Donald Trump has suggested up to 15,000 troops could ultimately be sent to the US-Mexico border to counter approaching caravans of migrants, a major increase on initial deployments. 

The US president denied he was “fearmongering” over the threat of illegal immigration ahead of the county’s midterm elections next Tuesday, insisting it was an important issue. 

The new figure, floated during a discussion with reporters on the White House lawn, is higher than the 14,000 troops that America has deployed in Afghanistan. 

It is the latest increase, with 800 soldiers initially sent to the border by the Pentagon – a figure that then rose to 5,200 earlier this week. The troops are legally barred from enforcing US immigration law and are instead providing support to border officials. 

"We’ll go up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel on top of Border Patrol, Ice [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and everybody else at the border,” Mr Trump said. 

It remains unclear whether the US president will follow through on the suggestion, given he mentioned it in passing rather than by making any formal announcement. 

The comment is the latest in a series of escalating warnings that Mr Trump has been issuing over migrants approaching the country’s southern border though Central America. 

At first there was just one so-called ‘caravan’ of people seeking to enter the US. Size estimates peaked at around 7,000 people before dropping to around 4,000 people. 

Now more caravans have emerged. A second, which clashed with police whiling crossing Guatemala into Mexico this week, is made up of an estimated 1,000 people. A further two caravans, smaller in size, have also formed. 

Mr Trump has been accused of playing up concerns over immigration to help drive up turnout among his supporters, with the Republican majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives on the line at next week’s elections. 

In recent weeks the US president has called the approaching migrants an “invasion” and a “national emergency”, threatened to close the US-Mexico border and described himself as a “nationalist”. 

On Wednesday he repeated a threat to strip Central American nations of US foreign aid if they fail to help him stop the caravans.  He also suggested there were 25 to 30 million undocumented migrants in America.

That is far higher than other estimates, such as from the Pew Research Center which put the 2016 unauthorised immigrant population at 11.3 million. 

On Wednesday, Mr Trump also doubled down on his proposal to remove a right for the children of illegal migrants born on American soil to get US citizenship, saying it was “very unfair to our citizens”. 

He chastised Paul Ryan, the most senior Republican in the House of Representatives, who suggested Mr Trump could not end birthright citizenship via an executive order, which does not need ratifying by the US Congress. 

“Paul Ryan should be focusing on holding the majority [in the House] rather than giving his opinions on birthright citizenship, something he knows nothing about!” the US president tweeted. 

Hungary’s Central European University, a graduate school founded by US financier George Soros, said it was being forced out of the country by the nationalist government and would switch to enrolling new students in Vienna if it did not get guarantees of academic freedom by Dec. 1.

The US billionaire, who promotes liberal causes through his charities, has been the subject of a campaign by the right-wing government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Earlier this year, his charitable Open Society Foundations was forced to leave Hungary.

Thursday’s move by CEU, which was quickly dismissed as a "political ploy" by the government, could deepen a rift between Orban and the European Commission, which has challenged his higher education reforms in the European Court of Justice.

A change last year to national law on education which withdrew the right to operate from foreign-registered universities that did not also offer courses in their home country was widely seen as explicitly targeting CEU.

The CEU offers graduate-level courses taught in English and is frequently ranked as the top university in Hungary. The prospect last year that it might be driven from Hungary drew street protests and international criticism.

The university’s statement on Thursday said the Orban government had kept it in legal limbo for more than a year by failing to reach a formal agreement on its status.

"We cannot operate legally in Hungary as a free, US accredited institution. We are being forced out of a country that has been our home for 26 years," CEU President and Rector Michael Ignatieff told a news conference.

Orban regularly accuses the Hungarian-born Soros of plotting to destroy European civilization by flooding the continent with immigrants. Soros says his support for refugees is one part of a wider humanitarian mission to back open societies around the globe.

The government said Thursday’s announcement by the CEU to relocate operations in Vienna was "a Soros-style political ploy" and it does not concern itself with such matters.

US Ambassador to Budapest David B. Cornstein said in a statement that the CEU remained a priority for the U.S. government and had overwhelming bipartisan support in the United States.

"There is a small window to resolve this, but it needs to happen fast," he said.

The government accuses the CEU of operating without full legal compliance. CEU says it has taken all steps required to comply.

The statement by the university said it would enrol new students in U.S. degrees at its Vienna campus in 2019 if its legal status in Hungary was not resolved by Dec. 1, though it would try to maintain as much research and educational activity in Budapest as possible.

Ignatieff said CEU’s board of trustees set the December deadline to give a chance for Cornstein to make a final effort to work out a compromise. 

Egyptian authorities on Sunday denied reports of alleged organ theft after the body of a British tourist who died suddenly while on holiday was returned home without some organs.

David Humphries, 62, died in the seaside resort of Hurghada on the shores of the Red Sea on September 18.

His body was returned to the UK where a second post-mortem ordered by a coroner discovered that his heart and some other organs had been removed.

Accusing the UK media of publishing "flawed reports", the Egyptian state information service (SIS) said allegations of "organ theft are unfounded".

The statement said that samples were taken and the heart, parts of the liver, kidneys and other organs had been removed in order to establish the cause of death.

It did not give an explanation as to why they had not been replaced. The service said the tourist had probably died of a heart attack, citing the medical report.

Mr Humphries’ daughter, Anita Goodall, 36, said: “We are totally in shock and don’t know what to do or think. We don’t know why this has happened to us.

“Dad will be buried without his heart. Some say that the heart is the soul and it is the heart that takes you to heaven, but dad won’t have his heart to take with him.

“Dad was such a kind and generous man. He was still working and seemed so fit and so full of life. Everyone who knew him will miss him.”

In another case in Hurghada on August 21, travel operator Thomas Cook moved all its clients to another hotel after a British couple died in what their daughter called "suspicious" circumstances.

Egyptian authorities say John and Susan Cooper, who fell ill and died suddenly while staying at the five-star Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in the resort, succumbed to the effects of an E. coli infection.

The US Navy has confirmed it is investigating 15 sailors working mainly in the nuclear reactor department of the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan for allegations of LSD abuse.

Lt. Joe Keiley, spokesman for the Seventh Fleet, based in Japan, said that two sailors are already heading to court-martial accused of using, possessing and distributing the hallucinogenic drug, while three are waiting to see whether they will be charged as well.

Another 10 sailors were administratively disciplined. Of the 15, 14 worked in the nuclear department.

News of the LSD ring was first reported by The Wall Street Journal in February, but Lt Keiley confirmed that the initial investigation had resulted in charges.

When the allegations were first reported, the Seventh Fleet – beset by a series of problems – issued a statement saying that “the Navy has zero tolerance for drug abuse and takes all allegations involving misconduct of our sailors, Navy civilians and family members very seriously.”

Japanese authorities were also initially brought into the investigation because of suspicions that drugs were sold to Japanese residents. They dropped the case in June.

Lt Keiley said that the accused sailors had had their work reviewed.

“Out of an abundance of caution, Ronald Reagan leadership reviewed the work previously performed by the accused sailors and no improper work was identified,” he said, in an email to Navy Times.

The two facing court martial are named in charge sheets as Machinist’s Mate Nuclear 2nd Class Andrew W. Miller, who faces charges of using, possessing and trafficking the drug from January to February of this year, and Electrician’s Mate Nuclear 2nd Class Sean M. Gevero.

Gevero is also charged with distributing LSD and possessing nandrolone decanoate, an anabolic steroid.

Lawyers for the two men have not commented publicly.

Lt Keiley refused to say what rank the other 13 sailors held, but said the ship was never at risk. 

“Propulsion plant operations and maintenance are supervised by senior personnel,” he said. “Due to the defence in depth of the design and operation of the propulsion plants, the reactors aboard (the Reagan) remain safe.” 

The Seventh Fleet has been plagued by problems over the past year. 

In 2017, two ships – the USS John S. McCain and the USS Fitzgerald – were involved in separate collisions with commercial vessels, killing 17 sailors.

In August 2017 Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, commander of all US naval forces in the eastern Pacific, was fired as the result of a “loss of confidence in his ability to command,” the Navy said.

The nationalist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has been plunged into renewed controversy after it emerged that one of its members posed for photographs on a “pilgrimage” of sites associated with Adolf Hitler.

The politician in question, who has not been named under German privacy laws, posed holding a candle outside Hitler’s birthplace in the Austrian town of Braunau am Inn.

He also posed with a picture of the Fuhrer close to his mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden in the Alps, and with a banner bearing a swastika and SS runes. 

Details of the pictures, which were taken on a tour of Nazi sites the politician made with colleagues in 2015, emerged this week in a report in Thüringer Allgemeine newspaper.

The AfD admitted the existence of the photographs and said the politician concerned had resigned from the party.

Although he has not been publicly named, he is understood to be a senior figure in the party’s regional association in Thuringia, and an associate of Björn Höcke, one of the most controversial figures in the AfD.

There were calls for Mr Höcke to be expelled from the party last year after he called for a “180-degree turn” in German attitudes to the Second World War. The politician involved in the latest controversy is understood to have served on the panel that found in Mr Höcke’s favour.

The AfD has known about the existence of the photographs since September and took immediate action, the party said in a statement.

“The person concerned was clearly reminded by the state board that such incidents are unacceptable and incompatible with AfD membership,” Torben Braga, a party spokesman said. The politician had resigned from the party the same day, he said.

Details of the pictures emerged only days after another AfD politician was caught up in a scandal over old photographs of her posing alongside wine bottles with Hitler’s image on the labels.

Jessica Biessmann, a member of the Berlin regional parliament, is facing moves to expel her from the party over the wine bottle photographs, which were originally posted on the internet ten years ago but re-emerged this week.

The twin scandals come amid press reports that several AfD members who were elected to the Bavarian regional parliament last weekend are under surveillance by the German intelligence servives as a possible threat to national security.

Only certain individuals are under surveillance, and not the party as a whole, a spokesman for the Bavarian regional intelligence service told Münchner Merkur newspaper.

Paris has finally found a place for a sculpture of a giant bunch of gaudy tulips offered by American artist Jeff Koons in the wake of the terror attacks but which purists complained would lower the tone of the City of Light.

Mr Koons had described Bouquet of Tulips, a 10-metre (34-foot) work of bronze, stainless steel and aluminium weighing 33 tons as a token of “remembrance to the victims of the terrible tragedies” that rocked the capital in 2014 and 2015, adding that he wanted “to give hope to the surviving family members”.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo initially said the multi-coloured sculpture would be installed for all to see opposite the Eiffel Tower and in front of the Palais de Tokyo and the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris near Trocadéro.   

She hailed it as a "symbol of generosity and sharing", which shows "our capital’s ties with the United States are unbreakable”.

The Bouquet of Tulips features a hand holding the huge flowers in a gesture designed to ape the Statue of Liberty grasping her torch.

However, critics failed to see eye to eye with the mayor.

In an op-ed in Libération newspaper, some 23 figures from France’s art and culture world slammed the choice of a prime location – at the heart of the city’s modern and contemporary art offerings – adding that the museums had no symbolic connection with the Paris attacks.

While Mr Koons was a "brilliant and inventive" artist in the 1980s, he had since morphed into a symbol of "industrial", assembly-line art, they scoffed.

Françoise Nyssen, the culture minister, pledged to find a home for the sculpture at a location that was "popular, visible and shared by everyone”, while the mayor has defended her choice and has been backed by the French government.

"Can you just imagine the international controversy if the city had told the Americans ‘We don’t want your present?’," she said.

After months of dithering, on Friday, Christophe Girard, Paris’ deputy mayor in charge of culture announced that the sculpture would no doubt be installed in the municipal gardens of the of the Beaux-Arts museum in the Petit Palais, opposite the Grand Palais by the Champs-Elysées.

He said the position near the American Embassy was “a very strong symbol and a reaffirmation of our friendship with the American people”.

"We were split between various options… but Jeff Koons never changed his mind about wanting it in the centre of Paris, near where the attacks took place," he added.

Private foundations would pay for installation but as for its upkeep, Parisian taxpayers would foot the bill, he said.

Mr Koons was the subject of controversy of a different kind last month in Paris, where he was accused in court of plagiarising an iconic French clothing advertisement for one of his celebrated sculptures, Fait d’Hiver.

Advertising creative director Franck Davidovici sued Mr Koons, among the world’s most bankable living artists, for €300,000 (£270,000) for copyright infringement, saying he had produced what his lawyer called a “servile copy” of a famous advertising campaign he ran in 1985 for French clothing brand Naf-Naf.

A verdict is due on November 8.