The opposition leader battling to bring the curtain down on Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime has urged the Venezuelan strongman to accept that his exit from power is inevitable. The call came as thousands of protesters hit the streets to repudiate Maduro’s disputed claim to have won a third term in power.

Venezuela’s incumbent president was officially proclaimed the victor of Sunday’s election by the government-controlled electoral authority on Monday morning.

Maduro called his supposed victory “irreversible” despite widespread international doubts over the veracity of his claim to have beaten the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia and his campaigning partner, the conservative activist María Corina Machado.

Later on Monday, González and Machado said they could prove their victory after obtaining 73.2% of the voting tallies from polling stations – the official records that show the number of votes cast by the time each polling station closes.

Speaking to the Guardian, Machado urged the president to come to terms with the end of his 11-year rule, during which Venezuela fell into a devastating economic and humanitarian crisis that has forced millions to flee abroad.

“He should understand that he was defeated,” she said of Maduro, who was democratically elected after the 2013 death of his mentor, President Hugo Chávez, but has since taken Venezuela in an increasingly repressive and anti-democratic direction.

Machado rejected Maduro’s earlier claim that his re-election was “irreversible”. “I would say his departure is irreversible,” she said.

Minutes earlier, Machado and González, a former diplomat who ran for the presidency in her place after she was banned, claimed their campaign had hard evidence that González had secured a landslide victory in Sunday’s vote.

Maduro has claimed he beat González, with more than 5.1m votes to his rival’s 4.4m. But Machado, who some call Venezuela’s “iron lady”, insisted her candidate had in fact prevailed, and that the tallies handed to them showed he had won 6.2m votes compared with Maduro’s 2.7m.

“Edmundo González is the president-elect,” she declared to ecstatic cheers from hundreds of supporters who had packed the street outside their hillside campaign headquarters beneath Caracas’s towering El Ávila mountain.

As Machado addressed the throng, thousands of dissenters remained on the streets of Caracas and other cities after a day of demonstrations in which there were several violent clashes with security forces and pro-Maduro paramilitaries.

Remarkably, many of those protesters came from sprawling hillside slums long considered bastions of the Chavismo movement that has governed Venezuela for the past 25 years.

As Rafael Cantillo marched through Caracas alongside hundreds of fellow residents of one such community, he shook with rage. “Maduro stole these elections … it’s a swindle – everyone knows it,” fumed the 45-year-old who hails from a vast working-class enclave called Petare.

Nearby, another community leader from Petare, ️Katiuska Camargo, claimed Maduro had suffered a conclusive defeat in such communities where residents were tired of the deprivation his administration had overseen. “This man did not win. He did not!” she said as the crowd swelled.

As the Petare protesters strode west towards the city centre and the presidential palace, they chanted: “Petare is here. And Edmundo is presidente!”

Throughout the day social media filled with reports of opposition marches originating in poor communities across town and clashes with security forces and pro-Maduro motorbike gangs known as colectivos who were filmed shooting into the air.

“What is happening isn’t just fraud, it is a coup d’état,” said Jesús Herrera, a 37-year-old cook, as he joined one march. Herrera said the people who had taken to the streets were “moved by [Maduro’s] lie”. “It’s such an obvious lie,” he said of the president’s claim to have won re-election when polls had given his rival a major lead. “Everyone thinks the same thing.”

There were also protests in other parts of Venezuela, with at least three statues of Hugo Chávez torn down during the day. Many compared those scenes to the dramatic images of a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled in downtown Baghdad during the Iraq war. In Portuguesa state, protesters were filmed vandalising a propaganda billboard featuring a photograph of Maduro and a slogan promising “more changes and transformation”.

On Monday night there were also reports that protesters had stormed Maiquetía international airport on the coast just north of Caracas. At least one incoming flight was delayed.

Maduro’s allies, who blame Venezuela’s economic woes on US sanctions, called their own protests for Tuesday afternoon in an attempt to show popular support likely to further inflame tensions on the streets of Caracas.

In a televised address, Maduro claimed groups of “delinquents” had invaded the regional offices of the electoral authority in the city of Coro. The president said such actions were part of “a violent counter-revolution” being waged by criminal and fascist far-right extremists.

“The law must be respected,” Maduro declared, claiming such activities were designed to spark “an escalation of violence” that would ultimately lead to the opposition’s “golden dream – seizing power”.

“The gringos are behind this plan,” Maduro claimed.

The election and its results have been widely questioned within and beyond the region. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Washington had “serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people”, while the Organization of American States planned to meet in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the issue.

Peru – which is home to more than 1.5 million Venezuelan exiles – has reacted to the “serious and arbitrary decisions” of the Maduro regime by ordering all Venezuelan diplomats to leave the country within the next 72 hours.

But Maduro’s allies in countries such as Cuba, Bolivia and Honduras have welcomed his claim of victory – as has Russia, which urged González and Machado to concede defeat.

“We see that the opposition does not want to accept its defeat. But we believe that the opposition should do this, should congratulate the winner of these elections,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Tuesday.

He added that external forces should not seek to stoke instability in Venezuela, which had become a top Russian ally under Maduro’s government.

“It is very important that these attempts to shake up the situation inside Venezuela are not fuelled by third countries – third parties – and that Venezuela is free from external interference,” Peskov said.

Chinese state media reported that President Xi Jinping also congratulated Maduro on winning Sunday’s vote.

Reuters contributed to this report.

The three children killed in a knife attack at a dance class in Southport have been named as Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine.

Eleven children and two adults were stabbed in what police described as a “ferocious attack” in a studio on Hart Street on Monday morning during a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class for children.

Five children and two adults remain in a critical condition in hospital.

Bebe’s family said: “No words can describe the devastation that has hit our family as we try to deal with the loss of our little girl Bebe.”

Alice’s family said: “Keep smiling and dancing like you love to do, our princess. Like we said before to you, you’re always our princess and no one would change that. Love from your Hero Daddy and Mummy.”

A 17-year-old boy, from the Lancashire village of Banks but born in Cardiff, has been arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, with police saying the motive remains unclear.

The suspect, who police said was armed with a knife, was being questioned by police on Tuesday. The force is not treating the incident as terrorism-related.

The prime minister, Keir Starmer, visited Southport on Tuesday afternoon to lay flowers at the scene and pay his respects. The brief visit, lasting barely two minutes, was marred by hostile shouts from some members of the public.

One person shouted: “How many more, Starmer? When are you going to do something?”

Speaking to reporters, the prime minister said he came to pay his respects “to the victims and families who are going through raw pain and grief that most of us can’t imagine – I can’t imagine, as a dad myself”.

He said he had received a briefing about the ongoing investigation and wanted to thank emergency services for their efforts – “to say a personal thank you to them and to shake their hand, and to say that as prime minister on behalf of the country, we are grateful for what they did”.

Shortly after Starmer had left, a team of paramedics, many in tears, arrived to lay flowers. They were applauded as they left their tributes at the scene, some holding on to each other for support.

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, visited the scene earlier in the day.

Earlier in the day, Taylor Swift spoke out about the attack, saying she was “completely in shock”. The US singer said in a post on Instagram: “These were just little kids at a dance class. I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families.”

The Southport MP, Patrick Hurley said it was a “tragic and uniquely horrific event”. A vigil was planned near the scene of the attack on Tuesday evening.

“It’s almost beyond comprehension, what happened yesterday,” he told BBC Radio 4. “The town is waking up this morning really in shock, and in grief. There are barely any adequate words to express what happened and how we’re all feeling.”

The Southport MP praised the response of local community and church groups in Southport for coming together to support those affected.

“This is a lovely, quite quiet and sleepy town on the coast. This is a traditional seaside resort and this is not the sort of thing anyone is remotely prepared for, but the response has been fantastic,” he said.

Hurley urged people to avoid speculation on social media that could “inflame tensions” in the area. “The town doesn’t want that. The town is in mourning, the town is in shock, and we need to make sure that what is online is reflective of the reality on the ground,” he said.

Children of primary school age – the same age as many of the victims – were among those leaving flowers, teddy bears and other tributes near the scene on Tuesday.

One message reads: “For the lost angels. You will never be forgotten. Too beautiful for this world. In the arms of our lord, you are now safe. Keep dancing. Shine bright. We are Southport, we stand together.”

Local residents described scenes of panic and terror in the immediate aftermath of the attack, as parents frantically tried to find their children, many of whom were being treated for their injuries in the street.

Colin Parry, the owner of Masters Vehicle Body Repairs, about 50 metres from the dance studio, said he had a heated exchange with a person he believed to be the attacker moments before the stabbings took place.

“He came down our driveway in a taxi and didn’t pay for the taxi, so I confronted him at that point. He was quite aggressive, he said: ‘What are you gonna do about it?’” he said.

Parry added that a member of staff then saw “about 10 kids go running past him, all bleeding, and one of them collapsed on the floor”.

ITV News has published footage of a masked individual pacing in front of a house they say was later raided by police in Banks, a village about 5 miles from the scene of the attack.

An individual wearing a green hoodie and a face mask can be seen walking back and forth outside the house, with footage later showing several police cars and a group of officers, including some who are armed, appearing at the same house.

A DJ and LGBTQ+ activist who performed during a controversial scene in the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony has said she is taking legal action after becoming the target of “an extremely violent campaign of cyber-harassment and defamation”.

Barbara Butch, who calls herself a “love activist”, had been “threatened with death, torture and rape, and has also been the target of numerous antisemitic, homophobic, sexist and body-shaming insults”, her lawyer said in a post on her Instagram page.

Butch appeared in the scene, titled “Festivity” and described by its director as representing a feast of the Greek gods on Mount Olympus, wearing a silver headdress resembling a halo that art historians have said was typically associated with the sun god Apollo.

Also in the scene – painted blue, almost naked, and sitting in a bowl of fruit – was the singer-songwriter Philippe Katerine, playing Dionysus, as well as a cast of drag queens representing Olympian gods and goddesses including Poseidon, Artemis and Venus.

Critics, including some Christians and US conservatives, interpreted the tableau as a mockery of The Last Supper, the final meal Jesus is said to have shared with his apostles. But Thomas Jolly, the show’s director, has said the Leonardo da Vinci painting, while often parodied, was not its inspiration.

“I think it was pretty clear. There’s Dionysus arriving at the table … Why is he there? Because he’s the god of feasting, of wine, and the father of Sequana, the goddess of the River Seine,” Jolly told BFM TV, adding that the tableau was “a big pagan party linked to the gods of Olympus … Olympian … Olympianism.”

Katerine said in an interview posted on X that Jolly’s idea was “around the idea of Dionysus, and of the decadence you could imagine at pagan feasts … Some people have seen a reference to the Last Supper, but it was never that. There was no question of religion at all. That is simply not what was represented.”

He told Le Monde he had been “staggered by the reactions … I grew up in the Christian religion, and what is most beautiful in this religion is the idea of forgiveness. So I’m sorry, if there has been a misunderstanding, if I shocked some people. I am very sorry. I think forgiveness can be reciprocal.”

After French Catholic bishops complained about the scene, a cardinal, François-Xavier Bustillo, said he “totally understood some Christians could have felt offended”, but he accepted the author “was not thinking of The Last Supper, but of a mythological scene, of Dionysus. It was a pagan festival, the festival of wine, of Olympus, the gods.”

Paris Olympics organisers apologised for any offence caused, saying there was “never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group” but did not link the scene to The Last Supper. Art experts have said it appeared to have been inspired by The Feast of the Gods, a 17th-century Dutch painting by Jan van Bijlert.

The statement from Butch’s lawyer, Audrey Msellati, said she was filing several complaints, which would be examined by French judicial authorities to determine whether a formal police investigation should be launched.

Msellati said the complaints would be filed “whether committed by French nationals or foreigners” and “intend to prosecute anyone who tries to intimidate her in the future”. Butch also posted a statement of her own on Instagram.

“Whatever some may say, I exist. I’ve never been ashamed of who I am, and I take responsibility for everything – including my artistic choices. All my life, I’ve refused to be a victim: I won’t shut up,” she said, adding that she was “extremely honoured” to have performed in the ceremony.

“My heart is still full of joy,” she said. “I’m committed, and I’m proud. Proud of who I am, of what I am, and of what I embody, both for my loved ones and for millions of French people. My France is France!”

Associated Press contributed to this report

The decision to forgo air conditioning in the athletes’ rooms in the Olympic Village in Paris had been made with the noblest intentions: to save the planet from the climate emergency.

But after receiving a slew of complaints and pivoting to allow national delegations to reserve mobile air conditioning units at their own expense, the organisers in Paris are facing accusations of creating a two-tier Games.

Those who paid up for the units, including the France team, are sleeping comfortably but with the capital sweltering under a heatwave, Bernadette Szocs, a Romanian table tennis player, said she and her teammates had resorted to keeping their terrace doors open all night in hope of some relief from the heat.

“There is no air conditioning, just this fan and it is not enough,” she said. “Somehow we were lucky that it was not so hot outside so we didn’t need it so much but it is now hot and you can feel it is too hot in the room.

“[The fan] is not powerful enough and when it is pointing at you it is good but after it is turning you don’t feel it. We are sleeping with the door open in the night. The rooms are small and we are two persons.”

A spokesperson for Paris 2024 said athletes were being advised to drink lots of fluids, open windows at night and keep the blinds closed during the day.

“We remind everyone that, when it comes to high heat, we’ve tried to find a balance in the design and fit-out of the village between a long-term objective to create a model sustainable neighbourhood of the future; and a short-term responsibility to give high-performance athletes the best conditions in which to prepare,” the spokesperson said.

“For what is often the biggest competition of their athletes’ lives, certain National Olympic Committees have chosen to equip themselves with additional mobile cooling units.

“These appliances are at their own cost, and Paris 2024 is offering support by proposing air conditioners that will subsequently be made available to Paralympic athletes. Additional solutions will be made available to the athletes, such as fans, or a few mobile air conditioning units for the most exposed rooms.”

The issue of air conditioning had been a hot one before the Games. As part of Paris’s commitment to a greener Olympics, it was decided that air conditioning would not be installed with officials instead promising that the athletes rooms would be kept cool through a geothermal water system pumping cold water underneath the buildings.

The Paris Games is aiming to reduce its total carbon emissions to half the level of previous Olympics.

Pressed on the issue last year the Paris’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, told reporters: “I have a lot of respect for the comfort of athletes, but I think a lot more about the survival of humanity. I want the Paris Games to be exemplary from an environmental point of view.”

The International Olympic Committee claimed the building’s system would achieve a target temperature of 23-26C at the hottest time of the day in a heatwave but those assurances did not convince a number of the larger, and wealthier, countries including Great Britain, Australia, the US, and even hosts France.

“This is a high-performance Games,” the Australian Olympic Committee chief executive, Matt Carroll, told Australian media last year. “We’re not going for a picnic.”

Organisers reluctantly agreed to provide temporary air conditioning units that would be charged as extras on what are called “rate cards” to those who reserved them.

National delegations had ordered 2,700 air conditioning units, the organisers said, but there are more than 7,000 rooms in the Olympic village.

It is not the only complaint from athletes that had led to wealthier countries going the extra mile to help their athletes while others had to make do.

Team GB flew out their own cook after shortages led to the rationing of high-protein items and service of uncooked meat in the Olympic Village canteen.

Szocs, 29, said she had been surprised to find that the restaurant had run out of protein when she returned to the Olympic village after competing. “Normally, I like to eat meat,” she said.

By the seventh month of pregnancy, expectant mothers can be forgiven for sporting comfortable shoes and clothes with a little give.

But on the third day of the Paris 2024 Olympics, the Egyptian fencer Nada Hafez instead donned an electrically-conductive jacket, a sabre and a mesh wire mask as she took herself and her unborn child on the field of play in the stunning surroundings of the Grand Palais.

The 26-year-old won her first match in the women’s individual sabre competition, but was then knocked out in the last 16, and later revealed that she had fought while seven months pregnant.

“What appears to you as two players on the podium, they were actually three! It was me, my competitor, and my yet-to-come to our world little baby!” said the Cairo native in a post on Instagram. Appearing at her third Olympics, Hafez said “pride fills my being” after taking to the piste while expecting.

The fencer beat Elizabeth Tartakovsky of the United States 15-13 before losing 15-7 to Jeon Hayoung of South Korea.

“My baby and I had our fair share of challenges, be it both physical and emotional,” she wrote. “The rollercoaster of pregnancy is tough on its own, but having to fight to keep the balance of life and sports was nothing short of strenuous, however worth it. I’m lucky to have shared the trust of my husband [Ibrahim Ihab] and that of my family to be able to come this far. This specific Olympics was different; three times Olympian but this time carrying a little Olympian one!”

Paris 2024 has become a major celebration of sporting mothers, with more women with children taking part in the Olympics and Paralympicsthan ever. The Olympic village has a nursery for the first time, and many countries have used the Games to highlight the endeavours of all women on their teams.

The Olympic rower Helen Glover, the world’s No 1 female rower and a two-time Olympic champion, said the Games were changing attitudes towards mothers competing at the highest level, but said fathers in Team GB receive less scrutiny for being parents than female peers.

Glover, who has three children, has been outspoken about the difficulties of juggling parenthood as an elite athlete long since announcing her return from retirement a year ago to compete in Paris.

“Many men in Team GB have children, and it’s not spoken about because it doesn’t change anything. And it’s expected that their careers are longer than women’s careers,” Glover told Radio Times. “But hopefully the biggest thing about these Games is how many women competitors are coming back after having children.”

When competing in Tokyo in 2021, Glover was the first mother to make the Great Britain rowing team, and qualified for the Olympic final 18 months after giving birth to twins.

Donald Trump on Monday repeated his weekend remarks to Christian summit attendees that they would never need to vote again if he returns to the presidency in November.

But, after being asked repeatedly on Fox News to clarify what he meant, the Republican former president denied threatening to permanently stay in office beyond his second – and constitutionally mandated final – four-year term.

During the initial remarks made on Friday, which caused outrage and alarm among his critics, Trump told the crowd to “get out and vote, just this time”, adding that “you won’t have to do it any more. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians.”

Democrats and other critics called the remarks “terrifying”, authoritarian and anti-democratic. And Monday, in a new interview with the Fox News host Laura Ingraham, the former president attempted to explain what he meant.

“That statement is very simple, I said, ‘Vote for me, you’re not gonna have to do it ever again,’” Trump told Ingraham. “It’s true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group, they don’t vote. And I’m explaining that to them. You never vote. This time, vote. I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote any more, I won’t need your vote any more, you can go back to not voting.”

Ingraham pointed out that many Democrats had interpreted his comments over the weekend to mean there would never be another election again. Trump responded that he had not heard that and continued to talk about how lots of Christians tend to not vote.

“Christians do not vote well. They vote in very small percentages. Why? I don’t know. Maybe they’re disappointed in things that are happening,” Trump continued. “I say, ‘You don’t vote.’ I’m saying, ‘Go out – you must vote.’

“You have to vote” in the 5 November election, Trump continued, calling it the most important presidential race in US history. “After that you don’t have to worry about voting any more. I don’t care, because we’re going to fix it, the country will be fixed and we won’t even need your vote any more because, frankly, we will have such love.

“And I think everybody understood it.”

Ingraham pressed the former president, asking him, “But you will leave office after four years?”

Trump responded, “Of course.”

He added: “By the way … I did last time.”

Neither Ingraham nor Trump mentioned that – after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential race – his supporters attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying his electoral defeat.

A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign had previously told the Washington Post that the former president on Friday was “talking about uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division” that it led to the 13 July attempt on Trump’s life at a political rally in Pennsylvania.

Trump’s remarks on Friday came about two months after he apparently flirted with the idea of being president for three terms at the annual National Rifle Association convention in Dallas.

He alluded to how Franklin D Roosevelt was in the White House for three full terms – and died at the beginning of a fourth – from 1933 to 1945, during the Great Depression and the second world war.

“You know, FDR 16 years – almost 16 years – he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” Trump said, prompting some in the crowd to yell “three!” Politico reported.

The 22nd amendment to the US constitution, enacted in 1951, now limits presidents to two four-year terms.

Donald Trump on Monday repeated his weekend remarks to Christian summit attendees that they would never need to vote again if he returns to the presidency in November.

But, after being asked repeatedly on Fox News to clarify what he meant, the Republican former president denied threatening to permanently stay in office beyond his second – and constitutionally mandated final – four-year term.

During the initial remarks made on Friday, which caused outrage and alarm among his critics, Trump told the crowd to “get out and vote, just this time”, adding that “you won’t have to do it any more. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians.”

Democrats and other critics called the remarks “terrifying”, authoritarian and anti-democratic. And Monday, in a new interview with the Fox News host Laura Ingraham, the former president attempted to explain what he meant.

“That statement is very simple, I said, ‘Vote for me, you’re not gonna have to do it ever again,’” Trump told Ingraham. “It’s true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group, they don’t vote. And I’m explaining that to them. You never vote. This time, vote. I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote any more, I won’t need your vote any more, you can go back to not voting.”

Ingraham pointed out that many Democrats had interpreted his comments over the weekend to mean there would never be another election again. Trump responded that he had not heard that and continued to talk about how lots of Christians tend to not vote.

“Christians do not vote well. They vote in very small percentages. Why? I don’t know. Maybe they’re disappointed in things that are happening,” Trump continued. “I say, ‘You don’t vote.’ I’m saying, ‘Go out – you must vote.’

“You have to vote” in the 5 November election, Trump continued, calling it the most important presidential race in US history. “After that you don’t have to worry about voting any more. I don’t care, because we’re going to fix it, the country will be fixed and we won’t even need your vote any more because, frankly, we will have such love.

“And I think everybody understood it.”

Ingraham pressed the former president, asking him, “But you will leave office after four years?”

Trump responded, “Of course.”

He added: “By the way … I did last time.”

Neither Ingraham nor Trump mentioned that – after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential race – his supporters attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying his electoral defeat.

A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign had previously told the Washington Post that the former president on Friday was “talking about uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division” that it led to the 13 July attempt on Trump’s life at a political rally in Pennsylvania.

Trump’s remarks on Friday came about two months after he apparently flirted with the idea of being president for three terms at the annual National Rifle Association convention in Dallas.

He alluded to how Franklin D Roosevelt was in the White House for three full terms – and died at the beginning of a fourth – from 1933 to 1945, during the Great Depression and the second world war.

“You know, FDR 16 years – almost 16 years – he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” Trump said, prompting some in the crowd to yell “three!” Politico reported.

The 22nd amendment to the US constitution, enacted in 1951, now limits presidents to two four-year terms.

At least 108 people have died and dozens more are missing after heavy rain led to a series of landslides in the Indian state of Kerala, with rescue operations hampered by poor weather conditions and the destruction of roads and bridges.

The Kerala chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, confirmed the bodies of 108 people had been uncovered so far and dozens more were missing, feared dead after three massive landslides surged down the hills of the Western Ghats in Wayanad in southern India. About 128 people were injured in the disaster and thousands were moved to camps for safety.

The landslides took place in the early hours of the morning amid heavy rainfall. Hundreds of people were asleep in homes that were swept away or crushed as a river of mud, rocks and uprooted trees swept down the steep hilly terrain. Many migrant labourers working on nearby tea and cardamom plantations had been staying in temporary homes and tents that were easily washed away.

In a statement, Vijayan described the incident as “one of the worst natural calamities Kerala has ever witnessed”.

“Among the victims were children who lost their lives while they were asleep during the wee hours, highlighting the harrowing impact of this disaster. Many residents fled in terror … the damage to homes and livelihoods is immense,” said the chief minister.

Many were still missing and feared to have been engulfed in the deadly flow of muddy water that gushed through the area. Rescuers said the death toll was likely to rise.

Access to the affected sites remained difficult for rescuers amid heavy monsoon rain and destroyed roads, with at least four villages still completely cut off.

More than 200 soldiers were deployed to help in the rescue operation and the army was asked to build a temporary crossing after a bridge in the district that linked the affected forest area to the nearest town of Chooralmala was destroyed. A weather red alert meant that helicopters were not allowed to be deployed to help.

“The situation is serious. The government has pressed all agencies into rescue,” the forests minister, AK Saseendran, told reporters.

The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, was monitoring the disaster and pledged a full rescue effort to find those still trapped in the debris.

The opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, the former MP for Wayanad, said he was “deeply anguished” by the massive landslides. “My heartfelt condolences go out to the bereaved families who have lost their loved ones. I hope those still trapped are brought to safety soon,” he wrote on X.

The south Indian state has increasingly been hit by flooding and landslides caused by irregular and intense rainfall during monsoon seasons.

In August 2018, almost 500 people died after severe flooding across the state owing to unusually heavy rainfall, the worst floods in a century.

Two barrages of rockets fired from Lebanon have killed one Israeli civilian in a kibbutz and injured another person, in attacks likely to add to political pressure inside Israel for a strong strike against Hezbollah and complicate a US-led push to de-escalate regional tensions.

America has been leading a global diplomatic effort to deter Israel from hitting Beirut or Lebanese infrastructure in retaliation for a weekend rocket attack on the occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 children as they played football.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed a “harsh” response. Airstrikes on targets in Lebanon on Sunday and Monday, that killed one Hezbollah fighter, are seen as just an initial foray as the government and military consider their options.

Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, said on Tuesday he does not believe full blown war is “inevitable”. Diplomats from the US have been urging restraint from both parties, sending their messages to Hezbollah through intermediaries including Lebanon’s foreign minister.

“While we’ve seen a lot of activity on Israel’s northern border, we remain concerned about the potential of this escalating into a full blown fight. And I don’t believe that a fight is inevitable,” Austin said.

“We’d like to see things resolved in a diplomatic fashion,” he added during a joint press conference in Manila, after security talks between himself, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and their Philippine counterparts.

Countries including the UK, Germany, France and America have urged citizens to leave Lebanon or avoid travelling there as tensions mount.

The British foreign secretary, David Lammy, said on Tuesday that events were “fast-moving” and that British nationals were advised “to leave Lebanon and not to travel to the country”.

Many airlines have cancelled flights to Beirut. Greece’s Aegean Airlines and Germany’s Condor were the latest to suspend services, joining others including Royal Jordanian, Air France and Lufthansa.

Druze residents of Majdal Shams, the town hit by the rocket, have said they do not want strikes on Lebanon in response to their own tragedy. On Monday, many came out to protest against Netanyahu when he visited the town.

“We reject the shedding of even a single drop of blood under the pretext of avenging our children,” Druze lay and religious leaders said in a statement after Netanyahu’s visit, noting their faith forbids killing and revenge.

That is not a mainstream view in Israel where there is heavy political pressure to strike hard in retaliation. The education minister, Yoav Kisch, from Netanyahu’s Likud party, has called for a strong response “even if it means entering all-out war”. The far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said “all of Lebanon must pay the price” for the attack.

Tuesday’s rocket attacks, which killed a 30-year-old man in the yard of his home in HaGoshrim kibbutz, will only add to that pressure.

Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire across the Lebanese border since last October, with daily exchanges gradually intensifying. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced from homes on both sides of the border.

The US says both sides have indicated they want to avoid all-out war. But the scale of the attacks and the high stakes on both sides mean the risk of slipping into full blown conflict through miscalculation, overreach or accident is high.

Israel and the US say Hezbollah was responsible for the strike on Majdal Shams, saying remnants of an Iranian missile were at the site. The militant group has denied responsibility.

Lebanese officials say they are braced for a significant Israeli response, but hope it will be restrained enough to give Hezbollah an off-ramp from further escalation.

“If they [Israel] avoid civilians and they avoid Beirut and its suburbs, then their attack could be well calculated,” the deputy parliament speaker, Elias Bou Saab, who has been in touch with US mediators, told Reuters.

Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, whose country backs Hezbollah and Hamas, warned Israel against attacking Lebanon, which he said would be “a great mistake with heavy consequences”.

Even if the latest tensions can be resolved without further escalation, Hezbollah says an end to its campaign is contingent on an end to fighting in Gaza, so the threat of war will remain, said Danny Citrinowicz, an analyst with Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies.

“Without a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, it is only a matter of time before we reach another conflict in the north of Israel,” he said in a post on X. “Only if Hamas and Israel reach a ceasefire, war between Israel and Hezbollah can be prevented.”

The Mexican state of Chiapas was once a haven for Guatemalans fleeing genocide at home, but this historical relationship has recently flipped, with hundreds of Mexicans crossing the border to escape the violent tyranny of organised crime groups.

Entire communities emptied out last week as more than 500 men, women, children and the elderly fled with what they could carry and walked across the border, citing food shortages and the conflicts between criminal groups pressing in ever closer on their homes.

One refugee, a 93-year-old woman, died shortly after arriving in Guatemala.

Guatemalan authorities have issued the refugees temporary humanitarian visas while the two governments work to bring them back to Mexico.

The refugees are the latest victims of the spiralling insecurity in a state that has deteriorated perhaps more than any other since president Andrés Manuel López Obrador took power in 2018.

Chiapas used to be a relatively safe part of Mexico, known for its colonial towns and archaeological ruins, as well as the Zapatista uprising of 1994 that became a symbol for Indigenous rights and resistance to globalisation.

That began to change roughly three years ago, and the situation has degraded dramatically over the last year as various organised crime groups fight for control.

“We’re seeing confrontations with heavy weapons, armoured vehicles and even armed drones,” said a local human rights defender who asked to remain anonymous for their safety. “During these battles they’ve cut electricity and communications, and health services and education have been suspended.”

In addition to executions and forced disappearances, local reporters have documented communities being forced to mount blockades or even join organised crime groups.

“People live in constant terror, fear, anxiety,” said the human rights defender. “It’s a humanitarian crisis – of a kind we didn’t see even when the Zapatistas mounted an armed uprising against the Mexican government. The civil population has been taken hostage.”

According to one report, roughly 17,000 people were forcibly displaced in Chiapas between 2010 and 2022, with a dramatic acceleration towards the present.

Small groups had dripped into Guatemala – but last week’s mass exodus was unprecedented.

“We haven’t seen anything on this scale in recent years,” said Parker Asmann of Insight Crime. “And I think that speaks to how severe the violence has become – and to the complete lack of faith that local communities have in Mexican authorities to ensure their safety.”

On one level, the conflict in Chiapas reflects the continuing power struggle between the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, the country’s two most powerful organised crime groups, which are fighting to control territory and businesses across Mexico.

Chiapas is a key transit point for cocaine shipments as well as migrants travelling to the United States. Criminal groups have also set up extortion rackets, taxing the local population.

But the conflict between these groups has also taken in and inflamed existing tensions in a region with a history of violence over access to land.

The Zapatistas – who never laid down their weapons – have tried to resist the incursion of organised crime, while other communities have set up self-defence squads and one Indigenous town, San Juan Chamula, created its own mafia, all adding to the proliferation of armed actors.

“You’ve got a lot of things happening at once: longstanding land conflicts, links between officials and organised crime, and a multitude of actors trying to profit from the economic opportunities in the state,” said Asmann. “It is extraordinarily complex.”

López Obrador has tended to play down the situation in Chiapas. Two months ago, he said it was “not on fire” and that “in five years [of this government] we have not had serious problems of insecurity in the state”.

The human rights defender accused the state of “indifference and denial”, while another person who works for an NGO on the border with Guatemala, who also asked to remain anonymous for their safety, said the authorities “are completely absent”.

Yet it is not clear that the situation would be improved by greater military presence – nor that local communities would want more soldiers.

“The Mexican state has a long history of repression in Chiapas, especially of Indigenous communities,” said Asmann. “There’s a general wariness between local communities and the armed forces. Many of those communities have criticised the state and armed forces for everything from simply being complacent to directly facilitating the violence.”

The Mexican state of Chiapas was once a haven for Guatemalans fleeing genocide at home, but this historical relationship has recently flipped, with hundreds of Mexicans crossing the border to escape the violent tyranny of organised crime groups.

Entire communities emptied out last week as more than 500 men, women, children and the elderly fled with what they could carry and walked across the border, citing food shortages and the conflicts between criminal groups pressing in ever closer on their homes.

One refugee, a 93-year-old woman, died shortly after arriving in Guatemala.

Guatemalan authorities have issued the refugees temporary humanitarian visas while the two governments work to bring them back to Mexico.

The refugees are the latest victims of the spiralling insecurity in a state that has deteriorated perhaps more than any other since president Andrés Manuel López Obrador took power in 2018.

Chiapas used to be a relatively safe part of Mexico, known for its colonial towns and archaeological ruins, as well as the Zapatista uprising of 1994 that became a symbol for Indigenous rights and resistance to globalisation.

That began to change roughly three years ago, and the situation has degraded dramatically over the last year as various organised crime groups fight for control.

“We’re seeing confrontations with heavy weapons, armoured vehicles and even armed drones,” said a local human rights defender who asked to remain anonymous for their safety. “During these battles they’ve cut electricity and communications, and health services and education have been suspended.”

In addition to executions and forced disappearances, local reporters have documented communities being forced to mount blockades or even join organised crime groups.

“People live in constant terror, fear, anxiety,” said the human rights defender. “It’s a humanitarian crisis – of a kind we didn’t see even when the Zapatistas mounted an armed uprising against the Mexican government. The civil population has been taken hostage.”

According to one report, roughly 17,000 people were forcibly displaced in Chiapas between 2010 and 2022, with a dramatic acceleration towards the present.

Small groups had dripped into Guatemala – but last week’s mass exodus was unprecedented.

“We haven’t seen anything on this scale in recent years,” said Parker Asmann of Insight Crime. “And I think that speaks to how severe the violence has become – and to the complete lack of faith that local communities have in Mexican authorities to ensure their safety.”

On one level, the conflict in Chiapas reflects the continuing power struggle between the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, the country’s two most powerful organised crime groups, which are fighting to control territory and businesses across Mexico.

Chiapas is a key transit point for cocaine shipments as well as migrants travelling to the United States. Criminal groups have also set up extortion rackets, taxing the local population.

But the conflict between these groups has also taken in and inflamed existing tensions in a region with a history of violence over access to land.

The Zapatistas – who never laid down their weapons – have tried to resist the incursion of organised crime, while other communities have set up self-defence squads and one Indigenous town, San Juan Chamula, created its own mafia, all adding to the proliferation of armed actors.

“You’ve got a lot of things happening at once: longstanding land conflicts, links between officials and organised crime, and a multitude of actors trying to profit from the economic opportunities in the state,” said Asmann. “It is extraordinarily complex.”

López Obrador has tended to play down the situation in Chiapas. Two months ago, he said it was “not on fire” and that “in five years [of this government] we have not had serious problems of insecurity in the state”.

The human rights defender accused the state of “indifference and denial”, while another person who works for an NGO on the border with Guatemala, who also asked to remain anonymous for their safety, said the authorities “are completely absent”.

Yet it is not clear that the situation would be improved by greater military presence – nor that local communities would want more soldiers.

“The Mexican state has a long history of repression in Chiapas, especially of Indigenous communities,” said Asmann. “There’s a general wariness between local communities and the armed forces. Many of those communities have criticised the state and armed forces for everything from simply being complacent to directly facilitating the violence.”

Roughly 7% of w​​omen of reproductive age in the US have attempted to induce their own abortions outside the formal healthcare system, a new study has found, up from 5% before Roe v Wade fell in 2022.

The study, published on Tuesday in the Jama medical journal, determined how many people reported ever “self-managing” their own abortion in 2021 and again in 2023 – a timeline that allowed researchers to examine how Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the supreme court case that overturned Roe, has affected self-managed abortions. People of color and LGBTQ+ people were more likely to report having ever attempted to end their own pregnancies.

“We think because it’s getting more difficult to access facility-based abortion, that self-managed abortion will increase,” said Lauren Ralph, the study’s lead author and an epidemiologist at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, a research group at the University of California, San Francisco. “It’s a really important piece of the puzzle, as we try to understand the full impact of the Dobbs decision on people’s reproductive lives.”

Since Dobbs, 14 states have enacted near-total abortion bans. On Monday, Iowa became the fourth state to ban the procedure past about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant.

Of the women who reported in 2023 attempting to induce their own abortion, 11% said in 2023 they had used mifepristone, one of the abortion pills typically used in a two-pill protocol, and 13.7% said they used misoprostol, the other pill, on its own. Another study, published in March, estimated roughly 26,000 more people in the US used pills to induce their own at-home abortions than would have done so if Roe had not fallen.

Medical experts widely agree that these pills can be used to safely self-manage an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy, and the World Health Organization even offers a protocol on how to do it. Misoprostol can safely be used on its own – but often comes with more side-effects than the two-pill regimen – while using mifepristone alone can result in more complications and is not typically recommended when ending a pregnancy .

Far more people tried to end their pregnancies in potentially unsafe ways. In 2023, about 25% of those who attempted to self-manage their abortions used herbs, 22% hit themselves in the stomach and 19% used alcohol or other drugs. Another 15% said that, after their attempted self-managed abortion, they experienced a complication – such as bleeding or pain – that led them to see a doctor or nurse.

Asked why they tried to self-manage an abortion, people said they wanted privacy, that going to an abortion clinic was too expensive or they preferred trying on their own first. Nearly 13% said they were concerned about clinic protesters.

Four in 10 people who have ever self-managed an abortion were younger than 20 when they did it, and 9% of people who had tried to self-manage an abortion were concerned about needing parental consent. Many abortion-tolerant states still have parental involvement laws on the books, which require minors to tell their parents about their plans to get an abortion or to get their consent for the procedure. If a minor cannot or will not do so, they have to go to court and convince a judge to let them get an abortion without parental knowledge or consent – which can be a tall ask.

Ralph was not surprised to find that so many people who try to end their own pregnancies are so young.

“Given things like parental-involvement requirements, given things like difficulty accessing transportation, given things like not having your own bank accounts or having a consistent source of income in the same way that a young adult might, I do think that young people might be more likely to turn to self-managed abortion than their older counterparts,” Ralph said. Young people’s experiences of abortion, she added, had long been understudied.

Because people who self-manage abortions can face criminal consequences, Ralph and her fellow researchers used statistical analyses to account for people who may not be accurately reporting their experiences with the phenomenon. Just one state – Nevada – bans self-managed abortion, but legal experts have long warned that if a prosecutor wants to punish someone for attempting one, they will find a statute pliable enough to do it. Earlier this year, an Ohio grand jury considered whether to indict a woman accused of abusing a corpse after she miscarried into a toilet. (It ultimately declined to charge her.)

Ralph found that about a third of people in both 2021 and 2023 said that their self-managed abortion succeeded, while a fifth said that they later underwent an abortion at a clinic. Another quarter of people said that nothing happened and that they may never have been pregnant in the first place. Fourteen per cent continued their pregnancies.

A weight-loss drug could help slow the loss of brain volume in people with Alzheimer’s disease, according to a small study.

Liraglutide, which can also be prescribed for diabetes, is typically taken as an injection once a day.

Trial results published at the Alzheimer’s Association international conference in the US suggest the drug, also known as Saxenda, could slow decline in memory and thinking in people with the disease.

The number of people living with dementia globally is forecast to nearly triple to 153 million by 2050, and experts say this presents a rapidly growing threat to future health and social care systems.

“This research provides hope that more options for changing the course of the disease are on the horizon,” said the chief science officer of the Alzheimer’s Association, Dr Maria Carrillo. “We are in an era of unprecedented promise, with new treatments in various stages of development that slow or may possibly prevent cognitive decline due to Alzheimer’s disease.”

The trial studied 204 patients in the UK. Half received liraglutide, made by Novo Nordisk, and the other half a placebo.

The study did not meet its primary endpoint, or main goal, which was change in the cerebral glucose metabolic rate, an assessment of brain function.

It did meet the secondary endpoints. The drug appeared to reduce shrinking in the parts of the brain that control memory, learning, language and decision-making by nearly 50% compared with the placebo.

Researchers led by experts from Imperial College London said that after 12 months of treatment, the drug appeared to reduce cognitive decline in participants by as much as 18%.

Tests examining memory, comprehension, language and spatial orientation revealed that those who took the drug had a “statistically significant slowing of cognitive decline” after a year compared with those who had the placebo drug.

Experts said much larger studies were required to confirm the findings.

The study lead, Paul Edison, a professor of science at Imperial College London, said: “The slower loss of brain volume suggests liraglutide protects the brain, much like statins protect the heart.

“While further research is needed, liraglutide may work through various mechanisms, such as reducing inflammation in the brain, lowering insulin resistance and the toxic effects of Alzheimer’s biomarkers amyloid-beta and tau, and improving how the brain’s nerve cells communicate.”

Dr Sheona Scales, the director of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “Being able to repurpose drugs already licensed for other health conditions could help accelerate progress and open up new avenues to prevent or treat dementia-causing diseases, such as Alzheimer’s.

“This new research shows that people with early-stage Alzheimer’s taking liraglutide had a slower decline in memory and thinking, and less brain shrinkage, over 12 months, compared to placebo.

“However, the study was carried out in a small group of people. Larger trials are now happening to see whether drugs like liraglutide are effective at slowing down the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.”

The trial was not sponsored by Novo Nordisk. However, the company is testing another of its weight-loss drugs, semaglutide – sold as the diabetes drug Ozempic and the obesity drug Wegovy – in thousands of patients with early Alzheimer’s.

Its two trials began in 2021 and results are expected in 2025.

Fears of a China trade war erupting under a second Trump presidential term are overblown, according to bosses at Standard Chartered bank, as they suggested that the country’s real estate woes were “largely in the rearview mirror”.

While the London-headquartered bank makes most of its money in Asia, particularly in Hong Kong and Singapore, its chief executive, Bill Winters, played down the impact that increasingly strained relations between Washington and Beijing might have on the business.

Winters told journalists on Tuesday that the administration of US president, Joe Biden, had already been “very hawkish on China”, implementing trade restrictions and sanctions that had not exactly thawed relations with one of the world’s largest economies.

“Whoever wins this election, Harris or Trump, is likely to continue to be hawkish on China,” Winters said.

Any pressure to open up China to the rest of the world will boost business for a cross-border lender like Standard Chartered, Winters added.

“The more China is under pressure from international partners, the more they’re inclined to open up, in order to establish China as a very substantial trade and investment player globally,” Winters said.

He added: “So I won’t say we’re not worried because tension in and of itself is bad for global sentiment and undermines business confidence to some degree. But this is not impacting our business and, you might say, quite the contrary.”

The comments came as the bank reported pre-tax profits of $1.6bn (£1.25bn) in the second quarter, having beat the $1.5bn forecasted by analysts, thanks in part to growth across its wealth division that manages and invests money for rich clients.

Official figures released earlier this month also showed that China’s economy grew 4.7% in the second quarter, falling short of expectations for a 5.1% rise.

Standard Chartered warned that China’s growth rate was “unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels”, but Winters insisted policymakers were being very deliberate in their management of a maturing economy, including a recent real estate crisis that resulted in the forced liquidation of developer Evergrande.

The bank’s chief financial officer, Diego De Giorgi, said it would be a “fool’s errand” to call a bottom on the China real estate market woes. However, he believed the financial ripple effects had largely been accounted for.

“From our point of view, it’s a problem that is largely in the rearview mirror,” De Giorgi said. In February, the bank said it was expecting a maximum $1.2bn hit linked to its Chinese commercial real estate portfolio.

“We have every confidence that China will maintain strong growth,” Winters added. “It’s still the the largest, or the second largest, contributor to global growth in any particular period, and we expect that will be the case in the quarters and years to come.”

The Baby Reindeer creator and star Richard Gadd has detailed the “exhausting and extremely upsetting” stalking he allegedly experienced at the hands of the woman who is suing Netflix over her portrayal in the series.

In a 21-page document filed to a California court on Monday, Gadd described years of “stalking, harassment, abuse and threats” he allegedly suffered from the plaintiff, Fiona Harvey, between 2014 and 2017.

Harvey filed a $170m lawsuit against Netflix in June, in which she accused the streaming giant of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, gross negligence and violations of her right of publicity. Netflix have billed Baby Reindeer as “a true story”.

Harvey is never named in the series, but has publicly identified herself as the inspiration behind Martha Scott, who stalks Gadd’s character in the show. Harvey has denied being a stalker, or that she sent Gadd 41,000 emails, hundreds of voice messages and 106 letters, claiming she only sent him a few emails, one letter by post and about 18 messages on X.

In his court filing, Gadd outlined how Baby Reindeer is a “fictionalised retelling of my emotional journey through several extremely traumatic real experiences”.

“The Series is a dramatic work,” he wrote. “It is not a documentary or an attempt at realism. While the Series is based on my life and real-life events and is, at its core, emotionally true, it is not a beat-by-beat recounting of the events and emotions I experienced as they transpired. It is fictionalized, and is not intended to portray actual facts.”

Baby Reindeer was based on a theatre production the Scottish writer and actor performed at the 2019 Edinburgh festival fringe.

“Although these stage productions were emotionally true and based on real events in my life, they dramatised people, places, things, and events to tell a story,” Gadd wrote in the filing. “I did not write the Series as a representation of actual facts about any real person, including Fiona Harvey … Martha Scott is not Fiona Harvey.”

Gadd described meeting Harvey while he was working at the Hawley Arms pub in London in 2014 and initially thought she was “harmless”. But, he alleged, she “often attempted to touch me in inappropriate (and sometimes sexual) ways” and ignored his requests for her to stop.

After two years of harassment, during which he claims he received “thousands of emails, hundreds of voicemails, and a number of handwritten letters”, which were often “sexually explicit, violent” with “derogatory content, hateful speech, and threats”, Gadd claims he reported Harvey to the police in February 2016.

“The cumulative effect of all of Harvey’s actions was enormous,” he wrote. “It was exhausting and extremely upsetting to deal with her constant personal interactions in the Hawley Arms, her following me around London including near where I lived and her relentless and deeply unpleasant communications.”

Gadd said a First Instance Harassment Warning was issued against Harvey in May 2016, and the emails and voicemails stopped. But he alleged that he subsequently received a handwritten letter from her with a pair of underwear inside in August 2017.

“Overall, it was an incredibly stressful and worrying time, with a sustained period of relentless behavior taking place over several years,” he wrote, adding that he was willing to testify as a witness if called upon.

Harvey denies she assaulted or stalked Gadd, telling Piers Morgan: “I don’t think I sent him anything. There may have been a couple of emails, jokey banter, but that is it.”

Harvey is seeking $50m for actual damages, $50m in compensatory damages for “mental anguish, loss of enjoyment and loss of business”, $50m for “all profits from ‘Baby Reindeer’” and $20m for punitive damages.

Her lawsuit, which names Netflix as a defendant, accused the streaming giant of doing “literally nothing to confirm the ‘true story’ that Gadd told … it never investigated whether Harvey was convicted, a very serious misrepresentation of the facts. It did nothing to understand the relationship between Gadd and Harvey, if any … As a result of Defendants’ lies, malfeasance and utterly reckless misconduct, Harvey’s life had been ruined. Simply, Netflix and Gadd destroyed her reputation, her character and her life.”

A Netflix spokesperson told the Guardian in June: “We intend to defend this matter vigorously and to stand by Richard Gadd’s right to tell his story.”

The series is now among Netflix’s top 10 biggest shows ever.