Twelve children and young adults have been killed and dozens injured after a rocket hit a football pitch in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Israeli authorities say.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a rocket fired by the powerful Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fell on the Druze town of Majdal Shams – a claim strongly denied by the group.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retaliation against Hezbollah, saying it would “pay a heavy price”.

The incident has the potential to trigger an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, whose forces have regularly exchanged fire since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war in October.

Saturday’s attack was the deadliest loss of life on Israel’s northern border since the war began on 7 October.

A UN statement said “maximum restraint” was crucial by all parties, with the risk of a wider conflict that would “engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief”.

Hezbollah spokesman Mohamad Afif denied responsibility for the attack, and the BBC is trying to verify reports that the militant group told the United Nations that the explosion was caused by an Israeli interceptor rocket.

Israeli authorities said all of those killed were between the ages of 10 and 20, although Israeli media reports that some were younger.

Verified video shows crowds of people on a football pitch and stretchers being rushed to waiting ambulances.

Majdal Shams is one of four villages in the Golan Heights, where about 25,000 members of the Arabic-speaking Druze religious and ethnic group live.

• Golan Heights profile

Before reports of the strike’s impact emerged, Hezbollah had claimed responsibility for four other attacks.

One was on a nearby military compound on the slopes of Mt Hermon, which lies on the border between Israel and Lebanon. The base is around 3km (2 miles) from the football pitch.

IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari, who visited the scene of the attack, accused Hezbollah of “lying and denying responsibility for the incident.”

He said that the rocket was an Iranian-made Falaq-1 “owned exclusively by Hezbollah”.

“Our intelligence is clear. Hezbollah is responsible for the murder of innocent children,” he said, adding that Israel was preparing to retaliate.

Although Israel and Hezbollah regularly trade fire and have both suffered casualties, since October, both sides have refrained from actions which could escalate into a broader war in southern Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was on a visit to the US, is returning home early.

In an angry statement, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, the leader of the Druze community in Israel, said the “horrific massacre” had crossed “every possible red line”.

“A proper state cannot allow continuous harm to its citizens and residents. This has been the ongoing reality in the northern communities for the past nine months,” he added.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Israel’s Channel 12 news: “We are facing an all-out war.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the incident a “terrible and shocking disaster” and said that “the state of Israel will firmly defend its citizens and its sovereignty”.

Lebanon’s government also issued a rare statement in response, saying it “condemns all acts of violence and aggression against all civilians and calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts.

“Targeting civilians is a flagrant violation of international law and goes against the principles of humanity,” the statement added.

The US and EU have also condemned the attack.

UN envoy Tor Wennesland denounced the incident and urged restraint from all sides.

“The Middle East is on the brink; the world and the region cannot afford another open conflict,” he wrote on X.

Most Druze live in northern Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. In Israel, they have full citizenship rights and comprise about 1.5% of the population.

They were offered Israeli citizenship when the Golan Heights was annexed from Syria in 1981, but not everyone accepted.

Druze in the Golan can still study and work in Israel, though only those with citizenship can vote.

Male Druze are required to serve in the army, and are the largest non-Jewish group in the IDF.

The vast majority of the international community does not recognise Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights.

On a remote farm in Siberia, a man handed Ada a knife. In front of them was a pig.

“Cut it off,” he said. “If you want to go ahead with the operation, you need to understand what castration means.”

Ada was 23 and transgender – she had been tricked into going to a conversion therapy centre after coming out to her family.

She says that earlier in the summer of 2021, a relative asked her to accompany her to Novosibirsk, where she was due to undergo major heart surgery.

Ada says a man met them at the airport and after a long drive, the car suddenly stopped, Ada’s relative jumped out, the driver turned to Ada, demanded she hand over her smartwatch and phone, and told her bluntly: “Now we’re going to cure you of your perversion.”

“It was only when a parcel of warm clothes arrived two weeks later that I realised that I wasn’t just there for a fortnight or a month,” she adds, saying she was forced to take testosterone, pray and do manual labour, such as chopping wood.

Confronted with the pig, she had a panic attack and didn’t do what she had been told.

Nine months later, she managed to escape. Someone had left a phone lying around which she used to call the police.

They sent officers to the centre, who said Ada had to be allowed to leave as she was being held against her will.

The BBC contacted the centre but the person we spoke to denied all knowledge of conversion therapy programmes. We also contacted Ada’s relative but have not had a response.

Ada’s time there was the lowest point in a battle she says she has been fighting all her life – first with her family, then with wider society, and now with Russia’s increasingly draconian LGBT laws.

Transgender people in Russia have had their human rights systematically eroded by the government’s broader political strategy of attacking vulnerable minorities, according to UN independent expert, Graeme Reid.

One year after Russia passed a law banning gender reassignment surgery, he says that transgender Russians had been deprived of their “most basic rights to a legal identity and access to healthcare”.

The new legislation also stopped people from changing their personal details on documents – Ada was one of the last people to get her name officially changed before the law came into effect in July 2023.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has lashed out at the West and LGBT rights, saying he is fighting for traditional Russian values. At a cultural forum in St Petersburg last year, he dismissed transgender people as “transformers or trans-something”.

And at the end of 2023, Russia’s justice ministry announced another new ruling, declaring the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organisation.

It didn’t matter that no such organisation existed. Anyone guilty of supporting what is now deemed “extremist activity” faces up to 12 years in jail. Even displaying a rainbow flag risks a fine, and a possible four-year prison sentence for repeat offences.

In one of the first prosecutions under the new law, two tearful and terrified-looking young people appeared in court in the city of Orenburg in March. Their crime was to run a bar frequented by the LBGT community. Their case is still ongoing.

After she escaped from the centre in Siberia, Ada moved into a small flat in Moscow where she offered other transgender people a safe place to stay. But the new laws were the final straw for her.

“I couldn’t stay any more… I had to leave Russia,” she says, talking from her new home in Europe.

For Francis, who left Russia in 2018, the new laws mean he will probably never go home. Even before they were introduced, the authorities in his hometown of Yekaterinburg had taken action against him.

“For as long as I can remember, I have known that I wasn’t a girl,” he says. But by 2017, he was married to Jack, had given birth to three children, and adopted two more.

“I said to my husband, ‘Maybe I’m mistaken but I think I might be transgender.’”

They agreed that Francis would consult a doctor. “They said, ‘You are transgender, 100%.’ I felt so much better. Everything slotted into place… I understood – this is who I am.”

He began the process of transitioning, but before long the local authorities intervened. Their two adopted children were taken into care, and Francis was told their biological children would be next.

The family left Russia and has been living in Spain ever since.

Ally, who is non-binary and uses the pronoun “they”, left Russia in 2022 after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It was a political decision, not connected to the pressures on the LGBT community, but those pressures have nonetheless taken their toll.

When Ally was 14, someone asked: “Are you a girl or a boy?”

“It gave me such a feeling of joy – I was so happy that she couldn’t tell from my outward appearance.”

Years later they told a friend: “’I don’t think I’m a girl, but I don’t think I’m a boy either.’

“She looked at me and said: ‘Oh, OK. Checks out.’ And then we carried on eating soup. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.”

Ally now lives in Georgia and last year decided to have a mastectomy. Close family members still don’t know.

“If I had just come to my parents and said, ‘Mum, Dad, I’m a lesbian,’ it would have been easier than me saying, ‘Mum, Dad, I’ve cut off my breasts and I want you to call me they.’”

Although Ally had a medical diagnosis prior to the new Russian law banning gender reassignment, and had chosen a new gender-neutral name, it’s no longer possible to get passports and other key documents changed.

Francis has the same problem. His documents all include his former name, which causes confusion when he is asked for ID or has to fill in forms. But he says life in Spain is good. He’s found work in a textile factory which he loves.

Like Ally, Francis acknowledges that the climate of intolerance fostered by the new anti-LGBT laws has made relationships with family harder.

“My mother doesn’t speak to me any more,” he says. “She thinks I have disgraced our family, and she’s embarrassed to look the neighbours in the eye. It’s as if I was some freak, or a thief, or had murdered someone.”

And living abroad as a Russian while the war in Ukraine continues can add another layer of complexity, says Ally: “In Russia the authorities and the conservative parts of society don’t like us because we’re transgender. Abroad people don’t like us because we’re Russians.”

All the trans community really wants, says Ada, is for “people to be able to dress how they want and not be afraid of being beaten up… I just want people to stop having to think about how to survive”.

A husband, wife and their daughter who performed together in American gospel group The Nelons have been killed in a plane crash along with four other people.

Jason and Kelly Nelon Clark died alongside Amber Nelon Kistler on Friday when their aircraft came down over Wyoming on its way to a performance.

Autumn Nelon Streetman – who also performs in the Grammy Award-nominated group but was not on board – confirmed the death of her parents and sister on Instagram.

She thanked fans for their “prayers, love and support” hours after the fatal crash.

Amber’s husband Nathan Kistler, the family’s assistant Melodi Hodges, pilot Larry Haynie and his wife Melissa Haynie were also killed, according to the group’s management.

Gaither Management said the passengers were making their way to Seattle to join a cruise ship The Nelons were due to perform on.

Officials in the area where the plane came down said it happened at about 13:00 local time, north of the town of Gillette. Local media said it triggered a wildfire.

A National Transportation Safety Board spokesman said preliminary reports indicate the aircraft crashed after an “auto pilot issue”.

The band’s management said Autumn – the youngest member of the family act – was awaiting the arrival of her parents and sister in Seattle when she was informed.

In a post on Instagram, Autumn said: “Thank you for the prayers that have been extended already to me, my husband, Jamie, and our soon-to-be-born baby boy, as well as Jason’s parents, Dan and Linda Clark.”

Rex Nelon, the father of Kelly Nelon Clark, founded the group in the 1970s.

They have been nominated for three Grammy awards and were inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in 2016.

The group’s biggest hits include I Shall Not Be Moved, Come Morning and We Shall Wear a Robe and Crown.

Kelly was also an actress and appeared in the ABC fantasy drama Resurrection.

Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada is one of the most notorious names in drug war history, synonymous with the fearsome power and corrosive influence of the most important drug cartel in the world.

The last of an original generation of drug cartel leaders, he created the Sinaloa Cartel alongside Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman from the remnants of the Guadalajara Cartel after it collapsed in 1989.

But unlike his infamous partner who was twice jailed and escaped, El Mayo was able to evade capture for some 35 years. Until now.

US authorities arrested him in El Paso, Texas on Thursday. He has already pleaded not guilty to multiple charges in federal court in Texas.

He was lured to the US as part of an elaborate sting operation, masterminded by the son of his former partner, El Chapo. Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of the heirs to El Chapo’s operation, was arrested alongside Zambada having led him to believe he was travelling to northern Mexico to look at prospective properties for clandestine airstrips.

“Are you worried of being captured?” Zambada was asked in 2010 by the late Mexican journalist, Julio Scherer García, who had travelled deep into the mountains for an unprecedented interview with the drug lord.

“The idea of being jailed gives me panic,” he answered. “I’m not sure I have what it takes to kill myself. I’d like to think I do and that I’d take my own life.”

When it came to it, however, either he didn’t have the means or the opportunity.

For someone who exercised such caution over so many years, it seems extraordinary that Zambada was duped aged 76. Perhaps it was always going to take something unique to see him in custody.

“It doesn’t surprise me that Zambada didn’t go willingly,” says Mike Vigil, a former DEA agent. “He is in his 70s, in poor health and already said that prison was his greatest fear.”

The arrests – and possible plea deal between the sons of El Chapo, known as Los Chapitos, and the US Government – begs the question of who will take control of the Sinaloa Cartel.

After El Chapo Guzman was arrested and extradited to the US in 2016, a round of bloodletting began as rival factions wrestled for control of territory as well as fought opposing drug gangs who sensed weakness.

Even more shocking, and violent, was the response of the Sinaloa Cartel’s foot soldiers when their leader, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, was arrested in October 2019.

After he was detained, hundreds of gunmen descended on the city of Culiacan and opened fire on civilian, police and military targets with .50 calibre weapons and rocket launchers. Eventually, the authorities handed Ovidio Guzman back to his men to bring the fighting to an end.

He was later re-arrested, extradited and is currently awaiting trial in a US prison.

Mike Vigil thinks a similar explosion of violence, which became known as the Culiacanazo, might be avoided this time around:

“The Sinaloa Cartel has a very strong bench of possible leaders who could take over including El Chapo’s brother,” he says.

In fact, Mr Vigil argues, the “Kingpin strategy” – that is focusing on bringing down individual cartel leaders – is rarely successful.

“Under the administration of (then-Mexican President Felipe) Calderon, it only tended to create internal conflict within the cartels which then led to a bloodbath.”

If that happens this time, suggests former DEA agent Mike Vigil, “the only winner would be their rivals, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG)”.

That said, moments of flux and possible power vacuums such as this one are deeply unpredictable. The Mexican authorities have already sent additional forces to the state of Sinaloa ahead of any flare-up of violence.

The other obvious question over Zambada’s arrest is: why now?

The operation was planned for months. However, some reports say there was also an opportunistic element to it. When the various elements behind the ruse appeared to be coming together, despite some scepticism among the US authorities, they ultimately decided they had nothing lose by trying it.

The bigger reason behind the timing, though, was revealed by the words of the US Attorney General Merrick Garland in a video message confirming the arrests:

“Fentanyl is the deadliest threat our country has ever faced”, he said promising that the US justice department “will not rest until every single cartel leader, member and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.”

Fentanyl overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45. It is a staggering statistic and one that has perhaps focussed minds in the Biden administration, especially in an election year.

Both Los Chapitos and El Mayo have made billions through fentanyl, which is easy to produce and transport without the need for large coca plantations in the Andes as with the manufacture of cocaine.

Experts say that shutting down the smuggling of fentanyl altogether is virtually impossible. It is simply too profitable to the cartels and too riven into the modern landscape of Mexico’s drug war.

However, US law enforcement wants to hurt the cartels that are producing it, diminish their influence and, wherever possible, dismantle their leadership.

The capture of El Mayo Zambada – even if aging, in poor health and captured in a double-cross – was always going to remain a key part of that strategy.

An enormous wildfire has grown by 8 sq miles an hour (20 sq km) as it spreads across parts of northern California.

The Park fire, which started on Wednesday in a suspected arson attack, has burned more than 348,000 acres of land north-east of Chico, and was 0% contained on Saturday, the state’s fire agency Cal Fire said.

About 2,500 firefighters are battling the blaze, which has been fuelled by steep terrain and wind gusts.

A 42-year-old man was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of starting the fire by rolling a burning car into a gully near Alligator Hole in Butte County.

It is now the largest fire in the state this year, and has consumed an area more than 1.5 times the size of New York City’s five boroughs.

Cal Fire incident commander Billy See said the fire has been spreading at a rate of 5,000 acres an hour.

Speaking at an operational briefing, Mr See said there were almost three times the personnel fighting the fire on Saturday compared to Friday, and “we still don’t have enough”.

Scott Weese, a fire behaviourist with Cal Fire, said that there was a high fuel load in the area with an abundance of grass.

“The heat signature is huge,” he told the operational briefing, adding that the fire burned through 150,000 acres yesterday.

Authorities were hopeful they could use Saturday’s easing of conditions to contain some of the blaze. Wind speeds decreased and temperatures dropped by about 15F, but still hover in some areas in the low 90s (32C).

Officials said fire whirls are less likely today, after a rare “firenado” – a swirling vortex of flames and ash formed in intense heat and high winds – was filmed twisting through bushland on Friday.

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday declared a state of emergency in Butte and Tehama counties because of the Park fire.

“We are using every available tool to protect lives and property as our fire and emergency response teams work around the clock to combat these challenging fires,” he said in a statement.

At least 16 helicopters are fighting the blaze, as well as multiple air tankers dumping water from the sky when conditions allow.

The wildfire has forced mandatory evacuations in Butte, where California’s deadliest blaze, the Camp Fire, killed more than 80 people in 2018.

The 400-strong population of Cohasset has already been moved as the fire burns out of control.

Cal Fire said that 134 structures had been destroyed, while 4,200 were under threat.

• First images of historic tourist town Jasper after 100m high wildfire hit

Officials arrested Ronnie Dean Stout, 42, and accused him of “calmly leaving the area by blending in with the other citizens who were in the area and fleeing the rapidly evolving fire” that he had set.

He is being held in jail without bail as authorities determine what charges he will face.

A woman who answered the door of the mobile home listed as his home address in Chico told the San Francisco Chronicle that prosecutors “are trying to make him the scapegoat”.

“They’re saying he did it intentionally, but he didn’t. The car caught on fire,” the unidentified woman said, before refusing to answer further questions.

The Park fire is one of many currently burning across the US and Canada.

The National Interagency Fire Center is currently monitoring 102 large fires in the US, mostly in states on the west coast.

In Oregon, a firefighting pilot was killed in a tanker plane crash after the aircraft went missing on Thursday night.

In Canada, a large wildfire in the Jasper National Park destroyed hundreds of buildings in the town of Jasper.

Weekend conditions have improved in Jasper, with rain and cooler temperatures helping efforts to protect other parts of the historic tourism town.

Supratim Bhattacharjee has been named overall winner of this year’s Mangrove Photography Awards for his image of a young girl in the aftermath of a devastating storm in Frazerganj, Sundarbans, India.

Run by the Mangrove Action Project, the competition – now in its 10th year – aims to show the relationships between wildlife, coastal communities and mangrove forests, as well as the fragility of these unique ecosystems, both above and below the waterline.

Mr Bhattacharjee’s winning image, called Sinking Sundarbans, shows Pallavi standing in front of her home and tea shop, which has been destroyed by the sea during a storm.

“I observed her strong face and calm nature during that devastating period,” said Mr Bhattacharjee.

“Children are the ones that suffer the most.”

Nestled in the Bay of Bengal, the Sundarbans is the largest mangrove forest in the world.

“[The winning] image raises a thousand questions, whilst connecting you to the girl’s heart,” said competition judge Dhritiman Mukherjee.

“Her vulnerability exposes the full impact of climate change and sea level rise experienced by many coastal communities.”

Mangroves are an important protection against climate change, with one acre (4,000sq m) of mangrove forest absorbing nearly the same amount of carbon dioxide as an acre of Amazon rainforest.

The forests also protect coastlines from eroding, as intense storms grow more frequent.

“Conservation as a story, is a complicated one,” said another of the judges, Morgan Heim.

“Photography has the ability to help us receive and feel close to those stories no matter our language. Every time I look at this kind of photography, I think, there’s still hope.”

Fellow judge Christian Ziegler added: “[In the competition] were many fascinating stories about life in the mangroves, ranging from scientific insights to restoration of the ecosystem and the difficult conditions people face.”

Here are a selection of winning images from seven competition categories, with descriptions by the photographers.

Men, women and children, wearing sarongs and traditional headgear, collect mud from a mangrove forest in Kedonganan village, just outside the town of Denpasar in Bali, Indonesia.

They cover themselves as part of a purification ritual called Mebuug Buugan, where people pray for gratitude and earth’s fertility.

The Sundarbans archipelago spans the borders of India and Bangladesh… [and] is known for its rich forest resources, which locals rely on for income.

But rampant deforestation coupled with worsening storms has intensified food and water scarcity, diminished agriculture productivity and soil quality, and turned local communities into climate refugees.

This tranquil scene invites contemplation as the gentle flow of water navigates its course through the heart of the mangrove forest.

The intertwining roots of the trees form intricate patterns, creating a natural tapestry that harmonises with the fluidity of the water.

On the rugged coast of Neil island (Shaheed Dweep) in the Andaman Islands archipelago, the tide recedes far away from the shore and exposes an extremely sharp rocky reef.

Mud-ring feeding is a unique fishing behaviour employed by bottlenose dolphins living in the shallows of the mangrove-lined bays of Florida Bay and a few other locations in the Caribbean.

On finding a school of mullet, a dolphin from the pod encircles the fish kicking up the sediments with its tail, which corrals the fish into an ever tightening spiral-shaped silty plume.

The dolphins have a remarkable ability to know where the fish are going to jump and will snatch them from the air as they try to make their escape.

In the last 40 years, Banderas Bay has lost more than 80% of its wetlands to urban expansion.

This crocodile sanctuary is a non-profit organisation located next to a small lagoon. The surrounding area has been taken over by shopping centres, hotels and condos.

Due to repeated tropical cyclones and sea level rise in the Bay of Bengal, river embankments have become broken by high tides across the Sundarbans, West Bengal, India.

As a result, homes and farms have flooded, fisheries have become destroyed by seawater, and people have been forced to migrate.

This villager has lost all his household belongings in the flood.

The male horseshoe crab tightly grasps onto the back of the female, on a mission of reproduction.

They move with the rising tide, searching for a suitable place to lay their eggs. But when they reach the mangroves, they become entangled in a huge ghost net.

If no one rescues them in time, they will eventually die from prolonged exposure.

In Hong Kong and throughout Asia, abandoned fishing nets wash ashore and in mangrove forests, entangling many creatures.

A turtle gracefully navigates the mangroves’ labyrinthine roots, seeking refuge for the night.

At high tide, the water engulfs the roots and transforms the space into a haven for marine life seeking shelter and safety.

Mangroves act as a natural filter that can remove most pollutants before they reach the ocean.

Soil and mangrove biomass have a significant capacity to store carbon from the atmosphere, helping to reduce carbon dioxide concentrations in the air.

The complex roots of mangroves also help bind soil and sediment, reduce erosion, and protect against damage from waves and currents.

In Demak Regency, Indonesia, the coastline has been severely eroded, and mangroves that once protected the coast have been cut down and replaced by aquaculture ponds. As a result, the sea is literally swallowing people’s homes.

[Demak’s residents] have realised the only solution is to restore the ecosystem by replanting the mangroves that have been cut down.

With the cutting of mangrove trees, it is increasingly difficult to fish, catch crabs, and protect against climate change and violent cyclones in the regions.

Bôndy, a private company working in ecosystem restoration, collaborates with local communities to restore mangroves at a rural commune in Majunga, Madagascar.

Together, always with a smile and in good spirits, they traverse the mangroves to revive vast stretches of isolated land.

I wanted to capture more than just this young saltwater crocodile when I encountered it at low tide in the mangroves.

I used the multiple exposure mode in my camera to superimpose layers onto my image of the croc’s eye, to capture more of the scene without sacrificing detail of the eye.

The image gives off a slightly unsettling feeling, such as what one may experience in a mangrove, unknowing of what predators may be lurking nearby, hidden by the dense network of the mangrove.

As she put in some last practice lengths in Paris last week, Palestinian-American swimmer Valerie Tarazi thought back to her moment of inspiration: watching the legendary Michael Phelps winning eight golds in Beijing in 2008.

“That was like my first like, ‘Oh my gosh, I want to be an Olympian’,” she said.

Paris is a dream come true, as it is for countless athletes taking to sport’s biggest stage. But after more than nine months of war in Gaza and the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, Tarazi says her participation is also an act of commemoration.

“It’s me honouring them,” she said.

A child of the huge Palestinian diaspora, Tarazi, who swims in the 200m individual medley next Friday, was born and raised in the US. But she celebrates her connections to one of Gaza’s oldest Christian families.

She says four members of her extended family were killed when a church was hit during intense Israeli bombing last December.

“It takes a toll on us,” she said of Gaza’s rising death toll, which is now approaching 40,000.

“This is our friends, our family, our teammates or national team members,” she said.

The International Olympic Committee has recognised the state of Palestine since 1995. Three quarters of UN members also now recognise Palestine, but the US, Britain and the host of this year’s games do not.

Despite her punishing training schedule and the sacrifices needed to compete at this level, Tarazi is acutely aware that she is in a uniquely privileged position, offered the chance to carry the flag in the world’s greatest sporting jamboree.

“My little bit of pain is absolutely nothing compared to what they have to go through every single day,” she said of her compatriots back home.

One of her less fortunate teammates, Tamer Qaoud, is having a hard time keeping his own sporting ambitions alive.

His house in Gaza has been destroyed. He and his family have been forced to move twice during the war. They’re now living in a tent in Deir el-Balah, in the middle of the Gaza Strip.

“My dream was to reach the Olympics,” he told the BBC this week.

“Unfortunately, due to the war and circumstances, we couldn’t leave Gaza.”

Qaoud, a 1500 metre runner, has already represented his country twice.

A year ago, at the Arab Games in Algiers, he wore running spikes for the first time. It was also the first time he’d ever run on anything other than concrete.

In September, he joined Tarazi at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, in China.

They were still there when war broke out in Gaza in early October. Qaoud says he had to go home.

His best time is well outside the Olympic qualifying mark, but any faint chance he might have had of competing in Paris, even on a wild card, quickly vanished.

“I wanted to compete with the world’s best athletes, like Jakob,” he said, referring to the current men’s 1500 world champion, Jakob Ingebrigtsen.

“I wanted to run alongside him, to feel what it’s like to compete with the world’s best.”

Amid the tents, the dust and the date palms of Deir el-Balah, he still trains, wearing his white Palestinian uniform, watched by small groups of bewildered children.

His old training ground, Gaza City’s Yarmouk Stadium, is a waste ground of rubbish and displaced Palestinian families, seeking shelter amid the stands.

And his coach, Bilal Abu Samaan, was killed in an Israeli airstrike last December, one of an estimated 182 athletes and sports officials killed since last October, according to the Palestinian Football Association.

Qaoud knows his time has not yet come. Unless he can get out of Gaza, he fears it never will.

“The war destroyed everything, shattering our dreams,” he said.

“I hope to leave Gaza, join a training camp, regain my old strength and come back stronger than before.”

Back in the pool in Paris, another Palestinian swimmer, Yazan al-Bawwab, said he was proud to be an ambassador for a place where just playing sport is a challenge.

“We don’t have a pool in Palestine,” he said. “We don’t have infrastructure.”

Like Tarazi, al-Bawwab was born and raised abroad, but he wears his uniform, and his identity, with fierce pride.

“France does not recognise Palestine as a country,” al-Bawwab said defiantly, repeating the sentence for emphasis.

“I’m here, raising the flag.”

Olympic organisers have issued a “deep apology” after South Korea’s athletes were mistakenly introduced as North Korea at the opening ceremony in Paris.

As the excited, flag-waving team floated down the River Seine, both French and English announcers introduced them as the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” – the official name of North Korea.

The same name was then used – correctly – when North Korea’s delegation sailed past.

The two Koreas have been divided since the end of World War Two, with tensions between the states further escalating recently.

The subtitle which ran across the bottom of the television broadcast showed the correct title, however.

The South Korean sports ministry said it planned to lodge a “strong complaint with France on a government level” over the embarrassing gaffe.

In a statement, the ministry expressed “regret over the announcement… where the South Korean delegation was introduced as the North Korean team.”

The statement added that the second vice sports minister, Jang Mi-ran, a 2008 Olympic weightlifting champion, had demanded a meeting with Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued an apology on its official Korean-language X account, saying: “We would like to offer a deep apology over the mistake that occurred in the introduction of the South Korean delegation during the opening ceremony.”

South Korea, formally known as the Republic of Korea, has 143 athletes in its Olympic team this year, competing across 21 sports.

North Korea has sent 16 athletes. This is the first time it has competed in the games since Rio 2016.

“It’s so confusing sometimes to be a girl,” sings Charli XCX on her latest album, Brat.

The vulnerable lyrics, existential questions and honest exploration of the complexity and contradictions of womanhood has turned Brat into much more than a collection of music.

For millennials and Gen Z, it reflects a highly relatable way of life.

Brat is, in the words of Charli XCX, a girl who “has a breakdown, but kind of like parties through it”, who is honest, blunt, “a little bit volatile”. In recent weeks, brat has become a mainstream phenomenon.

In the same week that my grandmother told me one of her friends was “giving brat”, Charli tweeted “Kamala IS brat” and the US Democratic presidential nominee rebranded her X profile.

Charli isn’t the only pop girl ditching the bland approach.

The likes of Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter aren’t your typical perfectly polished and carefully manicured pop stars: they’re messy and candid artists that wear their heart on their sleeve. Both have been dominating the charts this summer.

They all stand out because they share a certain perspective on life. They appear honest and authentic, with opinions and life experience.

There are only so many times you can bop to songs with slick beats and meaningless mantras about girl power. Eventually you crave something more, and that’s what this new wave of pop girl is offering.

In Brat, Charli candidly explores what it’s like transitioning into your thirties. In her truth-telling hit Von Dutch she doesn’t care if people gossip about her, while her high-energy anthems 360 and 365 are wild, carefree and tell us that we can still have big nights out (phew!).

At the same time, she offers a personal and introspective reflection on topics such as Motherhood: “I think about it all the time / That I might run out of time / Would it give my life a new purpose?”

The existential questions resonate with most millennial women. Should I be having children? When is the right time? Will it change my life? What if I have other aspirations?

Josee Malon, a 23-year-old social executive from Kent, says she admires Charli because she gives fans “such an insightful look into her creative mindset and her personality and you don’t get this with all musicians”.

“Beyoncé, for example, is private and mysterious, some people think that’s part of her allure and appeal, but for me that works against her. Why would I want to be influenced by someone who gives me zero energy?

“Charli XCX gives 110% energy, she lets you into her life and feels like a friend.”

It’s not just women who are a fan of these pop girls. Spencer Caminsky, a 26-year-old political campaign manager, has followed Charli since 2016 and loves Brat because “it’s so much more raw and direct”.

“It’s all the great things about her past works and now expands upon the more vulnerable aspects of her life that she’s never spoken about – you really feel her emotion and regret.”

Meanwhile, 26-year-old queer pop icon Chappell Roan has built a strong Gen Z following.

Although not the first queer female pop artist, her drag queen outfits, sexually empowered lyrics and scorching-hot melodies make her one of the most mainstream.

Chappell’s music focuses heavily on her queer identity – Pink Pony Club was inspired by her first visit to a gay club, while Good Luck, Babe is about a fling with a girl who insists she’s not really gay.

Jonah Graham, 25, says he’s a fan of Chappell’s “unashamedly queer” music because she “lets people know there is a place for them to come together through big emotions, an irreverent sense of humour and boundless joy”.

But even without having the same experiences that Chappell sings of, the themes of rejection, freedom, acceptance and self-discovery are universal.

Kamala Harris has also leaned into Roan in a bid to appeal to young voters, posting a meme on TikTok quoting Roan’s lyrics: “What we really need is a femininomenon!”

While Ms Harris isn’t part of the demographic that Chappell and Charli resonate most with, and almost certainly isn’t “someone who has a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra”, according to Charli’s brat definition, that isn’t the point.

Lucy Ford, a culture critic, told the BBC that “Kamala is brat in the sense that she’s a dominating cultural force right now and there’s been a separation from the album and the cultural hold it has as a vibe”.

Fun and cheeky pop music is something Sabrina Carpenter has become a master in – the 25-year-old has taken Taylor Swift’s confessional style and added a healthy dose of humour.

Her x-rated ad-lib Nonsense outros never fail to cause a stir. “BBC said I should keep it PG / BBC I wish I had it in me/There’s a double meaning if you dig deep,”she sang at Radio 1’s Big Weekend.

“Sabrina is being unabashedly horny in her music,” Ford explains. “It feels like an embrace of fun and silliness and not taking things too seriously.”

In other songs, she flips the typical romantic pop song on its head. This time he’s obsessed with her, and “looks so cute wrapped round my finger”.

Her self-indulgence – and being unapologetic about loving attention – is totally brat. Why should we pretend that knowing someone has a crush on you isn’t a little exciting?

But why is that this summer in particular, fans are craving complex, messy music?

Content writer Olivia Cox has recently got into all three artists and says what makes them stand out is that they each, in their own way, “embrace silliness”.

“It feels like pop music has been taking itself too seriously,” she says.

Rachel Humphreys, a 29-year-old Digital PR Manager from Pontefract says the artists are a “cultural reset” and offer an element of escapism.

The music is a “welcome distraction from the daily pressures of adult-ing”.

Ford says one of the factors at play for why this phenomenon is occurring now, is that it’s a “response to very sentimental, ‘celebrities, they’re just like us’ sentiments in music of the past few years, where artists bear their souls to meet their fans at eye level”.

All of these reasons point to why the dated feminist slogans – like those in Katy Perry’s latest single Woman’s World – don’t resonate with millennials or Gen Z.

Perry’s satirical music video, showing women dancing around a construction site in tiny outfits, using urinals and brandishing sex toys, seems inauthentic compared with music by these Gen Z artists.

But the smart, forthright pop songs we’re listening to now are not as new as we might think.

Mercury Prize nominee CMAT told the BBC “there’s nothing sudden” about this phenomenon.

“Women have always been crafting stories in this funny, tragi-comic way, but the people who wanted to hear it were other women – who, up until recently, were not considered a very [desirable] market.”

She said her own music was criticised a few years ago and labelled “novelty music” because it was humorous.

“There was never a conversation before about it being highbrow or something we should take seriously – because nobody takes women seriously,” she added.

The likes of Madonna and Lady Gaga laid the groundwork for this music, but the modern trend starts with the likes of Lorde, who punctured the absurd positivity of 2010s pop lyrics on Team – “I’m kind of over getting told to put my hands up in the air” and Billie Eilish.

One of her first songs was written from the point of view of a psychopath with a car trunk full of dead bodies.

Her music has carried on being wonderfully weird – every track on her new album Hit Me Hard And Soft plays with that duality.

Dynamics shift, ideas are unresolved and nothing ever settles.

That’s a feeling that many people will have felt a little over the past couple of years.

To achieve longevity, today’s brats will need to intuit when the sands of pop, and of wider culture, will shift again – and get there before everyone else.

Donald Trump’s vice-presidential candidate JD Vance has defended resurfaced comments in which he called Democratic politicians a “bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives”.

His remarks, made in 2021, have been roundly criticised this week, with Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston among those to have hit out at the 39-year-old Republican.

“Obviously it was a sarcastic comment. People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said,” Mr Vance told the conservative media personality Megyn Kelly on Friday.

“The substance of what I said, Megyn – I’m sorry, it’s true,” he added.

Mr Vance, who has three children, said he was not criticising people who do not have children in the interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which he gave while running for the Senate.

“This is about criticising the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-children,” he told The Megyn Kelly Show.

“The simple point that I made is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way,” he said.

“I’m making an argument that our entire society has become sceptical and even hateful towards the idea of having kids.”

In the original interview, he questioned why some leading politicians did not have children. One of those he named was Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for November’s election, who is stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children.

“The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” he said at the time. “How does it make any sense we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”

The Senator from Ohio said the country was being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too”.

On Friday, Mr Vance said: “I wish her step-children and Kamala Harris and her whole family the very best. The point is not that she’s lesser. The point is that her party has pursued a set of policies that are profoundly anti-child.”

Mr Vance made similar remarks against Democrats in a 2021 speech at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, in which he also said his criticism was not directed at those who could not have children for biological or medical reasons.

Jennifer Aniston, who has spoken publicly about her struggles while trying to have children through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), was among those who criticised his comments.

“I truly can’t believe that this is coming from a potential VP of the United States,” she said on Thursday.

Pete Buttigieg, who was another Democratic politician named by Mr Vance in the original interview, also addressed the comments earlier this week, speaking about adopting twins with his husband, Chasten.

“The really sad thing is he said that after Chasten and I had been through a fairly heart-breaking setback in our adoption journey,” Mr Buttigieg told CNN’s The Source programme.

Speaking to Fox News, Trump co-campaign chairman Chris LaCivita rejected any suggestion that Trump might regret his choice of running mate.

“JD was the best pick,” Mr LaCivita said. “The president loves him. We love him.”

Three out of 10 French high-speed trains will be cancelled on Saturday on routes hit by a series of “co-ordinated” arson attacks.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said security forces continued to search for the “saboteurs” responsible after rail networks were paralysed ahead of the opening of the Olympic Games.

National rail company SNCF said services which do run on Saturday will be delayed for up to two hours on major lines running in and out of Paris, while a quarter of Eurostar services will also be cancelled.

France’s transport minister said services would return to normal by Monday morning.

SNCF estimated that about 250,000 passengers were affected on Friday, while junior transport minister Patrice Vergriete said as many as 800,000 could be impacted over three days.

Eurostar – which runs international services from London to Paris and uses a high-speed line in France – said one in four of its trains would not run over the weekend.

Travellers have been advised to postpone their journeys, with disruption expected to last until Monday.

Among Eurostar customers affected on Friday was Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who had planned to travel to the Games’ opening ceremony via train but was forced to fly instead.

He told the BBC: “I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t frustrating because it was, and for very many people it made travel so much harder.”

There has still been no claim of responsibility for the damage, SNCF said.

The company said its staff had “worked all night under difficult conditions in the rain” to repair damage.

The “strategic” vandalism saw cabling boxes at junctions on the North, Brittany and South-West lines set alight hours before the Olympics opening ceremony was due to begin in the capital.

Saboteurs cut and set fire to specialised fibre optic cables essential for the safe functioning of the rail network, government officials said.

A source linked to the investigation told the AFP news agency that the operation was “well-prepared” and organised by “a single structure”.

Rail workers foiled an attempt to destroy safety equipment on a fourth line.

“At this stage, traffic will remain disrupted on Sunday on the North axis and should improve on the Atlantic axis for weekend returns,” a spokesman for the rail network said on Saturday morning.

A German man who has been sentenced to death in Belarus for terrorism has been shown in a heavily choreographed interview on state-controlled television, apparently confessing to planting explosives near a railway line.

There is no direct evidence of that in the 16-minute video for which Rico Krieger was filmed, handcuffed, through the metal bars of an oddly pristine and empty cell.

He says he was acting on instruction from Ukraine, though no proof is given.

Krieger is then shown in tears appealing to the German government for help “before it’s too late”.

He is believed to be the first Western citizen ever given the death penalty in Belarus.

The emotional and crudely produced video on state TV appears to be part of a campaign of increasing pressure in talks with the German authorities, which some believe may focus on a possible prisoner exchange.

State media say Rico Krieger has not appealed against the verdict, which is extremely rare for someone sentenced to death.

“I’m very surprised,” said Andrei Paluda, a Belarusian campaigner against the death penalty. “I don’t know the circumstances, I can only surmise. But maybe he’s been promised that consultations are ongoing and there might be some kind of swap.”

The unprecedented nature of the case has prompted speculation about links to efforts by Russia, a close ally of Belarus, to free an FSB hitman imprisoned in Germany for the 2019 murder in Berlin of a Chechen-Georgian who fought against Russia.

The deputy spokeswoman for the German foreign ministry declined to comment on such rumours. She also pointed to a history in Belarus of filming staged interviews with prisoners, including opposition activists forced to make confessions to secure their release.

The ministry told the BBC that it was working “intensively” with the Belarusian authorities on behalf of “the person concerned” in this case, but gave no more details citing privacy reasons.

It condemned the death penalty as a “cruel and inhumane form of punishment”.

Last week in Minsk, a foreign ministry spokesman confirmed that a German citizen had been convicted of “terrorism” and “mercenary activity”.

Anatoly Glaz said “a number of options” had been proposed to Berlin, adding that “consultations” were under way.

A profile for Rico Krieger on the LinkedIn platform includes an application for a job in the USA posted last year.

There, he described himself as a 29-year-old Red Cross paramedic from Berlin who had previously worked in security for the US embassy.

He mentioned plans to emigrate to the US and said he had applied for a passport.

A US State Department spokesperson has confirmed to the BBC that Krieger worked for Pond Security, a firm offering security services to US facilities in Germany, between 2015 and 2016. The company itself declined to comment, citing “diplomatic efforts” and privacy.

The German Red Cross also confirmed that Rico Krieger had worked “in the past” for “a district association” of the organisation. A spokesman mentioned his “great concern”, but added that the Red Cross had been told not to comment.

In this story, there are precious few incontrovertible facts.

Officials in Belarus either don’t reply, or reply that they will say nothing – not even to confirm the precise charges.

That may be at least partly due to the political sensitivities. It’s also standard practice in cases involving the death penalty, highly secretive in this authoritarian state.

“I will give you no information,” Vladimir Gorbach, the lawyer who represented Krieger in court, told me by phone. Then he added: “Watch Belarusian official TV. It’s all written there.”

Rico Krieger’s trial appears to have concluded in June. But state-controlled media were silent about this case for weeks. Independent journalists are mostly in exile now, or in prison.

But now it seems information has been fed to faithful state reporters and the order to make a noise has been given.

On Monday, Ludmilla Gladkaya wrote that Krieger had been found guilty on six counts, including an act of terrorism and intentional damage to communication lines.

Citing court documents which the BBC has not been able to obtain, she claimed he had applied to join the Kalinovsky Regiment, founded by Belarusians to fight in Ukraine and designated a “terrorist group” in Belarus.

The journalist claims Krieger was following instructions from the regiment – as well as from Ukraine’s SBU security service – as some kind of initiation process, including in planting the explosives.

The SBU won’t comment, while the Kalinovsky regiment told me only: “He is not our fighter.”

When Belarusian state TV presented its own case – labelling its film the “confession” of a “German terrorist” – it didn’t prove any link to the regiment either.

It showed no communication with the Kalinovsky Regiment.

Instead it displayed screenshots from encrypted email messages which it said were Krieger seeking to sign up with other foreign units in Ukraine. One is supposedly to the II International Legion but a spokesperson there tells me the address is false.

“Perhaps it was created specially for fishing [sic] or something,” they wrote, calling it an act of “fraudulence”.

There are multiple other oddities about this case.

We’ve never heard of foreign volunteers in Ukraine being required to perform “tests” as part of their recruitment, let alone something so risky as set a bomb in Belarus.

There are precious few Western tourists in the country these days. Rico Krieger was never going to blend into the background.

In the propaganda film, he claims he was motivated by the high pay offered to fight in Ukraine. But he then says the monthly salary is around €2,000 (£1,680), less than he was being paid in Germany.

Whilst Krieger writes in good English on LinkedIn, messages attributed to him in the film are barely literate. One reads: “I can’t find the adress that me Was given”.

And at one point, the film displays a photo of Krieger from his LinkedIn account. But it’s been doctored, with a Ukrainian flag added to the background for extra impact.

Ludmilla Gladkaya’s article tallies with Krieger’s “confession” for the state TV cameras: that he photographed military sites and railway lines for a handler in Ukraine and was then directed to a rucksack hidden in long grass.

He was told to take it to a railway station in Azyaryshcha, east of Minsk, and leave it by the rails. Later that night there was an explosion – but no casualties.

The following day Krieger was arrested.

The journalist quotes his statements on arrest, refers to data from his phone and witnesses including a taxi driver. But no independent information has emerged about any evidence.

There are certainly CCTV images of Krieger arriving at Minsk airport last October. They show the German smiling at passport control, apparently relaxed. He’s travelling alone and only has hand luggage.

But no surveillance footage of him planting explosives, or acting suspiciously, has been released.

There are just shots of Krieger entering Minsk’s main railway station, and then standing on the platform of an unidentified regional train station, in broad daylight.

The timing of this case seems significant.

The “noise” erupted just after the US journalist Evan Gershkovich was found guilty of espionage in Russia, a charge his friends and employers denounce emphatically as false. He’s been sentenced to 16 years.

Vladimir Putin has hinted in the past that he would consider exchanging Gershkovich – and possibly others – for Vadim Krasikov, the FSB assassin imprisoned in Germany. But months on, no deal has yet been done.

So could Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko be riding to his rescue – with a German bargaining chip?

The propaganda film is definitely heavy on threat. It has a doom-laden voiceover and grim scenes acted out by men in balaclavas and with truncheons.

At the centre of it all is a man begging for his life.

In tears, Rico Krieger says he has made the “worst mistake” ever and now feels “absolutely abandoned” by his government. His words seem scripted, though the emotion is raw.

“His only chance now is to ask for a pardon – and for the president to change the death penalty to life in prison,” activist Andrei Paluda said.

“We know of cases when political mechanisms, not legal ones, have come into play. Perhaps that can work here, too.”

Italian high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi has issued a grovelling apology to his wife after losing his wedding ring during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.

The 32-year-old world champion was flag-waving for Italy, as the boat carrying its athletes sailed down the River Seine, when the ring slipped off his finger.

“I’m sorry my love, I’m so sorry,” he wrote on Instagram in a post dedicated to his wife, Chiara Bontempi Tamberi.

The athlete blamed “losing too many kilos” and “irrepressible enthusiasm” for the mishap.

“If it had to happen, if I had to lose this ring, I couldn’t imagine a better place,” he wrote, claiming the ring will now “remain forever in the riverbed of the city of love”.

He called the bad luck “poetic” and suggested they throw Chiara’s ring in the river too.

“[Then] they will be together forever and we will have one more excuse to renew our vows and marry again,” he said.

“Only you could turn this into something romantic,” Chiara wrote under her husband’s apology.

The pair have been married since September 2022.

Tamberi was waving Italy’s flag alongside three-time Olympic medal winner Arianna Errigo when the ring fell off, bounced off the boat and disappeared into the river.

He described it as “a few moments that lasted forever”.

Tamberi previously hit the headlines at the Tokyo 2020 Games after he shared the high jump gold medal with Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim. Both opted not to go beyond the 2.37m bar they had cleared.

He has also gained attention for sporting a half-shaven beard during competitions since 2011 as his “trademark” style.

From the Steven Spielberg classic Jaws, to predators stalking the Seine in Under Paris, there is no shortage of shark films.

Hollywood and audiences love them, seemingly never tiring of the suspense, gore and terror.

There are prehistoric giant sharks in The Meg, genetically engineered ones in Deep Blue Sea and sharks high on cocaine in the ingeniously named Cocaine Shark.

Even Donald Trump is a fan, he was reportedly due to play the US president in a Sharknado film, before becoming the actual US president.

I became hooked on them after watching the James Bond film, Thunderball, where the villain keeps sharks in his swimming pool.

It led to a lifelong interest in shark films, as well as an irrational fear of swimming pools, even ones filled with chlorine inside leisure centres.

Hayley Easton Street is the British director behind the new shark film, Something in the Water, which tells the story of a group of women stranded at sea.

She explains that, as fan of shark films herself, she “absolutely wanted” to make the movie.

So shy are shark movies so popular? “It’s the fear of what could be going on with the unknown of [the sea],” she tells BBC News.

“Just being stuck in the middle of the ocean is scary enough. You’re trapped in something else’s world and anything could happen.”

Forensic psychologist Professor Susan Young agrees that the fear of “the unknown, being alone and helpless” is powerful.

She says watching terrifying shark films in the comfort of your own home or in the cinema “allows you to confront your fears without real danger… and release pent up emotions in a safe and controlled environment”.

Prof Young adds: “It means people can face the boundaries of human behaviour and by viewing extreme content they’re testing their own limits and boundaries… and that emotional release is a form of catharsis.”

She explains that Sigmund Freud’s theories apply as, “from a psychodynamic perspective, these films tap into unconscious fears and desires and provide this safe outlet for exploring repressed emotions and instincts such as aggression and the fear of death”.

Making Hollywood sharks look like the real thing can be a challenge.

The production of Jaws was marred by malfunctioning mechanical Great Whites, one sunk and they were corroded by the ocean’s salt water.

The lead actors spent long periods sitting around, waiting for a prop shark to be fixed.

Director Steven Spielberg told the BBC’s Desert Island Discs in 2022 that the debacle actually led to a “much better movie” as he had to be “resourceful in figuring out how to create suspense and terror without seeing the shark itself.

“It was just good fortune that the shark kept breaking,” he said. “It was my good luck and I think it’s the audience’s good luck too because I think it’s a scarier movie without seeing so much of the shark.”

Street says they were working with a limited budget on the set of Something in the Water, so the team came up with an ingenious solution.

“We made a tiger shark fin,” she recalls. “We had this brilliant diver, Baptiste, who could hold his breath for a really long time.

“So we strapped this fin to him and gave him an underwater scooter which he could drive approximately at the speed of a shark.

“It was brilliant because it meant the actors actually had a shark fin to react to, so it allowed them to feel what it would be like if you did have these sharks circling you.”

But despite Street’s love of shark films, she did not want the ones in hers to be portrayed as marine serial killers.

“We kill 100 million sharks every year,” she notes.

The director was also aware that the release of Jaws led to a huge rise in the hunting of sharks partly because they had been portrayed as merciless killers.

“As much as I love shark films, I love sharks.

“I was really conscious of that, because it’s easy for people to start seeing them as killing machines… or monsters, which they are not.”

She adds: “I feel it’s more scary to have the realistic theme of it, that, you know, if you are out in the ocean and there are sharks and they do mistake you for something else, they will kill you.”

Despite the huge success of Jaws, Spielberg has said he “truly regrets the decimation of the shark population because of the book and the film… I really, truly regret that.”

Spielberg is not the only person concerned about Hollywood’s portrayal of sharks and the impact it continues to have.

US Marine biologist Andriana Fragola dedicates herself to educating people about sharks, often sharing videos of her diving with them.

She says they are “misunderstood predators” that have been harmed by movies and the media.

Andriana tells me that she has just watched Netflix’s new shark film, Under Paris, and was not impressed.

“Their whole thing was it’s about conservation, about studying them, but then the sharks are still eating people.

“So it’s giving a little bit more of a rounded education and a little bit more depth to the story, it’s not just people swimming at the beach and getting attacked and eaten. But the bottom line and what people can draw from the movie is that sharks are still really dangerous to people and they’re just gonna continuously hunt and eat people.

“If that was true, we would be reduced as a human species. Everyone who goes to the beach, they would be threatened.”

The director and co-writer of Under Paris, Xavier Gens, says he is also an environmentalist.

He told The Hollywood Reporter that while the danger in Jaws is the shark, he wanted to “highlight the perils of human greed” in his movie.

Andriana says the perception of sharks causes a real issue for conservation.

“It’s a huge problem because people don’t want to protect something that they’re scared of.

“The perception from people is that they’re dangerous to humans so we should eradicate them and that’s obviously a huge problem for conservation and getting people to want to empathize or sympathize with sharks and wanting to actually protect them.

“It’s unfortunate because 100 million sharks are killed every year, and globally sharks kill fewer than 10 people every year.

“We’re really focused on the sharks being the monsters and them being out to get us, in reality it’s the opposite.”

It is unlikely that Hollywood will stop making shark films, or we will stop watching them.

But the figures show that far from being the serial killers of the sea, sharks are actually much more likely to be the victims of humans.

It was early in the day, but already hot. As she wiped sweat from her brow, Chieko Kiriake searched for some shade. As she did so, there was a blinding light – it was like nothing the 15-year-old had ever experienced. It was 08:15 on 6 August 1945.

“It felt like the sun had fallen – and I grew dizzy,” she recalls.

The United States had just dropped an atomic bomb on Chieko’s home city of Hiroshima – the first time a nuclear weapon had ever been used in warfare. While Germany had surrendered in Europe, allied forces fighting in World War Two were still at war with Japan.

Chieko was a student, but like many older pupils, had been sent out to work in the factories during the war. She staggered to her school, carrying an injured friend on her back. Many of the students had been badly burnt. She rubbed old oil, found in the home economics classroom, onto their wounds.

“That was the only treatment we could give them. They died one after the next,” says Chieko.

“Us older students who survived were instructed by our teachers to dig a hole in the playground and I cremated [my classmates] with my own hands. I felt so awful for them.”

Chieko is now 94 years old. It is almost 80 years since the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and time is running out for the surviving victims – known as hibakusha in Japan – to tell their stories.

Many have lived with health problems, lost loved ones and been discriminated against because of the atomic attack. Now, they are sharing their experiences for a BBC Two film, documenting the past so it can act as a warning for the future.

After the sorrow, new life started to return to her city, says Chieko.

“People said the grass wouldn’t grow for 75 years,” she says, “but by the spring of the next year, the sparrows returned.”

In her lifetime, Chieko says she has been close to death many times but has come to believe she has been kept alive by the power of something great.

The majority of hibakusha alive today were children at the time of the bombings. As the hibakusha – which translates literally as “bomb-affected-people” – have grown older, global conflicts have intensified. To them, the risk of a nuclear escalation feels more real than ever.

“My body trembles and tears overflow,” says 86-year-old Michiko Kodama when she thinks about conflicts around the world today – such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Gaza war.

“We must not allow the hell of the atomic bombing to be recreated. I feel a sense of crisis.”

Michiko is a vocal campaigner for nuclear disarmament and says she speaks out so the voices of those who have died can be heard – and the testimonies passed on to the next generations.

“I think it is important to hear first-hand accounts of hibakusha who experienced the direct bombing,” she says.

Michiko had been at school – aged seven – when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

“Through the windows of my classroom, there was an intense light speeding towards us. It was yellow, orange, silver.”

She describes how the windows shattered and splintered across the classroom – the debris spraying everywhere “impaling the walls, desk, chairs”.

“The ceiling came crashing down. So I hid my body under the desk.”

After the blast, Michiko looked around the devastated room. In every direction she could see hands and legs trapped.

“I crawled from the classroom to the corridor and my friends were saying, ‘Help me’.”

When her father came to collect her, he carried her home on his back.

Black rain, “like mud”, fell from the sky, says Michiko. It was a mixture of radioactive material and residue from the explosion.

She has never been able to forget the journey home.

“It was a scene from hell,” says Michiko. “The people who were escaping towards us, most of their clothes had completely burned away and their flesh was melting.”

She recalls seeing one girl – all alone – about the same age as her. She was badly burnt.

“But her eyes were wide open,” says Michiko. “That girl’s eyes, they pierce me still. I can’t forget her. Even though 78 years have passed, she is seared into my mind and soul.”

Michiko wouldn’t be alive today if her family had remained in their old home. It was only 350m (0.21 miles) from the spot where the bomb exploded. About 20 days before, her family had moved house, just a few kilometres away – but that saved her life.

Estimates put the number of lost lives in Hiroshima, by the end of 1945, at about 140,000.

In Nagasaki, which was bombed by the US three days later, at least 74,000 were killed.

Sueichi Kido lived just 2km (1.24 miles) from the epicentre of the Nagasaki blast. Aged five at the time, he suffered burns to part of his face. His mother, who received more serious injuries, had protected him from the full impact of the blast.

“We hibakusha have never given up on our mission of preventing the creation of any more hibakusha,” says Sueichi, who is now 83 and recently travelled to New York to give a speech at the United Nations to warn of the dangers of nuclear weapons.

When he woke up after fainting from the impact of the blast, the first thing he remembers seeing was a red oil can. For years he thought it was that oil can that had caused the explosion and surrounding devastation.

His parents didn’t correct him, choosing to shield him from the fact it had been a nuclear attack – but whenever he mentioned it, they would cry.

Not all injuries were instantly visible. In the weeks and months after the blast, many people in both cities began to show symptoms of radiation poisoning – and there were increased levels of leukaemia and cancer.

For years, survivors have faced discrimination in society, particularly when it came to finding a partner.

“‘We do not want hibakusha blood to enter our family line,’ I was told,” says Michiko.

But later, she did marry and had two children.

She lost her mother, father and brothers to cancer. Her daughter died from the disease in 2011.

“I feel lonely, angry and scared, and I wonder if it may be my turn next,” she says.

Another bomb survivor, Kiyomi Iguro, was 19 when the bomb struck Nagasaki. She describes marrying into a distant relative’s family and having a miscarriage – which her mother-in-law attributed to the atomic bomb.

“‘Your future is scary.’ That’s what she told me.”

Kiyomi says she was instructed not to tell her neighbours that she had experienced the atomic bomb.

Since being interviewed for the documentary, Kiyomi has sadly died.

But, until she was 98, she would visit the Peace Park in Nagasaki and ring the bell at 11:02 – the time the bomb hit the city – to wish for peace.

Sueichi went on to teach Japanese history at university. Knowing he was a hibakusha cast a shadow on his identity, he says. But then he realised he was not a normal human being and felt a duty to speak out to save humankind.

“A sense that I was a special person was born in me,” says Sueichi.

It is something the hibakusha all feel that they share – an enduring determination to ensure the past never becomes the present.

At a moment of unprecedented turbulence in modern American political history, Kamala Harris is having a remarkably smooth ride. It may not last long.

Tony Fabrizio, Donald Trump’s campaign pollster, calls it a “Harris Honeymoon” – where a combination of good press and positive energy have combined to give the Democrat a surge of momentum.

The thing about honeymoons, of course, is that they come to an end. The realities of married life, or in this case the relationship between Ms Harris and the American voting public, has a way of reasserting itself.

For now, the champagne corks are flying for team Harris and Democrats may be experiencing an unfamiliar emotion – hope. But Republicans, after initially being caught somewhat flatfooted by Mr Biden’s historic announcement, are redirecting their fire at the new presumptive nominee.

Here’s a look at three areas on which their recent attacks have focused – and some ways Democrats may try to deflect them.

The travails of Ms Harris’ unsuccessful campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination are well documented. They include a lack of clear messaging, a campaign rife with internal discord and a candidate who was prone to awkward interviews and gaffes.

Something else happened during the then-senator’s ill-fated presidential bid, however. She – like many of the candidates in that race – tacked sharply to the left, to be more in line with Democratic primary voters.

“There was a lot of pressure on those guys from the activist base,” said Matt Bennett, the executive vice-president for public affairs at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank. “When you’re competing in a primary, your political priorities are very different than the sprint to the finish in a general election.”

Over the course of 2019 – in debates and interviews – Ms Harris endorsed scrapping private health insurance for a government-run system. She praised policing reform, including redirecting law-enforcement budgets to other priorities. She endorsed decriminalising undocumented entry into the US and entertained abolishing Ice, the immigration and customs enforcement agency. She backed the sweeping Green New Deal environmental legislation and supported a ban on fracking and off-shore drilling.

Now those positions could come back to haunt her.

David McCormick, a Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, was quick to produce a television advertisement hitting on Ms Harris’ 2019 positions and tying them to his opponent, Democratic Senator Bob Casey.

And Trump has released a video titled “MEET SAN FRANCISCO RADICAL KAMALA HARRIS” that includes many of the policies she backed during that time.

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh called it a “blueprint” for how to attack the vice-president.

“She can argue, correctly, that good leaders change their position on policy and they don’t change her principles,” Mr Bennett, the Democratic strategist, said. “None of her principles have changed.”

If she doesn’t do that convincingly, she could lose support from independent and undecided voters that will determine the outcome of the election in key swing states.

Polls show the Biden campaign had been floundering for months. His immigration policies were unpopular. Even though inflation has eased and the economy is growing, voters still blamed him for higher prices. His ongoing support for Israel in the Gaza War was sapping his support among young voters.

Ms Harris, in her role as vice-president, will at least be somewhat tied to the entirety of the current administration’s record – for better or for worse.

Republicans are already trying to hang the immigration issue around her neck, labelling her as the administration’s “border czar” – an inaccurate but damaging characterisation that was also used by the media. They cite her past statements on immigration and a claim, during an interview in 2022, that the “border is secure”.

“Kamala Harris is currently only known as a failed and unpopular vice-president who knifed her boss in the back to secure a nomination she couldn’t earn, but voters are about to learn, it gets worse,” Taylor Budowich, who runs the political action committee affiliated with the Trump campaign, said in a statement touting $32m in upcoming television advertisements targeting the vice-president.

According to Mr Bennett, Ms Harris won’t be able to fully distance herself from the Biden record, but she might be able to put it in new light for voters, even in the face of Republican attacks.

“What she can do is make this about the future in ways that were going to be very difficult for an 81-year-old guy to do,” he says. “She can argue that Trump wants only to look backward.”

In the first public rally of her presidential campaign, Ms Harris unveiled a particularly pointed line of attack against the former president. Noting that she had served as a courtroom prosecutor and as California’s attorney general, she said she had faced off against “perpetrators of all kinds”.

“So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type,” she concluded.

Craig Varoga, a Democratic campaign consultant and adjunct instructor at American University, calls the vice-president’s law-enforcement background her “superpower” – one that she was not fully able to use on the Democratic campaign trail in 2019, when policing reform was a top issue.

But Trump’s campaign is already showing signs on how they might respond. His campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, made his bones in the Republican Party by taking on another Democratic candidate’s supposed superpower and turning it against him.

Back in 2004, Democratic nominee John Kerry was touting his record as a decorated Vietnam War veteran as proof that he would be an effective commander-in-chief during the Iraq War. Mr LaCivita spearheaded a series of attack adverts questioning Mr Kerry’s patriotism and heroism, featuring sailors who served with Kerry on a Navy swift boat patrolling the rivers and shorelines in Vietnam.

It gave rise to the term “Swift-boating” – which means to disarm a candidate by attacking their perceived strength.

And it looks like Trump’s campaign is gearing up for attacks on the vice-president’s prosecutorial record.

On one hand, they are hitting her for being too tough – particularly on black men for drug crimes – in an attempt to undermine support from her base. On the other, they are citing instances where Ms Harris either chose not to prosecute or allowed the parole of individuals who went on to commit new crimes.

Mr Varoga concedes that Democrats botched their response to the Swift-boat attacks in 2004, but he says they’ve learned their lesson and Ms Harris will be ready for the onslaught.

“If LaCivita thinks he’s going to fool the entire Democratic establishment again, he can live with that delusion and also lose,” he said.

In his memo, Mr Fabrizio said that Ms Harris “can’t change who she is or what she’s done”. He promised that voters will soon view her as Mr Biden’s “partner and co-pilot” and learn about her “dangerously liberal record”.

The upcoming advertising onslaught, along with Trump’s public statements and rally attacks, will be the tip of this Republican spear.

Meanwhile, Ms Harris and her campaign will work to offer their own definition of who the candidate is and what she stands for.

One particularly effective way to do this, according to Mr Varoga, is with her selection of a vice-presidential running mate.

“It’s the first real decision that a candidate for president makes that’s out there for the public to see,” he said. “That will go a long way toward people understanding what kind of future she’s going to pursue.”

If she opts for a more moderate partner, it could make voters more inclined to believe that she will govern from the centre, rather than as the leftist candidate Republicans make her out to be.

In the weeks ahead, the fight to define Ms Harris – through her word, through her votes and through her past campaigns – will go a long way towards determining how the public views her when they head to the ballot box in November.

It will shape whether the honeymoon ends in heartbreak for Democrats or a union that lasts for the next four years.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• ANALYSIS: Has Harris got what it takes to beat Trump?
• SWING STATES: Where the election could be won and lost
• EXPLAINER: RFK Jr and others running for president
• VOTERS: US workers in debt to buy groceries

They are the of many nutritionists – mass-produced yet moreish foods like chicken nuggets, packaged snacks, fizzy drinks, ice cream or even sliced brown bread.

So-called ultra-processed foods (UPF) account for 56% of calories consumed across the UK, and that figure is higher for children and people who live in poorer areas.

UPFs are defined by how many industrial processes they have been through and the number of ingredients – often unpronounceable – on their packaging. Most are high in fat, sugar or salt; many you’d call fast food.

What unites them is their synthetic look and taste, which has made them a target for some clean-living advocates.

There is a growing body of evidence that these foods aren’t good for us. But experts can’t agree how exactly they affect us or why, and it’s not clear that science is going to give us an answer any time soon.

While recent research shows many pervasive health problems, including cancers, heart disease, obesity and depression are to UPFs, there’s no proof, as yet, that they are by them.

For example, a recent meeting of the American Society for Nutrition in Chicago was presented with an observational study of more than 500,000 people in the US. It found that those who ate the most UPFs had a roughly 10% greater chance of dying, even accounting for their body-mass index and overall quality of diet.

In recent years, lots of other observational studies have shown a similar link – but that’s not the same as proving that food is processed causes health problems, or pinning down which aspect of those processes might be to blame.

So how could we get to the truth about ultra-processed food?

The kind of study needed to prove definitively that UPFs cause health problems would be extremely complex, suggests Dr Nerys Astbury, a senior researcher in diet and obesity at Oxford University.

It would need to compare a large number of people on two diets – one high in UPFs and one low in UPFs, but matched exactly for calorie and macronutrient content. This would be fiendishly difficult to actually do.

Participants would need to be kept under lock and key so their food intake could be tightly managed. The study would also need to enrol people with similar diets as a starting point. It would be extremely challenging logistically.

And to counter the possibility that people who eat fewer UPFs might just have healthier lifestyles such as through taking more exercise or getting more sleep, the participants of the groups would need to have very similar habits.

“It would be expensive research, but you could see changes from the diets relatively quickly,” Dr Astbury says.

Funding for this type of research could also be hard to come by. There might be accusations of conflicts of interest, since researchers motivated to run these kind of trials may have an idea of what they want the conclusions to be before they started.

These trials couldn’t last for very long, anyway – too many participants would most likely drop out. It would be impractical to tell hundreds of people to stick to a strict diet for more than a few weeks.

And what could these hypothetical trials really prove, anyway?

Duane Mellor, lead for nutrition and evidence-based medicine at Aston University, says nutrition scientists cannot prove specific foods are good or bad or what effect they have on an individual. They can only show potential benefits or risks.

“The data does not show any more or less,” he says. Claims to the contrary are “poor science”, he says.

Another option would be to look at the effect of common food additives present in UPFs on a lab model of the human gut – which is something scientists are busy doing.

There’s a wider issue, however – the amount of confusion around what actually counts as UPFs.

Generally, they include more than five ingredients, few of which you would find in a typical kitchen cupboard.

Instead, they’re typically made from cheap ingredients such as modified starches, sugars, oils, fats and protein isolates. Then, to make them more appealing to the tastebuds and eyes, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, sweeteners, and glazing agents are added.

They range from the obvious (sugary breakfast cereals, fizzy drinks, slices of American cheese) to the perhaps more unexpected (supermarket humous, low-fat yoghurts, some mueslis).

And this raises the questions: how helpful is a label that puts chocolate bars in the same league as tofu? Could some UPFs affect us differently to others?

• Adolescents get most calories from processed food
• Could ultra-processed foods be harmful for us?
• Ultra-processed foods ‘make you eat more’

In order to find out more, BBC News spoke to the Brazilian professor who came up with the term “ultra-processed food” in 2010.

Prof Carlos Monteiro also developed the Nova classification system, which ranges from “whole foods” (such as legumes and vegetables) at one end of the spectrum, via “processed culinary ingredients” (such as butter) then “processed foods” (things like tinned tuna and salted nuts) all the way through to UPFs.

The system was developed after obesity in Brazil continued to rise as sugar consumption fell, and Prof Monteiro wondered why. He believes our health is influenced not only by the nutrient content of the food we eat, but also through the industrial processes used to make it and preserve it.

He says he didn’t expect the current huge attention on UPFs but he claims “it’s contributing to a paradigm shift in nutrition science”.

However, many nutritionists say the fear of UPFs is overheated.

Gunter Kuhnle, professor of nutrition and food science at the University of Reading, says the concept is “vague” and the message it sends is “negative”, making people feel confused and scared of food.

It’s true that currently, there’s no concrete evidence that the way food is processed damages our health.

Processing is something we do every day – chopping, boiling and freezing are all processes, and those things aren’t harmful.

And when food is processed at scale by manufacturers, it helps to ensure the food is safe, preserved for longer and that waste is reduced.

Take frozen fish fingers as an example. They use up leftover bits of fish, provide kids with some healthy food and save parents time – but they still count as UPFs.

And what about meat-replacement products such as Quorn? Granted, they don’t look like the original ingredient from which they are made (and therefore fall under the Nova definition of UPFs), but they are seen as healthy and nutritious.

“If you make a cake or brownie at home and compare it with one that comes already in a packet that’s got taste enhancers, do I think there’s any difference between those two foods? No, I don’t,” Dr Astbury tells me.

The body responsible for food safety in England, the Food Standards Agency, acknowledges reports that people who eat a lot of UPFs have a greater risk of heart disease and cancer, but says it won’t take any action on UPFs until there’s evidence of them causing a specific harm.

Last year, the government’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) looked at the same reports and concluded there were “uncertainties around the quality of evidence available”. It also had some concerns around the practical application of the Nova system in the UK.

For his part, Prof Monteiro is most worried about processes involving intense heat, such as the manufacturing of breakfast cereal flakes and puffs, which he claims “degrade the natural food matrix”.

He points to a small study suggesting this results in loss of nutrients and therefore leaves us feeling less full, meaning we’re more tempted to make up the shortfall with extra calories.

It’s also difficult to ignore the creeping sense of self-righteousness and – whisper it – snobbery around UPFs, which can make people feel guilty for eating them.

Dr Adrian Brown, specialist dietician and senior research fellow at University College London, says demonising one type of food isn’t helpful, especially when what and how we eat is such a complicated issue. “We have to be mindful of the moralisation of food,” he says.

Living a UPF-free life can be expensive – and cooking meals from scratch takes time, effort and planning.

A recent Food Foundation report found that more healthy foods were twice as expensive as less healthy foods per calorie, and the poorest 20% of the UK population would need to spend half their disposable income on food to meet the government’s healthy diet recommendations. It would cost the wealthiest only 11% of theirs.

I asked Prof Monteiro if it’s even possible to live without UPFs.

“The question here should be: is it feasible to stop the growing consumption of UPFs?” he says. “My answer is: it is not easy, but it is possible.”

Many experts say the current traffic light system on food labels (which flags up high, medium and low levels of sugar, fat and salt) is simple and helpful enough as a guide when you’re shopping.

There are smartphone apps now available for the uncertain shopper, such as the Yuka app, with which you can scan a barcode and get a breakdown of how healthy the product is.

And of course there’s the advice you already know – eat more fruit, vegetables, wholegrains and beans, while cutting back on fat and sugary snacks. Sticking to that remains a good idea, whether or not scientists ever prove UPFs are harmful.

“She’s going to rot in jail. No one is going to get her out.”

That was what prison guards told the family of Emirlendris Benítez. She disappeared in Venezuela in August 2018 after she and her partner – a taxi driver – were arrested while giving somebody a lift to the city centre.

She was arbitrarily accused of organising a plot to kill the president and, without a fair trial, given a 30-year prison sentence.

When she was taken to prison, she was pregnant. Guards beat her stomach despite her protestations, and she had a miscarriage.

Her family tell us she has faced torture in prison, including having her nails removed with a hammer.

The human rights group Foro Penal says there were 15,700 politically motivated arbitrary arrests in Venezuela between 2014 and 2023 and hundreds of people remain behind bars.

It is one of many ways the government has cracked down on dissent.

The BBC asked the government and prosecutor for a comment or interview and have received no response.

President Nicolás Maduro has been in power since taking over from his mentor Hugo Chávez in 2013 and is seeking re-election on Sunday.

Photos of him line the streets, and on the last day of campaigning in Caracas hundreds of buses were paid for to transport people from around the country to his final rally where free food parcels were handed out as an incentive to attend.

Venus, a woman at the rally, says Mr Maduro’s PSUV party has given her many “benefits”.

“We are here to support Nicolas Maduro to the end,” she says.

Iván, another supporter, says “to those who oppose us, those who say there is no democracy, that there is a dictatorship here… this revolution will continue to shine”.

Even some supporters of Mr Maduro, though, have fallen victim to the crackdown on dissent.

A family member of Emirlendris, Ana (not her real name), spoke to us on condition of anonymity.

Her family voted for Nicolás Maduro, and Hugo Chávez before him, but say now “everything changed because we realised how justice works in Venezuela”.

“The government is desperate because it knows it has lost. Many people have opened their eyes and are realising the reality we live in in Venezuela. In the name of Almighty God, I hope that a new president wins for a better Venezuela.”

The last election was widely seen as neither free nor fair, many countries refused to recognise Mr Maduro as president, and the US imposed further sanctions on Venezuela.

For the first time in years, the opposition feel they have huge momentum and a lead in the polls – making it harder for the governing party to claim victory.

But the government has deployed a range of tactics with the armed forces, electoral and judicial authorities which it controls to pre-emptively suppress the opposition. They include detaining critics, uninviting EU election observers, and preventing millions of Venezuelans overseas from registering to vote.

Alcides Bracho is a teacher who was detained on 4 July 2022 after going to a protest calling for better salaries.

“We are talking 800 days without an increase, and it is a salary of $3.50 per month,” he recalls.

But after the protest, he was arrested and accused of “terrorism”.

“They came to the house, approximately 22 people with long rifles. Guns that looked like those in action movies or boys’ video games. Without a search warrant.”

He was forced to stand naked for 72 hours while he was held in detention, with no access to food, water or a toilet after being sentenced to 16 years in prison for “conspiracy” and “criminal association”.

“I thought I was going to die.”

“If you want to start a business in Venezuela, let it be a prison. They charge you for everything. The state does not give you food,” he said of the lack of even the most basic things in jail.

He was eventually released in a prisoner exchange with the US last December in which 19 political prisoners were freed in exchange for Alex Saab, an accused money launderer with close links to President Maduro who was indicted in the US.

Despite what happened to him, Mr Bracho wants to keep fighting.

“If we all keep quiet, if no-one does it, there is no fighting.”

“There is an upswing in repression. We are very worried. It’s not like I can start my life again, I don’t have a safe space.”

The opposition leader, María Corina Machado, was banned from running in Sunday’s election, dozens of her team have been detained, and even food stalls that served her have been shut down.

Most television and radio stations are state-run, with many other digital media outlets being blocked.

Bus TV is a campaign of volunteers who read out “real news” on buses around the country.

Andrés Brancovic is one of the volunteers. He thinks “censorship” could affect the election.

“Twitter is one of the most used apps in Venezuela right now, because people can post what they want and see what is happening. But people who just have national TV in their houses – they don’t see what is happening with the opposition.”

“All the news is in favour of the regime,” he says.

Despite having the world’s largest known oil reserves, Venezuela is desperately poor. More than half the population of Venezuela lives in poverty, and nearly eight million people have fled the country – contributing to a migration crisis on the US border.

Jhonatan Marcano lives with his family of five in one small room.

He goes out fishing every day in a rubber tyre, often in dangerous tides, to feed his family.

He cannot afford a boat, nor fuel for one. He relies on the tide to bring him back to land every day.

“I always voted for the people who are in charge. Chávez inspired confidence in me.”

Now, though, he is undecided: “Help doesn’t come, what you need most does not come to you. I’m so disappointed in the party.”

President Maduro blames US sanctions for the country’s woes, but critics also put it down to corruption and economic mismanagement.

There are reasons the West wants to improve relations with Venezuela – the oil and natural resources the country has, the fact Iran, China and Russia rely on Venezuela as an ally in the West, and because they do not want the US migration crisis to worsen.

But it is unlikely sanctions will be lifted and the government recognised if the vote is seen as unfair again.

Martin Odhiambo has always been interested in the healing properties of plants – and for years has been enthusiastically sharing that knowledge with fellow Kenyans.

Every Thursday at an amphitheatre at the Nairobi National Museum, he talks to dozens of people who have come to learn and exchange information about traditional medicine.

Despite worries over the efficacy and safety of these treatments, it is estimated that around 80% of people in African countries rely on them when they are ill, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

One way to allay safety concerns in Kenya would be for the authorities to find a way to oversee traditional medicine, as happens in some other countries.

But for now Mr Odhiambo is keen to let others know about plant remedies he believes can deal with common illnesses, such as colds, skin conditions and stomach upsets.

He argues that long before the onset of conventional medicine, there were traditional healers who knew from those before them what was good for treating which condition.

The information exists within communities, but does not really travel further.

Mr Odhiambo works for the Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health (Ticah), which has formed a partnership with the museum, seen as a repository of the country’s cultural heritage.

There he takes care of a special garden, known as a physic garden, which has more than 250 species of medicinal plants – they are not for sale but for education.

For years, Mr Odhiambo has studied medicinal plants – the scientific research as well as talking to the people who use them – soaking up so much folklore and indigenous knowledge that he says he now has “a tendency to dream about plants”.

At one of his Weekly Plant Talks, he sounds professorial, imparting his vast knowledge to all gathered – including herbalists, a midwife coming from the US, a psychologist, a teacher, a university student and a businesswoman.

The talk starts with a prayer and a recap of what was learnt the previous week, and then quickly moves on to the plants of the day.

The initial focus is on – a common shrub that has different local names including “nyabende” and “mukige”.

Traditionally, it is said to treat headaches as well as ease toothaches – and can act as an insect repellent. Plus its twigs can be used as a toothbrush .

It also brings “good vibes and creates positive energy”, a participant says.

As the meeting continues, people discuss, share and learn about a whole range of plant remedies for diverse health problems.

They also talk about the cultural contexts in which the plants are used such as in traditional rites, food preservation or even their mystic powers that instil “goodwill” within a community.

This forum is not used to discuss scientific research and whether the claims can be proven in a controlled experiment.

“We do not validate this information,” says Vitalis Ochieng, Ticah’s senior programme manager, emphasising that the point is for people to share what they know.

The organisation’s key mandate is to show the value of traditional medicine and amplify the voices of those who practice it, he adds.

One of the things hampering the wider adoption of traditional medicine in Kenya is that there is no government policy encouraging its safe use.

Mr Ochieng argues that indigenous knowledge could be the basis for scientific research, adding that in countries like China, traditional medicine is accepted and even exported as “alternative medicine”.

He is campaigning for traditional medicines to be regulated and standardised in Kenya, legislation that has been in the works for several years.

At the moment so-called “herbal clinics”, many selling poor quality remedies, have given traditional medicine a bad name, something experts in the East African nation acknowledge.

There have been problems with fraudsters, as well as the deliberate or accidental contamination of the products, says Dr Ruth Nyangacha, the deputy director of Centre for Traditional Medicine Research (CTMDR) – a government agency that advises the health ministry on traditional medicine.

She tells the BBC this is especially risky for patients with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, as they often turn to these remedies, partly because of cost but also as they are easier to get hold of in remote areas.

At her first plant talk at the museum, businesswoman Joyce Ng’ang’a says she turned to traditional medicine as she found conventional medication had not helped her condition.

In fact the drugs she was prescribed after her diagnosis with chronic stomach acid reflux eight years ago had had side effects like making her forgetful.

Even a trip to India for treatment had not helped – which is why she says she sought out herbal remedies.

“I have never found a reason to go back to them,” she enthused, referring to the conventional medicine she has now abandoned.

It is a course of action that doctors would not recommend over safety concerns, but Ms Ng’ang’a says she hopes her experience will mean traditional herbal therapies will eventually become formalised.

Herbalist Patrick Mwathi attends the plant talks nearly every week – wanting to improve his craft. He has been practising for decades, learning first-hand from his father in the 1970s.

He develops and sells herbal products locally – some of which he shares with others at the lecture, including a “herbal tea” with packaging that says it can aid infertility. It can also “detox” and “activate” the kidney and “cleanse” the liver, he says.

Another product is said to treat depression.

Such treatments have not been scientifically proven to be effective and Ticah encourages herbalists to register and work with the authorities to formalise their remedies.

Mr Mwathi has taken samples to government laboratories for chemical analysis – and they have passed tests to show they are are effective and not harmful.

But the process required to get a product to market – including standardisation and quality control – is long and involves many government agencies. Like other traditional practitioners he lacks the time and money to do this.

Dr Nyangacha explains that some of the challenges include knowing when the active components of remedies expire – noting that it often comes down to “guesswork”.

The CTMDR, a unit of the government’s Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri), does not have the funding to get the herbal remedies they test for efficacy approved for conventional use.

But there is no reason it could not be done, Dr Nyangacha argues, pointing out that Kemri has developed its own products, including a herbal medicine used in the treatment of genital herpes and a salt that is used for hypertension.

“We have genuine ones and traditional medicine [that], I must say, works.”

Mr Odhiambo needs no convincing – in fact he hopes his passion for plants will show Kenyans that common illnesses can be treated without suspicion using remedies “like in the olden days”.

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A gold bikini worn by the late Carrie Fisher in Return of the Jedi has been sold for $175,000 (£136,000) at auction.

The Star Wars costume is one of the most famous outfits in film history.

It includes a bikini top, bikini plates, hip rings, an armlet and bracelet.

Fisher, who played Princess Leia in the films, said she thought director George Lucas was “kidding” when he showed her the bikini.

She told NPR in an interview a month before her death in 2016 that she felt “nearly naked, which is not a style choice for me” adding that it made her “very nervous”.

The actress also revealed that during filming she had to “sit very straight because I couldn’t have lines on my sides, like little creases. No creases were allowed, so I had to sit very, very rigid straight.”

A miniature Starfighter aircraft that was used in the filming of the first Star Wars film was sold for $1.5m (£1.1m).

Heritage Auctions, who ran the sale, say the object is one of only two filming miniatures created for the production.

A wand used by Daniel Radcliffe in the film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban fetched $52,000, while a hammer prop from a Thor film made $81,000.

An outfit worn by Macauley Culkin in the first Home Alone film was sold for $47,500.

The fierce wildfire which swept through the Canadian town of Jasper in recent days melted cars to the road and turned homes to ash.

The first images of the devastation at the famous tourist town have emerged, after a 100m (328ft) firewall swept through late on Wednesday.

It has been difficult to get a sense of the scale of what happened because the fire burned out-of-control for days.

Some 25,000 people were evacuated from the town and the Jasper National Park, in Alberta.

On Friday, authorities from Jasper National Park said 358 of the 1,113 structures in town had been destroyed by the fire, which was caused by a lightning storm

However, all critical infrastructure was protected, including the hospital, library and firehall.

A list of addresses where buildings were damaged is being finalised and will be released “shortly”, authorities said.

One local who does know he has lost his home is Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland, who came back to the town with other officials on Friday.

He stood in front of what remained of his home, reduced to a few charred cement blocks, and said: “Now, it’s well, it’s just memories of family and fire.”

Mr Ireland spoke of a photograph lost to the flames, where he was just a two-year-old sitting on some moving boxes next to a birthday cake at that very house. He had lived at the same address for 67 years.

“So many others are going to go through this same thing,” he told local media.

• Canadians mourn as Jasper, jewel of the Rockies, burns

New images show extraordinary damage at the tourist town, nestled in the Canadian Rockies.

The heat was so intense it turned parts of a car into a pool of metal, dripping across the road like a silver ice cream on a hot day.

Other photographs show the twisted remains of cars piled on top of each other, and a school bus now black with only a tinge of that iconic yellow remaining.

Hotels and a church were destroyed, and many homes.

Authorities are cautious of confirming what has been levelled, at this stage.

“We are empathetic to the residents and businesses seeking more information on specific details on the extent of damage,” an update from authorities said.

“We know people are seeing images on media and social media but what we know about fire incidents is getting the information right is paramount.”

Fire crews are now taking advantage of cooler weather and recent rainfall.

They are containing the remaining hotspots in smouldering structures and along the wildfire perimeter closest to the townsite.

But winds were expected to pick up and hot, dry weather is forecast to return by Monday.

Sitting just north of the more popular Banff National Park, Jasper National Park is the largest in Canada’s Rocky Mountains.

The Unesco World Heritage Site is home to elk, grizzly bear, moose and bison.

The adjacent town of Jasper has a population of about 5,000, but has some dozen hotels to accommodate the roughly 2.5 million people who pass through to visit the park every year.

Karyn Decore, whose family has owned the historic Maligne Lodge over 60 years, has been receiving condolences from around the country since learning it was destroyed as the fire swept through town.

Ms Decore says her now-destroyed hotel is normally 100% occupied from May to October every year. Now, all of the tourists and staff have evacuated the area, and they don’t know when they may return.

Park officials estimated that a power outage in the town last year, which lasted two weeks, deprived local businesses of some CAD$10m ($7.2m;£5.6m) in revenue.

It remains to be seen how long it will take to restore the resort town, as well as the pristine ecology that helps make the majestic park a pride of Canada.

Meanwhile, there are currently 48 wildfires burning “out of control” around the Alberta province.

Boneless chicken wings do not have to be bone-free, Ohio’s top court ruled, ending a lawsuit filed by a man who fell ill after swallowing a piece of bone from his order.

Michael Berkheimer sued Wings on Brookwood in 2016, saying the restaurant failed to warn him that the boneless wings could in fact contain bones, a piece of which became lodged in his throat and caused an infection.

The court on Thursday ruled that “boneless wing” refers to “cooking style” and is not to be taken literally.

The 4-3 ruling was peppered with dissent, with one judge calling the majority opinion “utter jabberwocky”.

But a majority of the judges considered being cautious of bones in a boneless wing to be common sense.

Writing for the majority, Justice Joseph T Deters said: “A diner reading ‘boneless wings’ on a menu would no more believe that the restaurant was warranting the absence of bones in the items than believe that the items were made from chicken wings, just as a person eating ‘chicken fingers’ would know that he had not been served fingers.”

The chicken wing controversy began in 2016, when Michael Berkheimer was dining with his wife and friends at a restaurant in Hamilton, Ohio.

He ordered what has been described as his “usual” – boneless wings with parmesan garlic sauce – when he noticed a piece go down uncomfortably.

Three days later, he began to feel feverish and went to the emergency room. Doctors discovered a long, thin bone that caused a tear in his oesophagus and a subsequent infection.

Mr Berkheimer later sued the restaurant, accusing them of failing to warn him that the “boneless wings” might contain bones.

In the lawsuit, he also accused the supplier and the farm that produced the chicken of negligence.

Lower courts had dismissed Mr Berkheimer’s suit, which then landed in the state’s supreme court.

A majority of the justices considered it common knowledge that chickens have bones, and sided with the lower courts against him.

“The food item’s label on the menu described a cooking style; it was not a guarantee,” Justice Deters wrote.

However, the dissenting justices felt like the decision should have sat with a jury and not with the court’s justices.

Justice Michael P Donnelly wrote in dissent: “The question must be asked: Does anyone really believe that the parents in this country who feed their young children boneless wings or chicken tenders or chicken nuggets or chicken fingers expect bones to be in the chicken? Of course they don’t.

“When they read the word ‘boneless,’ they think that it means ‘without bones,’ as do all sensible people.”

“I may be super but I’m no hero.”

In Deadpool’s own words, he is “just a bad guy who gets paid” to mess with “worse guys”.

Ryan Reynolds’s character in Deadpool and Wolverine – the third edition of the Marvel series released this week – is far from the only antihero to have won over fans in recent years.

They are typically morally ambiguous characters that are neither a superhero nor a villain.

Take Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch), who will do everything she can to create a family, including holding an entire community hostage in the 2021 show WandaVision.

And later this year, the villain-turned-antihero film Venom will return to the big screen a third time, as a journalist who tries to protect the innocent at all costs.

Deadpool, aka Wade Wilson, gains immortality after joining an experiment programme to cure his cancer, but things go wrong and he is left to die, leading him on a revenge-driven quest to kill his betrayers.

But what is it about these characters of murder and mayhem that connect with some people more than superheroes do?

According to 26-year-old comics fan Chelsea-Lee Nolan from Kent, they are simply “more human”.

“Nobody is wholly good or wholly evil, so the idea of an antihero is quite nice,” she says.

It is in these grey areas that Ms Nolan can see “elements” of herself.

“I’m not overly perfect and I don’t aim to be,” she adds. “The idea of a hero who makes no mistakes is unrelatable.”

For writer and performer Reece Connolly, 30, who lives in London, antiheroes are simply more realistic.

“They move towards a moral right, but they make mistakes, they have regrets, bad habits and quirks of character,” Mr Connolly explains.

In the comic book Deadpool (2008), Issue 45, a group of trafficked women call him a “good man” after he rescues them, but the mercenary quickly rejects it, saying: “Well… okay, yeah – maybe sometimes parts of me are good but there are, like other parts of me that’re, umm…”

His reluctance to be called “good” is a recognition of his flaws.

The “Merc with a Mouth”, as Deadpool calls himself, is loud, murderous and maddening – everything a superhero isn’t.

Other antiheroes share similar traits. Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston, is a villain but has gradually become someone who tries to do the right thing, albeit with the trickster’s mischief thrown in.

The “dark side” that antiheroes embrace plays a huge role in their appeal, according to Dara Greenwood, of Vassar College in New York, who has spent time studying such characters.

“[They] give us the imaginative opportunity to lean into the ‘dark side’ of human behaviour in a way that is safe from repercussion or reproach,” the associate professor of psychological science says.

That might partly support the affective disposition theory – which suggests that entertainment is enjoyed more when a character that audiences like succeeds and a disliked character fails.

A defining part of Deadpool is his humour. He is known for his ability “to drop mad one-liner science”, as he calls it, wisecracks and innuendos – usually at the most inappropriate times.

Prof Greenwood says that when paired with humour, violence can come across as playful instead of toxic, which “desensitises us” to its brutality.

Many superheroes see their powers as a calling to do good – the likes of Spider-Man continue as fan favourites, showing resilience in the face of suffering and continuing to save, not harm people.

But Deadpool knows he is a fictional character who exists for the pleasure of others, and constantly breaks the fourth wall to talk to readers and viewers. A 2019 study shows that this rapport gives us the same feelings of attachment and intimacy we would get with a personal relationship.

Ms Nolan says it makes her feel “involved”, while Mr Connolly likens it to “a conversation, or a secret or in-joke we’re being let in on”.

To him, antiheroes like Deadpool are “heroes with all the interesting bits left in”

“The mess, the weirdness, the flaws,” he says.

Israel’s military has struck a school near Deir al-Balah, a city in central Gaza, killing at least 30 Palestinians and injuring more than 100, according to the Hamas-run ministry of health.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Telegram that a Hamas command and control centre was embedded inside the Khadija School.

The IDF added that Hamas used the compound as a hiding place to direct and plan attacks and store weapons.

Gaza’s health ministry said footage showed the victims were civilians and most of them were children. The BBC verified a video that shows children among the injured.

Gaza’s civil defence service said the school was sheltering displaced people. Hamas said in a statement on Telegram that the report the school was being used for military purposes was “false” and “displaced, sick and wounded people, most of whom were women and children” were killed.

Witness Mustafa Rafati told the BBC the explosion shook his body and he fell from the blow. Afraid, he said he ran inside the school and saw body parts in a “terrifying scene.”

“I was shocked,” he said.

Verified video from the scene shows a chaotic situation, with people running around a compound covered in rubble. Men carry two bloodied children in their arms while a woman hugs another, and a group carries an injured man on a stretcher. A body lies on the ground covered in a blanket.

The IDF said that before the strike it took steps to reduce the risk to civilians “including the use of appropriate munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence”.

Gaza’s health ministry said 53 people had been killed and 189 injured since Saturday morning due to IDF bombing in Deir al-Balah and the southern city of Khan Younis.

The strike occurred as Israel continues its months-long military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The war started when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell spoke out against the Deir al-Balah strike on X, writing that it occurred “at the same time an already very fragile population is asked to relocate again and again, with no end in sight”.

“Ceasefire has to happen now,” he wrote.

Ceasefire talks, led by the head of the CIA, Bill Burns, are scheduled to begin on Sunday between representatives from Qatar, Egypt and Israel.

The Deir al-Balah strike was reported as the IDF ordered civilians on Saturday morning in southern parts of Khan Younis to evacuate to an “adjusted humanitarian area” in al-Mawasi, a region along the coast.

The IDF said it was about to “forcefully operate” after reporting “significant” rocket fire towards Israel from southern Khan Younis and “precise intelligence indicating that Hamas has embedded” infrastructure in the humanitarian area. The Israeli military warned civilians that “remaining in this area has become dangerous”.

The IDF released maps showing a further reduced humanitarian area in al-Mawasi. The military shrank the zone on Monday when it ordered the evacuation of part of the humanitarian area ahead of an operation against Palestinian fighters who had apparently regrouped there.

After the evacuation orders, Gaza’s health ministry said at least 70 people were killed by Israeli strikes around Khan Younis.

Also on Saturday, in the West Bank, a 17-year-old and a 24-year-old were killed and 22 people were injured in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus as a result of Israeli military action, the Palestinian Authority’s ministry of health said.

The BBC has contacted the IDF about the reports.

Actor Kit Harrington has defended his new play having dedicated performances for black audiences, denying that the initiative discriminates against white people.

Slave Play attracted controversy and criticism earlier this year when it was announced there would be two “black out” nights during the show’s 12-week run.

Rishi Sunak, who was prime minister at the time, described the initiative as “wrong and divisive”.

But Harrington, who appears in the play, said of the scheme: “I’ve come to realise or believe that it’s an incredibly positive thing.”

The Game of Thrones star also told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that the first black out performance, which took place earlier this month, was an “incredible show”.

“Number one, if you are white, no-one’s stopping you buying a ticket, it’s not illegal to buy a ticket for that show, if you want to come,” he said. “It’s saying, ‘We would prefer the audience to be this’.

“Number two, I’ve been going to the theatre since I was young with my mum. I’ve only ever really known predominantly white audiences. It is still a particularly white space.

“So to have the argument that, oh, this is discriminating against white people, is I think vaguely strange and ridiculous.”

Set on a plantation in the old American South, Slave Play explores “race, identity and sexuality”.

Written by US actor and playwright Jeremy O Harris, it was a Broadway success and received 12 Tony nominations, although it did not win any.

The Broadway run also had black out nights, which organisers said were intended for an “all-black-identifying audience”.

“People have to be radically invited into a space to know that they belong there,” Harris told BBC Radio 4 earlier this year.

The second of the two black out performances in London’s West End will take place in September.

Harrington said “the energy on stage and in the audience” during the first one “was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced”.

“And I do believe with this play and what it’s saying, that having a place where a certain group of people can come and feel open to laughing in a certain way, reacting in a certain way, in sort of safety, for two nights of the entire run, is a great thing.”

His co-star Olivia Washington said: “To see black and brown people in a 900-seat theatre, I’ve never experienced that, as an audience member I’d never experienced that.

“So it was very special for me to experience in doing this play, because as you [Kuenssberg] said, it is difficult, it’s difficult subject matter, it can get hard for people to hear.

“However, to feel supported by this room in a different kind of way felt just – it felt really great.”

Slave Play’s producers told BBC News in February that the “intent is to celebrate the play with the widest possible audience”, adding: “To be absolutely clear, no-one will be prevented or precluded from attending any performance of Slave Play.”

The show’s West End transfer has received generally positive reviews from critics. The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar described it as “charismatic, needling theatre” while the Evening Standard’s Nick Curtis said it was “bold and scabrously witty” – with both critics awarding four stars.

Dominic Maxwell of the Times, however, awarded just two stars, saying the show was “the sort of ideas-led piece that would stimulate over an hour but has instead unwisely swollen to two hours”.

His colleague Clive Davis, who attended the first black out night, said he had mixed feelings about the initiative.

“Did the composition of the audience affect the way the dialogue was received? I think so,” he wrote, adding that the audience’s laughter and commentary suggested they were particularly engaged.

Reflecting on the black out nights, he continued: “I still have my doubts… I still think better marketing is the more creative way to bring in new audiences.”

However, several ticket buyers interviewed by Sky News on the night applauded the scheme.

One said it was “just about giving more people an opportunity to experience” theatre, while another said it was “not an exclusion thing, it’s just we don’t get the same opportunities” as white people.

Twelve children and young adults have been killed and dozens injured after a rocket hit a football pitch in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Israeli authorities say.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a rocket fired by the powerful Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fell on the Druze town of Majdal Shams – a claim strongly denied by the group.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retaliation against Hezbollah, saying it would “pay a heavy price”.

The incident has the potential to trigger an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, whose forces have regularly exchanged fire since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war in October.

Saturday’s attack was the deadliest loss of life on Israel’s northern border since the war began on 7 October.

A UN statement said “maximum restraint” was crucial by all parties, with the risk of a wider conflict that would “engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief”.

Hezbollah spokesman Mohamad Afif denied responsibility for the attack, and the BBC is trying to verify reports that the militant group told the United Nations that the explosion was caused by an Israeli interceptor rocket.

Israeli authorities said all of those killed were between the ages of 10 and 20, although Israeli media reports that some were younger.

Verified video shows crowds of people on a football pitch and stretchers being rushed to waiting ambulances.

Majdal Shams is one of four villages in the Golan Heights, where about 25,000 members of the Arabic-speaking Druze religious and ethnic group live.

• Golan Heights profile

Before reports of the strike’s impact emerged, Hezbollah had claimed responsibility for four other attacks.

One was on a nearby military compound on the slopes of Mt Hermon, which lies on the border between Israel and Lebanon. The base is around 3km (2 miles) from the football pitch.

IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari, who visited the scene of the attack, accused Hezbollah of “lying and denying responsibility for the incident.”

He said that the rocket was an Iranian-made Falaq-1 “owned exclusively by Hezbollah”.

“Our intelligence is clear. Hezbollah is responsible for the murder of innocent children,” he said, adding that Israel was preparing to retaliate.

Although Israel and Hezbollah regularly trade fire and have both suffered casualties, since October, both sides have refrained from actions which could escalate into a broader war in southern Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was on a visit to the US, is returning home early.

In an angry statement, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, the leader of the Druze community in Israel, said the “horrific massacre” had crossed “every possible red line”.

“A proper state cannot allow continuous harm to its citizens and residents. This has been the ongoing reality in the northern communities for the past nine months,” he added.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Israel’s Channel 12 news: “We are facing an all-out war.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the incident a “terrible and shocking disaster” and said that “the state of Israel will firmly defend its citizens and its sovereignty”.

Lebanon’s government also issued a rare statement in response, saying it “condemns all acts of violence and aggression against all civilians and calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts.

“Targeting civilians is a flagrant violation of international law and goes against the principles of humanity,” the statement added.

The US and EU have also condemned the attack.

UN envoy Tor Wennesland denounced the incident and urged restraint from all sides.

“The Middle East is on the brink; the world and the region cannot afford another open conflict,” he wrote on X.

Most Druze live in northern Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. In Israel, they have full citizenship rights and comprise about 1.5% of the population.

They were offered Israeli citizenship when the Golan Heights was annexed from Syria in 1981, but not everyone accepted.

Druze in the Golan can still study and work in Israel, though only those with citizenship can vote.

Male Druze are required to serve in the army, and are the largest non-Jewish group in the IDF.

The vast majority of the international community does not recognise Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights.

Supratim Bhattacharjee has been named overall winner of this year’s Mangrove Photography Awards for his image of a young girl in the aftermath of a devastating storm in Frazerganj, Sundarbans, India.

Run by the Mangrove Action Project, the competition – now in its 10th year – aims to show the relationships between wildlife, coastal communities and mangrove forests, as well as the fragility of these unique ecosystems, both above and below the waterline.

Mr Bhattacharjee’s winning image, called Sinking Sundarbans, shows Pallavi standing in front of her home and tea shop, which has been destroyed by the sea during a storm.

“I observed her strong face and calm nature during that devastating period,” said Mr Bhattacharjee.

“Children are the ones that suffer the most.”

Nestled in the Bay of Bengal, the Sundarbans is the largest mangrove forest in the world.

“[The winning] image raises a thousand questions, whilst connecting you to the girl’s heart,” said competition judge Dhritiman Mukherjee.

“Her vulnerability exposes the full impact of climate change and sea level rise experienced by many coastal communities.”

Mangroves are an important protection against climate change, with one acre (4,000sq m) of mangrove forest absorbing nearly the same amount of carbon dioxide as an acre of Amazon rainforest.

The forests also protect coastlines from eroding, as intense storms grow more frequent.

“Conservation as a story, is a complicated one,” said another of the judges, Morgan Heim.

“Photography has the ability to help us receive and feel close to those stories no matter our language. Every time I look at this kind of photography, I think, there’s still hope.”

Fellow judge Christian Ziegler added: “[In the competition] were many fascinating stories about life in the mangroves, ranging from scientific insights to restoration of the ecosystem and the difficult conditions people face.”

Here are a selection of winning images from seven competition categories, with descriptions by the photographers.

Men, women and children, wearing sarongs and traditional headgear, collect mud from a mangrove forest in Kedonganan village, just outside the town of Denpasar in Bali, Indonesia.

They cover themselves as part of a purification ritual called Mebuug Buugan, where people pray for gratitude and earth’s fertility.

The Sundarbans archipelago spans the borders of India and Bangladesh… [and] is known for its rich forest resources, which locals rely on for income.

But rampant deforestation coupled with worsening storms has intensified food and water scarcity, diminished agriculture productivity and soil quality, and turned local communities into climate refugees.

This tranquil scene invites contemplation as the gentle flow of water navigates its course through the heart of the mangrove forest.

The intertwining roots of the trees form intricate patterns, creating a natural tapestry that harmonises with the fluidity of the water.

On the rugged coast of Neil island (Shaheed Dweep) in the Andaman Islands archipelago, the tide recedes far away from the shore and exposes an extremely sharp rocky reef.

Mud-ring feeding is a unique fishing behaviour employed by bottlenose dolphins living in the shallows of the mangrove-lined bays of Florida Bay and a few other locations in the Caribbean.

On finding a school of mullet, a dolphin from the pod encircles the fish kicking up the sediments with its tail, which corrals the fish into an ever tightening spiral-shaped silty plume.

The dolphins have a remarkable ability to know where the fish are going to jump and will snatch them from the air as they try to make their escape.

In the last 40 years, Banderas Bay has lost more than 80% of its wetlands to urban expansion.

This crocodile sanctuary is a non-profit organisation located next to a small lagoon. The surrounding area has been taken over by shopping centres, hotels and condos.

Due to repeated tropical cyclones and sea level rise in the Bay of Bengal, river embankments have become broken by high tides across the Sundarbans, West Bengal, India.

As a result, homes and farms have flooded, fisheries have become destroyed by seawater, and people have been forced to migrate.

This villager has lost all his household belongings in the flood.

The male horseshoe crab tightly grasps onto the back of the female, on a mission of reproduction.

They move with the rising tide, searching for a suitable place to lay their eggs. But when they reach the mangroves, they become entangled in a huge ghost net.

If no one rescues them in time, they will eventually die from prolonged exposure.

In Hong Kong and throughout Asia, abandoned fishing nets wash ashore and in mangrove forests, entangling many creatures.

A turtle gracefully navigates the mangroves’ labyrinthine roots, seeking refuge for the night.

At high tide, the water engulfs the roots and transforms the space into a haven for marine life seeking shelter and safety.

Mangroves act as a natural filter that can remove most pollutants before they reach the ocean.

Soil and mangrove biomass have a significant capacity to store carbon from the atmosphere, helping to reduce carbon dioxide concentrations in the air.

The complex roots of mangroves also help bind soil and sediment, reduce erosion, and protect against damage from waves and currents.

In Demak Regency, Indonesia, the coastline has been severely eroded, and mangroves that once protected the coast have been cut down and replaced by aquaculture ponds. As a result, the sea is literally swallowing people’s homes.

[Demak’s residents] have realised the only solution is to restore the ecosystem by replanting the mangroves that have been cut down.

With the cutting of mangrove trees, it is increasingly difficult to fish, catch crabs, and protect against climate change and violent cyclones in the regions.

Bôndy, a private company working in ecosystem restoration, collaborates with local communities to restore mangroves at a rural commune in Majunga, Madagascar.

Together, always with a smile and in good spirits, they traverse the mangroves to revive vast stretches of isolated land.

I wanted to capture more than just this young saltwater crocodile when I encountered it at low tide in the mangroves.

I used the multiple exposure mode in my camera to superimpose layers onto my image of the croc’s eye, to capture more of the scene without sacrificing detail of the eye.

The image gives off a slightly unsettling feeling, such as what one may experience in a mangrove, unknowing of what predators may be lurking nearby, hidden by the dense network of the mangrove.

An enormous wildfire has grown by 8 sq miles an hour (20 sq km) as it spreads across parts of northern California.

The Park fire, which started on Wednesday in a suspected arson attack, has burned more than 348,000 acres of land north-east of Chico, and was 0% contained on Saturday, the state’s fire agency Cal Fire said.

About 2,500 firefighters are battling the blaze, which has been fuelled by steep terrain and wind gusts.

A 42-year-old man was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of starting the fire by rolling a burning car into a gully near Alligator Hole in Butte County.

It is now the largest fire in the state this year, and has consumed an area more than 1.5 times the size of New York City’s five boroughs.

Cal Fire incident commander Billy See said the fire has been spreading at a rate of 5,000 acres an hour.

Speaking at an operational briefing, Mr See said there were almost three times the personnel fighting the fire on Saturday compared to Friday, and “we still don’t have enough”.

Scott Weese, a fire behaviourist with Cal Fire, said that there was a high fuel load in the area with an abundance of grass.

“The heat signature is huge,” he told the operational briefing, adding that the fire burned through 150,000 acres yesterday.

Authorities were hopeful they could use Saturday’s easing of conditions to contain some of the blaze. Wind speeds decreased and temperatures dropped by about 15F, but still hover in some areas in the low 90s (32C).

Officials said fire whirls are less likely today, after a rare “firenado” – a swirling vortex of flames and ash formed in intense heat and high winds – was filmed twisting through bushland on Friday.

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday declared a state of emergency in Butte and Tehama counties because of the Park fire.

“We are using every available tool to protect lives and property as our fire and emergency response teams work around the clock to combat these challenging fires,” he said in a statement.

At least 16 helicopters are fighting the blaze, as well as multiple air tankers dumping water from the sky when conditions allow.

The wildfire has forced mandatory evacuations in Butte, where California’s deadliest blaze, the Camp Fire, killed more than 80 people in 2018.

The 400-strong population of Cohasset has already been moved as the fire burns out of control.

Cal Fire said that 134 structures had been destroyed, while 4,200 were under threat.

• First images of historic tourist town Jasper after 100m high wildfire hit

Officials arrested Ronnie Dean Stout, 42, and accused him of “calmly leaving the area by blending in with the other citizens who were in the area and fleeing the rapidly evolving fire” that he had set.

He is being held in jail without bail as authorities determine what charges he will face.

A woman who answered the door of the mobile home listed as his home address in Chico told the San Francisco Chronicle that prosecutors “are trying to make him the scapegoat”.

“They’re saying he did it intentionally, but he didn’t. The car caught on fire,” the unidentified woman said, before refusing to answer further questions.

The Park fire is one of many currently burning across the US and Canada.

The National Interagency Fire Center is currently monitoring 102 large fires in the US, mostly in states on the west coast.

In Oregon, a firefighting pilot was killed in a tanker plane crash after the aircraft went missing on Thursday night.

In Canada, a large wildfire in the Jasper National Park destroyed hundreds of buildings in the town of Jasper.

Weekend conditions have improved in Jasper, with rain and cooler temperatures helping efforts to protect other parts of the historic tourism town.

Olympic organisers have issued a “deep apology” after South Korea’s athletes were mistakenly introduced as North Korea at the opening ceremony in Paris.

As the excited, flag-waving team floated down the River Seine, both French and English announcers introduced them as the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” – the official name of North Korea.

The same name was then used – correctly – when North Korea’s delegation sailed past.

The two Koreas have been divided since the end of World War Two, with tensions between the states further escalating recently.

The subtitle which ran across the bottom of the television broadcast showed the correct title, however.

The South Korean sports ministry said it planned to lodge a “strong complaint with France on a government level” over the embarrassing gaffe.

In a statement, the ministry expressed “regret over the announcement… where the South Korean delegation was introduced as the North Korean team.”

The statement added that the second vice sports minister, Jang Mi-ran, a 2008 Olympic weightlifting champion, had demanded a meeting with Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued an apology on its official Korean-language X account, saying: “We would like to offer a deep apology over the mistake that occurred in the introduction of the South Korean delegation during the opening ceremony.”

South Korea, formally known as the Republic of Korea, has 143 athletes in its Olympic team this year, competing across 21 sports.

North Korea has sent 16 athletes. This is the first time it has competed in the games since Rio 2016.

On a remote farm in Siberia, a man handed Ada a knife. In front of them was a pig.

“Cut it off,” he said. “If you want to go ahead with the operation, you need to understand what castration means.”

Ada was 23 and transgender – she had been tricked into going to a conversion therapy centre after coming out to her family.

She says that earlier in the summer of 2021, a relative asked her to accompany her to Novosibirsk, where she was due to undergo major heart surgery.

Ada says a man met them at the airport and after a long drive, the car suddenly stopped, Ada’s relative jumped out, the driver turned to Ada, demanded she hand over her smartwatch and phone, and told her bluntly: “Now we’re going to cure you of your perversion.”

“It was only when a parcel of warm clothes arrived two weeks later that I realised that I wasn’t just there for a fortnight or a month,” she adds, saying she was forced to take testosterone, pray and do manual labour, such as chopping wood.

Confronted with the pig, she had a panic attack and didn’t do what she had been told.

Nine months later, she managed to escape. Someone had left a phone lying around which she used to call the police.

They sent officers to the centre, who said Ada had to be allowed to leave as she was being held against her will.

The BBC contacted the centre but the person we spoke to denied all knowledge of conversion therapy programmes. We also contacted Ada’s relative but have not had a response.

Ada’s time there was the lowest point in a battle she says she has been fighting all her life – first with her family, then with wider society, and now with Russia’s increasingly draconian LGBT laws.

Transgender people in Russia have had their human rights systematically eroded by the government’s broader political strategy of attacking vulnerable minorities, according to UN independent expert, Graeme Reid.

One year after Russia passed a law banning gender reassignment surgery, he says that transgender Russians had been deprived of their “most basic rights to a legal identity and access to healthcare”.

The new legislation also stopped people from changing their personal details on documents – Ada was one of the last people to get her name officially changed before the law came into effect in July 2023.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has lashed out at the West and LGBT rights, saying he is fighting for traditional Russian values. At a cultural forum in St Petersburg last year, he dismissed transgender people as “transformers or trans-something”.

And at the end of 2023, Russia’s justice ministry announced another new ruling, declaring the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organisation.

It didn’t matter that no such organisation existed. Anyone guilty of supporting what is now deemed “extremist activity” faces up to 12 years in jail. Even displaying a rainbow flag risks a fine, and a possible four-year prison sentence for repeat offences.

In one of the first prosecutions under the new law, two tearful and terrified-looking young people appeared in court in the city of Orenburg in March. Their crime was to run a bar frequented by the LBGT community. Their case is still ongoing.

After she escaped from the centre in Siberia, Ada moved into a small flat in Moscow where she offered other transgender people a safe place to stay. But the new laws were the final straw for her.

“I couldn’t stay any more… I had to leave Russia,” she says, talking from her new home in Europe.

For Francis, who left Russia in 2018, the new laws mean he will probably never go home. Even before they were introduced, the authorities in his hometown of Yekaterinburg had taken action against him.

“For as long as I can remember, I have known that I wasn’t a girl,” he says. But by 2017, he was married to Jack, had given birth to three children, and adopted two more.

“I said to my husband, ‘Maybe I’m mistaken but I think I might be transgender.’”

They agreed that Francis would consult a doctor. “They said, ‘You are transgender, 100%.’ I felt so much better. Everything slotted into place… I understood – this is who I am.”

He began the process of transitioning, but before long the local authorities intervened. Their two adopted children were taken into care, and Francis was told their biological children would be next.

The family left Russia and has been living in Spain ever since.

Ally, who is non-binary and uses the pronoun “they”, left Russia in 2022 after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It was a political decision, not connected to the pressures on the LGBT community, but those pressures have nonetheless taken their toll.

When Ally was 14, someone asked: “Are you a girl or a boy?”

“It gave me such a feeling of joy – I was so happy that she couldn’t tell from my outward appearance.”

Years later they told a friend: “’I don’t think I’m a girl, but I don’t think I’m a boy either.’

“She looked at me and said: ‘Oh, OK. Checks out.’ And then we carried on eating soup. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.”

Ally now lives in Georgia and last year decided to have a mastectomy. Close family members still don’t know.

“If I had just come to my parents and said, ‘Mum, Dad, I’m a lesbian,’ it would have been easier than me saying, ‘Mum, Dad, I’ve cut off my breasts and I want you to call me they.’”

Although Ally had a medical diagnosis prior to the new Russian law banning gender reassignment, and had chosen a new gender-neutral name, it’s no longer possible to get passports and other key documents changed.

Francis has the same problem. His documents all include his former name, which causes confusion when he is asked for ID or has to fill in forms. But he says life in Spain is good. He’s found work in a textile factory which he loves.

Like Ally, Francis acknowledges that the climate of intolerance fostered by the new anti-LGBT laws has made relationships with family harder.

“My mother doesn’t speak to me any more,” he says. “She thinks I have disgraced our family, and she’s embarrassed to look the neighbours in the eye. It’s as if I was some freak, or a thief, or had murdered someone.”

And living abroad as a Russian while the war in Ukraine continues can add another layer of complexity, says Ally: “In Russia the authorities and the conservative parts of society don’t like us because we’re transgender. Abroad people don’t like us because we’re Russians.”

All the trans community really wants, says Ada, is for “people to be able to dress how they want and not be afraid of being beaten up… I just want people to stop having to think about how to survive”.

They are the of many nutritionists – mass-produced yet moreish foods like chicken nuggets, packaged snacks, fizzy drinks, ice cream or even sliced brown bread.

So-called ultra-processed foods (UPF) account for 56% of calories consumed across the UK, and that figure is higher for children and people who live in poorer areas.

UPFs are defined by how many industrial processes they have been through and the number of ingredients – often unpronounceable – on their packaging. Most are high in fat, sugar or salt; many you’d call fast food.

What unites them is their synthetic look and taste, which has made them a target for some clean-living advocates.

There is a growing body of evidence that these foods aren’t good for us. But experts can’t agree how exactly they affect us or why, and it’s not clear that science is going to give us an answer any time soon.

While recent research shows many pervasive health problems, including cancers, heart disease, obesity and depression are to UPFs, there’s no proof, as yet, that they are by them.

For example, a recent meeting of the American Society for Nutrition in Chicago was presented with an observational study of more than 500,000 people in the US. It found that those who ate the most UPFs had a roughly 10% greater chance of dying, even accounting for their body-mass index and overall quality of diet.

In recent years, lots of other observational studies have shown a similar link – but that’s not the same as proving that food is processed causes health problems, or pinning down which aspect of those processes might be to blame.

So how could we get to the truth about ultra-processed food?

The kind of study needed to prove definitively that UPFs cause health problems would be extremely complex, suggests Dr Nerys Astbury, a senior researcher in diet and obesity at Oxford University.

It would need to compare a large number of people on two diets – one high in UPFs and one low in UPFs, but matched exactly for calorie and macronutrient content. This would be fiendishly difficult to actually do.

Participants would need to be kept under lock and key so their food intake could be tightly managed. The study would also need to enrol people with similar diets as a starting point. It would be extremely challenging logistically.

And to counter the possibility that people who eat fewer UPFs might just have healthier lifestyles such as through taking more exercise or getting more sleep, the participants of the groups would need to have very similar habits.

“It would be expensive research, but you could see changes from the diets relatively quickly,” Dr Astbury says.

Funding for this type of research could also be hard to come by. There might be accusations of conflicts of interest, since researchers motivated to run these kind of trials may have an idea of what they want the conclusions to be before they started.

These trials couldn’t last for very long, anyway – too many participants would most likely drop out. It would be impractical to tell hundreds of people to stick to a strict diet for more than a few weeks.

And what could these hypothetical trials really prove, anyway?

Duane Mellor, lead for nutrition and evidence-based medicine at Aston University, says nutrition scientists cannot prove specific foods are good or bad or what effect they have on an individual. They can only show potential benefits or risks.

“The data does not show any more or less,” he says. Claims to the contrary are “poor science”, he says.

Another option would be to look at the effect of common food additives present in UPFs on a lab model of the human gut – which is something scientists are busy doing.

There’s a wider issue, however – the amount of confusion around what actually counts as UPFs.

Generally, they include more than five ingredients, few of which you would find in a typical kitchen cupboard.

Instead, they’re typically made from cheap ingredients such as modified starches, sugars, oils, fats and protein isolates. Then, to make them more appealing to the tastebuds and eyes, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, sweeteners, and glazing agents are added.

They range from the obvious (sugary breakfast cereals, fizzy drinks, slices of American cheese) to the perhaps more unexpected (supermarket humous, low-fat yoghurts, some mueslis).

And this raises the questions: how helpful is a label that puts chocolate bars in the same league as tofu? Could some UPFs affect us differently to others?

• Adolescents get most calories from processed food
• Could ultra-processed foods be harmful for us?
• Ultra-processed foods ‘make you eat more’

In order to find out more, BBC News spoke to the Brazilian professor who came up with the term “ultra-processed food” in 2010.

Prof Carlos Monteiro also developed the Nova classification system, which ranges from “whole foods” (such as legumes and vegetables) at one end of the spectrum, via “processed culinary ingredients” (such as butter) then “processed foods” (things like tinned tuna and salted nuts) all the way through to UPFs.

The system was developed after obesity in Brazil continued to rise as sugar consumption fell, and Prof Monteiro wondered why. He believes our health is influenced not only by the nutrient content of the food we eat, but also through the industrial processes used to make it and preserve it.

He says he didn’t expect the current huge attention on UPFs but he claims “it’s contributing to a paradigm shift in nutrition science”.

However, many nutritionists say the fear of UPFs is overheated.

Gunter Kuhnle, professor of nutrition and food science at the University of Reading, says the concept is “vague” and the message it sends is “negative”, making people feel confused and scared of food.

It’s true that currently, there’s no concrete evidence that the way food is processed damages our health.

Processing is something we do every day – chopping, boiling and freezing are all processes, and those things aren’t harmful.

And when food is processed at scale by manufacturers, it helps to ensure the food is safe, preserved for longer and that waste is reduced.

Take frozen fish fingers as an example. They use up leftover bits of fish, provide kids with some healthy food and save parents time – but they still count as UPFs.

And what about meat-replacement products such as Quorn? Granted, they don’t look like the original ingredient from which they are made (and therefore fall under the Nova definition of UPFs), but they are seen as healthy and nutritious.

“If you make a cake or brownie at home and compare it with one that comes already in a packet that’s got taste enhancers, do I think there’s any difference between those two foods? No, I don’t,” Dr Astbury tells me.

The body responsible for food safety in England, the Food Standards Agency, acknowledges reports that people who eat a lot of UPFs have a greater risk of heart disease and cancer, but says it won’t take any action on UPFs until there’s evidence of them causing a specific harm.

Last year, the government’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) looked at the same reports and concluded there were “uncertainties around the quality of evidence available”. It also had some concerns around the practical application of the Nova system in the UK.

For his part, Prof Monteiro is most worried about processes involving intense heat, such as the manufacturing of breakfast cereal flakes and puffs, which he claims “degrade the natural food matrix”.

He points to a small study suggesting this results in loss of nutrients and therefore leaves us feeling less full, meaning we’re more tempted to make up the shortfall with extra calories.

It’s also difficult to ignore the creeping sense of self-righteousness and – whisper it – snobbery around UPFs, which can make people feel guilty for eating them.

Dr Adrian Brown, specialist dietician and senior research fellow at University College London, says demonising one type of food isn’t helpful, especially when what and how we eat is such a complicated issue. “We have to be mindful of the moralisation of food,” he says.

Living a UPF-free life can be expensive – and cooking meals from scratch takes time, effort and planning.

A recent Food Foundation report found that more healthy foods were twice as expensive as less healthy foods per calorie, and the poorest 20% of the UK population would need to spend half their disposable income on food to meet the government’s healthy diet recommendations. It would cost the wealthiest only 11% of theirs.

I asked Prof Monteiro if it’s even possible to live without UPFs.

“The question here should be: is it feasible to stop the growing consumption of UPFs?” he says. “My answer is: it is not easy, but it is possible.”

Many experts say the current traffic light system on food labels (which flags up high, medium and low levels of sugar, fat and salt) is simple and helpful enough as a guide when you’re shopping.

There are smartphone apps now available for the uncertain shopper, such as the Yuka app, with which you can scan a barcode and get a breakdown of how healthy the product is.

And of course there’s the advice you already know – eat more fruit, vegetables, wholegrains and beans, while cutting back on fat and sugary snacks. Sticking to that remains a good idea, whether or not scientists ever prove UPFs are harmful.

Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada is one of the most notorious names in drug war history, synonymous with the fearsome power and corrosive influence of the most important drug cartel in the world.

The last of an original generation of drug cartel leaders, he created the Sinaloa Cartel alongside Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman from the remnants of the Guadalajara Cartel after it collapsed in 1989.

But unlike his infamous partner who was twice jailed and escaped, El Mayo was able to evade capture for some 35 years. Until now.

US authorities arrested him in El Paso, Texas on Thursday. He has already pleaded not guilty to multiple charges in federal court in Texas.

He was lured to the US as part of an elaborate sting operation, masterminded by the son of his former partner, El Chapo. Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of the heirs to El Chapo’s operation, was arrested alongside Zambada having led him to believe he was travelling to northern Mexico to look at prospective properties for clandestine airstrips.

“Are you worried of being captured?” Zambada was asked in 2010 by the late Mexican journalist, Julio Scherer García, who had travelled deep into the mountains for an unprecedented interview with the drug lord.

“The idea of being jailed gives me panic,” he answered. “I’m not sure I have what it takes to kill myself. I’d like to think I do and that I’d take my own life.”

When it came to it, however, either he didn’t have the means or the opportunity.

For someone who exercised such caution over so many years, it seems extraordinary that Zambada was duped aged 76. Perhaps it was always going to take something unique to see him in custody.

“It doesn’t surprise me that Zambada didn’t go willingly,” says Mike Vigil, a former DEA agent. “He is in his 70s, in poor health and already said that prison was his greatest fear.”

The arrests – and possible plea deal between the sons of El Chapo, known as Los Chapitos, and the US Government – begs the question of who will take control of the Sinaloa Cartel.

After El Chapo Guzman was arrested and extradited to the US in 2016, a round of bloodletting began as rival factions wrestled for control of territory as well as fought opposing drug gangs who sensed weakness.

Even more shocking, and violent, was the response of the Sinaloa Cartel’s foot soldiers when their leader, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, was arrested in October 2019.

After he was detained, hundreds of gunmen descended on the city of Culiacan and opened fire on civilian, police and military targets with .50 calibre weapons and rocket launchers. Eventually, the authorities handed Ovidio Guzman back to his men to bring the fighting to an end.

He was later re-arrested, extradited and is currently awaiting trial in a US prison.

Mike Vigil thinks a similar explosion of violence, which became known as the Culiacanazo, might be avoided this time around:

“The Sinaloa Cartel has a very strong bench of possible leaders who could take over including El Chapo’s brother,” he says.

In fact, Mr Vigil argues, the “Kingpin strategy” – that is focusing on bringing down individual cartel leaders – is rarely successful.

“Under the administration of (then-Mexican President Felipe) Calderon, it only tended to create internal conflict within the cartels which then led to a bloodbath.”

If that happens this time, suggests former DEA agent Mike Vigil, “the only winner would be their rivals, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG)”.

That said, moments of flux and possible power vacuums such as this one are deeply unpredictable. The Mexican authorities have already sent additional forces to the state of Sinaloa ahead of any flare-up of violence.

The other obvious question over Zambada’s arrest is: why now?

The operation was planned for months. However, some reports say there was also an opportunistic element to it. When the various elements behind the ruse appeared to be coming together, despite some scepticism among the US authorities, they ultimately decided they had nothing lose by trying it.

The bigger reason behind the timing, though, was revealed by the words of the US Attorney General Merrick Garland in a video message confirming the arrests:

“Fentanyl is the deadliest threat our country has ever faced”, he said promising that the US justice department “will not rest until every single cartel leader, member and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.”

Fentanyl overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45. It is a staggering statistic and one that has perhaps focussed minds in the Biden administration, especially in an election year.

Both Los Chapitos and El Mayo have made billions through fentanyl, which is easy to produce and transport without the need for large coca plantations in the Andes as with the manufacture of cocaine.

Experts say that shutting down the smuggling of fentanyl altogether is virtually impossible. It is simply too profitable to the cartels and too riven into the modern landscape of Mexico’s drug war.

However, US law enforcement wants to hurt the cartels that are producing it, diminish their influence and, wherever possible, dismantle their leadership.

The capture of El Mayo Zambada – even if aging, in poor health and captured in a double-cross – was always going to remain a key part of that strategy.

Donald Trump has told one of the largest cryptocurrency events of the year that if he is re-elected president he will fire the chairperson of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the first day.

Trump was the keynote speaker at Bitcoin 2024 on Saturday, a gathering of industry heavyweights in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Republican presidential candidate used the event to court voters and encourage campaign donations from the tech community.

Cryptocurrency has emerged as a political battleground for Republicans, with Trump claiming the Democratic Party and Vice-President Kamala Harris were “against crypto”.

The audience was at its most animated when Trump declared “on day one I will fire Gary Gensler”, the SEC chair nominated by current President Joe Biden. The crowd cheered loudly and started to chant “Trump” at this declaration.

Mr Gensler led a crackdown on the crypto industry, and has previously said the sector is rife with “hucksters”.

The SEC brought charges against the “King of Crypto” Sam Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years for stealing billions of dollars from customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

Speaking for about 45 minutes, Trump outlined some of his ideas for the sector if he were to win November’s election. He said he would make the US the cryptocurrency capital of the world. His support for the industry is a 180 turn from his comments in 2021, when he told Fox Business he saw Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar.

Trump told the crowd at the event he would keep 100% of Bitcoin that the US government currently holds or acquires, adding that it would be a “national Bitcoin stockpile”.

The former president also said he would “immediately appoint a Bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory council”.

• Why tech bros are turning to Trump

He talked about the power needed to mine cryptocurrency. “You need tremendous amounts of electricity” he said, adding he would build powerplants “to get that done” and would be “using fossil fuels”.

There has been increasing support among some tech leaders for Trump’s presidential campaign in recent months. Tesla founder Elon Musk, who is the world’s richest person, has endorsed Trump. And crypto tycoons, the Winklevoss twins, who were at Saturday’s speech, have also rallied behind him.

Trump brought up that his campaign takes cryptocurrency donations, saying in the two months since he allowed crypto transactions, he received $25m (£20m) in donations. However, he did not say how much of the payments were from cryptocurrency.

Trump used his speech to frame cryptocurrency regulation as a partisan issue, saying the Biden administration was “anti-crypto”.

A number of Republican lawmakers also attended Trump’s speech, including Senators Tim Scott and Tommy Tuberville. Former Republican presidential candidate and Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy was there as well.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr and Democratic Party lawmakers Wiley Nickel and Ro Khanna also spoke at the event.

Earlier at Bitcoin 2024 , Democratic congressman Nickel said Kamala Harris was taking a “forward-looking approach to digital assets and blockchain technology”.

“It’s so confusing sometimes to be a girl,” sings Charli XCX on her latest album, Brat.

The vulnerable lyrics, existential questions and honest exploration of the complexity and contradictions of womanhood has turned Brat into much more than a collection of music.

For millennials and Gen Z, it reflects a highly relatable way of life.

Brat is, in the words of Charli XCX, a girl who “has a breakdown, but kind of like parties through it”, who is honest, blunt, “a little bit volatile”. In recent weeks, brat has become a mainstream phenomenon.

In the same week that my grandmother told me one of her friends was “giving brat”, Charli tweeted “Kamala IS brat” and the US Democratic presidential nominee rebranded her X profile.

Charli isn’t the only pop girl ditching the bland approach.

The likes of Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter aren’t your typical perfectly polished and carefully manicured pop stars: they’re messy and candid artists that wear their heart on their sleeve. Both have been dominating the charts this summer.

They all stand out because they share a certain perspective on life. They appear honest and authentic, with opinions and life experience.

There are only so many times you can bop to songs with slick beats and meaningless mantras about girl power. Eventually you crave something more, and that’s what this new wave of pop girl is offering.

In Brat, Charli candidly explores what it’s like transitioning into your thirties. In her truth-telling hit Von Dutch she doesn’t care if people gossip about her, while her high-energy anthems 360 and 365 are wild, carefree and tell us that we can still have big nights out (phew!).

At the same time, she offers a personal and introspective reflection on topics such as Motherhood: “I think about it all the time / That I might run out of time / Would it give my life a new purpose?”

The existential questions resonate with most millennial women. Should I be having children? When is the right time? Will it change my life? What if I have other aspirations?

Josee Malon, a 23-year-old social executive from Kent, says she admires Charli because she gives fans “such an insightful look into her creative mindset and her personality and you don’t get this with all musicians”.

“Beyoncé, for example, is private and mysterious, some people think that’s part of her allure and appeal, but for me that works against her. Why would I want to be influenced by someone who gives me zero energy?

“Charli XCX gives 110% energy, she lets you into her life and feels like a friend.”

It’s not just women who are a fan of these pop girls. Spencer Caminsky, a 26-year-old political campaign manager, has followed Charli since 2016 and loves Brat because “it’s so much more raw and direct”.

“It’s all the great things about her past works and now expands upon the more vulnerable aspects of her life that she’s never spoken about – you really feel her emotion and regret.”

Meanwhile, 26-year-old queer pop icon Chappell Roan has built a strong Gen Z following.

Although not the first queer female pop artist, her drag queen outfits, sexually empowered lyrics and scorching-hot melodies make her one of the most mainstream.

Chappell’s music focuses heavily on her queer identity – Pink Pony Club was inspired by her first visit to a gay club, while Good Luck, Babe is about a fling with a girl who insists she’s not really gay.

Jonah Graham, 25, says he’s a fan of Chappell’s “unashamedly queer” music because she “lets people know there is a place for them to come together through big emotions, an irreverent sense of humour and boundless joy”.

But even without having the same experiences that Chappell sings of, the themes of rejection, freedom, acceptance and self-discovery are universal.

Kamala Harris has also leaned into Roan in a bid to appeal to young voters, posting a meme on TikTok quoting Roan’s lyrics: “What we really need is a femininomenon!”

While Ms Harris isn’t part of the demographic that Chappell and Charli resonate most with, and almost certainly isn’t “someone who has a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra”, according to Charli’s brat definition, that isn’t the point.

Lucy Ford, a culture critic, told the BBC that “Kamala is brat in the sense that she’s a dominating cultural force right now and there’s been a separation from the album and the cultural hold it has as a vibe”.

Fun and cheeky pop music is something Sabrina Carpenter has become a master in – the 25-year-old has taken Taylor Swift’s confessional style and added a healthy dose of humour.

Her x-rated ad-lib Nonsense outros never fail to cause a stir. “BBC said I should keep it PG / BBC I wish I had it in me/There’s a double meaning if you dig deep,”she sang at Radio 1’s Big Weekend.

“Sabrina is being unabashedly horny in her music,” Ford explains. “It feels like an embrace of fun and silliness and not taking things too seriously.”

In other songs, she flips the typical romantic pop song on its head. This time he’s obsessed with her, and “looks so cute wrapped round my finger”.

Her self-indulgence – and being unapologetic about loving attention – is totally brat. Why should we pretend that knowing someone has a crush on you isn’t a little exciting?

But why is that this summer in particular, fans are craving complex, messy music?

Content writer Olivia Cox has recently got into all three artists and says what makes them stand out is that they each, in their own way, “embrace silliness”.

“It feels like pop music has been taking itself too seriously,” she says.

Rachel Humphreys, a 29-year-old Digital PR Manager from Pontefract says the artists are a “cultural reset” and offer an element of escapism.

The music is a “welcome distraction from the daily pressures of adult-ing”.

Ford says one of the factors at play for why this phenomenon is occurring now, is that it’s a “response to very sentimental, ‘celebrities, they’re just like us’ sentiments in music of the past few years, where artists bear their souls to meet their fans at eye level”.

All of these reasons point to why the dated feminist slogans – like those in Katy Perry’s latest single Woman’s World – don’t resonate with millennials or Gen Z.

Perry’s satirical music video, showing women dancing around a construction site in tiny outfits, using urinals and brandishing sex toys, seems inauthentic compared with music by these Gen Z artists.

But the smart, forthright pop songs we’re listening to now are not as new as we might think.

Mercury Prize nominee CMAT told the BBC “there’s nothing sudden” about this phenomenon.

“Women have always been crafting stories in this funny, tragi-comic way, but the people who wanted to hear it were other women – who, up until recently, were not considered a very [desirable] market.”

She said her own music was criticised a few years ago and labelled “novelty music” because it was humorous.

“There was never a conversation before about it being highbrow or something we should take seriously – because nobody takes women seriously,” she added.

The likes of Madonna and Lady Gaga laid the groundwork for this music, but the modern trend starts with the likes of Lorde, who punctured the absurd positivity of 2010s pop lyrics on Team – “I’m kind of over getting told to put my hands up in the air” and Billie Eilish.

One of her first songs was written from the point of view of a psychopath with a car trunk full of dead bodies.

Her music has carried on being wonderfully weird – every track on her new album Hit Me Hard And Soft plays with that duality.

Dynamics shift, ideas are unresolved and nothing ever settles.

That’s a feeling that many people will have felt a little over the past couple of years.

To achieve longevity, today’s brats will need to intuit when the sands of pop, and of wider culture, will shift again – and get there before everyone else.

Donald Trump’s vice-presidential candidate JD Vance has defended resurfaced comments in which he called Democratic politicians a “bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives”.

His remarks, made in 2021, have been roundly criticised this week, with Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston among those to have hit out at the 39-year-old Republican.

“Obviously it was a sarcastic comment. People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said,” Mr Vance told the conservative media personality Megyn Kelly on Friday.

“The substance of what I said, Megyn – I’m sorry, it’s true,” he added.

Mr Vance, who has three children, said he was not criticising people who do not have children in the interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which he gave while running for the Senate.

“This is about criticising the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-children,” he told The Megyn Kelly Show.

“The simple point that I made is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way,” he said.

“I’m making an argument that our entire society has become sceptical and even hateful towards the idea of having kids.”

In the original interview, he questioned why some leading politicians did not have children. One of those he named was Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for November’s election, who is stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children.

“The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” he said at the time. “How does it make any sense we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”

The Senator from Ohio said the country was being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too”.

On Friday, Mr Vance said: “I wish her step-children and Kamala Harris and her whole family the very best. The point is not that she’s lesser. The point is that her party has pursued a set of policies that are profoundly anti-child.”

Mr Vance made similar remarks against Democrats in a 2021 speech at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, in which he also said his criticism was not directed at those who could not have children for biological or medical reasons.

Jennifer Aniston, who has spoken publicly about her struggles while trying to have children through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), was among those who criticised his comments.

“I truly can’t believe that this is coming from a potential VP of the United States,” she said on Thursday.

Pete Buttigieg, who was another Democratic politician named by Mr Vance in the original interview, also addressed the comments earlier this week, speaking about adopting twins with his husband, Chasten.

“The really sad thing is he said that after Chasten and I had been through a fairly heart-breaking setback in our adoption journey,” Mr Buttigieg told CNN’s The Source programme.

Speaking to Fox News, Trump co-campaign chairman Chris LaCivita rejected any suggestion that Trump might regret his choice of running mate.

“JD was the best pick,” Mr LaCivita said. “The president loves him. We love him.”