Security forces in Venezuela have fired tear gas and rubber bullets against people protesting over Sunday’s disputed election result.

Thousands of people descended on central Caracas on Monday evening, some walking for miles from slums on the mountains surrounding the city, towards the presidential palace.

Protests erupted in the Venezuelan capital the day after President Nicolás Maduro claimed he had won.

The opposition has disputed Mr Maduro’s declaration of victory as fraudulent, saying its candidate Edmundo González won convincingly with 73.2% of the vote.

Opinion polls ahead of the election suggested a clear victory for the challenger.

Opposition parties had united behind Mr González in an attempt to unseat President Maduro after 11 years in power, amid widespread discontent over the country’s economic crisis.

A number of Western and Latin American countries, as well as international bodies including the UN, have called on the Venezuelan authorities to release voting records from individual polling stations.

Argentina is one country which has refused to recognise President Maduro’s election victory, and in response Venezuela recalled diplomats from Buenos Aires.

Diplomats from six other Latin American countries – Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay – have also been withdrawn for what Foreign Affairs Minister Yvan Gil described on social media as “interventionist actions and statements”.

Venezuela’s government also announced a temporary suspension of commercial air flights to and from Venezuela with Panama and the Dominican Republic starting from 20:00 local time on Wednesday.

• Choreographed celebrations but opposition demands proof

A heavy military and police presence, including water cannons, was on the streets of Caracas with the aim of trying to disperse protesters and prevent them from approaching the presidential palace.

Crowds of people chanted “Freedom, freedom!” and called for the government to fall.

Footage showed tyres burning on highways and large numbers of people on the streets, with police on motorbikes firing tear gas.

In some areas, posters of President Maduro were ripped down and burned while tyres, cars and rubbish have also been set alight.

Armed police, military and left-wing paramilitaries who are sympathetic to the government clashed with protesters and blocked off many roads around the city centre.

The BBC spoke to a number of people who attended one protest in a densely-populated area known as La Lucha, meaning “the fight”.

Paola Sarzalejo, 41, said the vote was “terrible, fraud. We won with 70%, but they did the same thing to us again. They took the elections from us again.

“We want a better future for our youth, for our country.”

Her father Miguel, 64, agreed, saying: “He lost the elections, he has no right to be there right now.”

He added: “We want a better future for the youth because if not they will leave the country. One where they can work well and earn well. We have a rich country and he is destroying everything.

“If the youth all leave, only old people will be left in Venezuela, only senior citizens.”

Cristobal Martinez, draped in a Venezuelan flag, said he thought the election was a “fraud”.

He said most young people in La Lucha and surrounding areas had voted in an election that was particularly important for young people as “many of us are unemployed” and “the majority do not study”.

“It was the first time I have voted in my life. I was there from six in the morning until approximately nine in the morning and I saw a lot of people mobilising in the street.

“There was a lot of discontent towards the government. The majority of people were participating for change.”

He said while President Maduro had been in office for a long time there had not been “any change” and it had been “worse since President Chavez died”.

He accused some older people who sympathised with the government of living off bonuses or food handouts whereas “we want a change, we want decent jobs, a good future for our country”.

Mr Martinez said he wanted “people from other countries to help us… so that a disaster doesn’t happen like in previous times”.

Mr Maduro has accused the opposition of calling for a coup by disputing the results. “This is not the first time we are facing what we are facing today,” he said.

“They are trying to impose in Venezuela a coup d’etat again of fascist and counter-revolutionary character.”

The Venezuelan attorney general warned that the blocking of roads or breaking any laws related to disturbances as part of protests would be met with the full force of the law and that 32 people had been detained on accusations ranging from destroying electoral materials to sparking acts of violence.

Meanwhile, US senior administration officials said that the announced result “does not track with data that we’ve received through quick count mechanisms and other sources, which suggests that the result that was announced may be at odds with how people voted”.

That was “the principal source of our concern”, they added.

“That is why we are asking the Venezuelan electoral authorities to release the underlying data that supports the numbers that they have publicly announced.”

However, the US has not yet been drawn on what the result means for their sanctions policy towards Venezuela. Officials have emphasised that while they have doubts about the result, President Maduro did call an election and allow an opposition candidate to be on the ballot paper – even if the opposition leader was banned from running.

The Organization of American States (OAS) announced late on Monday it will hold a meeting on Wednesday of its permanent council over the Venezuelan results.

The drowning of three students in the basement of an exam coaching centre in India’s capital Delhi has sparked anger and protests.

The students, all in their 20s, died on Saturday night after getting trapped in the flooded basement where they were studying.

Police have arrested seven people, including the owner of the institute, and registered cases against them for causing death by negligence.

The institute, Rau’s IAS Study Circle, is one among several in the capital where thousand of students enrol to prepare for tough national exams.

The three victims – Shreya Yadav, Tanya Soni and Nivin Dalwin – were studying for India’s Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exams, which decide who becomes a civil servant, a much-coveted government job in India.

But many of these institutes, which are run out of cramped buildings in residential neighbourhoods, are accused of routinely flouting safety norms.

Since Saturday, authorities in Delhi have sealed about a dozen coaching centres in the area for holding classes illegally in their basements.

The incident has also triggered a political row between the Delhi government and federal authorities, with both sides accusing the other of negligence.

Delhi is a federally-administered territory and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-run local government does not have full administrative powers.

Hundreds of students have held protests around the area, accusing the administration of not doing its duty and ignoring complaints.

The tragedy unfolded on Saturday evening, after the capital had received heavy rains through the day.

Delhi’s fire department received a call around 19:00 local time (14:30 GMT) about water entering the basement of the coaching centre in Old Rajinder Nagar.

The institute operated a library and reading room in the basement – illegally, government officials later said – and around three dozen students and some staff members were inside at the time.

Some students have told media that a gate at the entrance of the coaching centre collapsed, causing water accumulated on the road to rush in. But other reports said that a nearby drain burst due to heavy rains, resulting in a deluge.

Witnesses said the basement flooded quickly, giving people little time to escape. While some managed to do so, others had to be rescued by the authorities.

It isn’t clear what caused the three students to get trapped inside the basement.

A student named Rajan (who used only one name) told BBC Hindi that days before the incident, the doors of the basement library had been replaced with ones that had a biometric system.

“It seems that due to water-logging, the biometric system failed and people could not get out,” he alleged.

Officials from the institute have not addressed this allegation. In a statement, Rau’s IAS Study Circle said it was “deeply saddened” by the deaths and was “co-operating fully” with the investigation.

The bodies of the three students were recovered by divers who searched the basement for several hours.

Authorities said the coaching centre only had permission to use the basement as a storeroom and for parking, and that the library was run illegally.

They also said that drains in the area had been clogged by silt, which caused water to overflow on the road.

On Sunday, several students studying for the UPSC exam – held protests demanding that strict action be taken against those responsible for Saturday’s tragedy. They also criticised poor infrastructure in the capital.

Vikram (who gave only one name) told BBC Hindi that aspirants paid hundreds of thousands of rupees in coaching fees and rent.

“But what are you giving us? Death,” he said.

Several others recalled an incident last year when a fire broke out at a UPSC coaching centre in Mukherjee Nagar in Delhi. Videos showed students smashing windows and rappelling down the building using wires and ropes. Many students sustained burn injuries.

Saturday’s incident has sparked a row between Delhi’s governing Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led federal government.

The BJP has blamed the AAP for not carrying out de-silting of drains and for the poor condition of roads. The AAP has accused Delhi’s lieutenant governor – who is appointed by the federal government – for not taking action against erring officials and claimed that bureaucrats are not following orders from ministers.

AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested in March on corruption allegations that he has denied – he was released for three weeks during the general election to campaign for his party but has otherwise remained in jail.

The incident was also discussed in parliament on Monday, with opposition lawmakers asking the federal government what steps it was taking to ensure that the perpetrators would be brought to justice. The BJP lawmakers criticised Delhi’s AAP government in parliament and called for action against them for neglecting their duties towards the city residents.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor flagged “widespread violations of building codes, fire safety and flood safety regulations” in Delhi.

An image is worth a thousand words – sometimes, it can even stir a nation.

In Bangladesh, it was the image of university student Abu Sayeed standing with open arms, stick in hand, facing heavily-armed police alone which many credit as the turning point in the recent widespread protest in the country against quotas in government jobs.

Within seconds, as the video shows, the young man was shot at – but still he continues to stand, even as the sounds of more shots ring out. He collapses a few minutes later.

The 16 July incident quickly went viral, triggering more students to jump into the agitation against reservations in civil service jobs for the family members of the veterans of the country’s independence war in 1971.

What followed were days of unrest, marked by an unprecedented ferocity of violence. Bangladesh security agencies are accused of a disproportionate use of force – firing tear gas, rubber bullets, pellet guns, sound grenades and live rounds – a charge they deny. A curfew was eventually brought in, with a shoot-on-sight order.

The highly-respected Bengali daily Prothom Alo and the AFP news agency say more than 200 people were killed in the violence, including several students and three police officers. Official government statistics stand at 147, according to the home minister.

But exact details – and more videos showing what was happening on the streets – have been slow to emerge, in part due to the internet shutdown imposed by the government.

However, since the broadband was partially restored last week, more visuals of the violence have come to light.

In one, substantiated by the BBC’s Verify Team, a young man is trying to pull his injured friend to safety in the Jatrabari area of the capital Dhaka.

Within seconds, a plain-clothes officer with a helmet appears to be firing in the direction of the two. After a while, the young man leaves his mortally wounded friend and sprints away to safety.

What both this and the video of Abu Sayeed show are “unlawful killings”, Irene Khan, a senior UN expert told the BBC.

“Abu Sayeed was not posing any threat to police. But what they do is shoot him point blank, it is a clear display of unjustified, disproportionate violence,” Ms Khan, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, explained.

Bangladeshi junior minister of information and broadcasting Mohammad Ali Arafat agreed the video of Mr Sayeed being shot appeared “unlawful”.

“That was absolutely vivid and clear,” he said. “The guy was standing stretching his hands and chest, very short distance he was shot.”

Mr Arafat added the incident would be investigated, saying an independent judicial committee had been formed to investigate.

A third video checked and substantiated by the BBC’s Verify Team showed heavily armed troops firing at a group of protesters at a distance in the Mohammadpur area of Dhaka.

But a spokesman for Dhaka Metropolitan police, Faruk Hossain, defended their actions, saying police fired only in self-defence.

“Police use force to save life and property. Any police officer opened (fire) only when it is questioned of private (self) defence situation,” Mr Hossain said in a WhatsApp message.

Officials produced videos of another incident, which appears to show a crowd targeting a police van and later beating up an officer inside the van in the Uttara area of Dhaka.

“They [protesters] killed a police officer and hung him upside down in the Jatrabari area of Dhaka,” Mr Arafat alleged. A ruling party activist was also allegedly beaten to death.

The violence was “not one-sided – people need to see both sides, to see what happened”, Mr Arafat said, adding security forces were outnumbered and attacked in several places because they were not allowed to open fire.

A second video sent by the government showed an injured police officer being carried away by his colleagues.

The government alleges supporters of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami party infiltrated the student protests and launched violent attacks on security forces and set fire to state property.

Critics dismiss the claim as an attempt by the governing Awami League to divert attention.

Since the protests died down, activists and local media say the government has unleashed a crackdown by arresting more than 9,000 people, including opposition supporters.

Student protest leaders have also been rounded up – a move the government said was “for their own safety”.

With the government going hard on the demonstrators, experts warn that Bangladesh could witness further unrest.

“There is no trust between the state and the people, you can see that. That’s why you are having these protests and the terrible situation,” the UN expert Ms Khan said.

Bin Yamin Mollah, one of the coordinators of the student movement, who is in hiding “living in fear” of arrest, echoed her sentiment.

“The government has betrayed us,” he told the BBC.

Two children have been killed and nine injured, six critically, in a “ferocious” knife attack at a children’s dance workshop.

Two adults are also in a critical condition after being stabbed as they tried to protect children at the Taylor Swift-themed event on Hart Street in Southport, Merseyside Police said.

A 17-year-old boy, from Banks in Lancashire, has been arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.

Police said the motivation for the attack was “unclear” but it was not being treated as terror-related.

• What we know so far about the attack

One witness described the scene as “horrendous” and said they had “never seen anything like it”.

The King and the prime minister have led tributes to the victims, offering their “heartfelt condolences” to those affected.

Merseyside Police declared a major incident after receiving emergency calls at 11.47 BST, on what was the first full week of the school summer holidays for many children in the UK.

Armed response vehicles, 13 ambulances and the fire service rushed to the dance class, which was being held for children aged six to 10.

Chief Constable Serena Kennedy told a news conference that officers responding to the calls “were shocked” to find that multiple people, many of whom were children, had been subjected to a “ferocious attack” and had suffered serious injuries.

“It is understood that the children were attending a Taylor Swift event at a dance school when the offender armed with a knife walked into the premises and started to attack the children,” she said.

“We believe that the adults who were injured were bravely trying to protect the children who were being attacked.”

She added: “As a mum of two daughters, and the nana of a five-year-old granddaughter, I cannot begin to imagine the pain and suffering the families of the victims are currently going through and I want to send them our heartfelt condolences and sympathies”.

Ms Kennedy said the 17-year-old suspect, who police said was born in Cardiff, will now be questioned by detectives.

Merseyside Police said it was not looking for anyone else in connection with the attack and that the “motivation for the incident remains unclear”.

Ms Kennedy added that Counter Terrorism Police North West had offered their support to Merseyside Police but that the incident was not currently being treated as terror-related.

Journalist Tim Johnson, from Eye on Southport, said the attack happened at the Hope of Hart children’s club, which is housed in a former warehouse building on a back street.

“It was horrendous. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Mr Johnson said.

“There were so many police cars, it was a mass of blue lights. I saw ambulance men and women in tears. People were in tears in the streets.”

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital declared a “major incident”, while the North West Ambulance Service said it had sent 13 ambulances to the scene.

Dave Kitchin, head of operations at the ambulance service, said they treated 11 casualties at the scene, who were sent by emergency ambulance and heli-med to Alder Hey and Royal Manchester Children’s hospitals, Aintree University Hospital, Southport and Formby District General Hospital and Ormskirk District General Hospital.

He described the scene that met paramedics as “devastating”, adding, “no doubt this incident will have a lasting impact on the whole community, and our thoughts are very much with them at this difficult time”.

Great North Air Ambulance Service confirmed its critical care team was also sent to the scene.

A spokesman added: “We delivered advanced emergency care to one patient before accompanying them to hospital by road.”

Colin Parry, owner of Masters Vehicle Body Repairs, which is next door to where the attack happened, said that shortly before it began there was a commotion outside because a young man wearing a green hoodie and a face mask had arrived by taxi but was refusing to pay the driver.

He said an employee called him back out a short time later and that he saw numerous “young kids, all bleeding”.

“It’s like something from America, not like sunny Southport.”

Mr Parry told BBC Radio 5 Live that a builder helped lead some of the children away from the scene of the attack and neighbours helped take “about 10 girls to safety”.

“The community was coming together, everyone was trying to help. Everyone was trying to save the young kids,” he added.

In a statement on X, The King said he and his wife were “profoundly shocked” to hear of the “utterly horrific incident”.

He added: “We send our most heartfelt condolences, prayers and deepest sympathies to the families and loved ones of those who have so tragically lost their lives, and to all those affected by this truly appalling attack.”

The Prince and Princess of Wales called the attack “horrid and heinous” adding that they were sending “love, thoughts and prayers to all those involved”.

They said on X: “As parents, we cannot begin to imagine what the families, friends and loved ones of those killed and injured in Southport today are going through.

“Thank you also to the emergency responders who, despite being met with the most horrific scenes, demonstrated compassion and professionalism when your community needed you most.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “I know the whole country is deeply shocked about what they’ve seen and what they’ve heard.

“I know I speak for everyone in the whole country in saying, our thoughts and condolences are with the victims, their families, their friends and the wider community and it’s almost impossible to imagine the grief that they’re going through, and the trauma that they’re going through.

“I do want to thank the emergency services and Merseyside Police who have had to respond to the most difficult of circumstances today.”

Southport FC, whose ground is only a few streets from the scene of the attack, said it had cancelled a pre-season friendly against Morecambe FC scheduled for Tuesday “out of respect to those who have so tragically lost their lives”.

It also said its club lounge would be open between 10:00 and 15:00 BST on Tuesday and specialist support staff available for anyone who wished to “gather, share their thoughts, and find support during this difficult time”.

Everton Football Club and Liverpool Football Club also offered their condolences to all those affected.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said she was “deeply concerned” about the “very serious incident”, while Southport MP Patrick Hurley added that he was “hoping for the best possible outcomes to the casualties affected”.

Steve Rotheram, mayor of Liverpool City Region, has urged the public not to spread “unconfirmed speculation and false information”.

Merseyside’s Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell said she was “utterly shocked and devastated” to hear of the “truly appalling” incident.

Councillor Marion Atkinson, Leader of Sefton Council, said the council was “deeply shocked and saddened at the tragic events”.

“Our thoughts are with all the victims of this attack and their families,” she said.

“I’d like to thank all those who responded to the incident and helped in any way they could in what must have been extremely difficult circumstances.

“We know this has caused concern and upset in the local community and while there is no immediate threat to the public we will be providing help and support in the coming days and weeks”.

A fundraiser for the victims and their families has been set up by a group of Taylor Swift fans, named “Swifties for Southport”.

Cristina Jones, from the UK and EU Taylor Swift Facebook group told BBC Newsbeat: “The idea that those parents are going through hell right now and the idea they had any financial stress over this breaks our hearts.”

“We can’t make it better in any way. But taking away some stress was definitely a priority for us”, she added.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised that Hezbollah will pay “a heavy price” for an attack that killed 12 children at a football pitch in Majdal Shams on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday.

The costs that Mr Netanyahu, his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Israel’s military chiefs decide to inflict on Hezbollah will determine whether the war either side of the Israel-Lebanon border stays limited and relatively controlled or explodes into something much worse.

The border war started the day after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October last year, when Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel to support the Palestinians.

Since then, it has been fought within a grisly set of unspoken understandings. Israel and Hezbollah have mostly aimed at military targets, though both have also killed civilians.

As a result, the war, though highly dangerous, has stayed limited. Even so, tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border have left their homes. Busy communities have become ghost towns.

The fear from the outset has been that a big attack on either side’s civilians would cause uncontrolled escalation and in turn, cause a much worse war, as both Israel and Hezbollah bring their full force to bear.

Action against Hezbollah in the largely depopulated areas of south Lebanon might avoid escalation. Killing Lebanese civilians in Beirut or destroying infrastructure like bridges or power stations would not.

Hezbollah claims, unconvincingly, that it did not carry out the attack in Majdal Shams. Even so, it is hard to see why it would target Druze children at a football match.

Hezbollah has mostly stuck to the tacit rules of the conflict, trying to kill soldiers, not civilians since it started the border war on 8 October.

It might have been aiming for the extensive Israeli early warning stations on military positions on Mount Hermon.

Hezbollah is a much more formidable enemy of Israel than Hamas. It is more powerful than the fragile Lebanese state and operates without consulting it.

Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah is close to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Hezbollah fighters are disciplined and well trained, and Iran has supplied them with a formidable arsenal of missiles that can hit Israel’s cities.

Hezbollah fought Israel to a standstill in their last big war in 2006. Its men have extensive combat experience after fighting for years in Syria in support of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Israel’s leadership know all that. They also know that despite their vast firepower they have not yet subdued Hamas in Gaza, and the reservists their army relies on are feeling considerable strain.

Israel is also under heavy pressure from its allies, including the US – without which it cannot sustain its war effort – not to take action that would escalate the war into an all-out fight.

The Americans and the French have tried to negotiate a way of de-escalating the Israel-Hezbollah border war. The absence of a ceasefire in Gaza blights their chances of success.

The border between Israel and Lebanon remains the mostly likely place for the wider Middle East war to intensify.

Even if the crisis caused by the killing of young football players and spectators in Majdal Shams passes without a much worse conflagration, the “rules” of the border war are tattered, imperfect, unstable and continue to carry the risk that a single bloody incident will touch off another catastrophic war.

Israeli far-right protesters have broken into an army base in a show of support for soldiers accused of severely mistreating a Palestinian prisoner there.

Large crowds gathered outside the Sde Teiman compound after Israeli military police entered it to detain the reservists, who are now subject to an official investigation.

Sde Teiman near Beersheba in southern Israel has for months been at the centre of reports of serious abuses against Gazan detainees.

On Monday dozens of protesters, including far-right MPs from Israel’s governing coalition, burst through the base’s gate as others tried to scale the fence, chanting “we will not abandon our friends, certainly not for terrorists”.

Some soldiers at the base reportedly used pepper spray against the military police personnel who arrived to detain the reservists.

Demonstrators also entered the Beit Lid military base in central Israel where the accused reservists have been taken for questioning.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement strongly condemning the break-in and calling for “an immediate calming of passions”.

The Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said the investigation into the soldiers’ conduct must be allowed to continue, adding “even in times of anger, the law applies to everyone”.

However some Israeli politicians have condemned the arrest of the reservists. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right National Security minister, called their detention “nothing less than shameful”.

According to local media reports, at least nine Israeli soldiers at the base are accused of abusing the Palestinian detainee, a suspected Hamas fighter who was captured in Gaza.

He is said to have been hospitalised after what Israeli media reports describe as serious sexual abuse and injuries to his anus that left him unable to walk.

The Israeli military said its advocate general had ordered an inquiry “following suspected substantial abuse of a detainee”.

Since the 7 October Hamas attack, Israeli authorities have rounded up and held thousands of Palestinians, often without legal representation.

The BBC has previously spoken to medical workers at a field hospital set up in Sde Teiman, who alleged that detainees have been blindfolded, permanently shackled to their beds, and made to wear nappies rather than having access to a toilet.

• Gazans ‘shackled and blindfolded’ at Israel hospital

Last month, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper published allegations made by a doctor at Sde Teiman that leg amputations had been carried out on two prisoners, because of cuffing injuries. The BBC has not independently verified the claims.

Detainees there have told journalists and United Nations officials that they were beaten and attacked. The Israeli Defence Forces have denied systematic abuse.

Many Gazans detained by Israel’s army are released without charge after interrogation. Amnesty International this month called on Israel to end the indefinite detention of Gaza Palestinians and what it called “rampant torture” in its prisons.

Donald Trump has agreed to be interviewed by the FBI as part of its investigation into the assassination attempt at his rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month.

In a call with reporters on Monday, the FBI did not give a date for the interview, but said it would be “a standard victim interview we do for any other victim of crime”.

“We want to get his perspective on what he observed,” FBI Special Agent Kevin Rojek said.

Despite poring over mountains of evidence, investigators are yet to determine a motive to explain why Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on 13 July.

Newly released text messages, meanwhile, have revealed the 20-year-old was spotted by a local Swat team more than 90 minutes before the shooting – much earlier than previously thought.

The messages obtained by the New York Times and ABC News will add to the list of security failures that preceded the assassination attempt against the former president.

On Monday, the FBI said investigators believe Crooks conducted “careful planning” ahead of the 13 July rally and made “significant efforts” to conceal his activities.

That planning – which included six purchases of components for explosive devices – was conducted in a manner that would not “significantly raise the suspicions of his parents”, Mr Rojek said.

Multiple investigations have been launched into what went wrong in securing Butler Fair Show grounds on 13 July.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned after admitting failures.

On the day of the shooting, the agency was in charge of security within a fenced area and local law enforcement were responsible for areas beyond that.

• The plan and the botched security at Trump rally
• What we know about Trump gunman

At 16:19 local time (21:19 BST), the local police sniper texted two colleagues who were in the second floor of a warehouse overlooking the site, telling them he was clocking off.

As he left the building, he saw a young man sitting at a picnic table and notifed the others, saying in a text “someone followed our lead and snuck in and parked by our cars just so you know”.

By 17:38 Crooks had moved from the table to the warehouse, an American Glass Research (AGR) building, and pictures of him were taken and shared in a group chat.

“Kid learning around building we are in. AGR I believe it is. I did see him with a range finder looking towards stage. FYI. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out. I lost sight of him.”

Other messages obtained by CBS, the BBC’s news partner, showed that at 17:51 a picture of Crooks was forwarded to a local officer, who said that commanders were “asking for a direction of travel”.

About 20 minutes later, Crooks was dead, shot by the Secret Service after opening fire from the roof of an adjoining warehouse.

While the FBI investigation is focused on Crooks and his motivations – rather than any security failures that took place – Mr Rojek said investigators believe that he arrived at the venue at 13:50 on the day of the shooting, and flew a drone around the area for 11 minutes shortly after.

The FBI believes Crooks left the venue at approximately 16:00 before returning and being identified as a suspicious person shortly after 17:00.

At around 17:30, he was seen using a range finder, according to the FBI’s timeline, just under half an hour before he was seen walking near the AGR building with a backpack.

At 18:11, he was confronted by a local police officer, about 30 seconds before he fired eight shots in the direction of Trump and the crowd.

Crooks is now believed to have conducted “early surveillance” of the site on 11 July, two days before the rally.

The newly published text messages extend the time period in which the 20-year-old gunman had provoked suspicion.

Previously reports established that he was on the radar of local law enforcement about an hour before the shooting.

Witnesses told the BBC moments after the shooting they had spotted the gunman on the roof and raised the alarm.

It is still unclear why there was a communications breakdown between local law enforcement and the Secret Service.

Members of the local Swat team told ABC News on Sunday they had no contact with the agency and a face-to-face briefing failed to happen.

On Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also announced 13 members of a bipartisan task force that will investigate the attempt on Trump’s life.

The committee – which is composed of seven Republicans and six democrats – includes Pennsylvania Republican Mike Kelly, whose district includes Butler, and Tennessee’s Mark Green, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate will appear at a separate hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee on Tuesday.

American comedian Tiffany Haddish has defended her controversial TikTok video of her visit to a supermarket in Zimbabwe, saying it was aimed at dispelling perceptions that there was “war everyday” in Africa.

Haddish faced a backlash from some Zimbabweans on social media after she posted the video of her strolling through the aisles of a supermarket chain in the capital, Harare.

“Look at this grocery store. It’s humungous, in Africa,” she says in disbelief as she scans rows of shelves with soft drinks, frozen meat and fresh fruit.

The video has been viewed just over 200,000 times on TikTok.

“How ignorant could she be? Did she think that Africans shop from rocks? She needs to travel more and unclog her sadly colonized view of the world. Yikes,” raged one user on X.

Another person said: “They think we’re chasing lions and zebras.”

A third person said that Americans have a “misguided perception of Africa, believing that its inhabitants live in primitive conditions, residing in mud huts, lacking access to clean water, and being devoid of modern amenities like electricity and internet”.

Haddish responded to the criticism on X , saying that she had been taught a false narrative about Africa.

“I am an American, a Black one at that, and told for years that people are starving in Africa, showed pictures of babies with flies on them.”

• Tiffany Haddish’s Black Mitzvah and her journey of Jewish discovery

She added that she was told “crazy stories” about how Africans “kill each other” and there is “war everyday”.

But Haddish said that her trip to Zimbabwe has opened her eyes and that she has been “finding out the truth “about the continent”.

“I thought I would share cause I know people in the USA that believe Africans don’t have anything,” she wrote.

Some have come to her defence.

“We like that you like our grocery store and all the products that shocked you are just basics here as well, we really aren’t in the forest hanging on trees,” said a voice of support for the actress.

The comedian is half-Eritrean and visited Eritrea for the first time in 2018.

She praised long time ruler Isaias Afwerki, who has been described by his critics as a “dictator”.

• A quick guide to Zimbabwe
• Why voters fall out of love with liberation movements
• ‘You see skeletons’ – the deadly migrant crossing
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A commander in a Russian mercenary group has been killed in Mali following an attack by rebel fighters during a sandstorm, the group said.

The military regime in the West African state had turned to the notorious Wagner group in 2021, seeking support in fighting jihadist and separatist forces.

On Monday the Russian outfit – which has now morphed into a group named Africa Corps – said it had joined Mali’s military in “fierce battles” against separatist rebels and jihadist militants last week.

However, the separatists launched a major attack, killing an estimated 20 to 50 mercenaries, sources close to Africa Corps told the BBC.

Similarly, several Russian military bloggers reported that at least 20 were killed in the ambush near the north-eastern town of Tinzaouaten.

In an official statement posted to Telegram, the Russian mercenary group did not specify how many of their troops had died, but they confirmed suffering “losses”. This included a commander, Sergei Shevchenko, who was killed in action.

The mercenaries initially “destroyed most of the Islamists and put the rest to flight”, the statement said.

“However, [an] ensuing sandstorm allowed the radicals to regroup and increase their numbers to 1,000 people,” it added.

The Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD), a separatist group dominated by the Tuareg ethnic group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

“On Saturday, our forces dealt a decisive blow to the enemy columns,” AFP quoted the CSP-PSD’s spokesperson as saying.

Prisoners were taken and “a large amount of equipment and weapons were damaged or captured”, the spokesman added.

The rebel group has shared video footage which shows numerous white men in military fatigues lying motionless on a sandy plain.

Another shows a group of mostly black men wearing blindfolds with their hands tied behind their backs.

The BBC has not been able to confirm the authenticity of the videos.

Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate, has also claimed sole responsibility for the attack.

The Islamist militants said they killed 50 Russian mercenaries in a “complex ambush”.

More than a decade ago, Mali’s central government lost control of much of the north following a Tuareg rebellion, which was sparked by a demand for a separate state.

The country’s security then was then further complicated by the involvement of Islamist militants in the conflict.

When seizing power in coups in 2020 and 2021, the military cited the government’s inability to tackle this unrest.

The new junta severed Mali’s long-running alliance with former colonial power France in favour of Russia in a bid to quell the unrest.

But the Wagner mercenary group was in effect dismantled after a mutiny by its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin last year, leading to its replacement in West Africa by Africa Corps.

• How the Russian mercenary group Wagner has rebranded
• Life in Timbuktu and Gao under siege by Islamist fighters

McDonald’s is reconsidering its pricing strategy, after customers cutting back their spending took a bite out of the fast food giant’s sales.

Outlets open for at least a year saw sales fall 1% over the April-June period compared with a year earlier – the first such decline since the pandemic.

The drop came despite the hamburger chain offering money off deals to try to win back cost-conscious customers and those who have boycotted the chain over the Israel-Gaza war.

Boss Chris Kempczinski said the poor results had forced the company into a “comprehensive rethink” of pricing.

He told investors that the firm would lean on discounts to try to stop the sales decline

Executives pointed to recent promotions, such as a $5 happy meal in the US and a campaign in the UK in which diners can select three items for £3.

Those are expected to be extended in the coming months and the firm said it was working with franchisees on other “value” efforts.

Shares in the company rose more than 3% after the update, as Mr Kempczinski said McDonald’s had the scale to make the strategy work.

“We know how to do this. We wrote the playbook on value and we are working with our franchisees to make the necessary adjustments,” he said.

McDonald’s has been facing a backlash from customers after raising prices significantly during the pandemic.

Last month, the head of its US operations formally responded to the complaints with an open letter to customers, saying social media was painting an inaccurate picture.

He said the average price of a Big Mac in the US, which is now $5.29 (£4.11), was up 21% since 2019 – roughly in line with the pace of inflation – and many items had risen by less.

But on the call with investors, Mr Kempczinski conceded the company had work to do to reclaim its reputation for value.

Price increases, made in response to inflation, had “led consumers to reconsider their buying habits”, Mr Kempczinski admitted.

Though some markets have been able to adjust, in others, “a more comprehensive rethink has been required”, he said.

McDonald’s has increased prices on key items faster than its peers, said Bank of America analyst Sara Senatore.

“Consumers are savvy, aware of that,” she said. “The $5 meal that they have launched may be starting to change perceptions, but we are not seeing a trend change yet in terms of transactions and that’s what they’re going to need to see.”

McDonald’s is the latest corporate giant to warn of slower consumer spending, including in major economies such as China.

The company said overall revenue, which includes sales at newly opened stores, was flat year-on-year. Profits slipped 12%.

McDonald’s said lower income customers were particularly hurting and the loss of those buyers was not being made up by wealthier households trading down.

Demand at its restaurants fell in the US, the company said, while weakness in France and price wars in China also weighed on sales.

France is among the countries where the brand has been caught up in boycott calls sparked by the Israel’s war in Gaza. Other US companies, including Starbucks, have also been affected.

“Consumers are being more discerning about where, when and what they eat, and I would say we don’t expect significant changes in that environment for the next few quarters,” a McDonald’s executive said on the call.

A law that bans almost all abortions after six weeks has taken effect in the US state of Iowa.

The legislation allows the procedure until early signs of cardiac activity can be detected in a foetus or embryo, with exceptions in cases of rape, incest, foetal abnormalities and when the mother’s life is in danger.

The Republican-enacted ban was blocked after its passage last year before being upheld by the state’s highest court last month.

It is among the most restrictive policies to be enforced since Americans lost the national right to abortion access two years ago.

Before Monday, abortions were allowed through the 20th week of pregnancy in Iowa.

The US Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision had guaranteed the right to an abortion prior to foetal viability, usually between 24 and 28 weeks, before its repeal nearly a half-century later by the court’s new conservative majority.

Iowa now joins a growing list of Midwestern states, including its neighbouring Missouri and South Dakota, that have enacted restrictions since Roe’s overturn.

The ban is expected to force state residents to seek care in adjacent Democrat-led states that have taken action to maintain or expand abortion access since 2022, building pressure on providers in Illinois and Minnesota.

“As our neighbors in Iowa are stripped of their fundamental rights, my message is clear: Your reproductive freedom will remain protected in Minnesota,” Governor Tim Walz posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker called the six-week abortion ban “disturbing”.

“Here in Illinois, we will welcome our Iowan neighbors for reproductive freedom and whatever care they need,” he wrote on X.

Iowa Republicans had passed their prohibition last summer after failing in an identical effort six years ago.

The legislation hinges on what lawmakers deemed a “detectable foetal heartbeat” – a term medical groups say mischaracterises the electronic impulses that signify early cardiac development.

But a lower court temporarily blocked the ban from going into effect after providers argued in a lawsuit that it goes against Iowans’ constitutional rights.

The Iowa Supreme Court disagreed and rejected the suit last month in a 4-3 ruling.

The state’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, who signed the bill into law, hailed the top court’s decision at the time as “a victory for life”.

“There is nothing more sacred and no cause more worthy than protecting innocent unborn lives,” she wrote in a statement.

But polls show that nearly two-thirds of Iowans believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group for abortion access, wrote on X that they will continue the fight to “expand, restore and protect your right to make your own decisions about your own bodies and lives”.

“We already know Iowans will be hurt because it’s currently a grim reality in vast swaths of the South and Mid-West,” the centre’s President and CEO Nancy Northup said in a statement. “Patients will be forced to travel hundreds of miles from home to find abortion care, if they have the means to do so.”

With the November general election barely three months away, Democrats are hoping to rally voters around support for abortion rights.

“This morning, more than 1.5 million women in Iowa woke up with fewer rights than they had last night because of another Trump Abortion Ban,” Vice-President Kamala Harris, the party’s expected presidential candidate, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Ms Harris has promised to restore reproductive rights.

Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, has said he is “proudly the person responsible” for ending Roe, arguing the issue of abortion should be decided by individual states.

Since Roe’s repeal, 22 states have enacted restrictions – affecting more than one in three American women – despite their widespread unpopularity.

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 should be a stunning set piece of Paris 2024 – triathletes competing in the River Seine, bringing swimming back to the centre of this city. But concerns about the safety of the water have not abated, and early on Tuesday organisers said the men’s event would be postponed by a day due to pollution levels. As the decision about the competition went to the wire, we asked Parisians and visitors whether they would fancy a dip.

“It’s a beautiful river,” said Reda, a Parisian, as he surveyed the Seine glimmering below on a hot July day.

“But I will never dive in, even if they clean it for years.”

Standing on the Pont des Invalides, slightly downstream of the planned starting line of the men’s triathlon, locals and tourists speculated about whether the swimming component would go ahead, given the anxieties about the water.

Two training sessions planned for Sunday and Monday were cancelled because of concerns about pollution.

They had been intended as familiarisation sessions before the men’s triathlon – which had been due to get under way on Tuesday, when thunderstorms are forecast.

The competition has now been postponed to Wednesday, the same day as the women’s event, due to pollution levels, organisers said early on Tuesday morning.

“I don’t recommend the athletes go in,” said Reda with a laugh.

The Seine has already played a starring role in the Games, having hosted thousands of athletes who took part in a boat parade in Friday night’s opening ceremony.

But recent downpours, including some at the ceremony itself, have again affected the river’s cleanliness.

As late as Monday, organisers were saying they were confident events would go ahead as planned.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo recently swam in the river to highlight the efforts made to clean up the Seine and to try to prove the water was safe.

Previous tests had showed persistent levels of E.coli that broke the limits imposed of sports federations.

The BBC’s Hugh Schofield was among those who joined her. He accidentally swallowed a mouthful of water in the process – but remarked that it tasted fine.

City swimming – which has been banned in Paris for a century because of the water quality – is set to return to the city next year as one of the major legacies of the Games thanks to a major regeneration project championed by Ms Hidalgo.

Tourists who crossed the Invalides bridge on the eve of the men’s triathlon felt positively about the idea, and spoke of the relative ease of open-water swimming at home.

Visitors from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic all said they had dived into their respective countries’ rivers, lakes and canals – and that they would do the same in the Seine if the evidence suggested it was safe.

“I would go for it,” said Dutchwoman Esmee. “It doesn’t look that bad from here.”

France lags behind the European Union’s average score for top-quality bathing water conditions. About 75% of French bathing waters were rated “excellent” in 2023 compared with 85% across the bloc as a whole, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA).

Although it was safe to bathe in most of the EU’s bathing waters, coastal waters were generally better than rivers and lakes, the agency noted in its report published in May.

Cyprus topped the table with 97.6% of its bathing waters being of excellent quality, followed by Austria at 96.9% and Croatia on 96.7%.

As the data just looks at the EU, the UK is not included. And whereas swimming is coming back to the Seine, currently only one stretch of the Thames – near Wallingford, Oxfordshire – is designated for bathing.

The EEA made specific reference to Paris’s €1.4bn (£1.1bn; $1.5bn) clean-up operation, as part of which a vast rainwater storage basin has been created.

This is capable of storing the equivalent of 20 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of water – all part of a mechanism to stop sewage flowing into the Seine during heavy rainfall.

Not every visitor to the bridge on the eve of the men’s triathlon was fussed by the cleanliness issue, with some saying they would consider jumping into the river come what may – provided the weather was warm enough.

One man from Brazil said that was simply what he and his compatriots did.

“In my city, São Paulo, it’s not clean either,” he admitted.

But a number of Parisians agreed that a clean and swimmable river would be an exciting part of the Olympic legacy.

Danielle, a university professor, said she would “absolutely” swim in the Seine.

“I have wanted to do it for a long time,” she said with a grin.

For one man named Damien, maintaining the cleanliness was “a big project”, but one worth pursuing.

“It’s a good opportunity for all Parisians,” he said.

Testing of the water continues to be carried out daily.

Lambis Konstantinidis, operations director for Paris 2024, said there were several back-up plans in place, including the use of contingency days.

Downgrading the triathlons into duathlons – and scrapping the swimming entirely – would only be considered in a “really, really extreme case”, he told the BBC on Monday.

A veteran sports commentator has been sacked from his Olympics role after making a sexist remark about Australian female swimmers following their gold medal win.

As the 4x100m freestyle relay team were making their way off the pool deck in Paris, Bob Ballard said they were “finishing up”, adding “you know what women are like… hanging around, doing their make-up”.

The clip quickly went viral and broadcaster Eurosport later said he had been removed from the commentary line-up.

Ballard apologised if the remarks caused offence and said it was not his “intention to upset or belittle anyone”, in a statement posted to X.

Mollie O’Callaghan, Emma McKeon, Meg Harris and Shayna Jack had just beaten the US and China, to make it the fourth Olympics in a row where Australia has claimed the gold medal in the event.

They were waving to crowds and celebrating the achievement when Ballard made his comments.

His co-commentator and British swimming champion Lizzie Simmonds had immediately branded his remark “outrageous”, prompting laughter from Ballard.

In his statement on X, Ballard urged users not to “pile in on” Simmonds. Some had been quick to attack the ex-Olympic swimmer online.

On Sunday, Eurosport said Ballard – previously a long-time BBC reporter and presenter – would not return to their airwaves.

“During a segment of Eurosport’s coverage last night, commentator Bob Ballard made an inappropriate comment,” the broadcaster said in a statement.

“To that end, he has been removed from our commentary roster with immediate effect.”

Mr Ballard has been a stalwart of global sports coverage since the 1980s, reporting on many Olympic games and World Championships.

He has commentated on an array of sports including water polo, ice hockey and wheelchair tennis, but is best known for his coverage of swimming and diving.

Swimming Australia has been approached for comment.

Eyewitnesses have spoken of horrific scenes in the aftermath of the Southport attack, with one describing it as the “worst thing I’ve seen in my life”.

Two children died and nine suffered critical injuries in a knife attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on Monday, prompting a local children’s hospital to declare a major incident. Two adults were also critically injured.

Colin Parry, owner of Masters Vehicle Body Repairs, which is next to where the workshop was being held, told BBC 5Live he was first aware of a commotion because a young man in a face mask was refusing to pay a taxi driver.

He said he and a customer confronted the man but that he asked them, “What are you going to do?”, and walked off.

• What we know so far about the “ferocious” Southport stabbings

Mr Parry said he went back to work but then received a call from an employee who had gone to the building next door because he heard children screaming, “and not like a normal play scream”.

“We all ran out and there’s young kids, all bleeding,” Mr Parry said.

He said many of the children were then ushered into a nearby home and that the scene outside was “mayhem”.

“It was the worst thing I’ve seen ever in my life,” he said.

“Why? Why would you do these things to these kids? It’s horrific.”

Mr Parry also told the PA news agency that he had heard mothers arriving on the street “screaming” and that it was “like a scene from a horror movie”.

Multiple people reported seeing several young children bleeding in the road after being stabbed.

Photos from the scene after the attack showed a police cordon on the street as well as large numbers of emergency service vehicles and personnel.

Forensic workers could also be seen in white hazmat suits.

Tim Johnson, a journalist with Eye on Southport, arrived about 20 minutes after the police had been called and said he saw one young girl on a stretcher.

“Her parents were running after her. It was horrendous. I’ve never seen anything like it,” he told the BBC.

“I saw ambulance men and women in tears. People were in tears in the streets.”

Ryan Carney, who lives on the street with his mother, said she was at home when she heard screaming and crying on the street.

She went outside to see a woman being allowed through the cordon by police as she tried to find her child.

One local parent who did not want to be named said his daughter had been present at the attack but had managed to run away.

He said she was safe but had been left “traumatised”.

Therapy nurse Joanne Newman, who lives in the area, said she had run out of work after hearing about the incident from a friend.

She said her daughters had not been harmed in the attack but that one had heard a “sinister scream” around the time of the attack.

“Nobody can believe it. All the local mums have checked in with one another,” she said.

She added that she had been consoling the mothers of one of the children who had been injured.

“How do you even comprehend? There’s nothing you can do,” she said.

Many Norwegians are feeling guilty, according to Elisabeth Oxfeldt.

The professor of Scandinavian literature at Oslo University says wealthy Norwegians are increasingly contrasting their comfortable lives with those of people who are struggling, particularly overseas.

“We’ve seen the emergence of a narrative of guilt about people’s privileged lives in a world where others are suffering,” she says.

Thanks to its significant oil reserves, the largest in Europe after Russia’s, Norway is one of the world’s richest countries.

The strength of its economy, as measured per member of its population, is almost twice that of the UK, and bigger even than that of the US.

Norway even runs a budget surplus – its national income exceeds its expenditure. This is in marked contrast to most other nations, including the UK, which have to borrow money to cover their budget deficits.

Prof Oxfeldt is an expert on how Scandinavian books, films and TV series reflect the wider culture of their time. She says she increasingly sees these mediums explore Norway’s wealth guilt.

“By looking at contemporary literature, films and TV series, I found that the contrast between the happy, fortunate or privileged self and the suffering ‘other’ brought about feelings of guilt, unease, discomfort or shame.

“Not everyone feels guilty, but many do,” adds Prof Oxfeldt, who has coined the phrase “Scan guilt”.

Plots featured in recent Norwegian dramas include members of the “leisure class” who rely on services provided by migrant workers who reside in bedsits in their basements. Or women who realise that they have achieved gender equality in the workplace by relying on low-paid au pairs from poor countries to care for their children, says Prof Oxfeldt.

Life has a habit of imitating art. In March, the Norwegian government said it put a stop to granting work permits for au pairs from the developing world. Tabloid newspaper VG had dubbed the practice “west end slavery”.

The Norwegian people’s guilt trips have also been egged on by a variety of people and organisations eager to question whether Norway’s wealth is based on ethical practices.

In January this year, The Financial Times published a special report that uncovered how fish oil made from ground whole fish caught off the coast of Mauritania in Africa was used as feed by Norway’s extensive salmon farms.

The farmed Norwegian fish, which is sold by major retailers in Europe, “is harming food security in western Africa”, the paper said.

Environmental pressure group Feedback Global insisted that “the Norwegian salmon industry’s voracious appetite for wild fish is driving loss of livelihoods and malnutrition in West Africa, creating a new type of food colonialism”.

The Norwegian government responded that it wanted “to ensure sustainable feed”, and was working towards “increased use of local and more sustainable raw materials”.

Indeed, Norway says it is eager to drive a transition to a green economy, so ensuring aquaculture is sustainable will be essential as the petroleum sector is scaled back to make way for a so-called “green shift”.

This should free up finance, technology and labour for perhaps more future-proof maritime sectors, such as offshore solar and wind power, and algae production for food and medicine.

But, for now at least, this will not be enough to silence vocal critics of Norway’s lucrative petroleum industry. Climate campaigners object to continued drilling for oil and gas. Other critics say that Norway is far too reliant upon its oil earnings.

On the one hand, thanks to the oil and gas-based wealth, Norway’s working hours tend to be shorter than most comparable economies, its worker rights stronger, and its welfare system more generous.

Unsurprisingly, Norway has long been one of the happiest in the world, according to the World Happiness Report. It is currently in seventh place.

But on the other hand, reasons Børre Tosterud, an investor and retired hotelier, Norway’s “utter reliance on oil earnings” has resulted in an excessively large government budget, an inflated public sector, and a shortage of labour that holds back the private sector.

“It’s not sustainable,” he insists.

Norway has always looked to the oceans for buoyancy. The seas have been a source of food and energy, a place of work and a generator of wealth for centuries. Yet it was only in the late 1960s when discoveries of oil and gas helped turn around the fortunes of this previously relatively underdeveloped nation.

Since then, most of Norway’s vast oil earnings have been invested internationally by Norges Bank Investment Management, which is part of Norway’s central bank.

Its main investment fund, Government Pension Fund Global, otherwise known as “the oil fund”, has assets worth about 19tn kroner ($1.7tn, £1.3tn).

Norway’s oil export earnings surged following Russia’s 2022 invasion. Critics claimed the country was profiteering from the war, or at least failing to share enough of its sudden windfall with the victims of the aggression that had caused it.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre dismissed accusations of war profiteering, countering that Norway was able supply to much needed energy to Europe during a time of crisis.

He also points out that Norway has been one of Ukraine’s biggest financial supporters, and as such is arguably punching above its weight, given that Norway’s population is only 5.5 million.

Jan Ludvig Andreassen, chief economist at Eika Group, an alliance of independent Norwegian banks, says that Norwegians have “become much richer than we had expected”.

Yet at the same time, he says that after a period of high interest rates and painful inflation, partly caused by a historically weak krone, which makes imported goods and services expensive, ordinary Norwegians don’t feel rich.

Norway is also a world-leading donor of overseas humanitarian aid.

“I think Norwegians are generous contributors to good causes,” observes Prof Oxfeldt.

However, pointing to Norway’s additional oil exports that have come about as a result of the conflict in Ukraine, Mr Andreassen says that Norway’s charitable donations “are small fry relative to the extra earnings arising from war and suffering”. This is a view echoed by Mr Tosterud.

But do they agree with Prof Oxfeldt that many Norwegians feel guilty? “Not really, except perhaps in some circles such as the environmental movement,” says Mr Andreassen.

Mr Tosterud agrees. “I don’t have any sense of guilt, and neither do I think it is widespread in Norway.”

Lhakpa Sherpa has a startling life story – to the outside world she holds the record for climbing Mount Everest a staggering 10 times, the most of any woman.

But behind the scenes, her personal life has been dangerous and fearful.

While conquering the world’s highest mountain, she says she was enduring domestic abuse from her husband – including during their 2004 descent from Everest.

Now based in America, she has raised three children, supporting them by working in a grocery store and as a cleaner.

Her life – on and off the mountain – has been made into a Netflix documentary, Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, directed by Lucy Walker.

Sherpa is proud of the film.

Eyes blazing, she tells the BBC: “I want to show people women can do it.”

What is perhaps surprising about her record-breaking climbs is that she does so with little training.

Climbing Everest can be fatal – there have been more than 300 deaths in the region since records of mountain climbing there began a century ago.

So it’s vital to be in peak condition.

In the film, we see Sherpa keep fit by walking in the Connecticut mountains. But she also carries on with her normal working life, out of necessity.

“You’re an exceptional athlete,” Walker tells Sherpa during our interview. “Very tall. Very strong.

“People underestimate it. It’s an unbelievable accomplishment that you can climb Everest from doing your day job.”

Sherpa responds: “I’m not good with being educated, but I’m very good with the mountains.”

Born in 1973 to yak farmers in the Nepalese Himalayas, she was one of 11 children.

Crucially, she was raised in an area where education for girls wasn’t a priority – she carried her brother to school for hours through the hills, but wasn’t allowed inside.

Things are now improving in Nepal – women’s literacy rocketed from 10% in 1981 to 70% by 2021.

But Sherpa’s lack of education left lasting consequences – she’s still unable to read.

Things people take for granted, like using a TV remote control, are difficult for her.

Her son Nima, born in the late 90s, and daughters Sunny, 22, and Shiny, 17, help bridge the gaps.

With no schooling, by the time she was 15, Sherpa was working as a porter on mountain expeditions – often as the only girl.

Through her climbing work she was able to avoid a traditional arranged marriage.

But life got difficult when she became pregnant after a brief relationship in Kathmandu.

An unmarried mother, she was too ashamed to return home.

Still climbing when she could, she met and fell for Romanian-US mountaineer and home-renovation contractor, George Dijmărescu.

He’d escaped Romania, under dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, by swimming across the Danube river.

Dijmărescu had already forged a new life in the US when he and Sherpa married in 2002, settling in Connecticut, where they went on to have Sunny and Shiny.

But the couple’s relationship fractured when Dijmărescu became violent, Sherpa says.

In 2004, this became apparent when they ascended Everest with a New England climbing group.

After reaching the summit they encountered bad weather.

Dijmărescu’s behaviour “took a turn almost immediately”, according to journalist Michael Kodas, who reported on the climb for a local paper.

Recalling it in the documentary, he says things around Dijmărescu got “hostile”.

Sherpa, who was in a tent with him, says on camera: “He look like thunder, look like bullet… George was yelling and he punch me.”

We then see multiple photographs taken by Kodas, of her lying unconscious afterwards.

The journalist says he witnessed Dijmărescu say “get this garbage out of here”, as he dragged his wife from the tent.

In the film, Sherpa describes being unconscious as an out-of-body experience.

“People’s voices turned to lots of birds. I saw my whole life. I fly near my mom’s house. I saw through everything… I felt ashamed of myself. I want to go die.”

Then she remembered her children, and says: “I’m not ready to die.”

Kodas included the violent incident in his 2008 book, High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in the Age of Greed.

Walker later persuaded him to release his film footage to her, including the raw tapes, calling it a “huge act of trust”.

“It’s such a difficult subject and people don’t sort of want to get involved, because it’s controversial… but I didn’t take no for an answer,” she tells the BBC.

Despite their relationship being damaged, they stayed together for several more years.

But she says she was admitted to hospital when Dijmărescu assaulted her again in 2012.

This was a turning point.

With the help of a social worker, Sherpa moved with the girls to a women’s refuge, where she started to rebuild her life.

The couple divorced in 2015, and in 2016 a court awarded Sherpa “sole legal custody of the girls”.

A report at the time, in OutsideOnline, said Dijmărescu received a six-month suspended sentence and a year of probation, after a conviction for breach of the peace.

He was found not guilty of second-degree assault because court documents stated she did not have a visible head injury.

Dijmărescu died in 2020 of cancer, but the trauma he left behind is tangible.

Sherpa found it really hard discussing their relationship for the documentary.

“I wish all the turmoil keep secret, I don’t want in my life it’s everybody know[ing],” she says.

But her son advised her to make the film with Walker, after researching her previous work.

The director says to Sherpa: “When you tell your story, you skipped bits, saying, ‘We’re not talking about these years’.

“And slowly, slowly, we go to the difficult things.

“It is very traumatic for you. You get very upset, you don’t sleep. It’s very intense.

“But actually, if you can share it, people love you more. Because when you let people know you have difficult times, other people, I think, connect much more now.”

Sunny and Shiny echo this.

They appear in the film, and found it “a bit overwhelming to watch at first, because of how vulnerable we were to have our whole life put on display”.

They agreed to take part because “the struggle we have been through as a family, and how we have used it to strengthen not weaken us, is such a crucial part of our mother’s story”.

Not surprisingly, Sherpa says life was tough after the trauma of her marriage.

“Oh my God, yeah, crying. I carry so much in my life. I work hard, I courage hard,” she says.

“Sometimes I say, ‘Why am I alive, why am I not dead, so many danger. Almost I’ve been in heaven, and come back. So difficult. But somehow I did it…

“Hurt woman is very tough. Does not give up easily. And I keep doing.”

Climbing is not only her passion – it’s also a healing process.

“My darkness I leave behind [on the mountain],” she says.

We see her begin her record-breaking 10th Everest ascent in 2022.

Whispering goodbye to Shiny, sleeping in a nearby tent in base camp, the climb begins at night, by torchlight.

This means her descent from the summit can take place in daylight.

It’s clear her daughters are proud of their mum.

Sherpa says she is creating a “better life” for her children in the US, including giving them an education.

“I really want changing my life, my daughters – I work hard,” she says.

She wants to earn her living with her own guiding company, and to find more sponsorship.

“I know the mountains, I wish I can share my expertise and experience with other people,” she says.

Sunny and Shiny add: “Women have started climbing big peaks and following our mom’s footsteps.”

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.

As the electoral authorities, which Nicolas Maduro controls, announced he’d won a third term in office, an instant crackle of fireworks rippled around the Venezuelan Caracas.

The city soundtracked in a carefully curated way, like many things in this election.

The opposition claimed instantly that they, not the president, had won.

But you wouldn’t know this from watching the news here.

Television screens up and down the country only showed jubilant crowds, draped in the Venezuelan flag, dancing and cheering on the president.

Nicolas Maduro does have some loyal supporters still, known as “Chavistas” after his mentor Hugo Chavez and the brand of socialism he created.

But their numbers are highly disputed, and this election result is far from over.

As the city hums back into life this morning, the government faces pressure from both the international community and the opposition here to explain their numbers – after the opposition were so far ahead in the polls beforehand.

Nine South American countries have called for a “complete review” of the results and an emergency meeting of the Organisation of American States (OAS).

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There are some things that are indisputable. Some which I, as an observer on the ground, was witness to.

There were the huge queues at polling stations, but only tiny amounts of people being let in at one time.

This led to accusations of deliberate delays, perhaps in the hope some people would give up and go home.

When our BBC team arrived at one polling station, the organiser of the station took a call saying the international media were there. 150 people were then suddenly allowed to be admitted.

There were some poll stations that didn’t open at all, leading to protests and clashes with the authorities.

There were allegations that some of those who work for the state, including police students, were told how to vote.

There was the fact President Maduro’s face remained emblazoned above some poll stations even on voting day.

His face lines almost every street in Caracas, with his governing party paying for incentives for people to support him – buses put on for people to attend his rallies, and free food parcels handed out.

Even prior to allegations of explicit fraud the question was asked: Is this contest fair?

Opposition candidates were banned from running, opposition aides detained, many Venezuelans overseas struggled to register to vote and many international election observers were disinvited.

All of these were seen as attempts to suppress the opposition vote. The opposition were so far ahead in opinion polls that many analysts believed these tactics were necessary as it would be hard for the government to claim a win without seeming far-fetched.

But now that they have done just that, the opposition is alleging a more specific type of fraud.

They claim they only had access to 30% of the printed “receipts” from electronic voting machines around the country, to check that the machine’s results matched those electronically sent to the electoral council.

They think this could mean more potential for the electronic figures to be tampered with and allege many of their observers were not allowed into the counts.

The government dispute any wrongdoing, and instead have accused “foreign governments” of an “intervention operation”.

So, what will happen next?

There are still a lot of unknowns. The opposition say they will announce in the coming days how they plan to challenge the results.

They and the international community have asked for proof of the numbers the government has put out, as granular as count by count.

It is hard to see how President Maduro avoids these calls without serious consequences for the country.

In his victory speech, he referenced US sanctions imposed after the last elections were seen as unfair.

They have hit the country’s already flailing economy. Millions of Venezuelans have fled, and half the country live in poverty.

How everyone else responds will be key now.

The international community has been divided for some time over how to respond to Venezuela, with some governments’ conceding privately that the sanctions haven’t “worked”, either by incentivising regime change or compelling President Maduro to hold fair elections.

They are also used as an excuse by President Maduro, and his supporters, for the country’s woes.

The future of Venezuela and whether it can rebuild matters for the rest of the world – mass emigration has fuelled a migration crisis on the US border, its vast oil reserves remain relatively unusable, and it remains an ally for Russia, China, Cuba and Iran in the West.

The opposition, meanwhile, aren’t set to back down without putting up a fight.

A group of scientists say they have found new evidence to back up their theory that complex life on Earth may have begun 1.5 billion years earlier than thought.

The team, working in Gabon, say they discovered evidence deep within rocks showing environmental conditions for animal life 2.1 billion years ago.

But they say the organisms were restricted to an inland sea, did not spread globally and eventually died out.

The ideas are a big departure from conventional thinking and not all scientists agree.

Most experts believe animal life began around 635 million years ago.

The research adds to an ongoing debate over whether so-far unexplained formations found in Franceville, Gabon are actually fossils or not.

The scientists looked at the rock around the formations to see if they showed evidence of containing nutrients like oxygen and phosphorus that could have supported life.

Professor Ernest Chi Fru at Cardiff University worked with an international team of scientists.

He told BBC News that, if his theory is correct, these life forms would have been similar to slime mould – a brainless single-cell organism that reproduces with spores.

But Professor Graham Shields at University College London, who was not involved in the research, says he had some reservations.

“I’m not against the idea that there were higher nutrients 2.1 billion years ago but I’m not convinced that this could lead to diversification to form complex life,” he said, suggesting more evidence was needed.

Prof Chi Fru said his work helped prove ideas about the processes that create life on Earth.

“We’re saying, look, there’s fossils here, there’s oxygen, it’s stimulated the appearance of the first complex living organisms,” he said.

“We see the same process as in the Cambrian period, 635 million years ago – it helps back that up. It helps us understand ultimately where we have all come from,” he added.

The first hint that complex life could have begun earlier than previously thought came about 10 years ago with the discovery of something called the Francevillian formation.

Prof Chi Fru and his colleagues said the formation was made up of fossils which pointed to evidence of life that could “wiggle” and move of its own accord.

The findings were not accepted by all scientists.

To find more evidence for their theories, Prof Chi Fru and his team have now analysed sediment cores drilled from the rock in Gabon.

The chemistry of the rock showed evidence that a “laboratory” for life was created just before the formation appeared.

They believe that the high levels of oxygen and phosphorus were made by two continental plates colliding under water, creating volcanic activity.

The collision cut off a section of water from the oceans, creating a “nutrient-rich shallow marine inland sea.”

Prof Chi Fru says this protected environment had the conditions to allow photosynthesis, leading to significant amounts of oxygen in the water.

“This would have provided sufficient energy to promote increases in body size and greater complex behaviour observed in primitive, simple animal-like life forms such as those found in the fossils from this period,” he said.

But he says that the isolated environment also led to the demise of the life forms because there were not enough new nutrients fed in to sustain a food supply.

PhD student Elias Rugen at the Natural History Museum, who was not involved in the research, agreed with some of the findings, saying it’s clear that “oceanic carbon, nitrogen, iron and phosphorus cycles were all doing something a little bit unprecedented at this point in Earth’s history.”

“There’s nothing to say that complex biological life couldn’t have emerged and thrived as far back as 2 billion years ago,” he said, but added that more evidence was needed to support the theories.

The findings are published in the scientific journal Precambrian Research.

Record-breaking rain left thousands of people stranded by floods in North Korea over the weekend, prompting leader Kim Jong Un to declare an “emergency”, state media reports.

Photographs show submerged farmland and homes after heavy rain hit Sinuiju city and Uiju county, which border China, according to the Rodong Sinmun.

State media said many were later rescued by airlift, although the BBC is unable to independently verify details of the report.

Such natural disasters are likely to compound existing issues like food scarcity and poor infrastructure in North Korea.

The secretive state – which is perhaps better known for concealing negative issues happening within its borders to the outside world – appears to have been relatively open about this latest disaster, with the official newspaper noting it was a “grave crisis”.

However, the report did not mention any casualty figures. It did say more than 4,200 North Korean residents were evacuated after “over 10 planes made as many as 20 consecutive round-trip flights”.

Even more unusual were the photographs of Mr Kim travelling through floodwaters in a black Lexus, according to Gordon Kang, a senior North Korean analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

Previously, senior leaders fronted disaster management, Mr Kang pointed out. The pictures of Mr Kim amounted to “never-before-seen imagery”.

State media were also keen to say Mr Kim had “personally directed the battle”, adding that he had declared parts of three provinces as “special disaster emergency zones”.

“Kim Jong Un is putting himself out there and demonstrating that the state is able to provide for its people,” Mr Kang explained to the BBC.

He noted the rescue efforts seen in this instance were also noticeably more extensive than those seen after previous disasters.

“North Korea is able to do more because it has strengthened its relationships with China and Russia. It now has more resources to back up its rhetoric,” he added.

It is difficult to get an accurate picture of what is happening in North Korea, as state media reports – which are almost exclusively directed at its own population – typically only publish information putting the country or its leader in a positive light.

Flooding is not uncommon in North Korea. In fact, seasonal rains and monsoons have made floods a yearly affair, according to Mr Kang.

Such floods are exacerbated by major deforestation in its mountains and hills.

There are fears these could cripple North Korea’s agricultural sector – that is already limited in size because of its mountainous terrain.

North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world. Recent estimates are scarce, but CIA World Factbook estimates its gross domestic product per capita was around $1,700 in 2015.

That said, the actual situation and numbers are unclear, given North Korea’s opaque economy.

Former BBC News presenter Huw Edwards has been charged with three counts of making indecent images of children.

The offences are alleged to have taken place between 2020 and 2022 and relate to 37 images that were shared on a WhatsApp chat, according to the Metropolitan Police.

The broadcaster was arrested last November and charged last month, the force revealed on Monday.

He is due to appear in court in London on Wednesday.

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: “Huw Edwards, 62, of Southwark, London has been charged with three counts of making indecent images of children following a Met Police investigation.

“The offences, which are alleged to have taken place between December 2020 and April 2022, relate to images shared on a WhatsApp chat.

“Edwards was arrested on 8 November 2023. He was charged on Wednesday, 26 June following authorisation from the Crown Prosecution Service.

“He has been bailed to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, 31 July.

“Media and the public are strongly reminded that this is an active case. Nothing should be published, including on social media, which could prejudice future court proceedings.”

Mr Edwards is accused of having six category A images, the most serious classification of indecent images, on a phone. He is also accused of having 12 category B pictures and 19 category C photographs.

A conviction at Crown Court could lead to a prison sentence of several years.

According to the CPS website, “making indecent images can have a wide definition in the law and can include opening an email attachment containing such an image, downloading one from a website, or receiving one via social media, even if unsolicited and even if part of a group.”

Mr Edwards left the BBC in April.

He was previously the corporation’s most high-profile and best-paid news anchor, one of the main presenters on BBC One’s Ten O’Clock News, and was often chosen to front coverage of major national events.

A strong thunderstorm has caused a flash flood at Dolly Parton’s theme park, Dollywood, in the US state of Tennessee.

Video from inside the park shows fast-flowing water cascading past rides and flooding souvenir shops.

In the car park, people waded through waist-high water to get to cars that were partially submerged.

The park said in a statement that guests were “directed… to safety during the storm” and that one person with a minor injury had been reported.

“Dollywood is supporting guests whose vehicles were affected by this weather event, and clean-up crews have been deployed,” the statement said, adding that conditions would be assessed to determine whether the park would open on Monday.

Writing on X, several park visitors said they had never seen flooding that bad, and some complained that they were not directed to safety.

One X user said that patrons had to take apart a fence to get their vehicles out of the carpark, after a tree fell and blocked the road.

“I still love Dollywood… but we barely escaped today,” wrote another user. “Hope everyone gets out alright.”

The popular theme park features thrill rides, as well as arts and crafts, food, and music.

Country music star Parton, who grew up in the area and lent her name to the park in 1986, also makes occasional appearances.

This is the second water-based problem the park has encountered this month – nearly two weeks ago it had to close for a day because of a burst water main.

Knoxville Police issued a warning on its X account in the early hours of Monday morning, writing: “Periods of heavy rain are expected in our area for the next hour or more.

“Use caution on the roads, watch out for standing water, and be aware of the potential for flash flooding. And remember, as always, to never drive through flooded roads. Turn around, don’t drown.”

As Simone Biles eyes up a chance at another Olympic medal, a row of A-list celebrities are watching on.

The seven-time medallist is one of the most high profile athletes at the Olympics, and her stunning performance in the artistic gymnastics on Sunday drew celebrities like it was Paris Fashion Week.

Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Tom Cruise, American Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour and Snoop Dogg were in the crowd to watch the American gymnast.

Grande sat with Cynthia Erivo, the pair co-staring in their upcoming film Wicked. They were seen greeting Wintour, who was with Australian film director Baz Luhrmann.

Higher in the stands was singer Nick Jonas, seen chatting with singer John Legend and his wife, model and TV personality Chrissy Teigen. Academy Award-winning actress Jessica Chastain was also at Bercy Arena to watch Biles perform.

Biles is considered by many to be the GOAT of women’s gymnastics (the greatest of all time).

And her considerable medal haul (which includes four Olympic golds and 30 world championship medals) could have potentially been higher heading into the 2024 Olympics, if it wasn’t for her infamous case of the “twistys” at the Tokyo Games.

Biles was forced to pull out of several events at the Tokyo Olympics after suffering a disorientating mental block, and many wondered if she would compete again.

Her return to the Olympics stage is a major drawcard, and Biles rewarded the crowd with a dazzling performance.

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She entered the Bercy Arena on Sunday to an eruption of cheers, with celebrities in the stands and a global television audience of millions.

An acrobatic beam routine came before an energetic floor programme that featured one of the five skills named after her. Then she delivered her big Biles II vault but decided not to attempt the new skill she is planning on uneven bars.

She scored a total of 59.566 to top the all-around standings with three sub-divisions still to go. It is hard to see that changing – that score would have won the last three World Championships.

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A mother has become the first person to be jailed under Australia’s forced marriage laws, for ordering her daughter to wed a man who would later murder the 21-year-old.

Sakina Muhammad Jan, who is in her late 40s, was found guilty of coercing Ruqia Haidari to marry 26-year-old Mohammad Ali Halimi in 2019, in exchange for a small payment.

Six weeks after the nuptials, Halimi killed his new bride – a crime for which he is now serving a life sentence.

On Monday, Jan – who pleaded not guilty – was sentenced to at least a year in jail, for what a judge called the “intolerable pressure” she had placed on her daughter.

Forced marriage laws were introduced in Australia in 2013 and carry a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment. There are several cases pending, but Jan is the first person to be sentenced for the offence.

An Afghan Hazara refugee who fled persecution from the Taliban and migrated to regional Victoria with her five children in 2013, Jan’s lawyers have said she suffers enduring “grief” over the death of her daughter but continues to maintain her innocence.

The trial heard that Haidari had been first forced to enter an unofficial religious marriage at the age of 15 – a union that ended after two years – and did not want to marry again until she was 27 or 28.

“She wanted to pursue study and get a job,” Judge Fran Dalziel said in her sentencing remarks.

While Jan may have believed she was acting in the best interests of her daughter, Ms Dalziel said she had repeatedly ignored Haidari’s wishes and “abused” her power as a mother.

“[Haidari] would have known that not taking part in the marriage would raise questions about you and the rest of the family.”

“She was concerned not only about your anger, but your standing in the community.”

Jan was sentenced to three years in jail, but may be released after 12 months to serve the rest of her sentence in the community.

Afterwards, she sat in the court dock and told her lawyer she refused to accept the judge’s ruling before eventually being taken away, according to local media.

During Halimi’s sentencing for Haidari’s murder in 2021, a court in Western Australia – where the couple had lived – heard that he had been violent and abusive towards his new wife, forcefully insisting that she undertake household chores.

In a statement on Monday, Attorney General Mark Dreyfus described forced marriage as “the most reported slavery-like offence” in Australia, with 90 cases brought to the attention of federal police in 2022-23 alone.

Successive governments have promised to stamp out the practice – which police say is on the rise – and in May, Australia’s parliament voted to create an Anti-Slavery Commissioner to respond to claims of exploitation.

Venezuela’s battered economy is one of the key battlegrounds in Sunday’s presidential election, with President Nicolás Maduro hoping to convince voters that the country has turned the corner after years of strife.

Thanks to his recent efforts to push down the cost of living, the outlook is slightly rosier. In February, Venezuela finally said goodbye to the rampant hyperinflation that had seen price rises peak at more than 400,000% a year in 2019.

Now annual inflation is more manageable, but still high at about 50%.

Mr Maduro has been keen to take credit for the fall, saying it shows that he has “the correct policies”.

Unfortunately, however, those policies have done little or nothing to tackle the economy’s underlying structural problems – chiefly, its historic dependence on oil, to the detriment of other sectors.

“Since it was discovered in the country in the 1920s, oil has taken Venezuela on an exhilarating but dangerous boom-and-bust ride,” as the US Council on Foreign Relations think tank puts it.

Now opponents of President Maduro are pinning their hopes of economic revival on a change of leader, and a new beginning under his electoral rival, Edmundo González.

“An opposition victory would lead to a renewed opening of Venezuela’s trade and financial ties with the rest of the world,” says Jason Tuvey, deputy chief emerging markets economist at Capital Economics.

That would also mean the end of US economic sanctions imposed after Mr Maduro’s victory in the 2018 presidential election, which was widely dismissed as neither free nor fair.

These have made it difficult for state-run oil company PDVSA to sell its crude oil internationally, forcing it to resort to black market deals at big discounts.

But Mr Tuvey cautions that reversing the economic collapse of the past decade will be a tall order, given the enormous investment needed to raise oil production and with peak oil demand approaching.

“Venezuela’s economy can never get back to where it was 15 to 20 years ago,” he tells the BBC. “It will be starting by and large from square one.”

Venezuela’s 25-year-old Bolivarian Revolution – the name that the late President Hugo Chávez gave to his political movement – promised many things, but has failed to deliver what the country arguably most needed: a broad-based economy.

Instead of diversifying away from the oil industry, the governments of Chávez and Mr Maduro doubled down on Venezuela’s mineral wealth.

Paying little heed to the future, they treated PDVSA as a cash cow, milking its funds to finance social spending on housing, healthcare and transport.

But at the same time, they neglected to invest in maintaining the level of oil production, which has plummeted in recent years – partly, but not solely, as a result of US sanctions.

These problems were already evident when President Chávez died in 2013, but have grown worse on his successor’s watch.

“Under Chávez, Venezuela was able to ride on the coat-tails of an oil boom, up until the global financial crisis,” Mr Tuvey says.

“Fifteen to 20 years ago, Venezuela was a major oil producer. It used to produce three-and-a-half million barrels a day, along the lines of some of the smaller Gulf states.

“Now the oil sector has been completely hollowed out, and it produces less than a million barrels a day.”

GDP declined rapidly, down by 70% since 2013. But Mr Maduro resorted to compensating for lower oil prices by printing money to fund spending, resulting in the runaway inflation which the country has only recently curbed.

Economic hardship has taken its toll on the Venezuelan population, with more than 7.7 million people fleeing in search of a better life – about a quarter of the population.

But for those left behind, there have been signs of improvement. While the bolívar is still the official currency, an informal dollarisation has taken place, with US greenbacks increasingly the payment method of choice in retail transactions – at least, for those who have access to them.

That has stabilised the economy – but it has brought with it a social cost.

Residents in the capital, Caracas, now find themselves subject to a two-tier economy. While US dollars are fuelling a consumption boom in high-end shops and restaurants, those paid in bolívars feel increasingly excluded.

One symbolic event that highlighted these changes was Colombian reggaeton superstar Karol G’s recent appearance in Caracas as part of her current world tour.

Few major artists perform in Venezuela these days, but she had no trouble selling out two nights in March at the 50,000-capacity Estadio Monumental, despite ticket prices ranging from $30 to $500 (£23 to £390).

At the same time, according to Caracas-based consultancy Ecoanalítica, about 65% of Venezuelans earn less than $100 a month, while only eight or nine million of the country’s 28 million people can be seen as consumers with actual purchasing power.

“Those with a very close connection to the regime or to PDVSA have been barely affected by all this,” says Mr Tuvey.

As well as the need to raise living standards and reduce inequality, another big economic challenge for Venezuela is what to do about its massive foreign debt.

The country owes an estimated $150bn to bondholders and other foreign creditors. It has been in partial default since 2017, and although Mr Maduro has repeatedly promised talks on a restructuring, none have yet taken place.

The issue has been complicated by the fact that some of the bonds were issued by PDVSA using the company’s US refiner, Citgo, as collateral. As a result, bondholders have been able to pursue the issue through the New York courts.

Bruno Gennari, emerging markets strategist at investment bank KNG Securities, tells the BBC that because the US does not recognise Mr Maduro as president after the 2018 election, this leaves Venezuela with a “legitimacy crisis”.

This means that whoever wins Sunday’s election would have to be acceptable to Washington if a US-approved debt restructuring is to take place.

Mr Gennari does not rule out that the US “could turn a blind eye” if Mr Maduro wins the election under dubious conditions, but he believes that is rather unlikely.

“This election will have a sizeable impact on Venezuela’s future. If restructuring can go ahead, we could see the beginning of a very complex recovery process,” says Mr Gennari.

Once the richest country in South America, Venezuela now has a possible path back to stability – but whatever happens, its economic glory days are firmly behind it.

A surfer whose severed leg washed up on an Australian beach after it was bitten off by a shark has confirmed the limb has not been reattached.

Kai McKenzie, was surfing near Port Macquarie in New South Wales (NSW) last Tuesday, when what he describes as “the biggest shark I’ve ever seen” attacked him.

The 23-year-old managed to catch a wave into shore, where he was helped by an bystander who made a makeshift tourniquet to stem the bleeding.

His leg washed up a short time later and was put on ice by locals, before being taken to hospital, where a medical team had hoped surgery may save it.

But on Monday, almost a week after the attack, Mr McKenzie posted a picture of himself in hospital and an update on social media.

“Spot something missing? Hahah,” the post was captioned.

Detailing the “crazy shark attack”, in an earlier Instagram post he said the outpouring of public support has “meant the absolute world”.

“To be here… to be able to hold my beautiful Eve and my family is everything to me,” he wrote.

He also thanked the public for the donations that have flooded into a GoFundMe page that was set up to help him with medical bills, which has taken in over A$165,000 ($108,000; £84,000).

“I’ll be back in that water in no time!” he added.

A spokesperson for the local health district where Mr McKenzie is receiving treatment would not comment on whether reattachment surgery had been attempted, citing patient privacy.

Authorities say Mr McKenzie – who is a sponsored surfer – was bitten by a 3m great white shark and owes his life to an off-duty police officer who used a dog leash to make a tourniquet for the injured leg.

Mr McKenzie was rushed to a local hospital, before being flown to a major trauma centre in Newcastle, some 200km (124 miles) away. His severed leg also made the long journey.

The keen surfer had only recently returned to the water after suffering a significant neck injury which forced him to take time off from the sport.

In a statement on Thursday, the McKenzie family thanked all of the “medical staff… bystanders and first responders” who had worked to save the surfer’s life.

While Australia has more shark attacks than any other country except the US, fatal attacks remain relatively rare.

Two children have been killed and nine injured, six critically, in a “ferocious” knife attack at a children’s dance workshop.

Two adults are also in a critical condition after being stabbed as they tried to protect children at the Taylor Swift-themed event on Hart Street in Southport, Merseyside Police said.

A 17-year-old boy, from Banks in Lancashire, has been arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.

Police said the motivation for the attack was “unclear” but it was not being treated as terror-related.

• What we know so far about the attack

One witness described the scene as “horrendous” and said they had “never seen anything like it”.

The King and the prime minister have led tributes to the victims, offering their “heartfelt condolences” to those affected.

Merseyside Police declared a major incident after receiving emergency calls at 11.47 BST, on what was the first full week of the school summer holidays for many children in the UK.

Armed response vehicles, 13 ambulances and the fire service rushed to the dance class, which was being held for children aged six to 10.

Chief Constable Serena Kennedy told a news conference that officers responding to the calls “were shocked” to find that multiple people, many of whom were children, had been subjected to a “ferocious attack” and had suffered serious injuries.

“It is understood that the children were attending a Taylor Swift event at a dance school when the offender armed with a knife walked into the premises and started to attack the children,” she said.

“We believe that the adults who were injured were bravely trying to protect the children who were being attacked.”

She added: “As a mum of two daughters, and the nana of a five-year-old granddaughter, I cannot begin to imagine the pain and suffering the families of the victims are currently going through and I want to send them our heartfelt condolences and sympathies”.

Ms Kennedy said the 17-year-old suspect, who police said was born in Cardiff, will now be questioned by detectives.

Merseyside Police said it was not looking for anyone else in connection with the attack and that the “motivation for the incident remains unclear”.

Ms Kennedy added that Counter Terrorism Police North West had offered their support to Merseyside Police but that the incident was not currently being treated as terror-related.

Journalist Tim Johnson, from Eye on Southport, said the attack happened at the Hope of Hart children’s club, which is housed in a former warehouse building on a back street.

“It was horrendous. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Mr Johnson said.

“There were so many police cars, it was a mass of blue lights. I saw ambulance men and women in tears. People were in tears in the streets.”

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital declared a “major incident”, while the North West Ambulance Service said it had sent 13 ambulances to the scene.

Dave Kitchin, head of operations at the ambulance service, said they treated 11 casualties at the scene, who were sent by emergency ambulance and heli-med to Alder Hey and Royal Manchester Children’s hospitals, Aintree University Hospital, Southport and Formby District General Hospital and Ormskirk District General Hospital.

He described the scene that met paramedics as “devastating”, adding, “no doubt this incident will have a lasting impact on the whole community, and our thoughts are very much with them at this difficult time”.

Great North Air Ambulance Service confirmed its critical care team was also sent to the scene.

A spokesman added: “We delivered advanced emergency care to one patient before accompanying them to hospital by road.”

Colin Parry, owner of Masters Vehicle Body Repairs, which is next door to where the attack happened, said that shortly before it began there was a commotion outside because a young man wearing a green hoodie and a face mask had arrived by taxi but was refusing to pay the driver.

He said an employee called him back out a short time later and that he saw numerous “young kids, all bleeding”.

“It’s like something from America, not like sunny Southport.”

Mr Parry told BBC Radio 5 Live that a builder helped lead some of the children away from the scene of the attack and neighbours helped take “about 10 girls to safety”.

“The community was coming together, everyone was trying to help. Everyone was trying to save the young kids,” he added.

In a statement on X, The King said he and his wife were “profoundly shocked” to hear of the “utterly horrific incident”.

He added: “We send our most heartfelt condolences, prayers and deepest sympathies to the families and loved ones of those who have so tragically lost their lives, and to all those affected by this truly appalling attack.”

The Prince and Princess of Wales called the attack “horrid and heinous” adding that they were sending “love, thoughts and prayers to all those involved”.

They said on X: “As parents, we cannot begin to imagine what the families, friends and loved ones of those killed and injured in Southport today are going through.

“Thank you also to the emergency responders who, despite being met with the most horrific scenes, demonstrated compassion and professionalism when your community needed you most.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “I know the whole country is deeply shocked about what they’ve seen and what they’ve heard.

“I know I speak for everyone in the whole country in saying, our thoughts and condolences are with the victims, their families, their friends and the wider community and it’s almost impossible to imagine the grief that they’re going through, and the trauma that they’re going through.

“I do want to thank the emergency services and Merseyside Police who have had to respond to the most difficult of circumstances today.”

Southport FC, whose ground is only a few streets from the scene of the attack, said it had cancelled a pre-season friendly against Morecambe FC scheduled for Tuesday “out of respect to those who have so tragically lost their lives”.

It also said its club lounge would be open between 10:00 and 15:00 BST on Tuesday and specialist support staff available for anyone who wished to “gather, share their thoughts, and find support during this difficult time”.

Everton Football Club and Liverpool Football Club also offered their condolences to all those affected.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said she was “deeply concerned” about the “very serious incident”, while Southport MP Patrick Hurley added that he was “hoping for the best possible outcomes to the casualties affected”.

Steve Rotheram, mayor of Liverpool City Region, has urged the public not to spread “unconfirmed speculation and false information”.

Merseyside’s Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell said she was “utterly shocked and devastated” to hear of the “truly appalling” incident.

Councillor Marion Atkinson, Leader of Sefton Council, said the council was “deeply shocked and saddened at the tragic events”.

“Our thoughts are with all the victims of this attack and their families,” she said.

“I’d like to thank all those who responded to the incident and helped in any way they could in what must have been extremely difficult circumstances.

“We know this has caused concern and upset in the local community and while there is no immediate threat to the public we will be providing help and support in the coming days and weeks”.

A fundraiser for the victims and their families has been set up by a group of Taylor Swift fans, named “Swifties for Southport”.

Cristina Jones, from the UK and EU Taylor Swift Facebook group told BBC Newsbeat: “The idea that those parents are going through hell right now and the idea they had any financial stress over this breaks our hearts.”

“We can’t make it better in any way. But taking away some stress was definitely a priority for us”, she added.

Security forces in Venezuela have fired tear gas and rubber bullets against people protesting over Sunday’s disputed election result.

Thousands of people descended on central Caracas on Monday evening, some walking for miles from slums on the mountains surrounding the city, towards the presidential palace.

Protests erupted in the Venezuelan capital the day after President Nicolás Maduro claimed he had won.

The opposition has disputed Mr Maduro’s declaration of victory as fraudulent, saying its candidate Edmundo González won convincingly with 73.2% of the vote.

Opinion polls ahead of the election suggested a clear victory for the challenger.

Opposition parties had united behind Mr González in an attempt to unseat President Maduro after 11 years in power, amid widespread discontent over the country’s economic crisis.

A number of Western and Latin American countries, as well as international bodies including the UN, have called on the Venezuelan authorities to release voting records from individual polling stations.

Argentina is one country which has refused to recognise President Maduro’s election victory, and in response Venezuela recalled diplomats from Buenos Aires.

Diplomats from six other Latin American countries – Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay – have also been withdrawn for what Foreign Affairs Minister Yvan Gil described on social media as “interventionist actions and statements”.

Venezuela’s government also announced a temporary suspension of commercial air flights to and from Venezuela with Panama and the Dominican Republic starting from 20:00 local time on Wednesday.

• Choreographed celebrations but opposition demands proof

A heavy military and police presence, including water cannons, was on the streets of Caracas with the aim of trying to disperse protesters and prevent them from approaching the presidential palace.

Crowds of people chanted “Freedom, freedom!” and called for the government to fall.

Footage showed tyres burning on highways and large numbers of people on the streets, with police on motorbikes firing tear gas.

In some areas, posters of President Maduro were ripped down and burned while tyres, cars and rubbish have also been set alight.

Armed police, military and left-wing paramilitaries who are sympathetic to the government clashed with protesters and blocked off many roads around the city centre.

The BBC spoke to a number of people who attended one protest in a densely-populated area known as La Lucha, meaning “the fight”.

Paola Sarzalejo, 41, said the vote was “terrible, fraud. We won with 70%, but they did the same thing to us again. They took the elections from us again.

“We want a better future for our youth, for our country.”

Her father Miguel, 64, agreed, saying: “He lost the elections, he has no right to be there right now.”

He added: “We want a better future for the youth because if not they will leave the country. One where they can work well and earn well. We have a rich country and he is destroying everything.

“If the youth all leave, only old people will be left in Venezuela, only senior citizens.”

Cristobal Martinez, draped in a Venezuelan flag, said he thought the election was a “fraud”.

He said most young people in La Lucha and surrounding areas had voted in an election that was particularly important for young people as “many of us are unemployed” and “the majority do not study”.

“It was the first time I have voted in my life. I was there from six in the morning until approximately nine in the morning and I saw a lot of people mobilising in the street.

“There was a lot of discontent towards the government. The majority of people were participating for change.”

He said while President Maduro had been in office for a long time there had not been “any change” and it had been “worse since President Chavez died”.

He accused some older people who sympathised with the government of living off bonuses or food handouts whereas “we want a change, we want decent jobs, a good future for our country”.

Mr Martinez said he wanted “people from other countries to help us… so that a disaster doesn’t happen like in previous times”.

Mr Maduro has accused the opposition of calling for a coup by disputing the results. “This is not the first time we are facing what we are facing today,” he said.

“They are trying to impose in Venezuela a coup d’etat again of fascist and counter-revolutionary character.”

The Venezuelan attorney general warned that the blocking of roads or breaking any laws related to disturbances as part of protests would be met with the full force of the law and that 32 people had been detained on accusations ranging from destroying electoral materials to sparking acts of violence.

Meanwhile, US senior administration officials said that the announced result “does not track with data that we’ve received through quick count mechanisms and other sources, which suggests that the result that was announced may be at odds with how people voted”.

That was “the principal source of our concern”, they added.

“That is why we are asking the Venezuelan electoral authorities to release the underlying data that supports the numbers that they have publicly announced.”

However, the US has not yet been drawn on what the result means for their sanctions policy towards Venezuela. Officials have emphasised that while they have doubts about the result, President Maduro did call an election and allow an opposition candidate to be on the ballot paper – even if the opposition leader was banned from running.

The Organization of American States (OAS) announced late on Monday it will hold a meeting on Wednesday of its permanent council over the Venezuelan results.

American comedian Tiffany Haddish has defended her controversial TikTok video of her visit to a supermarket in Zimbabwe, saying it was aimed at dispelling perceptions that there was “war everyday” in Africa.

Haddish faced a backlash from some Zimbabweans on social media after she posted the video of her strolling through the aisles of a supermarket chain in the capital, Harare.

“Look at this grocery store. It’s humungous, in Africa,” she says in disbelief as she scans rows of shelves with soft drinks, frozen meat and fresh fruit.

The video has been viewed just over 200,000 times on TikTok.

“How ignorant could she be? Did she think that Africans shop from rocks? She needs to travel more and unclog her sadly colonized view of the world. Yikes,” raged one user on X.

Another person said: “They think we’re chasing lions and zebras.”

A third person said that Americans have a “misguided perception of Africa, believing that its inhabitants live in primitive conditions, residing in mud huts, lacking access to clean water, and being devoid of modern amenities like electricity and internet”.

Haddish responded to the criticism on X , saying that she had been taught a false narrative about Africa.

“I am an American, a Black one at that, and told for years that people are starving in Africa, showed pictures of babies with flies on them.”

• Tiffany Haddish’s Black Mitzvah and her journey of Jewish discovery

She added that she was told “crazy stories” about how Africans “kill each other” and there is “war everyday”.

But Haddish said that her trip to Zimbabwe has opened her eyes and that she has been “finding out the truth “about the continent”.

“I thought I would share cause I know people in the USA that believe Africans don’t have anything,” she wrote.

Some have come to her defence.

“We like that you like our grocery store and all the products that shocked you are just basics here as well, we really aren’t in the forest hanging on trees,” said a voice of support for the actress.

The comedian is half-Eritrean and visited Eritrea for the first time in 2018.

She praised long time ruler Isaias Afwerki, who has been described by his critics as a “dictator”.

• A quick guide to Zimbabwe
• Why voters fall out of love with liberation movements
• ‘You see skeletons’ – the deadly migrant crossing
• The Zimbabwean agitator unfazed by serial arrests
• Robert Mugabe: From liberator to tyrant

McDonald’s is reconsidering its pricing strategy, after customers cutting back their spending took a bite out of the fast food giant’s sales.

Outlets open for at least a year saw sales fall 1% over the April-June period compared with a year earlier – the first such decline since the pandemic.

The drop came despite the hamburger chain offering money off deals to try to win back cost-conscious customers and those who have boycotted the chain over the Israel-Gaza war.

Boss Chris Kempczinski said the poor results had forced the company into a “comprehensive rethink” of pricing.

He told investors that the firm would lean on discounts to try to stop the sales decline

Executives pointed to recent promotions, such as a $5 happy meal in the US and a campaign in the UK in which diners can select three items for £3.

Those are expected to be extended in the coming months and the firm said it was working with franchisees on other “value” efforts.

Shares in the company rose more than 3% after the update, as Mr Kempczinski said McDonald’s had the scale to make the strategy work.

“We know how to do this. We wrote the playbook on value and we are working with our franchisees to make the necessary adjustments,” he said.

McDonald’s has been facing a backlash from customers after raising prices significantly during the pandemic.

Last month, the head of its US operations formally responded to the complaints with an open letter to customers, saying social media was painting an inaccurate picture.

He said the average price of a Big Mac in the US, which is now $5.29 (£4.11), was up 21% since 2019 – roughly in line with the pace of inflation – and many items had risen by less.

But on the call with investors, Mr Kempczinski conceded the company had work to do to reclaim its reputation for value.

Price increases, made in response to inflation, had “led consumers to reconsider their buying habits”, Mr Kempczinski admitted.

Though some markets have been able to adjust, in others, “a more comprehensive rethink has been required”, he said.

McDonald’s has increased prices on key items faster than its peers, said Bank of America analyst Sara Senatore.

“Consumers are savvy, aware of that,” she said. “The $5 meal that they have launched may be starting to change perceptions, but we are not seeing a trend change yet in terms of transactions and that’s what they’re going to need to see.”

McDonald’s is the latest corporate giant to warn of slower consumer spending, including in major economies such as China.

The company said overall revenue, which includes sales at newly opened stores, was flat year-on-year. Profits slipped 12%.

McDonald’s said lower income customers were particularly hurting and the loss of those buyers was not being made up by wealthier households trading down.

Demand at its restaurants fell in the US, the company said, while weakness in France and price wars in China also weighed on sales.

France is among the countries where the brand has been caught up in boycott calls sparked by the Israel’s war in Gaza. Other US companies, including Starbucks, have also been affected.

“Consumers are being more discerning about where, when and what they eat, and I would say we don’t expect significant changes in that environment for the next few quarters,” a McDonald’s executive said on the call.

Joe Biden has criticised the “extreme opinions” of the Supreme court as he proposed sweeping reforms including the removal of life appointments.

The proposals come after the current conservative-dominated court issued a series of major decisions, including upending the constitutional right to abortion and allowing presidents wide-ranging immunity from prosecution for “official acts”.

Mr Biden has proposed an 18-year term for justices and an enforcable ethics code “to restore trust and accountability”.

He however faces a difficult task to gain Congressional approval given Republican control of the House of Representatives.

Democrats hope that pushing for reform can help galvanise voters before November’s election.

At the same time, it has been dogged by allegations of judicial ethics violations, particularly after journalists investigated Justice Clarence Thomas for not reporting gift.

The court’s nine justices serve for life under current rules, and new appointments are made by the sitting president when a member retires or dies. Donald Trump appointed three justices in his four years in office.

In a speech on Monday in Austin, Texas, Mr Biden said that the “extreme opinions” handed down by the court “have undermined law and established civil rights principles and protections”.

The president added that the court was “mired in a crisis of ethics”, citing conflicts of interests among justices.

“I’m certain we need these reforms to restore trust in the court, preserve the system of checks and balances that are vital to our democracy,” he said.

The speech marked the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.

In an article published earlier in the day in the Washington Post, Mr Biden said that “what is happening now is not normal”.

“It undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms,” he wrote. “We now stand in a breach.”

Mr Biden has proposed a new justice is appointed to the court every two years, who would then serve for 18 years. Reform advocates have previously suggested that such a staggered system would help depoliticise the court.

The president also want Congress to establish a new code of ethics that would force justices to disclose gifts and avoid overt political activities.

While the court released a code of ethics for the first time in its history last year, the it has no enforcement mechanism.

Lastly, Mr Biden hopes to pass an amendment to the US constitution that would reverse a 1 July ruling in which the Supreme Court said that Donald Trump and other former presidents are immune from criminal prosecution.

In the controversial ruling, the court’s justices found that a president has immunity for “official acts” but is not immune from “unofficial acts”.

In his article, Mr Biden said that the proposed amendment – which he has dubbed “No One is Above the Law” – would “make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office”.

“I share our founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute,” he wrote. “We are a nation of laws – not of kings or dictators”.

Republicans have pushed back on efforts to reform the court.

In a Monday statement, the Trump campaign accused President Biden and vice president – and presumptive Democratic nominee – Kamala Harris of working to “undermine the legitimacy” of the court.

“It’s all part of Kamala’s scheme to pack the Supreme Court with far-left, radical judges who will render decisions based on politics, now the law,” the Trump statement said.

On Sunday, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham told CBS, the BBC’s US partner, that Democrats made no effort to do so when a more liberal-leaning group of justices were “pumping out opinions they liked.”

Earlier this month, Trump also described efforts to reform the court as an “illegal” and “unconstitutional” attack on the “sacred” institution.

“The Democrats are attempting to interfere in our presidential election, and destroy our justice system, by attacking their political opponent, me, and our honourable supreme court,” he wrote.

“We have to fight for our fair and independent courts, and protect our country.”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called the proposal “dead on arrival” in the House. In reply, Mr Biden said Mr Johnson’s “thinking is dead on arrival”.

Senate Republicans also denounced Mr Biden’s proposals, with Ted Cruz of Texas saying they were “an assault on the legitimacy of the court”.

Josh Hawley, of Missouri, said they were a “wholesale attack on the court” which would “gut the institution”.

Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, said that the reform plan put the future of the Supreme Court “on the ballot” in the November presidential election.

Professor Daniel Urman, who teaches law and public policy at Northeastern University in Boston, described the proposal as “too little, too late”.

“Rarely do lame duck presidents secure major legislative victories, and, even if so, Republicans, who are happy with the current Supreme Court, control the House,” Prof Urman told the BBC.

“The interesting question is what [Vice President] Harris will do on this issue during the campaign,” he added. “Court reform is pretty popular, especially term limits.”

Donald Trump has agreed to be interviewed by the FBI as part of its investigation into the assassination attempt at his rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month.

In a call with reporters on Monday, the FBI did not give a date for the interview, but said it would be “a standard victim interview we do for any other victim of crime”.

“We want to get his perspective on what he observed,” FBI Special Agent Kevin Rojek said.

Despite poring over mountains of evidence, investigators are yet to determine a motive to explain why Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on 13 July.

Newly released text messages, meanwhile, have revealed the 20-year-old was spotted by a local Swat team more than 90 minutes before the shooting – much earlier than previously thought.

The messages obtained by the New York Times and ABC News will add to the list of security failures that preceded the assassination attempt against the former president.

On Monday, the FBI said investigators believe Crooks conducted “careful planning” ahead of the 13 July rally and made “significant efforts” to conceal his activities.

That planning – which included six purchases of components for explosive devices – was conducted in a manner that would not “significantly raise the suspicions of his parents”, Mr Rojek said.

Multiple investigations have been launched into what went wrong in securing Butler Fair Show grounds on 13 July.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned after admitting failures.

On the day of the shooting, the agency was in charge of security within a fenced area and local law enforcement were responsible for areas beyond that.

• The plan and the botched security at Trump rally
• What we know about Trump gunman

At 16:19 local time (21:19 BST), the local police sniper texted two colleagues who were in the second floor of a warehouse overlooking the site, telling them he was clocking off.

As he left the building, he saw a young man sitting at a picnic table and notifed the others, saying in a text “someone followed our lead and snuck in and parked by our cars just so you know”.

By 17:38 Crooks had moved from the table to the warehouse, an American Glass Research (AGR) building, and pictures of him were taken and shared in a group chat.

“Kid learning around building we are in. AGR I believe it is. I did see him with a range finder looking towards stage. FYI. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out. I lost sight of him.”

Other messages obtained by CBS, the BBC’s news partner, showed that at 17:51 a picture of Crooks was forwarded to a local officer, who said that commanders were “asking for a direction of travel”.

About 20 minutes later, Crooks was dead, shot by the Secret Service after opening fire from the roof of an adjoining warehouse.

While the FBI investigation is focused on Crooks and his motivations – rather than any security failures that took place – Mr Rojek said investigators believe that he arrived at the venue at 13:50 on the day of the shooting, and flew a drone around the area for 11 minutes shortly after.

The FBI believes Crooks left the venue at approximately 16:00 before returning and being identified as a suspicious person shortly after 17:00.

At around 17:30, he was seen using a range finder, according to the FBI’s timeline, just under half an hour before he was seen walking near the AGR building with a backpack.

At 18:11, he was confronted by a local police officer, about 30 seconds before he fired eight shots in the direction of Trump and the crowd.

Crooks is now believed to have conducted “early surveillance” of the site on 11 July, two days before the rally.

The newly published text messages extend the time period in which the 20-year-old gunman had provoked suspicion.

Previously reports established that he was on the radar of local law enforcement about an hour before the shooting.

Witnesses told the BBC moments after the shooting they had spotted the gunman on the roof and raised the alarm.

It is still unclear why there was a communications breakdown between local law enforcement and the Secret Service.

Members of the local Swat team told ABC News on Sunday they had no contact with the agency and a face-to-face briefing failed to happen.

On Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also announced 13 members of a bipartisan task force that will investigate the attempt on Trump’s life.

The committee – which is composed of seven Republicans and six democrats – includes Pennsylvania Republican Mike Kelly, whose district includes Butler, and Tennessee’s Mark Green, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate will appear at a separate hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee on Tuesday.

Israeli far-right protesters have broken into an army base in a show of support for soldiers accused of severely mistreating a Palestinian prisoner there.

Large crowds gathered outside the Sde Teiman compound after Israeli military police entered it to detain the reservists, who are now subject to an official investigation.

Sde Teiman near Beersheba in southern Israel has for months been at the centre of reports of serious abuses against Gazan detainees.

On Monday dozens of protesters, including far-right MPs from Israel’s governing coalition, burst through the base’s gate as others tried to scale the fence, chanting “we will not abandon our friends, certainly not for terrorists”.

Some soldiers at the base reportedly used pepper spray against the military police personnel who arrived to detain the reservists.

Demonstrators also entered the Beit Lid military base in central Israel where the accused reservists have been taken for questioning.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement strongly condemning the break-in and calling for “an immediate calming of passions”.

The Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said the investigation into the soldiers’ conduct must be allowed to continue, adding “even in times of anger, the law applies to everyone”.

However some Israeli politicians have condemned the arrest of the reservists. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right National Security minister, called their detention “nothing less than shameful”.

According to local media reports, at least nine Israeli soldiers at the base are accused of abusing the Palestinian detainee, a suspected Hamas fighter who was captured in Gaza.

He is said to have been hospitalised after what Israeli media reports describe as serious sexual abuse and injuries to his anus that left him unable to walk.

The Israeli military said its advocate general had ordered an inquiry “following suspected substantial abuse of a detainee”.

Since the 7 October Hamas attack, Israeli authorities have rounded up and held thousands of Palestinians, often without legal representation.

The BBC has previously spoken to medical workers at a field hospital set up in Sde Teiman, who alleged that detainees have been blindfolded, permanently shackled to their beds, and made to wear nappies rather than having access to a toilet.

• Gazans ‘shackled and blindfolded’ at Israel hospital

Last month, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper published allegations made by a doctor at Sde Teiman that leg amputations had been carried out on two prisoners, because of cuffing injuries. The BBC has not independently verified the claims.

Detainees there have told journalists and United Nations officials that they were beaten and attacked. The Israeli Defence Forces have denied systematic abuse.

Many Gazans detained by Israel’s army are released without charge after interrogation. Amnesty International this month called on Israel to end the indefinite detention of Gaza Palestinians and what it called “rampant torture” in its prisons.

A commander in a Russian mercenary group has been killed in Mali following an attack by rebel fighters during a sandstorm, the group said.

The military regime in the West African state had turned to the notorious Wagner group in 2021, seeking support in fighting jihadist and separatist forces.

On Monday the Russian outfit – which has now morphed into a group named Africa Corps – said it had joined Mali’s military in “fierce battles” against separatist rebels and jihadist militants last week.

However, the separatists launched a major attack, killing an estimated 20 to 50 mercenaries, sources close to Africa Corps told the BBC.

Similarly, several Russian military bloggers reported that at least 20 were killed in the ambush near the north-eastern town of Tinzaouaten.

In an official statement posted to Telegram, the Russian mercenary group did not specify how many of their troops had died, but they confirmed suffering “losses”. This included a commander, Sergei Shevchenko, who was killed in action.

The mercenaries initially “destroyed most of the Islamists and put the rest to flight”, the statement said.

“However, [an] ensuing sandstorm allowed the radicals to regroup and increase their numbers to 1,000 people,” it added.

The Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD), a separatist group dominated by the Tuareg ethnic group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

“On Saturday, our forces dealt a decisive blow to the enemy columns,” AFP quoted the CSP-PSD’s spokesperson as saying.

Prisoners were taken and “a large amount of equipment and weapons were damaged or captured”, the spokesman added.

The rebel group has shared video footage which shows numerous white men in military fatigues lying motionless on a sandy plain.

Another shows a group of mostly black men wearing blindfolds with their hands tied behind their backs.

The BBC has not been able to confirm the authenticity of the videos.

Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate, has also claimed sole responsibility for the attack.

The Islamist militants said they killed 50 Russian mercenaries in a “complex ambush”.

More than a decade ago, Mali’s central government lost control of much of the north following a Tuareg rebellion, which was sparked by a demand for a separate state.

The country’s security then was then further complicated by the involvement of Islamist militants in the conflict.

When seizing power in coups in 2020 and 2021, the military cited the government’s inability to tackle this unrest.

The new junta severed Mali’s long-running alliance with former colonial power France in favour of Russia in a bid to quell the unrest.

But the Wagner mercenary group was in effect dismantled after a mutiny by its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin last year, leading to its replacement in West Africa by Africa Corps.

• How the Russian mercenary group Wagner has rebranded
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An image is worth a thousand words – sometimes, it can even stir a nation.

In Bangladesh, it was the image of university student Abu Sayeed standing with open arms, stick in hand, facing heavily-armed police alone which many credit as the turning point in the recent widespread protest in the country against quotas in government jobs.

Within seconds, as the video shows, the young man was shot at – but still he continues to stand, even as the sounds of more shots ring out. He collapses a few minutes later.

The 16 July incident quickly went viral, triggering more students to jump into the agitation against reservations in civil service jobs for the family members of the veterans of the country’s independence war in 1971.

What followed were days of unrest, marked by an unprecedented ferocity of violence. Bangladesh security agencies are accused of a disproportionate use of force – firing tear gas, rubber bullets, pellet guns, sound grenades and live rounds – a charge they deny. A curfew was eventually brought in, with a shoot-on-sight order.

The highly-respected Bengali daily Prothom Alo and the AFP news agency say more than 200 people were killed in the violence, including several students and three police officers. Official government statistics stand at 147, according to the home minister.

But exact details – and more videos showing what was happening on the streets – have been slow to emerge, in part due to the internet shutdown imposed by the government.

However, since the broadband was partially restored last week, more visuals of the violence have come to light.

In one, substantiated by the BBC’s Verify Team, a young man is trying to pull his injured friend to safety in the Jatrabari area of the capital Dhaka.

Within seconds, a plain-clothes officer with a helmet appears to be firing in the direction of the two. After a while, the young man leaves his mortally wounded friend and sprints away to safety.

What both this and the video of Abu Sayeed show are “unlawful killings”, Irene Khan, a senior UN expert told the BBC.

“Abu Sayeed was not posing any threat to police. But what they do is shoot him point blank, it is a clear display of unjustified, disproportionate violence,” Ms Khan, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, explained.

Bangladeshi junior minister of information and broadcasting Mohammad Ali Arafat agreed the video of Mr Sayeed being shot appeared “unlawful”.

“That was absolutely vivid and clear,” he said. “The guy was standing stretching his hands and chest, very short distance he was shot.”

Mr Arafat added the incident would be investigated, saying an independent judicial committee had been formed to investigate.

A third video checked and substantiated by the BBC’s Verify Team showed heavily armed troops firing at a group of protesters at a distance in the Mohammadpur area of Dhaka.

But a spokesman for Dhaka Metropolitan police, Faruk Hossain, defended their actions, saying police fired only in self-defence.

“Police use force to save life and property. Any police officer opened (fire) only when it is questioned of private (self) defence situation,” Mr Hossain said in a WhatsApp message.

Officials produced videos of another incident, which appears to show a crowd targeting a police van and later beating up an officer inside the van in the Uttara area of Dhaka.

“They [protesters] killed a police officer and hung him upside down in the Jatrabari area of Dhaka,” Mr Arafat alleged. A ruling party activist was also allegedly beaten to death.

The violence was “not one-sided – people need to see both sides, to see what happened”, Mr Arafat said, adding security forces were outnumbered and attacked in several places because they were not allowed to open fire.

A second video sent by the government showed an injured police officer being carried away by his colleagues.

The government alleges supporters of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami party infiltrated the student protests and launched violent attacks on security forces and set fire to state property.

Critics dismiss the claim as an attempt by the governing Awami League to divert attention.

Since the protests died down, activists and local media say the government has unleashed a crackdown by arresting more than 9,000 people, including opposition supporters.

Student protest leaders have also been rounded up – a move the government said was “for their own safety”.

With the government going hard on the demonstrators, experts warn that Bangladesh could witness further unrest.

“There is no trust between the state and the people, you can see that. That’s why you are having these protests and the terrible situation,” the UN expert Ms Khan said.

Bin Yamin Mollah, one of the coordinators of the student movement, who is in hiding “living in fear” of arrest, echoed her sentiment.

“The government has betrayed us,” he told the BBC.

It began with a group of black women on a Zoom call who hit a million-dollar fundraising target in about three hours.

A series of similar Zooms followed, including the latest: a group of about 123,000 “white dudes” gathered virtually to raise $3m (£2.3m) in one hour Monday evening.

The money is for Kamala Harris’s US presidential campaign – now barely a week old. Still, it is harnessing a grassroots energy that did not exist for President Joe Biden, using modern video conferencing to reach motivated voters and fundraise virtually.

In the past week – roughly 100 days from Election Day – her US presidential campaign has raised $200m (£155m) and signed up more than 170,000 new volunteers.

And unlike big donors who helped persuade Mr Biden to step aside and end his run just days ago, it is hundreds of thousands of ordinary Democrats now generating “Kamalamentum”.

Call attendance began in the tens of thousands – already a feat given Zoom meetings are usually restricted to 1,000 participants. But since then, the campaign’s biggest has been 160,000 people. Zoom did not respond to request for comment for this story.

Republicans have criticised some of the identity-based virtual gatherings as “racist” and “desperate” pandering to liberal supporters.

But while some may cringe at such overt use of identity to campaign, the impact of the virtual events is being taken seriously.

The Zoom sessions are “an informal thing where [Harris] can present some scripted lines and get people fired up,” said Republican consultant and pollster Whit Ayres. “It’s a signal that there is enormous enthusiasm out there for her candidacy.”

And, he said, it would be a mistake for Republicans to criticise the identity-based Zoom sessions.

“It backfires when you start attacking people because of their identity. Because everyone else who shares their identity feels like you’re attacking them.”

Meanwhile, Ms Harris’s opponent Donald Trump and his party have said Democrats are more energised by Mr Biden’s surprise departure from the race, rather than by Ms Harris herself.

On 21 July, in a matter of hours after the US president announced he was dropping out and endorsing his deputy, the group of black female political organisers convened their Zoom call.

The four-hour conversation attracted 44,000 participants and raised $1.6m for Ms Harris. The original goal was $1m in 100 days.

“I felt like when Obama got the nomination all over again. I actually felt more excited, to be honest,” Black Voters Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown, who joined the call, told The 19th News.

“My first response was, ‘OK, he’s out; now we’ve got to fight for this sister’.”

Ms Harris, 59, would be the first black woman – and first South Asian woman – to secure a major American party’s nomination for president.

Gatherings of South Asian women have followed, celebrating their “auntie” and Latinas have hailed a “hermana”. The official nomination is expected at the Democratic National Convention in August.

On 22 July, the day after Mr Biden’s announcement, more than 53,000 black men met on Zoom and raised $1.3m in about six hours.

Another giant video conference on Thursday, “White Women: Answer the Call”, kept crashing as more than 160,000 people hopped aboard – the largest call in the history of Zoom, according to organisers.

Shannon Watts, a high-profile advocate for gun control and the call’s lead organiser, wrote on Twitter/X that the group had raised $11m for Ms Harris.

“White women are the largest voting bloc in this country. We make up 40% of the voters and so we are divided by religious, marital and education lines,” Ms Watts told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

“And even a tiny shift in our voting patterns can swing an entire election, and so that was a conversation that we needed to have on this call.”

On Monday evening, “White Dudes for Harris” saw over 90,000 people register, to hear remarks from celebrities and politicians.

Supporters were told, sometimes in profane terms, not to let the Trump campaign speak for “all white men”.

The Trump campaign should be concerned if Ms Harris is able to continue her momentum and avoid any off-the-cuff gaffes during public events, said Mr Ayres.

The Zoom sessions appear to be a helpful way for her to reach voters in an informal setting while sticking to her campaign stump points. It’s quite the opposite from her 2019 run, when she was “incoherent” and spoke “gibberish” when challenged to describe her stance on key issues, he said.

“If she runs her campaign like she did the last time she ran for president, her campaign will collapse and Donald Trump will waltz into the White House,” Mr Ayres said.

“On the other hand, if she has learned how to be a competent national candidate under enormous pressure, she’s gonna give him a real run for his money.”

The current Harris momentum is a far cry from how July began, with Democratic donors and fundraisers, including Abigail Disney and George Clooney, publicly speaking out against Mr Biden’s re-election bid.

On Saturday, in the sprawling Florida retirement community of The Villages, residents in 500 golf carts rallied on behalf of Ms Harris – a remarkable event in a famously white, conservative stronghold.

Polls conducted over the past week show Ms Harris in a dead heat with Mr Trump, erasing his narrow lead or sitting within the margin of error in most cases.