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President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, 60 years ago. I do not remember that fateful day on 22 November 1963, as I was just four years old.

But I do remember the summer day, five years later in 1968, when his brother – former US attorney general and would be president, Robert F “Bobby” Kennedy – was shot dead in that tumultuous election year.

Over the decades since their deaths the two brothers, often referred to just by their initials – JFK and RFK, have never been forgotten.

In the United States, and much of the Western democratic world, they have assumed iconic status in death. Their family members left behind, have tried to pick up their political legacies.

The Kennedy name has been the biggest brand in American politics, public interest in its members sharpened by numerous tragedies and scandals.

Some likened them to America’s royal family complete with symbolic castles at the “family compounds” in Massachusetts and Florida. Clan members seemed to occupy political office, almost as if by divine right.

But the dynastic vision has been fading at last. The myths, personalities and untimely deaths associated with the Kennedys are inevitably resonating less and less with contemporary electorates. There are currently none of the dynasty in elected state or national office.

In this election year, a maverick Kennedy is hoping to reverse all that. RFK’s 69-year-old son, who shares his father’s name, is running for president.

Whether Bobby Junior revives or further tarnishes the Kennedy brand is an open question. At least four of his 10 siblings say he is “an embarrassment”.

He has abandoned his family’s traditional allegiance to the Democratic party. He pulled out of the Democratic nomination contest to run as an independent candidate against both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, declaring “my intention is to spoil it for both of them”.

RFK junior is a self-styled environmentalist, an anti-vaxxer, and a supporter of the right to bear arms. He has embraced numerous conspiracy theories – even suggesting the CIA was involved in the assassinations of his father and uncle.

He marked the 60th anniversary of the death of President Kennedy by launching a petition to release the last of the government’s records relating to the shooting.

The National Archives says 99% of the material is already in the public domain, following orders from Presidents Trump and Biden. RFK junior retorted, “what is so embarrassing that they’re afraid to show the American public 60 years later?”.

Political dynasty

The Kennedys came to America as immigrants from Ireland. JFK was the first Roman Catholic US president. A grandfather of Joseph Kennedy was mayor of Boston in the 1890s.

Joe Kennedy was the patriarch of the clan and founder of the family fortune. His businesses flourished through the great depression and the prohibition of alcohol.

President Franklin Roosevelt gave Joseph P Kennedy I his highest rank in politics by appointing him a controversial ambassador to the UK.

He resigned during the Battle of Britain in 1940, suspected of Nazi sympathies, after commenting “democracy is finished in England”.

He was subsequently a major supporter of the anti-communist senator Joe McCarthy.

Today Joseph’s fortune is shared by several generations of direct descendants, who have mostly chosen to go into public service rather than business. Their net worth is put at several billion dollars.

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Joe and his ambitious wife, Rose, had nine children, all now dead. The eldest son, Joe junior, a US Navy bomber pilot was killed above the English Channel in 1944. Their youngest daughter, Jean Kennedy Smith, was US ambassador to Ireland and died in 2020.

Rose and Joseph put their ambitions and their money behind their surviving sons – Jack, Bobby and Ted. All three became US senators and presidential candidates. Their siblings and descendants have often followed in their political footsteps – to a lesser and dwindling degree.

JFK was elected the US’s youngest-ever president. Young, rich, and beautiful, the Kennedys carefully curated their glamourous image in the White House.

Most famously Marilyn Monroe sang a seductive “Happy Birthday, Mr President” at the Madison Square Garden for his 45th birthday.

He and his stylish wife Jackie had three children. Patrick died in infancy. John junior and Caroline were still small when their father was killed.

Neil Diamond has said Caroline was the inspiration for his song “Sweet Caroline”. More recently Biden appointed Caroline Kennedy US ambassador to Japan, she was previously Obama’s ambassador to Australia.

John junior and his wife Carolyn Bessette were killed when a plane he was piloting crashed off Martha’s Vineyard in 1999.

The last powerful, world-famous Kennedy died in 2009. Edward Kennedy was the younger brother of JFK and RFK.

“Ted” died while still a US senator. Many viewed the liberal Democrat’s 47 years’ of continuous service as an attempt to expiate for what happened at Chappaquiddick in 1969.

A 29-year-old aide, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned in his car when Kennedy drove it off a bridge in Martha’s Vineyard. He survived but was later linked to a further scandal.

After a night partying with his son and nephew, his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, was charged and subsequently acquitted, of rape. Dr Smith went on to found the charity Physicians Against Land Mines (PALM).

Ted had three children, including Patrick who served eight terms as a congressman from Rhode Island before retiring with mental and addiction issues.

Of RFK’s 11 children, Joseph P Kennedy II was a six-term congressman for Massachusetts, Kathleen was a two-term lieutenant governor in Maryland and then there is RFK jnr.

Jack, Ted and Bobby’s sister Eunice married Sargent Shriver, who ran unsuccessfully in 1974 on the Democratic ticket as George McGovern’s vice-presidential candidate.

Their daughter Maria Shriver was married to the bodybuilder and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was twice elected Republican governor of California.

‘Challenger’

Joe Biden has always enjoyed a close relationship with his fellow Irish Americans. As well as sending Caroline Kennedy to Tokyo, he made Ted’s second wife, Victoria, ambassador to Austria.

President Biden also appointed Ted’s 23-year-old grandson, Joseph P Kennedy III, US special envoy to Northern Ireland.

Now Bobby is challenging Biden. In a favourability opinion poll this month by Harris, he topped the candidates list with a net rating of +27, ahead of Trump on +7 and Biden on -2.

That does not make him a likely winner in the US’s fundamentally two-party system, but third-party candidates matter because they often affect who becomes president.

In 2000, when Democrats won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College, the activist Ralph Nader scored 97,488 votes in Florida. If Al Gore had picked up just 537 of those votes he would have become president instead of George W Bush.

In 2016 Democrats again won the popular vote and lost the Electoral College.

In the swing states of Wisconsin and Michigan the Libertarian, Gary Johnson, and Green Party’s Jill Stein, each took multiples of the margin of votes by which Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump.

Kennedy’s current ratings around 20% are on a par with the businessman Ross Perot, the strongest third force of modern times.

Perot won 19% and 8% of the popular vote respectively in 1992 and 1996, arguably assisting Bill Clinton’s election.

With typical entitlement, Kennedy says he is confident he will win the battle against Trump and Biden’s lawyer to “get on the ballot of every state”.

If he succeeds, polls suggest he takes slightly more votes from Trump than from Biden. That could be enough to change who wins in closely fought key states.

Trump has called Bobby a Biden “plant”. The Biden campaign is worried that the Kennedy name could cost Democratic votes.

They note Bobby’s visit to Trump’s White House and the encouragement he has received from Steve Bannon and alternative media outlets such as Fox News, Joe Rogan and Jordan Petersen.

Plugging into the mood of populist discontent, Bobby is appealing for votes from “people who are willing to question orthodoxy”.

As embodied by JFK and RFK, the Kennedy name is one of the most revered in American politics. Now yet another descendant is attempting simultaneously both to exploit and to escape from being a Kennedy.

An Irish-Israeli schoolgirl is among 17 hostages freed by Hamas in return for dozens of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, in the second swap under a truce deal.

Emily Hand, from Kibbutz Be’eri, celebrated her ninth birthday in captivity on Friday.

The girl, who was one of 13 Israelis freed on Saturday, was among 240 hostages abducted 50 days ago during the 7 October attack on Israel.

She was reunited with her father, Thomas, following her release.

Israel-Gaza latest updates

“Emily has come back to us,” the Hand family said in a statement.

“We can’t find the words to describe our emotions after 50 challenging and complicated days.

“We are overjoyed to embrace Emily again, but at the same time, we remember all the hostages who have yet to return.

“We will persist in doing everything in our power to bring them back home.”

Emily was sleeping at her best friend’s house when Hamas gunmen broke in, before losing contact with her family.

Relatives were initially told her body had been found – but the IDF later informed them of evidence indicating that she was among the hostages held in Gaza.

Emily’s father, Thomas, originally from Dun Laoghaire in Dublin, last week pleaded for her release, saying getting Emily back was his “reason for living”.

Her family held a birthday party for her in the Irish capital as they campaigned for her freedom.

Mr Hand met Irish leaders including Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who described her release as “a day of enormous joy and relief for Emily and her family”.

“A little girl was snatched from her home and held captive for almost seven weeks,” Mr Varadkar said.

“She spent her ninth birthday as a hostage.

“We hope she will soon heal and recover from the traumatic experience in the loving embrace of her family.”

Mr Varadkar hailed Emily’s father for his “courage and determination” to ensure she would be freed.

“Irish people everywhere share in the relief of Emily’s family,” he added.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with all the hostages in Gaza, but we followed particularly closely the fate of Emily, a dual Irish-Israeli citizen.

“Their fate is unknown, but we hope that, like Emily, they will be allowed to return to their homes and their families.”

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Irish Tanaiste, Micheal Martin, said the Irish people have been “deeply touched” by Emily’s story, and reiterated his call that “all hostages in Gaza should be released immediately and unconditionally”.

The latest exchange comes on the second day of a temporary ceasefire that has allowed humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and given civilians their first respite after seven weeks of war.

On the first day of the four-day ceasefire, Hamas released 24 of the about 240 hostages, while Israel freed 39 Palestinians from prison.

Those freed in Gaza were 13 Israelis, 10 Thais and a Filipino.

Under the temporary truce agreement, which was mediated by Qatar, the militant group will release one Israeli hostage for every three prisoners freed.

During the four days of the ceasefire, Hamas is due to release at least 50 Israeli hostages, and Israel will free 150 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel has said the truce can be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages released – a move backed by US President Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, a Qatari delegation arrived in Israel on Saturday to co-ordinate with parties on the ground and “ensure the deal continues to move smoothly”, according to a diplomat.

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The start of the truce on Friday morning brought the first moment of peace for 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza , which has been under relentless Israeli bombardment in the wake of last month’s insurgent massacre launched from the territory.

Rocket fire by Hamas into Israel has also ceased.

The United Nations said the pause enabled it to scale up the delivery of food, water and medicine to Gaza in the face of a humanitarian crisis in the previously besieged enclave.

Israel launched its onslaught on Gaza after insurgents stormed across the border fence on 7 October – killing 1,200 people and seizing about 240 hostages.

Israel’s retaliation against the Hamas-ruled territory has killed some 14,000 Gazans, around 40% of them children, according to Palestinian health authorities.

It is the bloodiest episode in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel’s stated aim is to remove Hamas once and for all.

We decided to bring together a British Jew and a British Palestinian who have felt themselves deeply affected by conflict in the Middle East.

Mohamed Aboukhachab is an accountant in his early 20s. He is a Muslim whose family came to Britain, via Lebanon, from the Palestinian “nakba” in 1948.

Deborah Lyons, 37, lives in north London and works in the fashion industry. She is Jewish and was born and raised in the UK.

Like Mohamed her family has suffered in the long conflict – her grandfather was killed by a bomb in Israel.

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We know their interaction has no relevance to the war itself, but it does have relevance here in Britain: the distant thunder of the guns is creating divisions here, stripped of complexity, which it’s in all our interests to explore.

“I’m here to talk to you about ways in which, hopefully, at least, you and me, can come together to talk about how we can make things better – rather than things that push us further apart,” says Deborah.

“I agree,” says Mohamed, adding: “I want to display that there is a generation, and generations, of Palestinian people who can genuinely live in peace.”

It is not the narrative that we have most commonly seen in the news media since 7 October, when Hamas invaded southern Israel, murdering, raping and kidnapping its citizens.

But Deborah and Mohamed have agreed to come to Sky News and talk about their different perspectives and to see if they can find some common ground.

Since the October attacks and Israel’s retaliatory action on Gaza, there has been a rise in Islamophobic offences of 140% while antisemitic offences have risen by 1,353%, according to the Metropolitan Police.

Deborah thinks the recent pro-Palestinian marches, which have seen hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating on Britain’s streets, are a reason for this recent sharp rise in reports of antisemitism.

She has particular concern about the chant “from the river to sea, Palestine will be free,” a chant which Mohamed freely admits that he uses.

The chant refers to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an area which contains all the Palestinian and Israeli territory.

It was first used in 1948, calling for a free Palestinian state for both Palestinians and Jews.

For some, it is a call to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, but to others, including many Jewish groups, it is an antisemitic slogan.

“Calling ‘from the river to the sea’ rather than calling for a two-state solution? That, for me, is truly problematic,” Deborah says.

“And then when I’m walking around London, seeing swastikas all over the street or ripped down hostage posters. Does it make me feel very targeted here? Very isolated and afraid?

“Yeah, 100%.”

“I think it’s unfair to say that the Palestinian marches and the protests are all defined by swastikas,” Mohamed says.

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“I can’t speak about being Palestinian because when I speak about being Palestinian, when I go to a pro-Palestine march, you say I walk among people who are antisemitic. And it’s really unfair to put those connotations on someone who’s simply marching for the freedom of his people.”

He goes on to explain that, for him, “from the river to the sea”, is not an anti-Israeli or antisemitic slogan, simply a call for an end to what he describes as “occupation”.

“I believe in a two-state solution,” he says.

Deborah remains unconvinced by this defence, insisting “it causes more divisions, it causes more harms,” but neither can convince the other.

Their disagreement is amicable.

Mohamed then says: “As a Muslim, I’ve seen a lot of what’s happened to my community and how we’ve been marginalised.

“And (for) the Jewish community, I’ve seen a lot, and it’s been horrific. We have no problems between each other and that’s what we need to show… one people.”

“Let’s hope,” says Deborah.

“We can hope,” Mohamed replies.

Mohamed and Deborah parted on warm terms.

Friends would be overstating it, but they recognised a shared citizenship within each other which policymakers will need to build on, even as the horrors of this war continue.

At least four people have died and five are fighting for their lives after a stampede at a music festival in India on Saturday, which left dozens injured.

The tragedy happened in an open-air auditorium on campus at the Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) in Kochi, a major port city in the southern state of Kerala.

The audience scrambled to find shelter after the festival was interrupted by rain.

State health minister Veena George posted a series of posts on Facebook confirming that four people – two boys and two girls – were found dead.

Ms George said “many people got injured in the rush” at the university – amid reports suggesting at least 60 people have been hurt.

She said 56 people were taken to hospital for treatment, with five girls in a critical condition in an intensive care unit.

Seventeen children have now been discharged, Ms George added.

More than 100 ambulances have been deployed to the scene.

The disaster happened ahead of a performance by Nikhita Gandhi, before she arrived at the venue.

The singer posted a statement on Instagram saying she was “heartbroken and devastated” by the incident.

“Such an unfortunate incident took place before I could even leave for the venue for the performance,” she told her 253,000 followers.

“No words are possibly enough to express this profound grief. My prayers go out to the families of the students.”

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Ms George has ordered senior officials, including the directors of the state health department and health education department, to send doctors and other health workers to both Kalamassery Medical College and Ernakulam General Hospital.

Private hospitals have also been instructed to prepare for arrivals in the wake of the incident.

Kerala’s top elected official, Pinarayi Vijayan, said he has ordered an investigation into the disaster.

The truce was never going to work like clockwork.

Between its two parties, there is no trust and utter enmity.

Israelis and Hamas have traded accusations with each other over the setback that threatened to upend the exchange of hostages and prisoners.

Only eleventh-hour diplomacy by both Qataris and Egyptians saved the day and resolved the differences.

Israel-Gaza latest: Hostages freed by Hamas ‘arrive in Israel’

Hamas said Israel reneged on the deal, by not sending enough aid into Gaza. Israel says Hamas was playing games, flexing its muscles to show it is calling the shots.

One official told Sky News you need nerves of steel to deal with Hamas. That’s undoubtedly true. And they will be tested again before this truce is over.

There had been optimism earlier in the day, Egypt said both sides had signalled they want the truce extended for a day or two after the agreed four days is up.

By nightfall, the Israelis were saying the opposite, reportedly threatening to start military operations by midnight if the hostages weren’t released.

Israel’s defence minister Yoav Galant visited Gaza by boat on Saturday, striding up its beach.

And he repeated his intention to order the offensive to start again once the truce is over.

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Both sides are playing hardball.

There are two more days of ceasefire.

Saturday’s hitch isn’t likely to be the last, but the fundamentals remain the same, both sides want the truce to hold for different reasons.

Hamas wants to buy time to recover from Israel’s punishing seven-week assault on the ground and in the air. It will hope the temporary truce can become permanent.

Israel says that is out of the question. It is only a matter of time it seems before the war is resumed, but in the meantime, it hopes to bring its women and children home.