Joe Biden has turned the US election on its head. After fiercely insisting for weeks that he would remain the Democratic nominee for president, he has bowed to pressure and dropped out of the race.

Here’s what it means for Vice-President Kamala Harris, for the Democrats more broadly and for Donald Trump.

The prospects for Kamala Harris being the Democratic nominee have received a big boost with Joe Biden’s endorsement.

He gave her his full backing, calling his decision to make her vice-president four years ago the best he ever made.

She responded by saying she was honoured to have his endorsement and would do everything possible to win the nomination.

It is possible that most Democrats will follow the president’s lead and fall in line behind the vice-president to avoid ongoing uncertainty less than a month from the Democratic convention.

There are practical and political reasons for doing so.

She is next in the constitutional line of succession. The optics of passing over the first black woman on a presidential ticket would be terrible for the party. She would also immediately have access to the roughly $100 million in funds the campaign has raised so far.

But there are also risks. Public opinion surveys show Harris’ approval ratings are about as low as his. And in head-to-head matchups against Donald Trump, she fares roughly the same as Biden.

Second is that Harris has had a sometimes rocky time as vice-president. Early in the administration, she was given the task of addressing the root causes of the migration crisis at the US-Mexico border.

That’s a daunting challenge, and a number of missteps and misstatements opened her up to criticism. She’s also been the administration’s point person on abortion rights, which has been a topic she has much more effectively handled. But those first impressions have stuck.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Harris has already run for national office – her 2020 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination – and stumbled badly.

While she surged early, a combination of fumbled interviews, a lack of clearly defined vision and a poorly managed campaign led her to drop out before even the earliest primaries.

Opting for Harris is a risk for Democrats, but at this point there are no safe options. And the stakes – a possible Donald Trump victory – are as high as they get.

Over the past half-century, political conventions have been transformed into somewhat boring affairs. With every minute carefully scripted for television, they’ve become extended multi-day commercials for the presidential nominee.

Last week’s Republican convention was certainly that way – even with Donald Trump’s overly long, sometimes rambling nomination acceptance speech.

Next month’s Democratic convention in Chicago is shaping up to be very, very different. Whatever script the party and the Biden campaign had been working on just got thrown out the window. Even if the party falls in line behind Harris, it will be difficult to plan – and control – how things unfold on the convention floor.

And if Harris doesn’t succeed in uniting the party, the convention could turn into a political free-for-all, with various candidates vying for the nomination before the cameras and behind closed doors.

It could make for gripping political theatre, live and unpredictable, in a way the American public has never before witnessed.

This year’s Republican convention was a carefully calibrated machine, promoting the party’s most popular agenda items and focusing criticism on one man, President Joe Biden.

It turns out, the Republicans were targeting the wrong guy.

With the news of Biden’s abandoning of his re-election campaign, the Republican game plan spearheaded by Donald Trump has been turned on its head.

The Republicans spent an entire week of carefully scripted events focusing on the wrong weaknesses of the Democrat opposing them.

The campaign had highlighted their candidate’s strength and vitality by giving him a raucous entrance, preceded by appearances by former wrestler Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Fighting Championship impresario Dana White, as well as a performance by Kid Rock.

The attempts at contrast with Mr Biden’s perceived frailty – and the strategy to peel away younger male voters – were obvious.

But in any scenario now, the Democratic nominee is going to be someone much younger than the president.

A strategy of strong vs frail against Vice-President Kamala Harris or one of the more youthful Democratic governors who are mentioned as possible Biden successors just won’t pack the same punch.

If Harris is the nominee, expect the Republicans to try to tie her to the perceived failings of the current administration. For months they have called her the “border czar”.

Although the former prosecutor is by no means from the progressive wing of the party, previous Republican attacks on her suggest they may also paint her as “radical left”.

No matter who the nominee is, the Republicans are sure to blame the Democrats for covering up Biden’s age-related weaknesses – and putting the nation at risk.

At this point, everyone is flying blind with just a few months until the first presidential ballots are cast.

• LIVE: Latest updates as Joe Biden drops out of US presidential election race
• WATCH: How Joe Biden’s bid for re-election came to an end
• IN FULL: Biden’s letter announcing his withdrawal
• PROFILE: Kamala Harris, the VP who Biden is backing for president
• EXPLAINED: Biden has endorsed Harris. What happens next?

Joe Biden on Sunday announced he would end his re-election campaign, and said Kamala Harris, his vice-president, should take his place.

“I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” he wrote on X. “Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump.”

Ms Harris taking over is not a done deal, however.

Several others have been touted as potential replacements in the weeks leading to Mr Biden’s withdrawal.

Many have paid tribute to Mr Biden after his announcement – but crucially almost none have said explicitly that they support the Harris endorsement.

Delegates will vote next month at the Democratic National Convention to officially confirm who will replace Mr Biden.

Here is a look at the names who could challenge Ms Harris.

Gretchen Whitmer, the two-term governor of Michigan, is an increasingly popular Midwest Democrat who many pundits speculate will run for president in 2028.

She has campaigned for Mr Biden in the past and has not been shy about her political aspirations.

She told the New York Times she wants to see a Generation X president in 2028, but stopped short of suggesting that she might fill that role.

In 2022, she led a campaign that left Michigan Democrats in control of the state’s legislature and the governor’s mansion.

That political control allowed her to enact a number of progressive policies including protecting Michigan abortion access and the passage of gun safety measures.

Ms Whitmer quickly stated after Mr Biden’s withdrawal that her job “will remain the same… doing everything I can to elect Democrats and stop Donald Trump.”

That, however, was not an endorsement of Ms Harris.

California’s governor is one of the Biden administration’s fiercest surrogates. But he has political ambitions of his own.

He is often listed as a possible 2028 candidate, but many Democratic pundits now say that he could replace Mr Biden.

Mr Newsom raised his national profile in recent years by being a key party messenger on conservative media, and via a debate against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last year.

He stood by the president before his announcement. He travelled to Washington to attend meetings in July with Mr Biden and other top Democratic governors, and headlined a Biden campaign event in Michigan on the 4 July.

Mr Newsom again praised Mr Biden as a “selfless” president after his withdrawal was announced. But his statement on Twitter was brief, and mentioned nothing of his own intentions nor commented on the endorsement of Ms Harris.

It is no secret that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has presidential aspirations.

He ran for president in 2020 and is often touted as one of the Biden administration’s best communicators.

Mr Buttigieg has managed a number of public crises during his time as transportation secretary.

He helped to oversee the government response to the East Palestine train derailment in Ohio, the Baltimore Bridge collapse and Southwest Airlines’ scheduling crisis in 2022.

Mr Buttigieg stated on Twitter/X that Mr Biden had “earned his place among the best and most consequential presidents in American history”.

He did not comment on his endorsement of Ms Harris.

Josh Shapiro has seen high approval ratings since he was elected in 2022 in a swing state Trump narrowly carried in 2016.

The governor, who previously served as the state’s attorney general, has worked across party lines during his tenure.

He made national headlines last year after quickly rebuilding a collapsed bridge on a crucial Philadelphia highway – a major political victory for a first-term governor.

The speedy repair was hailed by many as the perfect infrastructure talking point for a potential 2028 presidential candidate.

Mr Shapiro said Mr Biden was one of the “most consequential presidents in modern history” after the president announced his withdrawal from the election race but – like most names touted to replace him – said nothing of what comes next.

JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, has raised his profile in recent years by going after Trump and defending Mr Biden.

The billionaire businessman – heir to the Hyatt hotel chain – is quick to post criticism of Trump on social media.

After the debate he called Trump a “liar” and said he is a “34-count convicted felon who cares only about himself”.

Like Ms Whitmer, Mr Pritzker has a track record of completing agenda items on progressive Democrats’ to-do lists on issues like abortion rights and gun control.

He did not immediately comment on Mr Biden’s decision to withdraw from the election race.

The list of potential nominees stretches beyond these Democrats, as the party has developed a deep bench of possible future presidential candidates.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a two-term Democratic governor in a very conservative state, has earned growing national attention since his re-election last year.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore found himself in the spotlight in recent months following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.

Senators Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker have run for president in the past and have some name recognition among Democrats.

Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, who won a closely contested Senate race in a swing state, also has been mentioned as a potential replacement for Mr Biden.

A Reuters IPSOS poll released Tuesday found the only person who could beat Trump in November was Michelle Obama. But the former first lady has repeatedly said she does not have presidential aspirations.

• LIVE: Latest updates as Joe Biden drops out of US presidential election race
• WATCH: How Joe Biden’s bid for re-election came to an end
• IN FULL: Biden’s letter announcing his withdrawal
• PROFILE: Kamala Harris, the VP who Biden is backing for president
• EXPLAINED: Biden has endorsed Harris. What happens next?
• ANALYSIS: What Biden quitting means for Harris, the Democrats and Trump

President Joe Biden surprised American voters on Sunday when he announced he would drop out of the race for president after weeks of resisting calls to step down.

Though he will carry out the rest of his presidency, he has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place as the Democratic Party’s nominee.

The decision throws the party into uncharted waters with just a month to go before the Democratic National Convention.

Here’s a guide to what could come next.

The last time an incumbent US president abandoned their campaign for re-election was Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1968. As a result, the path for nominating a new candidate so close to Election Day is unclear.

President Biden had already won 3,896 pledged delegates – much more than the amount needed to secure his party’s nomination.

While Mr Biden’s endorsement makes Ms Harris the most likely pick for the nominee, after he releases his delegates, they are no longer pledged to a candidate.

It will ultimately be up to them to vote for whomever they choose.

The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to begin on 19 August.

If the Democratic Party does not come together to support a new candidate, that could set the stage for an open convention for the first time since 1968.

That would mean delegates would be free to decide who to vote for among multiple candidates if they emerge.

Candidates would need signatures from at least 300 delegates – no more than 50 coming from one state – for their name to appear on the ballot.

There would be an initial round of voting among the 3,900 pledged delegates, which includes voters deemed loyal to the Democratic party.

If no candidate receives a majority of votes after this first round, then more rounds of voting would take place. These rounds of voting would include superdelegates – party leaders and elected officials – who would all cast ballots until a nominee is chosen.

To secure the party nomination, a candidate needs 1,976 delegate votes.

As calls grew for Mr Biden to drop out of the race in recent weeks, a number of potential replacements emerged.

Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been floated as a candidate, though she has said she would not consider running if Mr Biden stepped aside. On Sunday, minutes after Mr Biden’s announcement, she said she would do everything she can “to elect Democrats and stop Donald Trump”.

Other options include California Governor Gavin Newsom, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

Some of these candidates could be considered for the role of vice president if Ms Harris does ultimately win the nomination.

• LIVE: Latest updates as Joe Biden drops out of US presidential election race
• WATCH: How Joe Biden’s bid for re-election came to an end
• IN FULL: Biden’s letter announcing his withdrawal
• PROFILE: Kamala Harris, the VP who Biden is backing for president
• ANALYSIS: What Biden quitting means for Harris, the Democrats and Trump

Many Republicans quickly called on President Joe Biden to resign and leave the White House after his announcement on Sunday that he would withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.

Republican leaders said that Mr Biden’s decision to step aside confirmed their view that he was not in cognitive shape to serve as president – an issue that has dogged the Democrat since his disastrous debate last month.

“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, the most powerful Republican in congress.

“He must resign the office immediately. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough,” he added, referring to Election Day.

Mr Biden, in announcing that he was dropping out, said he would stay in office until the end of his term in January.

The White House a few hours later on Sunday reiterated he would not resign, stating: “He looks forward to finish his term and delivering more historic results for the American people.”

Leading Republicans piled on with similar calls to resign throughout Sunday afternoon, as they also directed fresh attacks at Vice-President Kamala Harris, who would move into the Oval Office should Mr Biden resign. Mr Biden has endorsed her to be the next Democratic nominee.

New York Representative Elise Stefanik, the Republican conference chair, made almost the exact same statement as Mr Johnson’s about Mr Biden’s ability to fulfil his presidential duties.

She closed her statement similarly as well: “He must immediately resign.”

Mr Biden’s rival for president, Donald Trump, said the Democratic leader was “not fit to serve from the very beginning” in response to the announcement – though he did not call for the president to resign.

Senator Steve Daines of Montana, who chairs Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, said that being president “is the hardest job in the world”.

“And I no longer have confidence that Joe Biden can effectively execute his duties as Commander-in-Chief,” he said in a statement.

Another Republican senator, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, went further and appeared to suggest that Mr Biden should be forced from office by exercising the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution – a never-used method to replace the president if he cannot fulfil his duties.

Critics of Trump had called for using the amendment to remove him when he was in office.

Many in the political world had been expecting to Mr Biden to drop out of the race.

His rambling, frequently incoherent answers in the June 27 debate with Trump had stunned the country and left people wondering if he could serve as president for another four years. While in speeches and interviews Mr Biden often showed renewed vigour, he was also dogged by major stumbles and seeming memory problems.

Democrats in congress, worried that his shakiness would hurt their chances at re-election, and major donors began to press for him to drop out, but they did not press for him to resign.

The last president to abandon his election campaign, Lyndon B. Johnson, also served out the remainder of his term. Like Mr Biden, Johnson had said that giving up the race would allow him to focus on his presidential duties.

As the pressure on Mr Biden has grown in recent weeks, Republicans became more vocal about a resignation.

Just hours before the president announced he was stepping aside, Trump’s new running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, said: “Not running for reelection would be a clear admission that President Trump was right all along about Biden not being mentally fit enough to serve as Commander-in-Chief. There is no middle ground.”

“Joe Biden has been the worst President in my lifetime and Kamala Harris has been right there with him every step of the way,” he added.

Mr Biden has endorsed Ms Harris to take up the mantle of the presidential campaign, although the party will still have to formally approve its nominee.

“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Ms Harris said in a statement. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.”

Republicans have reportedly prepared to attack Ms Harris’s candidacy – as many believed she was the most likely successor.

Trump campaign sources have told US media outlets that they were readying attack ads and opposition research in case they faced her.

Most criticism centres on the vice-president’s lead role on immigration issues within the administration. Several speakers at the Republican convention last week portrayed Ms Harris as a failed “border czar”.

Those attacks returned on Sunday.

Speaker Johnson called her “a completely inept border czar” and said she had been “a gleeful accomplice” in “the destruction of American sovereignty, security, and prosperity”.

“She has known for as long as anyone of his incapacity to serve,” he said, while also accusing her of being part of a political coverup of Mr Biden’s problems.

Republican Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, known for taking a hard line on immigration that has led to legal actions, also expressed concerns about Ms Harris becoming president.

“I think I will need to triple the border wall, razor wire barriers and National Guard on the border,” he wrote on social media.

Donald Trump Jr, the former president’s son, broadly said her policies would be no different than Mr Biden’s.

“Kamala Harris owns the entire left-wing policy record of Joe Biden. The only difference is that she is even more liberal and less competent than Joe, which is really saying something,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter.

• LIVE: Latest updates as Joe Biden drops out of US presidential election race
• WATCH: How Joe Biden’s bid for re-election came to an end
• IN FULL: Biden’s letter announcing his withdrawal
• PROFILE: Kamala Harris, the VP who Biden is backing for president
• EXPLAINED: Biden has endorsed Harris. What happens next?
• ANALYSIS: What Biden quitting means for Harris, the Democrats and Trump

Less than four months out from the election, Vice-President Kamala Harris found herself in a difficult position.

President Joe Biden’s poor performance on the debate stage spurred mounting criticism about his ability to win the election. As anxiety turned to tension within the Democratic party, her name rose up the list of replacement candidates.

With Mr Biden’s announcement that he will be ending his campaign and putting his support behind her, Ms Harris has finally reached a position she’d long sought: the top of the Democratic ticket, and potentially the presidency.

But the journey there has been fraught and full of difficult questions, especially in recent months.

• LIVE UPDATES: Joe Biden withdraws from US presidential race

Four years ago, the one-time candidate for the Democratic nomination would have welcomed the party’s praises. By July 2024, Harris was in a more precarious position as part of an embattled incumbent ticket, her chances of another term tethered to Mr Biden’s performance.

In the 24 hours after the debate debacle, Ms Harris chose strong loyalty to Mr Biden.

The vice-president spoke on CNN, MSNBC and at a campaign rally. She defended her political partner’s record and attacked their opponent, former President Donald Trump.

“We believe in our president, Joe Biden, and we believe in what he stands for,” she said at the rally.

Ms Harris never wavered as a new well of support within the Democratic party pushed her into the spotlight and critics pressed Mr Biden to retire.

Still, it’s a second chance at a presidential campaign for the first woman as well as the first black and Asian-American to serve as vice-president.

Despite struggling to appeal to voters in 2020 and having low approval ratings during her tenure as vice president, Ms Harris’ supporters point to her advocacy for reproductive rights, appeal among black voters and her background as a prosecutor who would be running against a now-convicted felon to make the case for her serving as commander-in-chief.

“I believe she has been instrumental in addressing key issues such as voting rights and immigration reform,” Nadia Brown, director of Georgetown University’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program, said.

“She has also been Biden’s most powerful surrogate on issues of abortion access and outreach to black communities.”

Just five years ago, Ms Harris was the senator from California hoping to win the Democratic nomination for presidency.

She began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office and became the district attorney – the top prosecutor – for San Francisco in 2003, before being elected the first woman and the first black person to serve as California’s attorney general, the top lawyer and law enforcement official in America’s most populous state.

She gained a reputation as one of the Democratic party’s rising stars, using this momentum to propel her to election as California’s junior US senator in 2017.

But her presidential aims were unsuccessful in 2020.

Her adept debate performances were not enough to compensate for poorly articulated policies.

Her campaign died in less than a year and it was Mr Biden who returned the now 59-year-old to the national spotlight by putting her on his ticket.

Gil Duran, a communications director for Ms Harris in 2013 who critiqued her run for the presidential nomination, called it “a big reversal of fortune for Kamala Harris”.

“Many people didn’t think she had the discipline and focus to ascend to a position in the White House so quickly… although people knew she had ambition and star potential. It was always clear that she had the raw talent,” Duran said.

Ms Harris focused on several key initiatives while in the White House and she was instrumental in some of the Biden administration’s most touted accomplishments.

She launched a nationwide “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour advocating for women to have the right to make decisions about their body. She highlighted harm caused by abortion bans and called on Congress to restore the protections of Roe v Wade after the Supreme Court’s conservative justices overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022.

Ms Harris set a new record for the most tie-breaking votes cast by a vice president in the history of the Senate. Her vote helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan, which provided COVID relief funding including stimulus payments.

Her tie-breaking vote also confirmed Justice Ketanji Brown Jakson to the Supreme Court.

But she also struggled to achieve broad appeal among Americans, facing criticism on all sides.

Despite leftward leanings on issues like gay marriage and the death penalty, she faced repeated attacks for not being progressive enough for some Democratic voters. “Kamala is a cop” was a common refrain on the 2020 campaign trail.

Mr Biden also called upon Ms Harris to lead efforts addressing the root causes of migration as a record number of immigrants fled to the US-Mexico border, an issue opponents point to as one where she hasn’t made enough progress.

She received backlash from Republicans and some Democrats for taking six months to plan a trip to the border after entering office.

But in recent weeks, as speculation about Mr Biden’s ability to win in November swirled, she found a renewed base of support.

Born in Oakland, California, to two immigrant parents – an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father – her parents divorced when she was five and she was primarily raised by her Hindu single mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a cancer researcher and civil rights activist.

She grew up engaged with her Indian heritage, joining her mother on visits to India, but Ms Harris has said that her mother adopted Oakland’s black culture, immersing her two daughters – Kamala and her younger sister Maya – within it.

“My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters,” she wrote in her autobiography The Truths We Hold. “She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women.”

Her biracial roots and upbringing mean she embodies and can engage with and appeal to many American identities. Those parts of the country which have seen rapid demographic change, enough change to alter a region’s politics, see an aspirational symbol in her.

But it was her time at Howard University, one of the nation’s preeminent historically black colleges and universities, which she has described as among the most formative experiences of her life.

Lita Rosario-Richardson met Kamala Harris while at Howard in the 1980s when students would gather in the Yard area of the campus to hang out and discuss politics, fashion and gossip.

“I noticed she had a keen sense of argumentation,” she said.

They bonded over an aptitude for energetic debate with campus Republicans, their experience growing up with single mothers, even just both being the Libra star sign. It was a formative era politically too.

“Reagan was president at the time and it was the apartheid era and there was a lot of talk about divestiture with ‘trans Africa’ and the Martin Luther King holiday issue,” Ms Rosario-Richardson said.

“We know that, being descendants of enslaved people and people of colour coming out of colonisation, that we have a special role and having an education gives us a special position in society to help effect change,” she explained – it was a philosophy and a call to action that was part of the university experience Ms Harris lived.

But Ms Harris also operates with ease in predominantly white communities. Her early years included a brief period in Canada. When Ms Gopalan Harris took a job teaching at McGill University, Ms Harris and her younger sister Maya went with her, attending school in Montreal for five years.

Ms Harris says she’s always been comfortable with her identity and simply describes herself as an “American”.

She told the Washington Post in 2019 that politicians should not have to fit into compartments because of their colour or background.

“My point was: I am who I am. I’m good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I’m fine with it,” she said.

From the very earliest, as her friend Ms Rosario-Richardson attests, she showed the skills that allowed her to be one of few women to break through barriers.

“That is what attracted me to get her to join debate team [at Howard University], a fearlessness,” she said.

Wit and humour is part of that armoury. In a video posted to her social media in 2020 after winning the election, she shares the news of the win – with a very hearty laugh – with Mr Biden: “We did it, we did it Joe. You’re going to be the next president of the United States!”

The laugh she greeted the then president-elect with, when making that first momentous phone call, was one her friend recognised immediately and intimately.

“It clearly shows her personality, even in the short time she has been on the campaign trail.”

“She has always had that laugh, she has always had a sense of humour too, she had a sense of wit – even in the context of a university debate – to get those points across.”

The ability to deliver zingers to her opponents in live debate was very much part of the momentum behind the start of her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In 2014, then-Senator Harris married lawyer Doug Emhoff and became stepmother to his two children.

She wrote an article for Elle magazine in 2019 about the experience of becoming a stepmother and unveiled the name that would then come to dominate many headlines that followed.

“When Doug and I got married, Cole, Ella, and I agreed that we didn’t like the term ‘stepmom’. Instead they came up with the name ‘Momala’.”

They were portrayed as the epitome of modern American “blended” family, an image the media took to and one that occupied many column inches about how we talk about female politicians.

Many argue she should also be seen and recognised as the descendant of another kind of family and that is the inheritor of generations of black female activists.

“She is heir to a legacy of grassroots organisers, elected officials, and unsuccessful candidates who paved this path to the White House. Black women are seen as a political force of nature in democratic politics and the Democratic party,” Nadia Brown, associate professor of political science and African American studies at Purdue University, told the BBC.

Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker and Septima Clark are some of the names she follows in the footsteps of, Ms Brown argues.

“Her win is historic but it is not hers alone. It is shared with countless black women who made this day possible.”

• WATCH: How Joe Biden’s bid for re-election came to an end

• IN FULL: Biden’s letter announcing his withdrawal
• PROFILE: Kamala Harris, the VP who Biden is backing for president
• EXPLAINED: Who could challenge Harris for Democratic nomination?

US President Joe Biden has ended his re-election campaign and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris to succeed him as the Democratic candidate, in an extraordinary decision that upends an already dramatic race for the White House.

Mr Biden, 81, said in a Sunday written statement that it was the “greatest honour” to serve but his withdrawal was “in the best interest of my party and the country”.

The announcement caps a tumultuous period in US politics, which began with his sometimes incoherent debate performance against Donald Trump on 27 June. Mr Biden says he will remain president until January.

Ms Harris, 59, said that she was “honoured” to be endorsed, adding she would “earn and win this nomination” and unite the country against Donald Trump.

“We have 107 days until election day,” she said. “Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”

However, several other senior Democrats are also being touted as replacements, and a choice must be made at the party’s national convention in Chicago in August.

If the party struggles to unify around Ms Harris, the battle to succeed Mr Biden could play out on the convention floor.

A resurgent Trump meanwhile has pulled ahead in polling and was confirmed as Republican nominee at the party’s convention in Milwaukee this week, five days after surviving an assassination attempt.

Trump said on Sunday that the president “was not fit to run… and is certainly not fit to serve”. Other senior Republicans joined him in their criticism, and called on Mr Biden to leave the White House immediately.

• LIVE UPDATES: Joe Biden withdraws from US presidential race

Party sources told the BBC that White House staff were told only moments before the statement was released on Sunday afternoon, although Mr Biden had spoken to Ms Harris beforehand.

Dozens of senior Democrats and party grandees including Barack Obama, the former president, Senate leader Chuck Schumer and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi immediately praised the decision and lauded Mr Biden’s accomplishments in office.

However, not all have openly accepted Mr Biden’s endorsement of Ms Harris.

Mr Obama stated that he had “extraordinary confidence” that an “outstanding nominee emerges” but did not explicitly back Ms Harris. Ms Pelosi has not commented.

Peter Welch, the first Democratic senator to call on Biden to drop his re-election run, called for an “open process” to nominate Harris.

Former president Bill Clinton and 2016 Democratic candidate for president Hillary Clinton said they backed her as a candidate, saying they would “fight with everything we’ve got to elect her”.

Several of those who could challenge for the nomination also praised Mr Biden – but stopped short of commenting on his endorsement of his vice-president.

Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, stated that her job “will remain the same… doing everything I can to elect Democrats and stop Donald Trump.”

Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, praised Mr Biden as a “selfless” president, but stopped short of further comment on who would succeed him.

Pete Buttigieg, the current transport secretary, said Mr Biden had “earned his place among the best and most consequential presidents in American history”. He too did not address the next step for the party.

The Democratic National Committee meanwhile filed to amend the names of its fundraising committees to the Harris Victory Fund and Harris Action Fund.

Two major Democratic donors – LinkedIn co-funder Reid Hoffman and investor Alexander Soros – publicly endorsed Harris.

Mr Hoffman said on X/Twitter that when “presented with the choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, I believe in the American people to make the right decision for our country”.

But within an hour of Mr Biden’s announcement, the pro-Trump super-PAC campaign fund Make America Great Again posted an advert attacking Mr Harris, claiming “she covered up Joe’s obvious mental decline”.

Donald Trump added: “Whoever the Left puts up now will just be more of the same.”

Mr Biden had faced intense scrutiny since his debate performance in June. Less than two weeks ago, he hosted a high-profile summit with Nato leaders in Washington.

The occasion did little to calm nerves within his own party, with him mistakenly introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin”, and appearing to refer Ms Harris as “Vice President Trump”.

At one point he told an interview that only the “Lord Almighty” could make him withdraw, but then later said he would consider withdrawing if he had a health condition. On Friday, while in isolation after testing positive for Covid, he pledged to return to the campaign trail in the coming week.

In his statement on Sunday, Mr Biden thanked his Ms Harris, saying she was an “extraordinary partner”.

“And let me express my heartfelt appreciation for the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me,” his statement added.

“I believe today and always have: that there is nothing America can’t do – when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America.”

Officials from the Democratic National Committee held an emergency meeting on Sunday evening.

The focus will now be on the party’s national convention, which is scheduled to start on 19 August.

Mr Biden swept the party’s primaries, meaning that the delegates representing each state at the convention were pledged to vote for him – although they are now expected to be released to vote for another candidate.

• LIVE: Latest updates as Joe Biden drops out of US presidential election race
• WATCH: How Joe Biden’s bid for re-election came to an end
• IN FULL: Biden’s letter announcing his withdrawal
• PROFILE: Kamala Harris, the VP who Biden is backing for president
• EXPLAINED: Biden has endorsed Harris. What happens next?
• ANALYSIS: What Biden quitting means for Harris, the Democrats and Trump

US President Joe Biden has announced that he will end his candidacy for re-election.

His full statement, which he posted on X, is below:

“My Fellow Americans, over the past three-and-a-half years, we have made great progress as a nation.

“Today, America has the strongest economy in the world. We’ve made historic investments in rebuilding our nation, in lowering prescription drug costs for seniors, and in expanding affordable health care to a record number of Americans.

“We’ve provided critically needed care to a million veterans exposed to toxic substances. Passed the first gun safety law in 30 years. Appointed the first African American woman to the Supreme Court. And passed the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world. America has never been better positioned to lead than we are today.

“I know none of this could have been done without you, the American people. Together, we overcame a once in a century pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We’ve protected and preserved our democracy. And we’ve revitalised and strengthened our alliances around the world.

“It has been the greatest honour of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.

“I will speak to the nation later this week in more detail about my decision.

“For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me re-elected.

“I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me.

“I believe today what I always have: that there is nothing America can’t do – when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America.”

• LIVE: Latest updates as Joe Biden drops out of US presidential election race
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• IN FULL: Biden’s letter announcing his withdrawal
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• EXPLAINED: Biden has endorsed Harris. What happens next?
• ANALYSIS: What Biden quitting means for Harris, the Democrats and Trump

Bangladesh’s top court has scrapped most of the quotas on government jobs that had sparked violent clashes across the country that have killed more than 100 people.

A third of public sector jobs had been reserved for the relatives of veterans from the country’s war for independence from Pakistan in 1971.

But now the court has ruled just 5% of the roles can be reserved for veterans’ relatives.

Law Minister Anisul Huq said the government would implement the ruling within days. Some student leaders have vowed to continue protesting.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Huq also denied that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina – who has been in power since 2009 – was losing her grip on Bangladesh.

“In that case you would have seen the mass population of the country to revolt. They have actually supported the government in this turmoil and they have said yes, the government should act to bring the violence to an end,” he said.

He blamed opposition forces for joining the protests and destroying “the symbols of Bangladesh’s development”.

Several protest movement coordinators have told the BBC that action would continue until the government took action.

“We applaud the court’s verdict,” said one coordinator, Nusrat Tabassum. “But our main demand is with the executive department. Until those demands are implemented, the ongoing nationwide complete shutdown program will continue.”

The students’ demands also include justice for protesters killed in recent days, the release of detained protest leaders, the restoration of internet services and resignations of government ministers.

Streets in the capital Dhaka are deserted as a second day of curfew is in force, but sporadic clashes continued even after the supreme court ruling.

About 115 people are known to have died but local media report a much higher casualty figure. At least 50 people were killed on Friday alone.

The Supreme Court ruling orders that 93% of public sector jobs should be recruited on merit, leaving 5% for the family members of the veterans of the country’s independence war.

A remaining 2% is reserved for people from ethnic minorities or with disabilities.

Scrapped in 2018 by Ms Hasina’s government, the quota system was reinstated by a lower court last month, sparking the protests.

• Why is Bangladesh in turmoil?

The government responded with a harsh crackdown, including a curfew and a communications blackout.

Protest coordinators say police and the student wing of the governing Awami League – known as the Bangladesh Chhatra League – have been using brutal force against peaceful demonstrators. The government denies this.

Many people have been detained by the authorities.

Nahid Islam, a coordinators of the quota reform movement, alleged that he had been subjected to physical and mental torture.

He told the BBC he had been picked up by people who said they were detectives, handcuffed and transferred to a private car.

“After some time I was taken out of the car and taken to a room in a house. I was interrogated and subsequently subjected to torture. At one point I fainted. After that I have no memory,” Mr Islam said.

He says he regained consciousness on the street in an area of Dhaka in the early hours of Sunday morning. “I still have blood clots on both shoulders and left leg,” he said.

The police have not commented.

The unrest has also seen arson attacks on government buildings, police check posts and the capital’s metro system, which the interior minister said had been left inoperable. Burnt out vehicles can be seen in most Dhaka neighbourhoods.

Clashes have been reported in other parts of the country. More than 800 prisoners escaped from a prison near Dhaka with 85 weapons and 10,000 ammunition rounds. Police say they have so far recaptured 58 of the prisoners.

UK-based analyst Kamal Ahmed told the BBC that the re-introduced job quota system had been exploited by the ruling Awami League party.

“The quota system was nothing but the governing Awami League rewarding their supporters and a ploy for entrenching the party’s influence in the future administration,” he said.

The ensuing protests were of “unprecedented intensity” and have expanded to become a “much wider people’s movement” against a backdrop of allegations of corruption, lack of accountability and the escalating cost of living, he said.

Law Minister Anisul Huq denied the quota system was benefiting the Awami League.

“I would say that actually 95% of the members of the ruling party have been either freedom fighters or have been supporters of the freedom fighters. It’s quite natural that they would be benefitting out of it,” he told the BBC.

Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, but that growth has not translated into jobs for university graduates.

Estimates suggest that around 18 million young Bangladeshis are looking for jobs. University graduates face higher rates of unemployment than their less-educated peers.

The tensions in Bangladesh have also seen demonstrations take place outside the country.

In the US there was a demonstration outside the White House, mainly involving Bangladeshi students studying in the country. In Times Square in New York, participants displayed banners demanding justice for the students killed over the past few days.

There were also disturbances in east London on Thursday evening as pro- and anti-government groups clashed.

Police said they found two large groups of men fighting among a wider demonstration of several hundred people in Whitechapel, which has a large ethnic Bangladeshi population.

Objects were then thrown at police, injuring two, and cars were damaged.

Republican lawmakers are planning to return to Congress on Monday with the director of the Secret Service in their sights, as their frustration and anger grow over the agency’s response to an assassination attempt against Donald Trump.

First on the agenda will be a House committee hearing on Monday with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, which Speaker Mike Johnson said would make for “must-see TV” for Americans concerned about security lapses at the Pennsylvania rally.

“She’s got a lot to answer for. And these concerns are bipartisan,” Mr Johnson told CNN on Sunday.

Republicans, who control the House, have been unified in pushing Ms Cheatle to step down – or be fired – after a 20-year-old gunman was able to shoot the former president in the ear at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally last Saturday. Many of the lawmakers confronted her at the Republican convention last week, releasing videos of them demanding answers.

Her agency is charged with providing protection to more than the president and his family, including former presidents, others in line to the White House and political candidates.

US media is reporting that Trump had sought additional security in the months leading up to the assassination attempt, but the agency had turned them down or been unable to fulfill the requests due to staffing shortages. CBS News, BBC’s news partner, has reported that Trump’s security frustrations go back two years.

Agency spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement that “in some instances where specific Secret Service specialized units or resources were not provided, the agency made modifications”. That included relying on state and local law enforcement.

Eric Trump, the former president’s son, said he had been calling for beefed up security throughout the campaign, as he blamed the Biden administration and Ms Cheatle on Sunday for the assassination attempt and argued there had been “no accountability” for the agency’s actions.

“She should be out of a job,” he told Fox News.

Speaking to CNN, Mr Johnson said that in addition to the House hearing, lawmakers on Monday would release more details about a bipartisan task force with subpoena authority charged with investigating the Secret Service’s response.

“The initial excuses that [Ms Cheatle] has given for the lapses that happened last Saturday are just unbelievable, so we’re going to get down to the bottom of it,” he said.

Senators, too, are preparing to dig in on the Secret Service.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson told Fox News on Sunday that he would soon release “preliminary” information from his own report investigating the attack.

That report is intended to encourage people to come forward with more footage and firsthand accounts. He added that his investigation is now bipartisan, and will be conducted with Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut.

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general is also looking the attack, which occurred after the Secret Service identified the gunman as suspicious some 20 minutes before he opened fire, lawmakers revealed this weekend.

Mr Johnson’s appearance on CNN came just a day after reports emerged that top officials at the Secret Service had denied some requests from Trump’s security team for additional resources in the two years leading up to the assassination attempt.

The report, first published in the Washington Post, said the agency had refused additional resources such as more agents and snipers because of a lack of resources and staffing shortages within the Secret Service.

Mr Johnson blamed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for failing to allocate more resources to the Secret Service, an agency that it oversees.

The Republican House speaker told CNN on Sunday that Congress had increased funding to DHS in recent years, but that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was responsible for ensuring the Secret Service had enough funds.

“Secretary Mayorkas is in charge of that agency. If he needed to allocate more resources to the Secret Service than that should have been done,” Mr Johnson said.

Mr Johnson added that he had spoken with Mr Mayorkas hours after the assassination attempt and that the DHS leader was unable to answer “basic questions”, including whether the gunman, Thomas Crooks, had used a drone to survey the outdoor rally area.

Law enforcement officials told US media on Saturday that Crooks had flown a drone above the site ahead of the shooting.

Trump has made several appearances since the incident, including at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Saturday, where he told the crowd that he “took a bullet for Democracy”.

His former White House physician, Dr Ronny Jackson, released a statement the same day saying the bullet created a 2cm-wide wound on Trump’s ear that was beginning to “heal properly”.

Health authorities in India’s Kerala state have issued an alert after a 14-year-old boy died of the Nipah virus.

According to the state’s health minister, an additional 60 people have been identified as being in the high-risk category of having the disease.

Kerala Health Minister Veena George said the boy was from the town of Pandikkad and that those who came into contact with him have been isolated and tested.

People in the area have been asked to take precautions such as wearing masks in public areas and refraining from visiting people in hospital.

The Nipah virus infection is a “zoonotic illness” transmitted from animals like pigs and fruit bats to humans, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

It can also be transmitted through contaminated food and through contact with an infected person.

The WHO has described the virus as a priority pathogen by the WHO because of its potential to trigger an epidemic.

The virus has been linked to dozens of deaths in Kerala state since it was first reported there in 2018.

The 14-year-old died on Sunday, just a day after he was confirmed to have the virus, according to Indian media reports.

It can also be transmitted through contaminated food and through contact with an infected person.

Parts of Kerala are said to be the most at-risk globally for the virus. An investigation published by Reuters last year found that Kerala, which is a tropical state and is witnessing rapid urbanisation and rapid tree loss, created “ideal conditions for a virus like Nipah to emerge”.

Experts say that due to habitat loss, animals are living in closer proximity to humans and this helps the virus jump from animals to humans.

The state government recently announced that it was creating an action plan to prevent a Nipah outbreak.

Last year, authorities in Kerala state closed schools and offices after confirming five cases.

The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee is suing Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime energy drinks brand, accusing it of trademark infringement.

It claims that Prime is using trademarked Olympic phrases and symbols on a special edition of its hydration drink featuring basketball star and three-time Olympic gold medallist Kevin Durant.

The committee said it does not have an agreement with Prime for the use of its terminology and trademarks, and said its actions had been “deliberate” and “in bad faith”.

The BBC has contacted Prime for comment.

The committee filed the lawsuit in Colorado on Friday, and also accused Prime of using the trademarks in internet campaigns and promotions.

The lawsuit, seen by the BBC’s partner CBS News, said that consumers could be misled into thinking there is an agreement between the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Prime.

The organisation said it had issued a cease and desist letter to Prime, but the drinks brand had continued to market the product, using the branding.

Criticism has previously been levelled at the company due to it being marketed at a younger audience, with some schools in the UK issuing warnings or choosing to ban it.

While the company’s energy drink contains caffeine, it also sells a drink marketed for “hydration”, which is caffeine-free.

Earlier this month, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for an investigation into the brand due to the high caffeine content of its energy drink.

Responding to this, Prime has said that it complies with regulatory requirements in the countries it operates in.

Prime founders Logan Paul and KSI have over 40 million YouTube followers between them.

Prime was released in the UK with much hype in 2022 – resulting in some shops limiting the number of bottles which could be sold per customer. It has collaborated with some of the biggest sporting stars and teams in the world including Arsenal and the LA Dodgers.

The bodies of a couple who set off on a sailing trip across the Atlantic Ocean have been found on a washed-up life raft almost six weeks after they were last seen.

Briton Sarah Packwood and her Canadian husband Brett Clibbery are thought to have abandoned their yacht and perished before washing up on Sable Island near Nova Scotia in Canada on 12 July.

The couple were reported missing on 18 June after leaving Nova Scotia in their 13m (42ft) eco-friendly yacht, Theros, a week earlier.

They were on the way to the Azores – about 3,228 km away – with the trip planned to take 21 days.

In a post on Facebook, Mr Clibbery’s son James confirmed the pair had died, saying that the last few days had been “very hard”.

He said the couple would be “forever missed”, adding: “There isn’t anything that will fill the hole that has been left by their, so far unexplained passing.”

It is unclear how the couple’s dream transatlantic crossing ended in tragedy. An investigation is still under way, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told the BBC on Sunday.

One theory investigators are exploring is that the yacht was struck by a passing cargo ship that did not notice the collision, according to Canadian news website Saltwire.

“The sailboat crew were either unable to avoid collision” or they could have been down below with Theros on automatic pilot, an anonymous source told Saltwire.

The Canadian coastguard and military aircraft have not spotted wreckage or any sign of the boat, Saltwire reports.

In a video posted to their YouTube channel, Theros Adventures, the pair explained how their trip – dubbed the Green Odyssey – would rely on sails, solar panels, batteries and an electric engine repurposed from a car.

“We’re doing everything we can to show that you can travel without burning fossil fuels,” Mr Clibbery said in the video, posted on 12 April.

“It’s probably the biggest adventure of our lives so far,” Ms Packwood added.

The pair met by chance in London in 2015, when Mr Clibbery, a retired engineer, was preparing to donate a kidney to his sister.

They married in Canada on their yacht a year later, before affirming their vows in a traditional handfasting ceremony at Stonehenge in 2017, according to Ms Packwood’s personal blog.

Their story was featured in a 2020 “How We Met” article in The Guardian.

Ms Packwood, originally from Long Itchington, Warwickshire, had worked in Rwanda with the UN after the 1994 genocide and had extensive experience as a humanitarian.

In what would be their final post on 11 June, the pair wrote on Facebook: “Captain Brett and First Mate Sarah set sail on the 2nd leg of The Green Odyssey on board Theros – GibSea 42 foot sailboat. Powered by the wind and sun. Heading east to the Azores.”

Malaysia says it has intercepted a large oil tanker that was involved in a collision with another ship before fleeing the scene and turning off its tracking system.

The coastguard says it has located and detained Ceres I, sailing under the flag of São Tomé and Príncipe, and two tugboats that were towing the vessel off the country’s eastern coast.

The ship had collided with the Singapore-flagged Hafnia Nile on Friday, causing both ships to catch fire.

Officials in Singapore say all crew members from both ships were rescued.

Malaysia’s coastguard said Ceres I had left the location immediately after the collision that caused a blaze and injured at least two crew members.

The incident happened about 55 km northeast of the Singaporean island of Pedra Branca, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) said.

The head of Malaysian coast guard’s search and rescue team, Zin Azman Mohamad Yunus, has not explained why the São Tomé and Príncipe-flagged tanker tried to flee, but added that further investigations would be carried out.

The authorities in Singapore said after around 40 crew members were rescued from the blazing ships, around 26 of them remained on Ceres I to tackle the fire.

The Singapore-flagged Hafnia Nile, was reportedly carrying naphtha, a highly flammable type of petroleum.

The cause of the collision is still unclear. Singapore maritime authorities said ship traffic in the busy waterway was unaffected.

However, Malaysian coastguard officials found an oil spill covering around 17 square kilometres.

Ceres I is a large crude oil carrying supertanker. Some reports suggests it could be part of a so-called ‘dark fleet’, carrying oil from countries under sanctions.

A market intelligence service, S&P Global Commodities at Sea, says the ship, operated by China’s Shanghai Prosperity Ship Management, has previously carried Iranian crude, which is subject to US sanctions.

When it comes to planning a holiday, Afghanistan is not at the top of most people’s must-visit lists.

Decades of conflict mean that few tourists dared step foot in the Central Asian nation since its heyday as part of the hippie trail in the 1970s. And the future of whatever tourism industry had survived was thrust into further uncertainty by the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.

But a quick scroll through social media suggests that not only has tourism survived, it has – in its own, extraordinarily niche way – boomed.

“Five reasons why Afghanistan should be your next trip,” gush the delighted influencers, their cameras sweeping across glistening lakes, through mountainous passes and into colourful, busy markets.

“Afghanistan hasn’t been this safe in 20 years,” others declare, posing next to the vast chasms left behind by the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas more than 20 years ago.

Behind the sunny claims and glamorous videos are questions about the risks these travellers are taking, and exactly who this burgeoning industry is truly helping: a population struggling to survive, or a regime keen to shift the narrative in its favour?

“It is very ironic to see those videos on TikTok where there is a Taliban guide and Taliban official giving tickets to tourists to visit the [site of the] destruction of the Buddhas,” points out Dr Farkhondeh Akbari, whose family fled Afghanistan during the first Taliban regime in the 1990s.

“These are the people who destroyed the Buddhas.”

The list of countries visited by Sascha Heeney do not, on first hearing, sound like ideal holiday destinations – places many will be more used to reading about in the news.

But then, that appears to be exactly why Heeney, and thousands more like her across the globe, picked them out: off the beaten track, as far away from a five-star resort as you can get – and therefore, almost entirely unique.

So perhaps it is not surprising she was won over by Afghanistan.

“It is just raw,” says the part-time travel guide from Brighton, UK. “You don’t get much rawer than there. That can be attractive – if you want to see real life.”

What do the Taliban get out of it? After all, they have a reputation for being deeply suspicious, hostile even, towards outsiders, particularly Westerners.

And yet here they are, posing – if slightly uncomfortably – alongside the tourists, guns on show, their bearded faces potentially about to go viral on TikTok (banned in the country since 2022).

At one level, the answer is simple. The Taliban – largely isolated internationally, under widespread sanctions and prevented from accessing funds given to Afghanistan’s former government – need money.

The tourists – whose numbers have crept up from just 691 in 2021 to more than 7,000 last year, according to AP news agency – bring it.

Most seem to join one of myriad tours offered by international companies, providing a peek at the “real Afghanistan” for a few thousand dollars a trip.

Mohammad Saeed, the head of the Taliban government’s Tourism Directorate in Kabul, said earlier this year that he dreamed of the country becoming a tourist hotspot. In particular, he revealed, he was eyeing up the Chinese market – all with the backing “of the Elders”.

“All they want to do [with tourism], it’s good,” says Afghan tour guide Rohullah, whose smiling face has been shared dozens of times by happy clients since he started leading groups three years ago.

“Tourism creates a lot of jobs and opportunities,” he adds – and he should know.

After what he refers to as “the change” in 2021 – when the Taliban seized power as the US pulled out – he was offered a job as a tour guide by a friend. Before that, he had spent eight years working for the Afghan finance ministry.

And he hasn’t regretted it. Tour groups like Heeney’s need drivers and local guides, and with tourist numbers continuing to rise, there is no shortage of work.

It is not surprising then to find groups of young men – and they are all men – attending Taliban-approved hospitality classes in Kabul, hoping to take advantage of the burgeoning industry.

“We expect much for this year,” Rohullah says. “This is a peaceful time – it was not possible to travel to all parts of Afghanistan before, but for now, it really is possible.”

The killing of three Spanish tourists and an Afghan at a market in Bamiyan in May by the Islamic State-affiliated ISK militant group stood out for being unusual because it targeted foreigners.

The British Foreign Office continues to advise against all travel to the country, which remains a target for attacks. ISK carried out 45 in 2023 alone, according to the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

Of course, part of the reason for Afghanistan’s increased security now is that during the 20 year war which engulfed the country after the US invasion, the Taliban themselves were responsible for much of the violence.

Take – for example – the first three months of 2021, when the UN attributed more than 40% of the 1,783 civilian casualties recorded to the Taliban. It wasn’t just the Taliban though. The same report noted US-led Afghan government forces were responsible for 25% of the casualties in the same period.

What is perhaps more surprising is that Heeney and two other members of the group she led for Lupine Tours earlier this year were women – and they were far from the only ones. Young Pioneer Tours – which has long experience of organising holidays to North Korea and other off-grid destinations – even runs exclusively female trips to Afghanistan. Rohullah has guided female solo travellers “without any issues”.

The Taliban’s strict rules for their own female population – which has seen them forced out of the workplace, out of secondary education and even out of the Band-e-Amir national park, a stop on many of the international tours on offer – do not preclude female tourists visiting.

It does mean that “women and men have different encounters” in Afghanistan, acknowledges Rowan Beard, who has been bringing groups to the country since 2016. It is not necessarily a bad thing, he argues.

“Men cannot speak with women; women can,” he explains. “Our female tourists had the opportunity to sit with a group of women and hear from them about their experiences, and further insights into the country.”

But everyone needs to follow the rules put in place. Heeney and her group were briefed in advance of what would be required in order to meet those rules, including on how they dressed, how to act and who they could, and couldn’t, talk to.

The Taliban – ever-present, watching from the sidelines with their guns – were among those who did not speak to Heeney or the female members of her group. She didn’t begrudge it.

“You have to kind of know the rules and learn the game,” she explains.

For Heeney, speaking with the women – who were “incredibly happy” the group was visiting – was a highlight on a tour where the “absolutely lovely”, generous and welcoming people of Afghanistan stood out.

In videos posted on social media, the women are noticeably missing from vibrant street scenes – a fact glossed over by one visitor, who declares people shouldn’t worry, they are just inside doing what women around the world love to do: shop.

Watching these slick videos from outside Afghanistan, some are left with a bitter taste.

“[Tourists think] it is just this backward part of the world, and they can do whatever they want – we don’t care,” says Dr Akbari, now a postdoctoral researcher at Monash University in Australia.

“We just go and enjoy the landscape and get our views and our likes. And this hurts us a lot.”

It is, she adds, “unethical tourism with a lack of political and social awareness”, which allows the Taliban to gloss over the realities of life now they are back in power.

Because this is, arguably, the other value of tourism to the Taliban: a new image. One which doesn’t highlight the rules controlling the lives of Afghan women.

“My family – they have no male guardian – cannot travel from one district to another district,” Dr Akbari points out. “We are talking about 50% of the population who have no rights… We are talking about a regime which has installed gender apartheid.

“And yes, there is a humanitarian crisis: I’m happy that tourists might go and buy something from a shop and it might help a local family, but what is the cost of it? It is normalising the Taliban regime.”

Heeney admits she did have a “moral struggle” over the Taliban’s position on women before she visited.

“Of course, I feel very strongly about their rights – it crossed my mind,” she says. “But then as a traveller… I think countries are deserving to go to, and be listened to – we have a skewed idea. I like to see with my own eyes. I can make my own judgment.”

Beard argues for letting people “make their own conclusions rather than there being a one-size-fits-all answer to the experience women have in the country”.

The overly positive view shared by some on social media can definitely be seen as problematic, says Marina Novelli, professor of marketing and tourism at Nottingham University School of Business.

“I would be very wary of the sensationalisation of a destination,” she says, explaining that some may “paint an image that is naïve”.

“Sometimes travellers also want to send a positive message – but that does not mean that problems [aren’t still there].”

Boycotting is also not the way forward, argues Prof Novelli, who sits on an international tourism ethics board.

“I find that problematic – it isolates these countries even more.”

It also opens up a question over where to draw the line – there are plenty of tourist destinations in the global north which have governments with questionable practices, she says.

However, the potential for benefit is also worth considering: in Saudi Arabia, she says, a growing tourism industry has led to a widening role in society for women.

“I think tourism can be a force for peace, for cross-cultural exchange,” Prof Novelli says.

That potential though does not make it easier for women like Dr Akbari, and her family and friends in Afghanistan.

“Our pains and our sufferings are being whitewashed,” she says, “brushed with these fake strokes of security the Taliban want.”

Shamsa Sharawe has become infamous within the Somali community across the world for speaking out against female genital mutilation (FGM) . In a video to illustrate what happened to her vulva when she was aged six she cut off the petals of a rose with a razor blade and then stitched up what was left of the flower.

The TikTok post went viral – with nearly 12 million views since it was shared 16 months ago.

No Somali, even in the diaspora, talks openly about FGM – never mind the problems that can come with it like painful periods, the difficulty of urinating, the agony of having sex and the dangers and trauma of giving birth when one’s vulva (including the lips and clitoris) have been cut off and the vaginal opening has been narrowed to a tiny hole.

This form of FGM – known as infibulation or “type three” – is what happens to most girls in Somalia as it is a commonly held belief that the cutting off their outer genitalia will guarantee their virginity.

Women who do not undergo FGM are regarded by many in Somali society as having loose morals or a high sex drive, which risks ruining a family’s reputation.

Yet the 31-year-old TikToker, who came to live in the UK in 2001 when her family fled Somalia’s civil war, is not afraid to take on such taboos with humorous, engaging and sometimes heart-breaking honesty.

Using the name Shamsa Araweelo on TikTok, she has shared a horrific account of how she was forcibly married off and raped not long after she turned 18 while on a trip to Somalia. It took six months for her to find a way to escape back to the UK.

But perhaps the biggest taboo of all has been to admit that she wanted her genitalia back – so much so that she has paid to have reconstructive surgery as it is not available to women through the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).

She found out that this was possible when she was contacted by Haja Bilkisu, a German citizen who had undergone FGM as a child on a visit to her birth country of Sierra Leone.

Responding to Ms Sharawe’s rose video, Ms Bilkisu explained that she had had her clitoris reconstructed thanks to Dr Dan mon O’Dey at Germany’s Luisenhospital in Aachen.

“I was terrified of the idea of re-cutting, even though this time it was with my consent,” Ms Sharawe tells the BBC.

“But I had to do it for my mental health. I just wanted to never feel pain again.”

The surgery includes the reconstruction of the clitoris and labia – in Ms Sharawe’s case using tissue from her buttocks – and the removal of cysts and scar tissue in order to reduce pain and restore a woman’s sex life. In some instances, the vaginal opening is also enlarged back to normal.

Ms Sharawe, who was featured in last year’s BBC list of 100 women for her determination to end FGM, decided to share her journey to Germany and recovery so other women like her could know their options.

Yet it has taken years of abuse and the trauma of a second failed marriage for her to find the courage to take on the establishment within the Somali community.

Ms Sharawe, now a single mother with a 10-year-old daughter, also feels let down by the NHS.

It only offers deinfibulation for FGM survivors – that is surgery that opens up the vagina, but does not replace any removed tissue and will not undo any of the damage.

Ms Sharawe decided to look for funds to pay for surgery in Germany.

Through online crowdfunding, she managed to raise £25,000 ($32,000) – and underwent a four-and-half hour procedure in December.

She was in Germany for three weeks and on her return, the anti-FGM activist and teaching assistant was not able to leave her house for months as she recovered.

The childcare costs and other expenses on top of the surgery mean she is still in debt – owing around £3,000 to the hospital.

“Paying for damage you didn’t choose for yourself, or you didn’t create, is really unfair,” she says.

There are four different types of FGM with varying levels of severity:

1. Clitoridectomy: partial or total removal of the sensitive clitoris
2. Excision: partial or total removal of the clitoris plus the inner skin folds surrounding the vagina (labia minora)
3. Infibulation: cutting and repositioning of the outer skin folds around the vagina (labia minora and labia majora). Often includes stitching to leave only a small gap
4. Covers all other harmful procedures like pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterising the clitoris or genital area.

• What is FGM, where does it happen and why?

In the past couple of decades, medical techniques have been developed to try to repair the damage – pioneered in 2004 by French surgeon Dr Pierre Foldès.

Clitoral reconstruction is covered by public health insurance in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland.

However, in Africa – where the majority of girls and women who have undergone FGM live – access to surgery is limited to Kenya, where patients must pay around £1,000, and Egypt, where non-governmental organisations can cover the costs.

“Not every surgeon can do this surgery. It’s complicated and every patient is different,” says Dr Adan Abdullahi, a specialist in Kenya.

But he says women with every type of FGM could benefit: “It has a positive effect on childbirth, especially for ‘type three’, which is associated with a narrowing of the vagina.”

Other issues, such as pain during sex, can be significantly improved or cured, he says – adding that his patients often experience improved self-esteem “and a sense of completeness”.

Ms Bilkisu says she does feel more complete since her surgery, which was covered by the German health system: “Undergoing surgery was really a power move, a way to fight back.”

But the 30-year-old recruitment agent encourages others to do their research thoroughly before deciding: “Reconstruction is not only to reconstruct the clitoris.

“A lot of women who are cut have thick scar tissue. You have to discuss it with your doctor. What can you do to make the vulva more elastic?”

Ms Bilkisu, who was determined to have “a normal sexual experience” one day and autonomy over her body, has had three operations over the last three years – each one taking around six hours.

“That’s tough on your body. You’re put under anaesthesia. You have to take medication afterwards. I couldn’t walk for three weeks,” she says.

The physical toll of such operations means some doctors, like Dr Reham Awwad in Egypt, are keen to promote non-surgical procedures.

The co-founder of the Restore clinic says that although reconstruction surgery can bring relief, the cutting is sometimes so severe that even the most advanced surgical techniques cannot restore sexual function.

“I definitely don’t think surgery is the answer for everyone,” she tells the BBC.

Around half the cases at her clinic, which opened in 2020, are now treated using non-surgical means like injections of platelet-rich plasma which promotes tissue rejuvenation.

“The plasma [can] lead to regeneration and stimulation of increased blood flow and reducing inflammation in the areas where you inject it,” she says.

However, she cautions that the high cost means such treatments are beyond the reach of many.

Her clinic also offers psychological therapies to overcome trauma for women cut at an age when they can remember the experience.

For those who do opt for reconstructive surgery, the results can be emotional.

“The first time I actually saw my clitoris I was taken aback because for me it was like this doesn’t belong to me,” said Ms Bilkisu, who was eight years old when she underwent “type two” FGM.

Ms Sharawe agrees it takes some getting used to, plus learning how to deal with things like proper period bleeds.

It will take her another six months to completely recover – and she has not been able to afford to go back to Germany for a check-up, which worries her.

“But now I know how it feels to be a full woman… I am a very happy woman,” she says.

“I can wear underwear without discomfort or pain. I can wear trousers. I feel normal.”

And while she has experienced an expected backlash from some Somalis on social media – some of her family have surprised her with their support.

One of her uncles even wanted to know if the surgery was available in the UK for his wife.

“He didn’t feel comfortable knowing his wife’s FGM was still affecting her even after 50-plus years. He wanted to improve the quality of her life… because we [all] deserve to have a good quality of life.”

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Israel has carried out air strikes on the Houthi-controlled Red Sea port of Hodeidah in Yemen, a day after a drone launched by the group hit Tel Aviv.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said his country aimed to send a message to the Houthi movement.

“The fire that is currently burning in Hodeidah, is seen across the Middle East and the significance is clear,” he said.

Houthi-linked news outlets said three people were killed and more than 80 injured in Saturday’s strikes, in what Houthi official Mohammed Abdulsalam said was a “brutal Israel aggression against Yemen”.

On Sunday morning, the Israeli military said it had shot down a missile fired from Yemen before it crossed into Israel’s air space.

It added that air sirens had been activated in Israel’s Red Sea port of Eilat “following the possibility of falling shrapnel”.

Mr Abdulsalam said that the Israeli strikes were aimed at pressuring the Houthis to stop supporting the Palestinians in Gaza, something he said would not happen.

It is the first time Israel has responded directly to what it says have been hundreds of Yemeni drone and missile attacks aimed at its territory in recent months.

Footage from Hodeidah showed huge fires raging on Saturday evening. The Houthi-run government in Sanaa said Israel struck oil storage facilities close to the shore, as well as a nearby power plant.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: “After nine months of continuous aerial attacks by the Houthis in Yemen toward Israel, IAF [Israeli Air Force] fighter jets conducted an extensive operational strike over 1,800km [1,118 miles) away against Houthi terrorist military targets” in the area of the port of Hodeidah.

“The IDF is capable of operating anywhere required and will strike any force that endangers Israelis,” the statement said, adding that Saturday’s operation was codenamed Outstretched Arm.

Mr Gallant said the Israeli jets had struck the group because they had harmed Israelis.

“The Houthis attacked us over 200 times. The first time that they harmed an Israeli citizen, we struck them. And we will do this in any place where it may be required,” he said.

Speaking on Saturday evening after the attacks, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country would defend itself “by all means”.

“Anyone who harms us will pay a very heavy price for their aggression,” he said in a televised address, claiming the port was an entry point for Iranian weapons.

He also said it showed Israel’s enemies there was no place it could not reach.

On Friday a block of flats in Tel Aviv was hit by what an Israeli military official said was an Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which had been modified to fly long distance.

The Houthis said it carried out that attack, and vowed to stage more.

The attack killed a 50-year-old man who had recently moved to Israel from Belarus and injured eight others.

The Israeli military official said its defence forces had detected the incoming drone but had not tried to shoot it down because of “human error”.

Previously, almost all Houthi missiles and drones fired towards Israel had been intercepted and none were known to have reached Tel Aviv.

The Houthi Supreme Political Council, the movement’s executive body, was quoted by Houthi-run media on Saturday evening saying that there would be an “effective response” to the airstrikes.

Although Israel has not struck the Houthis in Yemen before, the US and UK have been launching air strikes against the group for months to try to stop the Houthis from attacking commercial shipping in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.

The Houthis initially said they were attacking ships connected with Israel, or heading to or from there. However, many of the vessels have no connection with Israel and since air strikes began the group has also targeted vessels linked to the UK and US.

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has warned protesters that they will be “playing with fire” if they press ahead with plans to stage an anti-corruption march to parliament on Tuesday.

Young Ugandans have been organising the march on social media to demand an end to corruption in government.

They have been partly inspired by their counterparts in neighbouring Kenya, who organised mass demonstrations that forced President William Ruto to drop plans to increase taxes. The protests have since morphed into calls for his resignation.

In a televised address, Mr Museveni warned the Ugandan organisers that their planned protest would not be tolerated.

“We are busy producing wealth… and you here want to disturb us. You are playing with fire because we cannot allow you to disturb us,” he said.

Mr Museveni is accused by his critics of ruling Uganda with an iron hand since taking power in 1986, but his supporters praise him for maintaining stability in the East African state.

The president also accused some of the protest organisers of “always working with foreigners” to cause chaos in Uganda. He did not elaborate.

Police had earlier announced that they had refused to give permission for the march to take place.

One of the main protest leaders told AFP news agency that they would go ahead with it.

“We don’t need police permission to carry out a peaceful demonstration. It is our constitutional right,” Louez Aloikin Opolose was quoted as saying.

The UK and US governments imposed sanctions on Uganda’s parliamentary speaker, Anita Annet Among, earlier this year after she was accused of corruption.

She has denied any wrongdoing.

The sanctions bar her from travelling to the UK and the US. The UK also said that it would impose an asset freeze on her.

The UK has enforced similar sanctions on two government ministers who were sacked by Mr Museveni after they too were accused of corruption.

Mary Goretti Kitutu and Agnes Nandutu have been charged in court over a scandal involving the theft of thousands of metal roofing sheets that were intended for vulnerable communities in the north-eastern Karamoja region.

Both have denied the charges.

In Kenya, President Ruto also called for an end to the protests that have hit his government, saying: “Enough is enough.”

The protests are the biggest in Kenya since Mr Ruto took office after winning elections in 2022.

Activists have planned further demonstrations for Tuesday to demand his resignation and for an end to what they call bad governance.

Addressing a rally in western Bomet County, Mr Ruto said the protest organisers could not remain “anonymous”, and should “step forward and tell us what is this violence going to achieve”.

Some protesters stormed parliament last month setting part of it on fire and stealing the mace, the symbol of the legislature’s authority.

Protest organisers say their demonstrations have largely been peaceful.

They accuse the police and the military of responding with brute force, and killing peaceful protesters.

At least 50 protesters have been killed and 413 injured since the protests started on 18 June, according to the state-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

Kenya’s main opposition leader Raila Odinga has expressed solidarity with the protesters, saying there had to be justice for victims before any talks with the government could take place.

Mr Odinga’s position could undermine Mr Ruto’s attempt to include members of the opposition in his cabinet – a move which the hopes will help end the youth-led protests.

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If we can’t control rising global temperatures by drastically cutting carbon emissions, could something called geo-engineering be a way to cool the planet?

In what is already a £103bn ($135bn) industry, scientists around the world, including in the UK, are researching geo-engineering – ways of manipulating the climate to tackle global warming.

Some experts are concerned there are too many risks associated with it, fearing it could mess with global weather patterns or actually warm some regions, not cool them.

As the industry grows, so have conspiracy theories. BBC Weather has seen a large increase in social media comments around geo-engineering since January, accusing us of covering up secret projects and wrongly blaming geo-engineering for the cool and wet weather we’ve recently had. Worldwide, there have been twice as many mentions of geo-engineering this year on X, formerly known as Twitter, than over the last six months of 2023.

Some geo-engineering ideas include reflecting sunlight back out to space to cool Earth. The most advanced area of geo-engineering is direct air carbon capture with small-scale facilities in operation across Europe, the US and Canada. These currently remove around 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year (one third of London’s annual emissions), meaning it would need massively scaling up to make any difference to the roughly 35 billion tonnes we emit globally.

“We need to start to think about other things that we can do in order to limit any further warming,” says Professor Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society. “That’s where geo-engineering starts to become an interesting discussion.”

Aside from fears about exacerbating the effects of climate change, some experts are worried it’s tempting to see geo-engineering as a quick fix that could also distract us from efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but the idea of reflecting solar radiation, the technical term for sunlight, is not as crazy as it might sound and sometimes happens in the natural world. During volcanic eruptions, huge amounts of ash and aerosols – tiny particles – can be transported into the high atmosphere which can then reflect solar radiation back into space.

The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 led to the average global temperature cooling by 0.5C over the following couple of years.

So, could we really replicate a volcano to cool our planet?

Professor Jim Haywood, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Exeter, urges caution. “I really want to know about the detrimental impacts of climate change, but also about the potential side-effects and detrimental impacts of any solar radiation management deployments,” he said.

Researchers are studying two kinds of solar radiation management: marine cloud brightening and stratospheric aerosol injection.

Marine cloud brightening involves spraying very fine saltwater from a boat towards low-level clouds above the ocean to enhance their brightness and reflectivity.

Modelling has shown that if you were to spray a large area – around 4% of the ocean – near the equator and brighten clouds, the combination of more cloud and consequently a lower sea surface temperature beneath it could have worldwide impacts.

Our atmosphere is complex, has no borders and behaves like a fluid. You may have come across the ‘butterfly effect’ where if a butterfly were to flutter its wings in Mexico, it can bring rain to the UK. While in reality that is a big leap, it highlights how weather is connected all over the world.

“Brightening the cloud off the coast of Namibia could induce drought over South America and particularly Brazil. What’s in Brazil? Well, the rainforests,” Prof Haywood said.

In this instance, because of complex atmospheric and ocean circulations, increasing the cloud brightness would cool the sea surface in the eastern south Atlantic, which means the rainfall pattern would be negatively disrupted across the south Atlantic towards South America. Drought in the Amazon rainforest – often referred to as the ‘lungs of the planet’ as they absorb carbon dioxide – could cause considerable damage.

While there is focus on using marine cloud brightening to offset global temperature rise, some see an opportunity to use it on a much smaller scale.

After a mass coral bleaching event in 2016 in the Great Barrier Reef, scientists at Southern Cross University in Australia have been conducting cloud brightening trials to shield and cool the very coral-rich areas of the reef to prevent bleaching during marine heatwaves.

“While we are in the early stages in understanding how marine cloud brightening might be applied over the Great Barrier Reef, we have made major scientific advancements.

“We have greatly increased our confidence that clouds over the reef can be brightened,” Professor Daniel Harrison, the project lead from Southern Cross University said.

The technology to perform marine cloud brightening on a small scale with fans and sprayers already exists, but the other method of solar radiation management – stratospheric aerosol injection – would need greater advances to have the desired impact.

This method of geo-engineering involves artificially adding aerosols such as sulphate into the stratosphere, which extends from 6-12 miles (10-20km) to 31 miles (50km) above the Earth. These aerosols would reflect some solar radiation, reducing the amount reaching our planet’s surface and theoretically cause a global cooling.

How enough aerosol could be injected into the stratosphere is uncertain but planes capable of flying at an altitude of 11 miles (18km) – around 1.5 times higher than commercial aircraft can – are one suggestion.

Millions of tonnes of sulphur dioxide would need to be injected to have any impact. For example, during the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, the resulting half a degree of global cooling was the result of about 15 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide injected into the stratosphere.

Because sulphate aerosols only last a couple of years in the atmosphere compared to the decades that carbon dioxide lasts, stratospheric aerosol injection is only seen as a short-term method.

This hasn’t stopped one company in the US from starting to sell ‘cooling credits’. For a fee they will send a balloon filled with sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere, where it will burst and release the gas.

They suggest that one of their cooling credits – two grams of sulphur dioxide – will “offset one tonne of carbon dioxide warming for one year”. That’s the equivalent of one passenger’s return flight between Paris and New York, which means a lot of balloons would need to be released for this to have any sort of cooling effect.

As with marine cloud brightening, there are also risks with stratospheric aerosol injection. In a study earlier this year, computer modelling found that stratospheric aerosol injection could cause strong warming 15km above the tropics which would change large-scale weather patterns, warming the polar regions and altering rainfall patterns over land.

“The regional impacts are very much unknown,” Prof Bentley said. ”We may be able to mitigate global average temperature [rise], but we may actually make things worse in certain regions of the world”.

This brings us to fundamental questions about the credibility and risks involved in this kind of intervention. In 2022, hundreds of scientists signed an open letter calling for a global non-use agreement on solar radiation management.

They said increasing calls for development provided “cause for concern” with the dangers involved “poorly understood” and something that would act as a disincentive to governments, businesses and societies from decarbonising.

The group worries that even doing theoretical research will lead to real-world experiments without fully knowing the downsides. But other scientists think the risk of investigating solar radiation management further is smaller than the risk of relying solely on decarbonisation.

Additionally, some say that misinformation and conspiracists are preventing them from doing research.

Dr Ramit Debnath, an assistant professor at the University of Cambridge, says “a lot of funders are very sceptical of funding research” because they are wary of being targeted by conspiracists. He has analysed almost 2 million tweets with the hashtag #GeoEngineering and found that over 70% expressed negative sentiments about solar radiation management with the majority tapping into conspiracies.

One of these is to do with ‘chemtrails’, a widely debunked conspiracy theory about an alleged secret plot to spray people with dangerous chemicals, suggesting the white streaks in the sky that come out the back of planes is evidence of this. These are actually condensed water vapour trails – known as contrails – that come from the jet engines of planes.

Contrails at this height actually absorb solar radiation and warm the planet and are therefore nothing to do with geo-engineering techniques currently being explored.

Dr Debnath says that by so much as talking about solar radiation management on social media, he is accused of “trying to kill people and control people’s lives”.

Solar radiation management is being treated with caution – the UK government hasn’t deployed the techniques and has “no plans to do so”. However, they are investing.

The Natural Environment Research Council has invited applications for a £10.5m fund in order to “deliver ‘risk-risk analyses’” to assess whether the negative impacts of the technique are greater than the damage that would be caused by climate change.

“It isn’t a silver bullet that’s going to solve everything,” said Prof Bentley. “But it possibly could be part of an array of solutions.”

Bangladesh is in turmoil.

Street protests are not new to this South Asian nation of 170 million people – but the intensity of the demonstrations of the past week has been described as the worst in living memory.

More than 100 people have died in the violence, with more than 50 people killed on Friday alone.

The government has imposed an unprecedented communications blackout, shutting down the internet and restricting phone services.

What started as peaceful protests on university campuses has now transformed into nationwide unrest.

Thousands of university students have been agitating for weeks against a quota system for government jobs.

A third of public sector jobs are reserved for the relatives of veterans from the country’s war for independence from Pakistan in 1971.

The students are arguing that the system is discriminatory, and are asking for recruitment based on merit.

Protest coordinators say police and the student wing of the governing Awami League – known as the Bangladesh Chhatra League – have been using brutal force against peaceful demonstrators, triggering widespread anger.

The government denies these allegations.

“It’s not students anymore, it seems that people from all walks of life have joined the protest movement,” Dr Samina Luthfa, assistant professor of sociology in the University of Dhaka, tells the BBC.

The protests have been a long time coming. Though Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, experts point out that growth has not translated into jobs for university graduates.

Estimates suggest that around 18 million young Bangladeshis are looking for jobs. University graduates face higher rates of unemployment than their less-educated peers.

Bangladesh has become a powerhouse of ready-to-wear clothing exports. The country exports around $40 billion worth of clothes to the global market.

The sector employs more than four million people, many of them women. But factory jobs are not sufficient for the aspiring younger generation.

Under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, Bangladesh has transformed itself by building new roads, bridges, factories and even a metro rail in the capital Dhaka.

Its per-capita income has tripled in the last decade and the World Bank estimates that more than 25 million people have been lifted out of poverty in the last 20 years.

But many say that some of that growth is only helping those close to Ms Hasina’s Awami League.

Dr Luthfa says: “We are witnessing so much corruption. Especially among those close to the ruling party. Corruption has been continuing for a long time without being punished.”

Social media in Bangladesh in recent months has been dominated by discussions about corruption allegations against some of Ms Hasina’s former top officials – including a former army chief, ex-police chief, senior tax officers and state recruitment officials.

Ms Hasina last week said she was taking action against corruption, and that it was a long-standing problem.

During the same press conference in Dhaka, she said she had taken action against a household assistant – or peon – after he allegedly amassed $34 million.

“He can’t move without a helicopter. How has he earned so much money? I took action immediately after knowing this,”

She did not identify the individual.

The reaction of the Bangladeshi media was that this much money could only have been accumulated through lobbying for government contracts, corruption, or bribery.

The anti-corruption commission in Bangladesh has launched an investigation into former police chief Benazir Ahmed – once seen as a close ally of Ms Hasina – for amassing millions of dollars, allegedly through illegal means. He denies the allegations.

This news didn’t escape ordinary people in the country, who are struggling with the escalating cost of living.

In addition to corruption allegations, many rights activists point out that space for democratic activity has shrunk over the past 15 years.

“For three consecutive elections, there has been no credible free and fair polling process,” Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, told the BBC.

“[Ms Hasina] has perhaps underestimated the level of dissatisfaction people had about being denied the most basic democratic right to choose their own leader,” Ms Ganguly said.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) boycotted elections in 2014 and 2024 saying free and fair elections were not possible under Ms Hasina and that they wanted the polls to be held under a neutral caretaker administration.

Ms Hasina has always rejected this demand.

Rights groups also say more than 80 people, many of them government critics, have disappeared in the past 15 years, and that their families have no information on them.

The government is accused of stifling dissent and the media, amid wider concerns that Sheikh Hasina has grown increasingly autocratic over the years. But ministers deny the charges.

“The anger against the government and the ruling party have been accumulating for a long time,” says Dr Luthfa.

“People are showing their anger now. People resort to protest if they don’t have any recourse left.”

Ms Hasina’s ministers say the government has shown extreme restraint despite what they describe as provocative actions by protesters.

They say demonstrations have been infiltrated by their political opposition and by Islamist parties, who they say initiated the violence.

Law Minister Anisul Huq said the government was open to discussing the issues.

“The government has been reaching out to the student protesters. When there is a reasonable argument, we are willing to listen,” Mr Huq told the BBC earlier this week.

The student protests are probably the biggest challenge that has faced Ms Hasina since January 2009.

How they are resolved will depend on how she handles the unrest and, most importantly, how she addresses the public’s growing anger.

Just over a month ago, you probably hadn’t heard of Jay Slater.

He was a teenager on a first holiday without his parents in Tenerife, like so many Brits this summer.

Sometimes accidents happen while abroad and occasionally they become tragedies. Few ever hear about them.

Not for Jay, 19, whose family have been thrust into a national spotlight during a month-long search that has captivated millions of people on social media.

Yet the facts in Jay’s case now seem relatively simple. He got lost in treacherous terrain and fell to his death.

His family hoped the viral frenzy would end when his body was found last week. But it did not.

Many are now asking one question: why did it take 29 days to find him?

We’ve spent time in Tenerife over the past month inside the search for Jay, reporting on the riddle.

What we’ve seen raises both questions and answers.

Things went wrong for Jay in the early hours of 17 June.

He decided to get into a car with two men in Playa de Las Americas, the heart of the Spanish island’s nightlife.

Those men, reportedly British nationals, drove the apprentice bricklayer about 22 miles (36km) north to an Airbnb in the village of Masca – a tiny settlement surrounded by mountains and ravines (they were later allowed to leave the island after being quickly ruled out of the investigation by Spanish police, the Guardia Civil).

An immediate focus of the investigation became an image Jay posted on social media app Snapchat, cigarette in hand, tagged at the door of the apartment at 07:30 BST.

It showed he had stayed at the Airbnb. Then two phone calls emerged.

His friend Lucy Law received one at around 08:30 BST. Jay told her he was lost, had 1% battery on his phone and needed water.

In a video call to fellow friend Brad Hargreaves, Jay was walking on rough, stony ground, saying he was trekking 11 hours home after missing a bus.

How did he end up in the mountains?

Ofelia Medina Hernandez, who made the last sighting of him at around 08:00 BST, claims Jay asked about the next bus – 10:00 – but might not have understood the answer. He then walked.

Whether further evidence exists to point to why Jay was up in the mountains, or why he wandered into such dangerous terrain in that window until he was reported missing at 09:00 BST, is unclear.

Investigators have seemingly been unable to answer this.

If a coroner in the UK decides to hold an inquest, more detail might emerge publicly.

Thanks to Jay’s phone pinging a mast at 08:50 BST, Spanish police had a location to work off: the Rural de Teno park.

Search teams sprang into action on difficult terrain. It’s an area of thick vegetation, steep ravines and cliff-faces.

Weather conditions lurch between 30C heat and sudden drops in both temperature and visibility as mist rolls in from the sea.

In the snippets of information shared with the media, Guardia Civil press officers referred to specialist sniffer dog teams from Madrid, helicopter crews and drones scouring the rough terrain.

Fast forward to last week, and human remains were found in the ravine close to the phone mast. The police found the body, not the various external search teams and TikTokers who joined in.

Through fingerprint testing, it was confirmed by the police and Canary Islands Higher Court of Justice to be Jay.

His injuries were consistent with a fall onto rocky ground from height.

Days of searches of this area had found nothing.

Did they unwittingly walk past him first time around?

The Guardia Civil have declined to answer any questions about this. They told us journalists that “we don’t give details of the investigation”.

What few knew until now beyond a tight-knit circle in Tenerife, was that after the police formally called off the search two weeks in, it actually continued.

It appears the Guardia Civil may have hoped that announcing they had stopped searching would calm some of the attention around the case – as the search had certainly not ended.

Out of view of the main paths and trails around Masca, in an area called Juan Lopez, mountaineers with machetes had been abseiling into inaccessible areas and hacking away at vegetation.

The Guardia Civil said it carried out “discreet” searches to deter “curious onlookers”.

Questions remain as to whether this was the best strategy. Perhaps an approach more aligned to British police in missing person’s searches where constant updates are provided for transparency, could have prevented some of the wild conspiracies.

It is a question that Lancashire Police also had to grapple with during a similar torrent of interest that dominated the search for Nicola Bulley in Lancashire, just 24 miles (38km) from Jay’s hometown of Oswaldtwistle.

While searches were ongoing, on TikTok, Instagram reels, X and Facebook, fantastical tales of Moroccan mafia groups or international drug smuggling rings were woven in with information from Jay’s past.

His family endured outright lies and content such as fake recordings of screams suggesting he had been murdered.

Jay’s mum Debbie was hit with messages from people claiming they had kidnapped her son.

Rachel Hargreaves, Brad’s mother, who flew to Tenerife along with Debbie, tried to manage the flood of comments and messages on the family’s official Facebook group.

She soon became a target herself, telling the BBC that some anonymous trolls had created a fake account in the name of her late mother.

At one stage, Debbie herself posted in one unofficial Facebook group dedicated to Jay Slater “theories”, begging for some compassion. A flood of negative comments and cynicism followed.

For Jay’s family, the next priority is getting his body home.

Matthew Searle, chief executive of missing person’s charity LBT Global, told the BBC the paperwork should be complete in about a week – though he indicated that the exact arrangements would be kept under wraps to protect the family’s privacy.

Even now, it appears that amateur sleuths and trolls are trying to intervene in the process of flying his body home. Some people are searching online for autopsy results.

If an inquest is opened in the UK it could see witnesses, such as the men who were in the Airbnb with Jay, called to give evidence and answer questions.

With the evidence pointing to an accidental fall, the coroner might certify the cause of death without an inquest. The family’s wishes will also be considered, though.

The disappearance and death of their “beautiful boy”, a “living nightmare” as his family put it, will leave deep scars for the whole family and Jay’s many friends.

But so too the baffling ordeal of being the victims of social media at its very worst.

Maybe this is the new norm for the modern age of high-profile missing person’s cases, posing a challenge to police forces in the years to come.

Back in Oswaldtwistle, the people who knew Jay hope this chapter of the story, at least, is over.

A new exhibition in Delhi showcasing rare artworks by European artists gives insights into how the British ruled the country.

Called Destination India: Foreign Artists in India, 1857-1947, the show focuses on artists who travelled to colonial India from around the world.

The representation of India through the European and British artists has “long been a subject of intrigue and exploration”, writes Indian MP and author Shashi Tharoor, in an introduction to the show.

“The fascination with India’s unique landscapes, grand monuments, vibrant traditions and rich history has drawn many to its shores, seeking to capture the essence of this multifaceted nation.”

Mr Tharoor notes that the show is “refreshing and essential” as it explores the less-explored, yet a compelling period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rather than just the early pioneers.

The exhibition showcases artworks, including from British artist William Carpenter, that give glimpses into not only the royal courts, but also daily life in the Empire.

Carpenter usually did watercolour, but this 1857 artwork, pictured above, is wood engraving on paper that depicts the busy back streets of Delhi’s Jama Masjid (mosque).

Many interesting artists visited India from England and other European countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were mainly conventional artists working in oil and watercolour and various print media.

“They were attracted to the people, and not just to the grandees, but to ordinary people in the streets. If there was still an element of the picturesque, it was a more intimate and animated version of that aesthetic,” says Ashish Anand, managing director of DAG, a leading art firm which has put together the show.

“In their works we find an India – if we can put it this way – that we do not just see, but that we can hear and smell.”

The work above is another watercolour painting of the Jama Masjid by William Simpson in 1864.

Mainly a war artist, Simpson was sent to India in 1859 by a publishing company to illustrate the aftermath of the violent uprising two years earlier. Indian soldiers, known as sepoys, had in 1857 set off a rebellion against the British rule, often referred to as the first war of independence.

Simpson’s project halted when the publishing company went bankrupt. He called it the “biggest disaster of my life”. Nonetheless, he continued travelling and sketching his expeditions across the sub-continent.

This is a 1900 pastel portrait of elderly Indians by Olinto Ghilardi, an Italian artist.

A significant European artist, Ghilardi shaped modern Indian art in the early 20th Century.

He mentored Abanindranath Tagore – nephew of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and founder of the Bengal School of Art, which shaped modern Indian painting. Ghilardi encouraged him to experiment with watercolours, gouache, and pastels, which he extensively used later in his work.

Ghilardi also served as the vice principal of the Government School of Art in Calcutta (now Kolkata).

This 1896 painting of a young Indian woman was also made by Ghilardi.

Not much is known about the life of the Italian painter before he arrived in Kolkata. His association with Tagore indicates his acceptance as an artist among Kolkata’s Bengali elite.

Much later, in 1911, Ghilardi became a prominent member of an avant-garde group of Italian artists.

This is British artist Carlton Alfred Smith’s undated watercolour painting of a street scene in India.

Smith lived in India between 1916 and 1923. He often painted landscapes along with portraits of people.

A painter of the late Victorian period from Camden Town in London, Smith began as a lithographer before switching to painting. A member of the Royal Academy of Art, he’s known for drawing interiors of cottages and the English countryside.

This is a 1894 watercolour painting of Kashmir’s Wular Lake by George Strahan, a British army engineer and artist.

A gifted student from Surrey, Strahan joined the army and arrived in India in 1860, working in towns of Roorkee and Haridwar.

Two years later, he joined the Topographical Survey of India and started mapping central India, Rajasthan and the Himalayas.

In 1888, he became superintendent of the Great Trigonometrical Survey, which mapped the Indian subcontinent.

At the Survey, Strahan drew relief maps before colour printing was introduced.

After retirement, he lived in the hills of Dehradun and travelled to Kashmir every summer.

This is an 1887 watercolour of Hyderabad in southern India by German artist Woldemar Friedrich.

A historical painter and illustrator, Friedrich spent much of his career teaching at prestigious German art academies. In the late 1880s, he travelled to India and created a series of landscapes and illustrations, published in the 1893 book “Six Months in India”.

Carpenter’s 1857 wood engraving on paper artwork on Benaras (above) shows Varanasi – one of the world’s oldest cities and and India’s spiritual capital – brimming with life.

Trained at the Royal Academy Schools in London, Carpenter became a renowned 19th-Century portrait and landscape painter.

Arriving in India in 1850, he travelled extensively, painting rulers, street scenes, landscapes, and locals across Bombay (now Mumbai), Rajasthan, Delhi, Punjab, Kashmir, Lahore, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and Afghanistan.

This is English artist Charles William Bartlett’s 1919 woodblock print on paper rendition of Punjab’s Golden Temple, a sacred shrine for Sikhs.

Dover-born Bartlett was one of the world’s leading Japanese woodblock painters, and later switched to fine art.

In 1913, he travelled to India, Indonesia and China. He designed 38 woodblock prints for his Japanese publisher from 1916 to 1925, including many scenes from his travels in South Asia.

American artist Edwin Lord Weeks painted this colourful oil on canvas of a bullock-cart in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in 1882.

Born in Boston to a wealthy family, Weeks was among the first American artists to visit India. His business family supported his artistic endeavours.

Weeks first travelled to India between 1882 and 1883, painting places mainly in Rajasthan. He returned in 1886, when he visited at least seven cities. Known for his realist style and attention to detail, Weeks also wrote a travel account of his journeys through Persia (present day Iran) and India in 1896.

There was little to indicate what had happened on the fifth floor of the Grand Hyatt Erawan in Bangkok until police officers opened the door.

No-one was heard to scream, or had rung for help. No-one had even made it to the door.

Even inside, there were apparently no signs of struggle – the untouched late lunch still laid out neatly on the table for the occupants to enjoy.

From outside of Room 502, the only clue to the horror inside the locked room was the fact the group were late checking out of the hotel.

And yet inside were six bodies, alongside tea cups laced with cyanide.

It didn’t take officers long to work out the occupants of the room had drunk the poisoned tea, or to find out who the apparent victims were.

But days after police revealed the grim discovery, big questions remain: why them – and who did it?

Four of the victims are Vietnamese nationals – Thi Nguyen Phuong, 46, her husband Hong Pham Thanh, 49, Thi Nguyen Phuong Lan, 47, and Dinh Tran Phu, 37.

The other two are American citizens of Vietnamese origin – Sherine Chong, 56, and Dang Hung Van, 55.

According to investigators, Chong was believed to have borrowed 10 million baht ($280,000; £215,000) from husband and wife Hong Pham Thanh and Thi Nguyen Phuong to invest in a hospital building project in Japan. The couple, who owned a construction business, had apparently tried in vain to get their money back.

In fact, the matter was due to go to court in Japan in a matter of weeks.

On the face of it, this meeting appeared to be an attempt to discuss the issue in advance of the case.

Thi Nguyen Phuong Lan was there because Chong – who US media have said lived in Oakland, California – had asked her to act as her intermediary with the couple regarding the investment.

But how were the other two linked to the case?

Dinh Tran Phu – a successful make-up artist whose clientele includes movie stars, singers and beauty queens in Vietnam – was at the gathering working for Chong.

His father, speaking to BBC Vietnamese, emphasised the fact he had travelled to Thailand with his regular clients, not with strangers.

A close friend, meanwhile, said he knew both Thi Nguyen Phuong and Thi Nguyen Phuong Lan, having introduced them to treatments at a friend’s spa in Da Nang, where he lived.

Dang Hung Van’s participation in the hotel suite meeting was not immediately clear.

Police said there was a seventh name in the hotel reservation, the sister of one of the six. That person returned to Vietnam from Thailand last week and police said she was not involved in the incident.

The group checked into the hotel separately over the weekend and were assigned five rooms – four on the seventh floor, and one on the fifth.

Chong checked into Room 502 on Sunday. The five others visited her in her suite that day, but they headed back to their respective rooms for the night.

Before noon on Monday, Dang Hung Van ordered six cups of tea while Dinh Tran Phu, the make-up artist, ordered fried rice from their respective rooms. They asked that it be delivered to Room 502 at 14:00 local time.

A few minutes before 14:00, Chong started receiving the food orders at Room 502. She was alone in the suite at that time.

Police said she refused the waiter’s offer to brew tea for her party. The waiter also found that she “spoke very little and was visibly under stress”.

The rest of the group started arriving soon after. The couple went in lugging a suitcase.

At 14:17, all six could be seen by the door before it was shut. From then on, there was no sign of movement from inside.

They had been scheduled to check out on Monday but failed to do so.

Police entered the room at 16:30 on Tuesday and found the six dead on the floor.

The initial investigation found that two appeared to have tried get to the suite’s door, but failed to reach it in time.

All the bodies bore signs of cyanide poisoning, which can – in certain doses – kill within minutes. Their lips and nails had turned dark purple indicating a lack of oxygen, while their internal organs turned “blood red”, which is another sign of cyanide poisoning.

Investigators say there is “no other cause” that would explain their deaths “except for cyanide”.

Further tests are being carried out to determine the “intensity” of the deadly chemical and to rule out any other toxins.

Cyanide starves the body’s cells of oxygen, which can induce heart attacks. Early symptoms include dizziness, shortness of breath and vomiting.

Its use in Thailand is heavily regulated and those found to have unauthorised access face up to two years in jail.

Police suspect that one of the dead was behind the poisoning and was driven by crushing debt – but have not said who.

According to Vietnamese outlet VN Express, investigators said Chong had been sued by all the other five over their failed investments.

The meeting in Bangkok was called to negotiate a settlement, but the attempt failed.

Police have sought a statement from the group’s tour guide in Bangkok, 35-year-old Phan Ngoc Vu.

The guide reportedly said that before she died, Thi Nguyen Phuong Lan, the mediator, had asked someone to buy traditional medicine containing snake blood for her joint pains.

Then there are the two metal beverage containers that did not belong to the hotel found by police in the suite.

The containers were placed beside the cyanide-laced teacups, near the dining table.

What is certain is that officials want the matter resolved quickly.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has directed officials in Hanoi to co-ordinate closely with their Thai counterparts on the investigation.

As for Thai authorities, it couldn’t have come at a worse time for Thailand. It had just expanded visa-free entry to 93 countries to revive its tourism industry, a key economic pillar that has yet to fully recover from the pandemic.

Barely a year before, a 14-year-old boy shot dead two people at a luxury shopping mall, also in Bangkok.

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin was with police on the scene at the Grand Hyatt on Tuesday night. He said there was no danger to public safety and that it was a private matter.

For the families left behind, the shock is palpable.

BBC Vietnamese got hold of the make-up artist’s mother, Tuy, on the phone, but she was sobbing so uncontrollably that she hung up after a short conversation. She said she thought her son was just on a routine work trip.

His father, Tran Dinh Dung, said in a separate interview that he did not notice anything strange with his son the last time he saw him.

Dissent is not tolerated in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

For years Kremlin critics have faced a host of laws which could be used against them, and since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that toolbox of measures has swelled in size.

The laws target basic rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly – even though they are enshrined in Russia’s constitution.

The repressive nature of the punishments, often disproportionate to the offence, harks back to the methods of the old Soviet Union.

The law used most widely against critics of the war in Ukraine is the criminal offence of spreading “deliberately false information” about the Russian army.

It was rushed through parliament shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “urgently needed because of the absolutely unprecedented information war waged against our country”.

According to prominent Russian human rights group OVD-Info, more than 300 people have since been charged or convicted under it.

Even though the law mentions “false” information, it has been used against people who highlight crimes that are well-documented but denied by Russia.

Ilya Yashin is one of the most high-profile critics of the war to be convicted under this law. The former head of a Moscow disctrict council was given eight and half years in jail for a live stream on YouTube in which he urged an investigation into the murder of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.

In April 2023, prominent opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in jail on charges of treason and spreading “false information” about the Russian army.

His case was partly based on a speech in which he accused Russian troops in Ukraine of committing war crimes by using cluster bombs in residential areas and bombing maternity hospitals and schools.

The law has also been applied to Russians with far smaller public profiles.

Russian-language tutor Raisa Boldova, 61, was handed a suspended one-year community service sentence for posting critical comments about attacks on civilians in Ukraine, including the bombing of the Mariupol maternity hospital.

In an echo of a chilling Soviet practice of confining dissidents to mental hospitals, the court also ordered her to undergo a compulsory psychiatric evaluation.

Another recent law penalises “discrediting” the Russian army, and it has been applied to a broad variety of actions interpreted either as support for Ukraine or criticism of the war.

These include:

• Wearing clothes in the blue-and-yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag
• Writing anti-war slogans on cakes, as did pastry chef Anastasia Chernysheva
• Dyeing one’s hair blue-and-yellow or listening to Ukrainian music
• Displaying anti-war posters with messages ranging from “No War” to eight asterisks – the number of Russian letters that spell “No War” – or even just a blank sheet of paper.

A village priest in Kostroma region was fined for discrediting Russia’s armed forces after praying for peace and mentioning the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”.

Russia’s “foreign agents” law allows restrictions to be imposed on critics without convicting them of any wrongdoing.

Individuals or organisations that have criticised or scrutinised government policies are targeted if they are deemed to have received money from abroad – even from a relative – or merely to be under “foreign influence”.

The label has to be attached to all public communications, a practice designed to undermine trust in them and one that resembles the Soviet practice of branding dissidents “enemies of the people”.

Among Russia’s “foreign agents” are election monitor Golos, prominent pollster Levada Centre, rights group OVD-Info, a movement of wives of mobilised soldiers called The Way Home and numerous independent news websites and journalists including Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov.

Books written by so-called foreign agents have started to disappear from shops and libraries.

A “foreign agent” label can make life difficult – but being declared “undesirable” amounts to an outright ban.

All manner of organisations have been banned from Russia in this way – from the NGO Greenpeace to London-based think-tank Chatham House, as well as a number of key Russian media outlets.

Late opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation was disbanded after being declared “extremist” – another label used to effectively erase individuals and organisations from public life.

Navalny himself was handed a lengthy prison sentence and died in jail in February 2024. His widow says he was killed by President Putin. Several of Navalny’s lawyers were themselves arrested on charges of extremism.

In Russia, anyone who wishes to hold a demonstration needs permission from the authorities. If the rally is critical of the government, that is practically impossible.

“One-person pickets” are allowed, but many are regularly shut down – ostensibly because of Covid restrictions.

One man was fined for wearing blue-and-yellow shoes – seen as a violation of laws regulating political demonstrations. And a journalist from Vologda Region, Antonida Smolina, was visited by police after someone complained about photographs she had posted online showing her posing in a yellow coat against a blue sky.

Other actions outlawed in Russia include “disrespect” for the authorities and calls for sanctions to be imposed on the country.

According to Natalia Prilutskaya of Amnesty International, the Kremlin uses laws to “legitimise repression”, partly by exploiting the vague wording of some Russian laws.

“This vagueness allows law enforcement structures to qualify basically any activity as a forbidden activity, or at least it makes it easier,” Ms Prilutskaya told the BBC.

Dmitrii Anisimov, spokesman for Russian human rights group OVD-Info, argues that laws are a particularly important for the Kremlin because of the way Russia’s security apparatus functions.

“The Russian security community is fairly bureaucratic and it needs legal norms for their actions,” he said. Legislation used by the security services had been “deliberately designed in a way that makes their application simple and widespread”, he added.

Ms Prilutskaya says it all adds up to a general climate of repression, which she blames on President Vladimir Putin.

“The ambitions of one person have brought Russia to the edge of a really deep abyss,” she said.

How do you assess the impact of the Covid pandemic on a population?

One way is by examining life expectancy, or the average number of years a person can expect to live.

A team of 10 researchers from the UK, the US and Europe have studied the mortality impacts of the pandemic in India by sex, social group and age. Their peer-reviewed paper has been published in Science Advances, a US journal.

They found that life expectancy at birth in India was 2.6 years lower and mortality was 17% higher in 2020 compared to 2019. This implied 1.19 million excess deaths in 2020. Excess deaths are a simple measure of how many more people are dying than expected, compared with previous years.

The researchers of the new study say life expectancy declines in India were larger and affected a younger age profile compared to high-income countries.

They found that mortality rose among all age groups, but compared to high-income countries, the increase was particularly pronounced in younger age groups, leading to larger declines in life expectancy.

The researchers also found something which was more worrying.

For one, females experienced a life expectancy decline of one year greater than males. This contrasts with patterns in most other countries and may be due to gender inequality, say the researchers from University of Oxford, University of California, Berkeley and Paris School of Economics, among others.

Also, marginalised social groups – Muslims, Dalits, and tribespeople – in India saw larger declines in life expectancy compared to privileged upper caste people, exacerbating existing disparities.

The researchers agree that before Covid, these groups already had significant disadvantages in life expectancy. The pandemic worsened these disparities, with declines comparable to or greater than those seen among Native Americans, Blacks, and Hispanics in the US in 2020, the study says.

“These findings uncover large and unequal mortality impacts during the pandemic in the world’s most populous country,” Sangita Vyas, of CUNY Hunter College and one of the researchers, told me.

More than 4.7 million people in India – nearly 10 times higher than official records suggest – are thought to have died because of Covid, according to a 2022 World Health Organization (WHO) report. India’s government rejected the figure, saying the methodology was flawed.

To be sure, the latest study looked at deaths from all causes, not just deaths from Covid. “For that reason we can’t conclude that women in India were more likely to die of Covid than men,” says Ms Vyas. “What we can conclude is that the increase in mortality from all causes was greater for women than men”.

The researchers believe these patterns partly stem from gender inequality.

Previous research shows Indian households spend less on healthcare for females compared to males, a disparity which likely worsened during the pandemic. Fewer females appear in India’s official Covid-19 case data, despite surveys showing similar infection rates among males and females.

Furthermore, severe disruptions to maternal healthcare and livelihoods due to lockdowns likely contributed to these trends.

How did the researchers come to these findings? They surveyed data of more than 765,000 people – a sample size that accurately reflects the diversity and distribution of a quarter of India’s population – to identify patterns missed by incomplete data and disease surveillance.

India’s National Family Health Survey 5 collected high quality data on recent household deaths and socio-economic characteristics. This allowed researchers to analyse age, sex, and group-specific mortality patterns. They compared mortality in 2019 and 2020 using data from the same households interviewed in 2021.

The researchers believe more research is necessary to explore why females in India experienced higher excess deaths than males, why excess mortality affected younger age groups more in India compared to other countries, and why Muslims saw significant declines in life expectancy compared to other social groups.

“These patterns likely resulted from disparities in healthcare access and underlying health, differing impacts of lockdowns on public health and livelihoods, and increased discrimination against marginalised groups,” says Ms Vyas.

While most of the world was grappling with the blue screen of death on Friday, one country that managed to escape largely unscathed was China.

The reason is actually quite simple: CrowdStrike is hardly used there.

Very few organisations will buy software from an American firm that, in the past, has been vocal about the cyber-security threat posed by Beijing.

Additionally, China is not as reliant on Microsoft as the rest of the world. Domestic companies such as Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei are the dominant cloud providers.

So reports of outages in China, when they did come, were mainly at foreign firms or organisations. On Chinese social media sites, for example, some users complained they were not able to check into international chain hotels such as Sheraton, Marriott and Hyatt in Chinese cities.

Over recent years, government organisations, businesses and infrastructure operators have increasingly been replacing foreign IT systems with domestic ones. Some analysts like to call this parallel network the “splinternet”.

“It’s a testament to China’s strategic handling of foreign tech operations,” says Josh Kennedy White, a cybersecurity expert based in Singapore.

“Microsoft operates in China through a local partner, 21Vianet, which manages its services independently of its global infrastructure. This setup insulates China’s essential services – like banking and aviation – from global disruptions.”

Beijing sees avoiding reliance on foreign systems as a way of shoring up national security.

It is similar to the way some Western countries banned Chinese tech firm Huawei’s technology in 2019 – or the UK’s move to ban the use of Chinese-owned TikTok on government devices in 2023.

Since then, the US has launched a concerted effort to ban sales of advanced semiconductor chip tech to China, as well as attempts to stop American companies from investing in Chinese technology. The US government says all of these restrictions are on national security grounds.

An editorial published on Saturday in the state-run Global Times newspaper made a thinly veiled reference to these curbs on Chinese technology.

“Some countries constantly talk about security, generalise the concept of security, but ignore the real security, this is ironic,” the editorial said.

The argument here is that the US tries to dictate the terms of who can use global technology and how it is used, yet one of its own companies has caused global chaos through lack of care.

The Global Times also took a jab at the internet giants who “monopolise” the industry: “Relying solely on top companies to lead network security efforts, as some countries advocate, may hinder not just the inclusive sharing of governance outcomes but also introduce new security risks.”

The reference to “sharing” is probably an allusion to the debate over intellectual property insofar as China is often accused of copying or stealing western technology. Beijing insists this is not the case and advocates for an open global technology marketplace – while still keeping tight control over its domestic scene.

Not everything was totally unaffected in China, however. A small numbers of workers expressed thanks to an American software giant for ending their working week early.

“Thank you Microsoft for an early vacation,” was trending on the social media site Weibo on Friday, with users posting pictures of blue error screens.

Donald Trump has told a rally in Michigan that he “took a bullet for democracy” when an attempt was made on his life last week.

He also derided President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris at the event in Grand Rapids – his first with new running mate JD Vance and the first since he survived the assassination attempt.

He told a packed arena that Democrats had accused him of being “a threat to democracy” and, to huge applause, said he was ready to “take back the White House”.

An investigation is under way into the shooting last weekend, which left Trump with a wounded ear – though the prominent white bandage he wore throughout the Republican National Convention had on Saturday been replaced by a discreet flesh-toned plaster.

The gunman flew a drone above the site of the shooting ahead of time, law enforcement officials have told US media.

The Grand Rapids event was one of several campaign stops the former president has made in the key battleground state, as polls show him in a close race against Mr Biden.

Mr Biden, meanwhile, has had to pause campaign events after testing positive for Covid-19. He continues to resist growing calls from members of his own party to drop out of the race due to concerns about his age and cognitive abilities.

During his speech Mr Trump repeated the falsehood that the 2020 election – which he lost to Mr Biden – had been “rigged”.

He mocked the crisis around Mr Biden’s own bid for re-election as president, saying: “They don’t know who their candidate is, and neither do we.”

• Who could replace Biden as Democratic nominee?

In rhetoric that departed from his calls for unity immediately after the shooting, he used insulting language about Mr Biden and about Ms Harris, who is well-placed to become the Democratic nominee if Mr Biden steps aside.

Mr Trump again sought to distance himself from Project 2025 – a detailed 900-page proposal from the Heritage Foundation think tank.

Led by former Trump administration officials, Project 2025 calls for measures including the sacking of thousands of civil servants, expanding the power of the president, dismantling the Department of Education, sweeping tax cuts, a ban on pornography and halting sales of the abortion pill.

“The radical right… they’re seriously extreme,” he said.

• Who is Kamala Harris? The VP’s star is rising among Democrats
• Project 2025: A wish list for a Trump presidency, explained

Trump was not scheduled to address the crowd until 17:00 EST (21:00 GMT) but by 13:00, a line stretched for about three miles (4.8km) outside the 12,000-person Van Del Arena.

Many of those at the event, in the battleground state of Michigan, told the BBC that the assassination attempt – which killed an audience member and wounded two others – would not stop them from showing support for the Republican presidential nominee.

Some said they came precisely because of the shooting.

Unlike that rally, held in Butler, Pennsylvania, the Grand Rapids event was indoors – allowing security officers to carefully monitor who entered and to cut off threats from outside the rally.

In his speech, Trump thanked the “thousands and thousands” of people who came to see him “almost exactly” a week after the assassination attempt.

“I stand before you only by the grace of almighty God,” he said, repeating his belief that divine intervention saved him from being killed.

Wendy and Steve Upcott of Clarkston, Michigan, were among the thousands who drove from all over the state to see him, many reassured by the increased security.

The couple said their 26-year-old daughter begged them not to attend the event two hours from home, fearing for their safety in the wake of the assassination attempt. But they felt obliged to come after the shooting last weekend.

“The chances of it happening again just one week to the day later is unlikely,” said Ms Upcott.

Them and many others in Grand Rapids were decked out in red Make America Great Again caps, along with cowboy hats, shirts and full outfits resembling the American flag. T-shirts with Trump’s mug shot were also for sale.

Laura Schultz said she thought about her safety on Saturday morning before she decided to come to the event with a friend.

“You can’t let fear stop you,” she said.

Other rally-goers, including several young adults, said the assassination attempt pushed them to attend the Michigan rally.

It was the first Trump campaign event for fellow Donald, a 24 year old from Grand Rapids, who wore a shirt with the viral image of Trump pumping his fist after being shot.

“This is the first event after the attempted assassination. I think it’s probably going to be the most important rally,” he said, declining to share his last name.

Donald said he had no fears for his own safety, because of the hundreds of police officers, including some on horseback.

But others said they remained scared for Trump.

“It should be a concern for most Americans that he is still not safe,” Ms Upcott said.

“He needs to be very careful,” said Ms Schultz.

Other supporters expressed outrage at the US Secret Service over the incident last week.

The agency has faced intense scrutiny after shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to take aim at Trump in Pennsylvania by climbing onto a roof of a building near the rally stage, even after rallygoers pointed him out to police.

Investigators have still yet to name a motive for the 20-year-old gunman who was later killed by Secret Service agents.

Since then, the country has become more attuned to possible threats to both presidential candidates. Police in Jupiter, Florida, on Friday arrested a man for allegedly posting threats to Trump on social media, while a different man from Florida was arrested a few days earlier for allegedly threatening President Joe Biden.

Saturday’s Michigan indoor event space was much easier to secure, with metal detectors and military personnel sweeping the whole building, said former Secret Service agent Jason Russell, who has worked on campaign events at the Grand Rapids arena.

“You’ll have a pretty, pretty significant number of agents on site,” Mr Russell said, adding that they would be able to keep Trump out of view until his entrance.

On Saturday, the former White House physician, Dr Ronny Jackson, released a statement about his condition after having examined Trump.

The bullet created a 2cm-wide wound on Trump’s ear that extended down to the cartilage, Dr Jackson said, which is beginning to “heal properly.” No stitches had been needed, he added.

Trump’s campaign also announced that it plans to hold its next rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on 24 July at the Bojangles Coliseum.

Adidas has dropped the supermodel Bella Hadid, who is half Palestinian, from an advertising campaign for retro shoes referencing the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Israel had criticised the choice of Ms Hadid. It accused her of hostility to Israel and noted that 11 Israeli athletes had been killed by Palestinian attackers at the Munich Games.

Adidas subsequently apologised and said it would “revise” its campaign.

Ms Hadid has been a vocal supporter of the Palestinians and earlier this year donated money to support relief efforts for the war in Gaza.

BBC News has contacted Hadid’s representatives for comment.

The German sportswear company had chosen Hadid to promote its SL72 trainers, which were first launched to coincide with the 1972 Olympics.

Adidas recently relaunched the SL72 shoes as part of a series reviving classic trainers.

However images of the American model wearing the shoes prompted criticism, including on Israel’s official account on X (formerly Twitter).

“Guess who the face of their campaign is? Bella Hadid, a half-Palestinian model,” a post read on Thursday.

It referred to the attack at the 1972 games, which happened when members of the Palestinian Black September group broke into the Olympic village. In addition to the Israeli athletes, a German police officer was also killed.

Other social media users defended Ms Hadid and called for a boycott of Adidas following the move to pull the campaign.

Adidas confirmed to AFP that Hadid had been removed from the campaign.

In a statement provided to the news agency, the company said it would be “revising the remainder of the campaign” with immediate effect.

“We are conscious that connections have been made to tragic historical events — though these are completely unintentional — and we apologise for any upset or distress caused.”

Hadid, whose father is Palestinian property tycoon Mohamed Anwar Hadid, has been vocal in her support for people affected by the war in Gaza.

In an Instagram post in May, Hadid said she was “devastated at the loss of the Palestinian people and the lack of empathy coming from the government systems worldwide”.

Last month, she and her supermodel sister Gigi donated $1m (£785,000) to support Palestinian relief efforts.

The conflict in Gaza began when Hamas gunmen launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 252 back to Gaza as hostages.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza with the aims of destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages.

More than 38,900 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.