King Charles suffers from a visibly bloodshot right eye as he welcomes French President Emmanuel Macron to Windsor
Buckingham Palace has released an update regarding King Charles’s health after he sparked serious concern with blood in eye during a grand reception for French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday.
The 76-year-old monarch left fans worried as he suffered from a visibly bloodshot right eye, sparking health fear during a grand reception for the couple.
Amid speculation about the King’s health, a spokesperson confirmed the bloodshot appearance was due to a burst blood vessel that developed overnight.
However, they quashed rumours and speculations about the King’s health, adding that it was unrelated to his ongoing cancer treatment and there was no cause for alarm.
The monarch appeared alongside Queen Camilla and First Lady Brigitte Macron to mark the beginning of the three-day diplomatic trip. The visit will focus on celebrating 1,000 years of “shared history and culture” between Britain and France.
The visit marks a significant diplomatic engagement between the two nations, with both heads of state and their spouses participating in the Windsor welcome ceremony.
Following the ceremonial welcome, The King and Queen escorted the French President and his wife into Windsor Castle.
A formal lunch in the State Dining Room will follow, attended by various members of the Royal Family, before the royals show their guests a specially curated exhibition of French-related items from the Royal Collection in the Green Drawing Room.
Progress towards a ceasefire in Gaza has been slow, officials in Qatar say, dashing hopes of a rapid end to hostilities in the devastated Palestinian territory.
The new round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas began on Sunday, after both sides accepted a broad US-sponsored outline of a deal for an initial 60-day ceasefire that could lead to a permanent end to the 21-month conflict.
“I don’t think that I can give any timeline at the moment, but I can say right now that we will need time for this,” Majed al-Ansari, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson, said on Tuesday, the third day of negotiations in Doha.
A Palestinian official familiar with the talks said “no breakthrough has been achieved so far”.
The admission that immediate agreement is unlikely may mean Donald Trump will not be able to announce a deal during this week’s visit to Washington by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, as Trump appeared to have hoped.
On Monday, Trump expressed confidence a deal could be reached soon, telling reporters “things are going along very well” and that Hamas “want to have that ceasefire”.
However, Ansari suggested the negotiations were still in relatively early stages. “What is happening right now is that both delegations are in Doha. We are speaking with them separately on a framework for the talks. So talks have not begun, as of yet, but we are talking to both sides over that framework,” he said.
In Gaza, the death toll continues to mount. Five Israeli military personnel were killed and 14 injured late on Monday in an attack by Hamas militants near Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, while Gaza’s civil defence agency reported 29 people killed in Israeli strikes across the territory, including three children.
Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for the agency, said nine people had been killed in a drone strike on a camp for displaced people in southern Gaza.
Shaimaa al-Shaer, 30, who lives in the camp, said: “I was in front of my tent preparing breakfast for my four children – beans and a bit of dry bread. Suddenly, there was an explosion.”
Relatives of the Abu al-Khair family mourn their children at Nasser hospital, after they were killed by an Israeli drone that struck their tent. Photograph: Anas Deeb/UPI/Shutterstock
Health officials at the Nasser hospital, where victims of the Israeli strikes were taken, said one of the strikes had targeted tents sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, killing four. A separate strike in the city killed another four people – a mother, father, and their two children, officials said.
In central Gaza, Israeli strikes hit a group of people, killing 10 and injuring 72, according to a statement by Awda hospital in Nuseirat.
The IDF accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields, which Hamas denies.
Evacuation orders were issued by the IDF for more neighbourhoods of Khan Younis, displacing thousands of people before new Israeli attacks there.
The current ceasefire proposal envisages a phased release of 28 hostages, Israeli troop withdrawals from parts of Gaza the IDF has seized in recent months, an increase in humanitarian aid to the territory, and discussions on ending the war.
Hamas also want guarantees that Israel will not launch a new offensive after the 60-day truce. A previous ceasefire collapsed in March when Israel reneged on a promise to engage in negotiations that would have led to a second scheduled phase of the existing truce, and possibly a permanent cessation of hostilities.
Israel has said it will not agree to stop fighting until Hamas has released all the 50 hostages it still holds, of whom more than half are dead, and disarms.
Palestinian sources said earlier this week there were also gaps between the parties on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and its distribution.
In contrast to Palestinian and Qatari officials, senior Israeli officials have highlighted progress in the talks.
Ze’ev Elkin, a member of Israel’s security cabinet, said there was “a substantial chance” a ceasefire would be agreed. “Hamas wants to change a few central matters; it’s not simple, but there is progress,” he told Israel’s public broadcaster Kan.
On Monday, Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, laid out plans to force all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp on the ruins of Rafah, a scheme legal experts and academics described as a blueprint for crimes against humanity.
Katz said he had ordered the IDF to prepare to set up a camp, which he called a “humanitarian city”, in Rafah. Israeli forces would control the perimeter of the site and initially “move” 600,000 Palestinians into the area – mostly people currently displaced in the Mawasi area.
Eventually, the entire population of Gaza would be housed there, and Israel aimed to implement “the emigration plan, which will happen”, Haaretz newspaper quoted Katz saying.
Gaza’s ministry of health has counted more than 57,000 killed by the Israeli offensive, mostly civilians. The UN and several western governments consider the tally to be reliable.
The offensive has plunged Gaza’s population into an acute humanitarian crisis, with many threatened by famine, and reduced much of the territory to rubble.
The war was triggered by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli in October 2023 in which militants killed 1,200, mostly civilians, and abducted 250.
LONDON — The French Tricolor and Britain’s Union flag hang from the standards near Windsor Castle. The carriages are primed, the tiaras polished.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, arrived in Britain on Tuesday at the start of a state visit as the two countries highlight their long friendship with conspicuous displays of military pomp, golden carriages and royal toasts.
The backdrop for day one is Windsor Castle, a royal fortress for over 900 years that remains a working palace today.
Prince William and the Princess of Wales greeted the Macron’s at RAF Northolt outside London. King Charles III later formally welcomed the couple later at Windsor Castle, where they rode in a horse-drawn carriage and reviewed a military guard of honor. The first day will end with a state banquet at the castle.
Charles and Queen Camilla traveled to France in September 2023 in a visit that highlighted the historic ties between Britain and its closest European neighbor.
That royal trip came after years of sometimes prickly relations strained by Britain’s exit from the European Union and disagreements over the growing number of migrants crossing the English Channel on small boats.
President Macron’s arrival in Britain marks the first state visit by a French head of state since President Nicolas Sarkozy traveled to London in 2008.
State visits are ceremonial meetings between heads of state that are used to honor friendly nations and sometimes smooth relations between rivals. While the king formally issues the invitation for a state visit, he does so on the advice of the elected government.
State visits to Britain are particularly prized by heads of state because they come with a full complement of royal pomp and circumstance, including military reviews, carriage rides and a glittering state banquet hosted by the monarch.
The events normally take place in and around Buckingham Palace in central London. But the Macrons will stay at Windsor Castle, to the west of the capital. Buckingham Palace is undergoing extensive remodeling.
This is just the fifth state visit since King Charles ascended the throne in September 2022.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa had the honor of receiving the first invitation for a state visit during the new king’s reign and spent three days in Britain in November 2022. The leaders of Qatar, Japan and South Korea have also received the full royal treatment.
More controversially, Charles has invited U.S. President Donald Trump to make an unprecedented second state visit to Britain, which is expected to take place in the autumn.
While Prime Minister Keir Starmer is trying to bolster relations with the U.S., some U.K. lawmakers have questioned whether Trump should be awarded such an honor after he torpedoed long-standing norms for global trade, refused to condemn Russian aggression in Ukraine and proposed moving Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip.
“An invitation for a state visit is highly prized amongst world leaders,’’ said Craig Prescott, a constitutional law expert at Royal Holloway, University of London, who focuses on the political role of the monarchy. “Now, it won’t necessarily turn an enemy into an ally, but it can be part of that broader diplomatic move to maybe get the best out of someone.
“It’s that cherry on the top, but at times it could be a very valuable cherry.”
Queen Elizabeth II, Charles’ mother, hosted 112 state visits during her seven decades on the throne.
State visits are nothing if not a showcase for the British military, which has a global reputation for putting on displays of spit-and-polish precision by soldiers wearing their iconic scarlet tunics and bearskin hats.
Active duty troops who rotate from operational assignments to ceremonial duties put in thousands of hours of training to ensure everything goes off without a hitch.
Some 950 service members from all branches of the U.K. military will take part in the ceremonies, including 380 on street-lining duties and 180 in the Guard of Honor at Windsor Castle. Six military bands will perform a selection of both British and French music.
The display is seen by the British government as a nod to close defense and diplomatic ties but also hints at the ambition for the visit, which may see new defense and security commitments.
But one horse will get special attention. The Macrons will visit Fabuleu de Maucour, a horse given by the French leader to the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, when the nation celebrated the Platinum Jubilee marking her 70 years on the throne.
Count on the French language to be used both in private and in public.
King Charles made a point of speaking French when he addressed lawmakers in the Senate chamber in Paris on the second day of his visit to France in 2023. During that speech, the king said the alliance between Britain and France was more important than ever as he recalled how the two nations had worked together to defeat the Nazi regime.
Charles was a frequent visitor to France before becoming king, making 35 official visits to the country as heir to the throne.
Judges say Taliban officials have ‘severely deprived’ girls and women of rights including education.
Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have issued arrest warrants for two top Taliban leaders on charges of persecuting women and girls.
ICC judges on Tuesday said there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani of committing gender-based persecution.
“While the Taliban have imposed certain rules and prohibitions on the population as a whole, they have specifically targeted girls and women by reason of their gender, depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms,” the court said in a statement.
The Taliban had “severely deprived” girls and women of the rights to education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion, ICC judges said.
“In addition, other persons were targeted because certain expressions of sexuality and/or gender identity were regarded as inconsistent with the Taliban’s policy on gender.”
The court said the alleged crimes had been committed between August 15, 2021, when the Taliban seized power, and continued until at least January 20, 2025.
The court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, sought the warrants in January, saying that they recognised that “Afghan women and girls as well as the LGBTQI+ community are facing an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban”.
UK-based rights group Amnesty International welcomed the move by the ICC, saying it was an “important step towards justice”.
“The announcement is an important development that gives hope, inside and outside the country to Afghan women, girls, as well as those persecuted on the basis of gender identity or expression,” Amnesty International chief Agnes Callamard said in a statement.
“This is a crucial step to hold accountable all those allegedly responsible for the gender-based deprivation of fundamental rights to education, to free movement and free expression, to private and family life, to free assembly, and to physical integrity and autonomy.”
The US-based Human Rights Watch also welcomed the decision.
“Senior Taliban leaders are now wanted men for their alleged persecution of women, girls, and gender non-conforming people. The international community should fully back the ICC in its critical work in Afghanistan and globally, including through concerted efforts to enforce the court’s warrants,” Liz Evenson, the group’s international justice director, said in a statement.
The ICC, based in The Hague, was set up to rule on the world’s worst crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. It has no police force of its own and relies on member states to carry out its arrest warrants – with mixed results.
In theory, this means anyone subject to an ICC arrest warrant cannot travel to a member state for fear of being detained.
Last year, the United Nations accused the Taliban government of barring at least 1.4 million girls of their right to an education during their time in power.
Taking into account the number of girls not going to school before the group came to power, the UN said 80 percent of Afghan school-age girls – a total of 2.5 million – were being denied their right to an education.
Authorities also imposed restrictions on women working for non-governmental groups and other employment, with thousands of women losing government jobs.
Beauty salons have been closed and women blocked from visiting public parks and gyms as well as travelling long distances without a male chaperone.
A “vice and virtue” law announced last summer ordered women not to sing or recite poetry in public and for their voices and bodies to be “concealed” outside the home.
The Princess of Wales turned heads on July 8 as she welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron to the UK in unmistakable diplomatic style. For the first day of the state visit, Kate Middleton wore a blush-pink ensemble from iconic French fashion house Dior, her first time donning the brand publicly.
Kate’s outfit featured a structured Bar jacket and a delicate tulle skirt designed by former Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri. Complementing the look was a matching hat by British milliner Jess Collett and accessories with deep royal significance: a pearl choker and drop earrings once worn by the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Known for her deliberate and symbolic fashion choices, Kate has long used ‘diplomatic dressing’ to pay tribute to other nations. She’s previously worn a maple leaf brooch in Canada and blue and yellow during a visit to London’s Ukrainian Cultural Centre. Her Dior debut appears to continue that tradition, serving as a sartorial nod to the French guests of honour.
Interestingly, Dior has long been associated with Princess Diana, Kate’s late mother-in-law, who frequently carried the Lady Dior handbag. The brand is also a favourite of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. However, until now, Kate had never worn it in public, opting instead for other French labels like Chanel on rare occasions.
The day’s agenda saw Kate and Prince William accompany President Macron and his wife Brigitte to Windsor Castle, where they were greeted by King Charles III and Queen Camilla. As the royal couple prepares for the evening’s state banquet, speculation swirls over whether Kate will continue her French fashion streak.
With elegance and tact, Kate once again proves that royal fashion can speak volumes, especially when the message is one of diplomacy and unity.
The search for missing bodies continues along Texas’ Guadalupe River after catastrophic and deadly flooding killed at least 109 people following a torrential downpour Thursday evening into early Friday.
The death toll includes at least 27 from the all-girls Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp nestled on the South Fork of the Guadalupe River, where flood risk was among the highest in the state, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
A large stretch of the Guadalupe River between Hunt and Comfort, Texas, saw widespread flooding, according to a CNN analysis of hourly flood data from Floodbase.
CNN is tracking updates in maps and charts. Here’s what we know so far about how the disaster unfolded:
The National Weather Service issued a flood watch early Thursday afternoon at 1:18 p.m. CT, that highlighted Kerrville, among other locations, as being at risk of flash flooding through the night into Friday. That watch forecasted 5 to 7 inches of rainfall for the event.
A flash flood warning, upgraded from the earlier watch, was issued for parts of Kerr County at 1:14 a.m. CT on Friday.
Then, a flash flood emergency warning was issued for Kerr County at 4:03 a.m. CT, followed by one specifically for Kerrville at 5:34 a.m. CT.
Ultimately, the most deluged parts of Texas saw as much as 15 inches of rain, more than double what was forecasted the day prior.
One gauge along the Guadalupe River, in Kerrville, shows the water levels hit 23.4 feet at 4:45 a.m. Friday morning, about 45 minutes before the warning specific to the town was issued. Water levels in that spot almost certainly crested above 23.4 feet, but the gauge didn’t record data for 3 hours, between 4:45 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. CT, before picking back up its data measurement.
At Camp Mystic, which is located more than 20 miles west of Kerrville in surrounding Kerr County, Texas, about 107 game wardens and an aviation group were trying to access the camp Friday morning, according to officials. Shortly after midday, they were able to enter the camp and start rescuing children.
The floods ravaged miles and miles of Kerr County, including the towns of Kerrville, Ingram and Hunt, in addition to some of the summer camp locations along the river. As the storm receded into Friday, stories surfaced of families and homes lost in houses, RVs, AirBNBs and more. CNN’s Michelle Krupa and Zoe Sottile share their stories here.
FEMA maintains a database of flood zones throughout the country. It maps the regulatory floodways — the places that will flood first and are most dangerous — and the areas that will flood in extreme events.
At least two of the summer camps along the Guadalupe River were in known floodways.
Five children and one counselor from Camp Mystic remain missing as of Tuesday afternoon.
Everyone at Camp La Junta has been safe and accounted for, the camp announced Friday.
The announcement of a cease-fire between Iran and Israel, after 12 days of war, was met with relief in Pakistan. As tensions escalated between the two archrivals, particularly following the June 21 US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, Pakistan’s geopolitical importance suddenly increased. Both Tehran and Washington expected Islamabad to side with their respective positions. The United States hoped to have Pakistan’s understanding of its decision to use force to destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. Whereas Iran counted on Pakistan to stand with it against Israeli and American efforts to deny it the right to pursue what it continues to claim is a peaceful energy policy. This situation placed the Pakistani government in a politically sensitive and diplomatically delicate position. On the one hand, it was in the process of strengthening its strategic ties with the US. On the other, it did not wish to abandon the principle of supporting the self-determination of a neighboring Muslim country. Also, an attack that could destabilize Iran left the possibility of triggering a severe crisis within Pakistan. Terrorist groups already active in the restive Balochistan region, which straddles Iran and Pakistan’s shared border, could exploit the chaos, escalate attacks, and attempt to take control of ungoverned or weakened frontier areas.
Despite all these concerns, the long-running Iran-Israel conflict had never posed such a significant domestic challenge for Pakistan’s civil-military establishment as it did this time. Just a day before the US strike, Pakistan had nominated President Donald Trump for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, citing his “decisive diplomatic intervention and pivotal leadership” during the recent four-day war between India and Pakistan. The timing could not have been worse, and a wide range of political voices in Pakistan criticized the civil-military establishment for appearing to appease the US and abandoning a neighboring Muslim country just as one was attacking the other. However, without delay, the Pakistani government condemned the strikes, calling them “deeply disturbing” and a breach of international norms. The Foreign Office added its grave concern about the potential for further escalation, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif phoned Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to affirm Pakistan’s support.
But Islamabad’s backing was clearly measured. Ignoring domestic pressure to provide Iran with security assistance, Islamabad limited its response to the attacks to rhetorical and symbolic support. In truth, while in recent years there has been a relaxation in bilateral relations between Iran and several of its neighbors, presumably no state in the region welcomes the prospects of a nuclear-armed Iran, and some leaders are privately thought to be supportive of US actions. Public criticisms appear aimed mainly at managing domestic public opinion and preserving diplomatic options.
Most recently, Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a call with Prime Minister Sharif, during which both agreed to work together to achieve a durable peace between Iran and Israel. Meanwhile, Iran’s military chief, Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi, called Pakistan’s Army head, Field Marshal Asim Munir, to thank Pakistan for taking a courageous stance and supporting Iran during its 12-day war with Israel. Pakistan’s ability to simultaneously maintain constructive ties with Iran and the US places it in a strategically important position to bridge divides and serve as a credible mediator between the two.
Pakistan is skilled in threading such diplomatic needles. Over the past several decades, it successfully preserved a balanced relationship with deep rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, and it managed to remain on friendly terms with often mutually antagonistic Arab states. For a period of 20 years, its governments facilitated US military operations in Afghanistan while also keeping faith with its client Afghan insurgents. Pakistan also resisted without seeming to outright reject the idea that its nuclear program should be treated as an Islamic one. As US-China relations have become more contentious in recent years, Islamabad, which won plaudits for its role in the 1971 reproachment, has demonstrated its diplomatic skills in avoiding having to choose sides.
Strongly negative sentiment in Pakistan toward the United States has long been ingrained into popular attitudes, fueled in recent years by the political opposition’s various anti-American conspiracy theories and spiked most recently by a US alignment with Israel’s policies in Gaza. Through it all, however, civil-military authorities in Islamabad have worked to normalize as much as possible their relationship with Washington. The government had visibly chafed under the policies of President Joe Biden’s administration, which had marginalized Pakistan as a regional actor and narrowly defined bilateral relations. Many in the country took special umbrage over Biden’s refusal to establish personal contact with Pakistan’s civilian leadership. Only lingering US concerns over the resurgence of global terrorism in the region seemed to have kept Pakistan on Washington’s radar.
In contrast, President Donald Trump’s administration is seen as offering a fresh start for US-Pakistani relations. Islamabad was delighted to hear the president single out Pakistan for praise in his April 2025 address before a joint session of the US Congress for its contribution to nabbing a high-value terrorist. Leaning on Trump’s comments, many in the Pakistani government and military envisioned a US administration now ready to take an active role in resolving the Kashmir dispute. Others expressed optimism that the US would use its assumed influence over the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to soften the IMF’s strict demands on Pakistan. Moreover, some hoped that with Biden gone, Pakistan would now be free of the years of hectoring the US had subjected it to about its human rights record and democratic practices.
Trump’s foreign policy agenda — whose success he tends to measure by the extent of secured international transactions that aggrandize American national interests — has only slightly dimmed Pakistani expectations of a warmer relationship with Washington. Pakistan has been hit with the threat of high tariffs and travel restrictions. But thus far, it has reacted calmly and obligingly offered the US rare mineral concessions along with investment opportunities. Pakistan’s brief war with India last May also ended up indirectly furthering the improvement in ties with the US: the government in Islamabad was pleased at being treated by American mediators as equals with New Delhi. While India refuses to acknowledge a US role in ending the conflict, Pakistan has heaped praise on Trump, Rubio, and others.
A striking indication of the changed atmosphere was provided several days before the American bombing raid on Iran with the visit to Washington by Field Marshal Munir, effectively the most powerful figure in Pakistan. Munir was greeted warmly at the Pentagon by top brass and rewarded with a private lunch meeting with the US president. His visit came on the heels of a Pakistani diplomatic delegation that had successful meetings with officials at the State Department, seeking to shape Pakistan’s narrative of the recent four-day war with India. Those trips became a visible embarrassment, however, with the onset of the US armed intervention in Iran. Munir and the governing coalition suffered a political setback on which opposition elements quickly sought to capitalize. The more recent cease-fire between Iran and Israel brokered by Trump, on the other hand, seems to have offered a reprieve for Pakistan’s civil-military establishment.
The latest warming of relations between the United States and Pakistan may require a fuller explanation than can be understood in transactional terms. Seen against the background of intensifying American engagement in the Middle East and South Asia, as witnessed over the last several months, Washington may be grooming Pakistan to once more assume the close regional security partner role it played in the US’s Cold War alliance containment policy, the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and over the course of the post-2001 counter-insurgency campaign against the Afghan Taliban. In a region marked by ongoing volatility and intensifying great power competition, Pakistan could have much to offer the US: not only is it the Greater Middle East’s most populous Muslim country but also boasts its largest and most formidable military and is the Islamic world’s sole nuclear power. The Iran-Israel conflict thrust Pakistan back into the global spotlight, exacerbating the many foreign policy challenges it already faces. It remains to be seen how Pakistan will handle the complex and shifting international landscape.
Marvin G. Weinbaum is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute, focusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and served as analyst for Pakistan and Afghanistan in the US Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research from 1999 to 2003.
Naade Ali is currently serving as a Research Assistant to Dr. Weinbaum at MEI. He has more than five years of involvement working with international organizations and think tanks as a political researcher, policy advisor, peace strategist, and human rights practitioner with experience in human and national security, democratization, conflict resolution, and political culture. Prior to joining MEI, Ali worked with Media Foundation 360, a think tank dedicated to strengthening democratic practices in Pakistan.
Photo by AAMIR QURESHI/AFP via Getty Images
The Middle East Institute (MEI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-for-profit, educational organization. It does not engage in advocacy and its scholars’ opinions are their own. MEI welcomes financial donations, but retains sole editorial control over its work and its publications reflect only the authors’ views. For a listing of MEI donors, please click here.
Spanish police say “all the evidence so far indicates” Diogo Jota was the driver of the car involved in the accident that killed the Liverpool forward and his brother, Andre Silva.
Police also believe “the vehicle significantly exceeded the speed limit for the highway” at the time of the accident.
The accident happened at 12.30am local time on Thursday (11.30pm Wednesday BST) on the A-52 motorway in the municipality of Cernadilla, Zamora.
It is understood Jota was travelling from Portugal to Santander in northern Spain, where he was due to take the ferry back to England.
A statement published by the Civil Guard in Zamora on Tuesday read: “The expert report is being prepared and finalised.
“Among other things, the marks left by one of the vehicle’s wheels are being examined.
“All the evidence so far indicates that the driver of the crashed vehicle was Diogo Jota.
“The expert report is not yet complete, but as it is subject to judicial review, it will be submitted to the Puebla de Sanabria court.”
Last Thursday, the Civil Guard said in a statement to Sky Sports News: “A vehicle left the road and everything indicates a tyre burst while overtaking.
“As a result of the accident, the car caught fire and both people were killed.”
The funeral for Jota and his brother, Silva, was held in the town of Gondomar, near Porto, on Saturday.
