is real. Scientists have found clear differences in the blood of people with long Covid — a key first step in the development of a test to diagnose the illness. The findings, published Monday in the journal Nature, also offer clues into what could be causing the elusive condition that has perplexed doctors worldwide and left millions with ongoing fatigue, trouble with memory and other debilitating symptoms. The research is among the first to prove that "long Covid is, in fact, a biological illness," said David Putrino, principal investigator of the new study and a professor of rehabilitation and human performance at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Dr. Marc Sala, co-director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Covid-19 Center in Chicago, called the findings "important." He was not involved with the new research. "This will need to be investigated with more research, but at least it's something because, quite frankly, right now we don't have any blood tests" either to diagnose long Covid or help doctors understand why it's occurring, he said. Putrino and his colleagues compared blood samples of 268 people. Some had Covid but had fully recovered, some had never been infected, and the rest had ongoing symptoms of long Covid at least four months after their infection. Several differences in the blood of people with long Covid stood out from the other groups. The activity of immune system cells called T cells and B cells — which help fight off germs — was "irregular" in long Covid patients, Putrino said. One of the strongest findings, he said, was that long Covid patients tended to have significantly lower levels of a hormone called cortisol. A major function of the hormone is to make people feel alert and awake. Low cortisol could help explain why many people with long Covid experience profound fatigue, he said. "It was one of the findings that most definitively separated the folks with long Covid from the people without long Covid," Putrino said. The finding likely signals that the brain is having trouble regulating hormones. The research team plans to dig deeper into the role cortisol may play in long Covid in future studies. FULL STORY

Republican presidential candidate and former Rep. Will Hurd (Texas) said Monday that former President Trump is only running for president to avoid being incarcerated. “The problem that I have with Donald Trump is, is Donald Trump’s not running for president to Make America great again. He’s running for president to stay out of prison,” Hurd said during an appearance on NewsNation’s “NewsNation Now with Connell McShane.” Hurd also claimed that Trump is taking credit for ideas promoted by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and former Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), such as the 2017 GOP tax cut law, to bolster his image. “And so these were some of the people that helped make sure our economy…was strong when Donald Trump was in office,” Hurd added. When asked if his presidential campaign is hurting the chances of fellow candidates in the race, Hurd replied that he’ll support whoever becomes his party’s presidential nominee in 2024. “I’m clear, I’ve been supportive of that philosophy and recognize that if we want to make sure that we have a GOP nominee that can beat Joe Biden and address issues, like problems at the border, we’ll potentially need to consolidate,” Hurd told McShane. Hurd’s remarks come a month since after Trump along with 18 of his allies were indicted by a Georgia grand jury on charges tied to efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump, who announced his third presidential campaign last November, has been hit with three other indictments this year relating to to his business dealings, handling of classified documents, and his behavioral actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election. FULL STORY

Amazon plans to invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup, the company announced on Monday. The multibillion-dollar investment marks the tech giant’s latest effort to compete with rivals like Google and Microsoft on the rapidly developing frontier of AI. As part of its agreement with Anthropic, Amazon will gain a minority ownership position in the company, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) will become the start-up’s primary cloud provider. “We have tremendous respect for Anthropic’s team and foundation models, and believe we can help improve many customer experiences, short and long-term, through our deeper collaboration,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said. Earlier this year, Microsoft similarly announced its plans to invest billions of dollars into OpenAI, the company behind the popular ChatGPT generative language tool. While the two companies declined to offer specifics at the time, several outlets reported that the deal was for $10 billion. Read more about Amazon’s investment in Anthropic in a full report at TheHill.com.

As new coronavirus cases rise with the onset of the respiratory viral season, unfounded claims surrounding the virus are beginning to crop up once more. Claims like the imminent return of COVID-19 lockdowns and other broad mitigation efforts grew online in the past months, spurred by a rise in cases around the country. According to the most recent data made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hospital admissions for COVID-19 have begun to decline in the past week, as have emergency department visits. As experts put it, rumors about the virus are often fueled by deeper-seated concerns over issues like government overreach, The Hill’s Ella Lee and Alex Gangitano report. Tara Kirk Sell, scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told The Hill that part of addressing misinformation is taking on these concerns that people have. The Biden administration has recently moved to directly answer questions about COVID-19 that have been made online. Officials have taken to responding to inaccurate statements on social media while also watching for unapproved products promoted online as treatments against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. “[The Department of Health and Human Services] works to ensure that public health guidance and messaging are based on facts and science and that we are transparent about what we do and don’t know because we know how important it is for people to have accurate, science-based information to protect themselves and their loved ones,” a spokesperson told The Hill. Even after the end of the national health emergency, COVID-19 continues to be a source of political ammunition, and President Biden is likely to be on the defense on the 2024 campaign trail. Presidential candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (D) often rage against viral mitigation methods to both hit at the administration and engender support from their bases. FULL STORY

Open-ended service, just 10 days leave a year and a high casualty rate - for Ukrainian soldiers in one unit, life on the front line is far from easy, as BBC Newsnight witnessed up close. Standing among some flattened buildings, "Jimmy", a Ukrainian officer who's been on active service for years, reflected on his survival: "I'm a lucky man… as I see it, war can either love people or not." His soldiers think the fact Jimmy's still with them, despite multiple wounds, means he lives a charmed life. His unit, the 24th Mechanised Brigade, has a long history, and is part of the old regular Ukrainian army, fighting the Russians from 2014. But since the invasion of February 2022, the army has more than trebled in size, the nation mobilised and Jimmy's unit changed out of all recognition. We spent two weeks in August with the 24th, which now serves in the Donbas, that old centre of smokestack industries in the east, occupying a section of the front between Bakhmut and Horlivka. And we went to the home community in western Ukraine where the brigade was garrisoned before the war, and where many of its families still live. Jimmy - the Ukrainian army asks that we use soldiers' nicknames rather than their real ones - commands a company (usually about 120 troops), a post he stepped into last year. One officer told me that none of the 15 company commanders in post at the start of the war are still in place, all having been promoted or become casualties. In the run-up to war, the 24th Brigade was just over 2,000 strong, rotating its three battalions to the front line in eastern Ukraine for occasional tours of duty. Although the Ukrainian army rarely discusses numbers, sources told me it has now swelled to more than 7,000, with a total of five infantry battalions, four of artillery, a tank battalion and numerous other supporting elements. FULL STORY

Filmmaker Obi Emelonye says there is a food chain in the film industry Screenwriters in the US say they have reached a tentative deal with studio bosses that could see them end a strike that has lasted nearly five months. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) said it was "exceptional - with meaningful gains and protections for writers". WGA members must still have a final say. Hollywood writers are striking in a row over pay and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the industry. Stranger Things and the Last of Us are among the shows which have been paused. It is the longest strike to affect Hollywood in decades and has halted most film and TV production. A separate dispute involves actors, who are also on strike. The writers' walkout, which began on 2 May, has cost the US economy around $5bn (£4.08bn), according to an estimate from Milken Institute economist Kevin Klowden. The dispute has shut down many of America's top shows, including Billions, The Handmaid's Tale, Hacks, Severance, Yellowjackets, The Last of Us, Stranger Things, Abbott Elementary and several daytime and late-night talk shows. As well as issues around pay, the writers fear the impact of artificial intelligence potentially supplanting their talents. Negotiations also broke down over staffing levels and the royalty payments that writers receive for popular streaming shows. They complain that those residuals are just a fraction of the earnings they would get from a broadcast TV show. Traditionally, writers would receive additional payments when their programmes were repeated on a broadcast network. However, this model was undermined with the advent of streaming. FULL STORY

British actor David McCallum is being remembered as a "true renaissance man" after his death at age 90. McCallum was most recently known for playing a pathologist on hit CBS TV programme NCIS, which went on to generate several spinoff series. In the 1960s, McCallum played a secret agent on hit spy drama The Man From U.N.C.L.E. The Scottish-born actor died in New York on Monday. His death was due to natural causes. "David was a gifted actor and author, and beloved by many around the world," CBS said in a statement. "He led an incredible life, and his legacy will forever live on through his family and the countless hours on film and television that will never go away." His role in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - in which he played a Russian agent - won him many fans, particularly young women charmed by his good looks. The series ended in 1968, but not before he received several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for playing the role of Illya Kuryakin on the show. McCallum found roles in films including The Great Escape, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and A Night to Remember. He also guest starred on TV series Perry Mason and The Outer Limits. Born in Glasgow to parents who were classical musicians, he initially pursued a career in music before finding work as an actor. His role on NCIS came after he appeared for a role in the show JAG, which led to the NCIS spinoff. NCIS itself later went on to generate other NCIS shows, including NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: New Orleans. McCallum also found work as a voice actor for children's cartoons and video games. A statement issued by his family called him a " true renaissance man". "He was fascinated by science and culture and would turn those passions into knowledge," it said. "For example, he was capable of conducting a symphony orchestra and (if needed) could actually perform an autopsy, based on his decades-long studies for his role on NCIS." FULL STORY