Tim Walz touted his rural roots and said Donald Trump would take the US “backwards” as he appeared for the first time as Kamala Harris’s running mate at a raucous Democratic Party rally.

At the event in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, the party’s new nominee for vice-president said their Republican rivals in November’s election were “weird as hell”.

The Minnesota governor spoke in front of thousands of supporters just hours after he was announced as Ms Harris’s pick for the role.

The Trump campaign, meanwhile, was quick to attack Mr Walz as a “dangerously liberal extremist”.

The 60-year-old is billed as someone who could win back rural and working-class voters who have gravitated to Donald Trump in crucial midwestern states.

At the rally in the key swing state of Pennsylvania, Ms Harris, currently the US vice-president, said she and Mr Walz were the “underdogs” in what is expected to be a close election but had the momentum.

She introduced her running mate as “a fighter for the middle class, a patriot”.

Mr Walz then recounted his small-town roots in Nebraska and his career as a national guardsman and teacher, before attempting to draw a contrast with Trump.

“He doesn’t know the first thing about service – because he’s too busy serving himself,” said the former army sergeant and football coach.

He got some of the loudest cheers of the night when he took aim at the former president’s criminal record, with chants of “lock him up” from those in the arena.

He also sparked applause when he invoked a viral attack line that caught the eye of the Harris campaign as she considered who would be her running mate.

“These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell,” Mr Walz said of their Republican challengers.

The governor also said he “can’t wait to debate” Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, “that is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up”.

The pair mostly pitched themselves as defenders of individual freedoms, including on abortion rights and safety from gun violence.

Mr Walz showed the plain-spoken, folksy style that has won praise from Democrats, as he took a jab at Republicans on the issue of abortion access.

“Mind your own damn business!” he said, drawing an ovation from the crowd of more than 10,000 at Temple University.

Ms Harris and Mr Walz have just launched a five-day tour of key battleground states.

They will also speak at the Democratic National Convention, which runs from 19 to 22 August in Chicago.

As the current two-term governor of Minnesota, Mr Walz has overseen one of the most productive legislative periods in state history, implementing a sweeping progressive agenda.

Democrats have used control of the state legislature to guarantee abortion rights, pass gun control measures and institute paid family leave.

Republicans have criticised Mr Walz for Minnesota’s mask mandate and a shutdown of businesses and schools during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as his delay in deploying the National Guard to deal with rioting after George Floyd’s murder in 2020.

Also in Philadelphia earlier on Tuesday was Mr Vance, Trump’s running mate, who assailed the new Democratic White House ticket.

The Ohio senator told reporters that Ms Harris’s choice of Mr Walz shows that “when given the opportunity she will bend the knee to the most radical elements of her party”.

Trump’s campaign said in a statement: “Just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare.”

President Joe Biden, who suspended his own election campaign last month and endorsed Ms Harris, said in a statement that the Democratic ticket “will be the strongest defenders of our personal freedoms and our democracy”.

Another of the finalists to be Ms Harris’s running mate, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, was also at the rally.

He had faced sharp criticism from the left over his support for Israel and his handling of college protests sparked by the war in Gaza.

Some Trump advisers have expressed relief that Ms Harris did not pick Mr Shapiro because of concerns he could help deliver the pivotal state of Pennsylvania.

Before entering the governor’s office, Mr Walz represented a Republican-leaning district in the US Congress for 12 years.

He won that seat in 2006 – the only Democrat to have done so in the mostly rural district over the past three decades.

Mr Walz is a native of Nebraska and the son of a school administrator and a stay-at-home mother.

He grew up farming and hunting and served in the Army National Guard for 24 years after joining aged 17.

The young Mr Walz also taught secondary school pupils – first for a year in China, a country he says he has visited about 30 times. He speaks some Mandarin.

His wife, Gwen Whipple, a fellow teacher, drew him to her native Minnesota, where he taught social studies and geography and coached American football.

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As they walked out for the first time as presidential running mates on Tuesday night, Tim Walz turned to Kamala Harris and mouthed one word: “wow”.

It spoke to the enthusiastic response from the Philadelphia crowd, but also reflected the unlikely journey that the Minnesota governor has been on over the past week.

Few people had Mr Walz on their early lists of possible vice-presidential choices. But on Tuesday, the dark horse won the race.

In a year when “vibes” have been everything in politics – on the economy, on the campaign trail – that is exactly what Kamala Harris has gone for: good vibes.

The Minnesota governor has a “midwestern nice” appeal, even when he is throwing political punches. His background – a teacher, a football coach, an Army National Guard enlisted soldier – broadcasts “meat-and-potatoes middle America”, as does perhaps his balding, rotund, slightly dishevelled appearance.

All of this was on display here in Philadelphia.

After noting that violent crime rates went up under Donald Trump, he added – with a smile – “and that doesn’t even count the crimes he committed”. He called the Republican ticket “weird as hell” –a label that has become a Democratic mantra in just a matter of days. And on the topic of abortion, he said government should follow a midwestern golden rule: “Mind your own damn business”.

Mixing humour with jabs – and speaking openly of the “joy” he sees in Democratic politics – may prove to be a more effective way to convince undecided voters who were simply not convinced by the dark “threat to democracy” rhetoric the Biden campaign had been using.

Mr Walz’s aw-shucks affability stood in sharp contrast with other possible choices – the polished and ambitious Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, with his arrow-straight military demeanour.

Mr Shapiro served as the warm-up act for the new Democratic ticket, and he received a hero’s welcome from his home-state crowd. It was a reminder of what Ms Harris passed over in picking Mr Walz – a popular politician with a silver tongue from perhaps the most important state on the electoral map.

Mr Walz was a safer pick than the Pennsylvanian, however, whose criticism of pro-Palestinian protesters and support for using public funds for private schools prompted objections from key parts of the Democratic base. These risked reopening intraparty divisions at a time when Democrats were finally pulling together.

And while Minnesota is not a battleground state, the Harris campaign may hope that Mr Walz has midwestern appeal in places like Wisconsin and Michigan, which will ultimately help decide this election.

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• ANALYSIS: Three ways Trump will try to end Harris honeymoon
• SWING STATES: Where the election could be won and lost
• EXPLAINER: RFK Jr and others running for president
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By taking a Republican-held House seat in 2006, Mr Walz has already shown he can win round a significant number of rural and Republican voters.

And Mr Walz has proven adept at defending his record of progressive legislation in a way that moderates and independent voters can understand.

He’s also a native of Nebraska, which in 2020 delivered one of its electoral votes to Joe Biden. It’s by far the smallest battleground, but in a close race it could be the difference between victory and defeat.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat grandee who was so instrumental in persuading Joe Biden to step aside for Ms Harris, has been gushing in her praise of the “wonderful” Mr Walz.

It is no surprise. His 2006 victory helped deliver the House majority to Ms Pelosi as House Speaker, and to the Democrats for the first time in 12 years.

Republicans are going to try to erase these early good vibes and replace them with a darker picture.

The Trump campaign has already branded him a “dangerously liberal extremist” and a “far-left lunatic”.

They point to his record in Minnesota of enacting left-wing social programmes and accuse him of not doing enough to control the demonstrations that broke out after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in 2020.

At the very least, Republicans may welcome not having to face-off against Mr Shapiro, who has a more centrist profile and might have given Ms Harris a decisive boost in Pennsylvania.

JD Vance, Mr Walz’s Republican adversary for the vice-presidency, said the choice showed Ms Harris was willing to “bend the knee to the most radical elements of her party”.

Trump, meanwhile, said Mr Walz will unleash “HELL ON EARTH and open our borders to the worst criminals imaginable”.

But even if Mr Walz provides a more inviting target for Republicans, making that rhetoric stick on his friendly, meat-and-potatoes persona will be no easy task for the Trump campaign.

Now the newly minted Democratic ticket hits the campaign trail, with 91 days left until election day.

“That’s easy,” Mr Walz said of the three-month home stretch. “We can sleep when we’re dead”.

A Pakistani man with ties to Iran has been charged over an alleged plot to assassinate US politicians and officials.

FBI director Christopher Wray called the scheme a “dangerous murder-for-hire plot… straight out of the Iranian playbook”.

Asif Merchant, 46, is accused of attempting to hire a hitman in New York to kill prominent American officials. CBS, the BBC’s news partner, quoted sources as saying Donald Trump was among the targets.

Security for the Republican presidential nominee was increased in June after authorities learned of an Iranian plot to kill him.

“A foreign-directed plot to kill a public official, or any US citizen, is a threat to our national security and will be met with the full might and resources of the FBI,” Mr Wray said on Tuesday.

Mr Merchant was arrested in July and is being held in New York.

According to the justice department’s indictment, Mr Merchant arrived in the US from Pakistan in April after having spent time in Iran.

After arriving, he allegedly contacted a person whom he believed could help with the assassination plot. That unnamed contact later reported Mr Merchant to the police.

Mr Merchant allegedly made a “finger gun” motion with his hand when talking about what he wanted to do.

The indictment said the job would not be a “one-time opportunity” and that contacts services would be needed on an ongoing basis.

Mr Merchant allegedly told the contact he planned to leave the US before targets were killed, and that he would stay in contact using code words.

The suspect asked the contact to arrange a meeting with would-be assassins, the indictment says. The contact then connected him in June to undercover FBI agents posing as hitmen.

Mr Merchant allegedly told the agents they were to steal documents from the home of a target, arrange protests at political rallies, and kill a “political person”.

According to the indictment, Mr Merchant said the targets would be communicated in the last week of August or the first week of September.

While the indictment does not mention Trump by name, sources cited by CBS said that the former president was one of the intended targets.

The plot is unrelated to the assassination attempt on the former president at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July, by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper on site.

Trump and officials including his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, have faced threats from Tehran since ordering the drone strike assassination of Qassim Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds force, in Iraq in 2020.

An American woman who was found chained to a tree “screaming” in a forest in the western Indian state of Maharashtra had shackled herself, police and her doctor have told the BBC.

Lalita Kayi, 50, was rescued about 10 days ago from the dense forests of Sindhudurg district after her cries for help were heard by shepherds.

In a written statement to the police, she had alleged that her husband “chained her and left her in the forest to die without food or water”.

Ms Kayi, who is receiving treatment in a psychiatric facility, has not spoken publicly. The US embassy has also refused to comment, citing her right to privacy.

Ms Kayi’s discovery had shocked India and police had constituted several teams to investigate how she came to be in the forest.

Saurabh Agarwal, superintendent of police for Sindhudurg, told BBC Marathi on Tuesday that Ms Kayi had now said that she was not married and that she was probably suffering from hallucinations when she gave her first statement.

Police said she told them she had been distressed because her visa had run out and she was running out of money, so she had bought locks and chains and tied herself to the tree.

Dr Sanghamitra Phule, superintendent of the psychiatric hospital where Ms Kayi is being treated, told BBC Marathi that “her condition is improving”.

“She eats, walks and also exercises. She is under treatment and we are also giving her some nutrients that her body was lacking.”

Dr Phule said her family had been traced in the US and that Ms Kayi was in touch with them on the phone.

She was found on 27 July by a cow herder who had taken his cattle to graze in the forest and heard “a woman screaming loudly”.

“The sound was coming from the forest on the side of the mountain. When I went there, I saw that one of her legs was tied to a tree. She was screaming like an animal. I called other villagers and the local police.”

They police sawed off the chain and rescued her. Ms Kayi, who appeared completely emaciated, was taken to hospital and after her physical health improved, she was moved to the psychiatric facility for further treatment.

Police said that on her, they found a copy of her passport – which stated that she was a US citizen who came from Massachusetts – and some other documents with her home address in Tamil Nadu. She also had a mobile phone, a tablet and 31,000 rupees ($370; £290) in her possession.

Ms Kayi, who was initially unable to speak, communicated with the police and doctors by scribbling notes on a pad.

She said she was married to a man in the southern state of Tamil Nadu and blamed him for tying her to the tree. She claimed that she had gone without food and water for 40 days. Police had questioned her claim, saying it was unlikely that someone would survive without food or water for so long.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who is a longtime political foe of Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina, has been named the country’s interim leader.

The appointment of the 84-year-old as chief adviser of the interim government comes a day after Ms Hasina fled the country after weeks of deadly unrest.

While Prof Yunus has been lauded for his pioneering use of microloans, Ms Hasina has regarded him as a public enemy and a local court recently handed him a jail term in what he described as a politically-motivated case.

Students who led the protests said they would not accept a military-led government and had pushed for Prof Yunus to lead the interim administration.

The decision to name Prof Yunus as chief adviser came after a meeting between President Mohammed Shahabuddin, military leaders, and student leaders.

“When the students who sacrificed so much are requesting me to step in at this difficult juncture, how can I refuse?” Prof Yunus had said.

He is returning to Dhaka from Paris where he is undergoing a minor medical procedure, his spokesperson said.

In 1983, Prof Yunus started Grameen Bank, which offers small, long-term loans to help poor people start their own small businesses. The concept has since taken off around the world.

In 2006, Prof Yunus and the bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

He is known internationally as the “banker to the poor”, but Ms Hasina had described him a “bloodsucker” of the poor and accused his bank of charging exorbitant interest rates.

In January, Prof Yunus was sentenced to six months in jail for violating the country’s labour laws by failing to create a welfare fund for their workers.

His supporters had said the case was politically motivated, while Prof Yunus, who is appealing the verdict, had said it was “contrary to all legal precedent and logic”.

There have also been other cases against him, including tax evasion and serving at Grameen Bank beyond the mandatory retirement age – but Prof Yunus and his lawyer maintain that these are baseless.

The protests began in early July with peaceful demands from university students to abolish quotas in civil service jobs, but snowballed into a broader anti-government movement.

In all, more than 400 people are believed to have died in clashes between government forces and protesters.

On Monday alone, more than 100 people died in violent clashes across the country, making it the single deadliest day since the protests began last month. Hundreds of police stations were also torched.

As protesters stormed and looted the prime minister’s official residence, Ms Hasina fled neighbouring India, ending nearly 15 years of rule.

Prominent opposition figures jailed under her rule, including ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia and activist Ahmad Bin Quasem, have since been released.

Ms Zia chairs the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which boycotted elections in 2014 and again in 2024, saying free and fair elections were not possible under Ms Hasina.

The 78-year-old served as prime minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996, but was imprisoned in 2018 for corruption, although she claims the charges were politically motivated.

Rights groups say Mr Quasem was taken away by security forces in 2016, just one of hundreds of forced disappearances in the country under Ms Hasina’s rule.

Across the border in India, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said he was “deeply concerned till law and order is visibly restored” in Bangladesh, with which India shares a 4,096-km (2,545-mile) border and has close economic and cultural ties.

He gave the first official confirmation that Ms Hasina had made a request to travel to India at “very short notice” and subsequently arrived in Delhi.

India also deployed additional troops along its border with Bangladesh.

“Our border guarding forces have also been instructed to be exceptionally alert in view of this complex situation,” Mr Jaishankar said.

Foreign leaders have called on Bangladesh to uphold democracy after Prof Yunus’ appointment.

“Any decisions that the interim government makes, they need to respect democratic principles… to uphold the rule of law [and] reflect the will of the people,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Australian foreign minister Penny Wong called on all parties to refrain from violence and “respect universal rights”.

“We urge a full and independent and impartial investigation into the events in recent weeks,” she added.

Hours after Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country on Monday following mass protests, a development professional in the capital, Dhaka, received a panicked phone call from his cousin.

Avirup Sarkar is a Bangladeshi Hindu, living in a country that is 90% Muslim. His widowed cousin lives in a sprawling joint family house in a mixed neighbourhood in Netrokona, a district crisscrossed by rivers, about 100km (62 miles) north from Dhaka.

“She sounded terrified. She said the house had been attacked and plundered by a mob,” Mr Sarkar, a social protection specialist, told me on the phone from Dhaka.

His cousin said the mob of about 100 people, armed with sticks, stormed the house, smashing furniture, TV, bathroom fittings and doors. Before leaving, they took all the cash and jewellery. They didn’t assault any of the 18-odd residents, including half-a-dozen children belonging to seven families, that lived there.

“You people are descendants of the Awami League! This country is in a bad shape because of you. You should leave the country,” the mob shouted at the residents before leaving with the loot.

Mr Sarkar told me that he was shocked, but not entirely surprised by the incident. Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, he says, are largely viewed as supporters of Sheikh Hasina’s secular Awami League party and are often attacked by rivals in a country where Islam is the state religion.

After Ms Hasina fled the country, social media was flooded with reports of Hindu properties and temples being attacked. India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told parliament on Tuesday: “What was particularly worrying was that minorities, their businesses and temples also came under attack at multiple locations. The full extent of this is still not clear.”

However, young Muslim groups were also protecting Hindu homes and shrines to prevent further vandalism.

“Bangladeshi Hindus are an easy target,” Mr Sarkar told me. “Every time the Awami League loses power, they are attacked.”

This was not the first time his cousin’s house was attacked, Mr Sarkar says. Minorities in Bangladesh were targeted in 1992 after a Hindu mob tore down the Babri mosque in the Indian city of Ayodhya. Mr Sarkar’s sister’s home was ransacked by a mob.

There have been many religious attacks on Hindus in the following decades. A Bangladeshi human rights group, Ain o Salish Kendra, reported at least 3,679 attacks on the Hindu community between January 2013 and September 2021, including vandalism, arson and targeted violence.

In 2021, following mob attacks on Hindu minority households and temples in Bangladesh during and after Durga Puja, the country’s biggest Hindu festival, rights group Amnesty International said: “Such repeated attacks against individuals, communal violence and destruction of the homes and places of worship of minorities in Bangladesh over the years show that the state has failed in its duty to protect minorities.”

On Monday, other members of Mr Sarkar’s family also faced the prospect of violence. His parents’ home in Kishoreganj, 120km from Dhaka, was spared because “we are a well-known family in the neighbourhood and knew everyone”.

Mr Sarkar says his mother, who runs a local school, received a phone call from her business partner, saying that people were making lists of properties to attack.

The partner then said, “Your name is not on the list. But please be careful.”

Later, Mr Sarkar’s father, who had locked in the family, saw a small crowd congregating outside their iron gate.

“My father heard someone coming up to the crowd and telling them, ‘Don’t do anything here, not here’. The mob dispersed.”

But some distance away, in the Nogua area of Kishoreganj, reports emerged of Hindu households being looted.

“I heard 20-25 houses had been attacked there. My Hindu friend’s gold shop was broken into and the ornaments on display were looted. They could not break or take away the vault though,” Mr Sarkar said.

Some 200km north of Dhaka, Mr Sarkar’s wife’s home in a neighbourhood in Sherpur district was also on the edge. Although her house escaped attack, a mob looted a neighbouring Hindu home. The silver lining: as news of the violence spread, local Muslims rallied to form protective rings around Hindu homes and temples.

“This has also happened all over Bangladesh. Muslims have also protected Hindu properties,” says Mr Sarkar.

But this is not where things ended. As night fell on Monday, a mob began collecting outside Mr Sarkar’s 10-storey apartment building in Dhaka, where he lives with his wife and infant daughter. He reckoned they had come looking for a councillor from Awami League who lived in the same building.

“I came out on my sixth-floor balcony and saw the crowd throwing stones at the building and trying to break in. The gates were locked properly, so they couldn’t enter. Some cars in the parking lot and window panes were damaged,” Mr Sarkar says.

Back in Netrokona, Mr Sarkar’s cousin told him that the family feared more attacks. He called a friend in the army and requested that a military van patrol the neighbourhood regularly.

“This is a harrowing time. There is no law and order. And we are being targeted again,” he says.

Manizha Talash knew the moment she first saw a video of a man spinning on his head that she would dedicate her life to breaking – a style of street dance.

But it is a dream for which she has risked her life, and the lives of her family, in order to fulfil. It has forced her to flee her country, and hide her identity.

Now, as she prepares to step out on the world stage at the Paris Olympics, Manizha reveals her fight to become Afghanistan’s first female breaker.

Manizha came to breaking late.

She had initially tried shoot boxing, turning to the Japanese martial art that mixes wrestling and kickboxing as a way to protect herself as she worked alongside her father, selling groceries from his cart in the streets of the capital Kabul.

But a few matches in, she broke her shoulder and had to give up.

Then, aged 17, she saw the video of the man on his head – and soon discovered the Superiors Crew, a breaking collective based in Kabul.

She fell in love.

“I couldn’t believe it was real,” she says.

At the same time, she heard breaking would make its debut at the Paris 2024 Olympics. The dream was born – she just had to get there.

But it clearly wasn’t going to be easy from the start.

She visited the Superiors Crew’s training club in western Kabul, which was considered the country’s pioneering centre for hip-hop and breaking, but it was not quite what she expected.

“When I entered the club it was full of boys,” Manizha recalls.

The Superiors Crew’s coach, Jawad Saberi, was also quick to size Manizha up too.

“She was so small,” he remembers. “I was doubtful because there were other b-girls who didn’t stay long,” he says, using the term for a female performer.

But her size was the least of their troubles.

Manizha’s passion, shared with Jawad and the Superiors Crew collective, was risky and people were unhappy about it.

“Everyone was judging me… my relatives were saying words behind my back and complained to my mother,” she recalls.

Outside of her immediate family, there were also comments made on social media – which she didn’t take seriously.

But then, in December 2020, a car bomb exploded near the club, bringing the violence which was killing so many across Afghanistan close to home.

“It really scared me,” she admits.

Yet it didn’t stop her. For Jawad, it was all he needed to know.

“We were under attack, but she came back,” he says. “I saw that she had a dream to go to Paris 2024 – she was fighting for it. I said: ‘She can do it.’ I saw the future.”

At home, things had taken a turn for the worse.

Her father had been abducted by insurgents. He has not been seen since.

She became the main breadwinner for her family – a portion of which she saved for training.

But within months of the car bomb, the club was forced to shut its doors.

This time, the threat had come inside.

“Security forces stormed our club, walked over to a man and put a hood on his head,” Manizha recalls. The man, they said, was a would-be suicide bomber who had been staking out the club for some time, planning an attack.

“They told us that this time we were lucky because there were people who wanted to bomb our club and if we loved our lives, we should shut it.”

Even now, Manizha did not stop breaking.

She did make one concession to the danger, however: Manizha changed her last name to Talash meaning “effort” or “hard work” in Farsi. It was a decision she hoped would protect her family in case they were threatened because of her link to the sport.

And then, that August, the Taliban returned.

Suddenly, Manizha’s world – and the world of Afghan women and girls – began to contract.

They were barred from classrooms and gyms and told to wear top-to-toe clothing. Music and dancing was also effectively banned.

The breaking stopped.

The new restrictions forced Manizha and her friends to make a decision – they had to leave the country.

“If I’d stayed in Afghanistan, I don’t think I’d exist,” she says. “They’d execute me or stone me to death.”

Manizha and some members of the Superiors Crew, including Jawad, fled to Madrid in Spain.

They found work, and sent money home. But they also made connections with local breakers and practised anywhere they could – in clubs, on the streets and even in shopping malls.

It wasn’t easy.

“Every night when I got to bed, I’d struggle with lots of questions,” Manizha admits. “‘What can Afghan women do?’ I’d ask myself. ‘Why can’t I do something for them?'”

She knew that, following the Taliban’s return, it would be almost impossible to compete for her home country in the Olympics. A small, gender-balanced team of six is taking part under the country’s former flag – put together by the exiled Afghan Olympic committee, with no link to the Taliban.

But Manizha found another route to Paris. She had discovered she was eligible to compete for the Refugee Olympic Team, for athletes whose home countries are experiencing conflict or civil war, making it too dangerous for them to return.

In May, she was one of the athletes selected to represent the Refugee Team at the Games and the International Olympic Committee helped arrange coaching for her.

“When they announced my name, I was happy and upset all at once,” Manizha says. “I was sad because when I left Afghanistan, I had to leave my family behind. I chose my goal over their safety.”

But as she prepares for her Olympic debut on Friday, Manizha can breathe a little easier.

When she walks out in Paris and onto screens across the world, her family will be safe.

Just after she was selected, they managed to flee Afghanistan. Finally, after two years of separation, the family was back together in Spain.

Manizha admits it is unlikely that she will take home a medal from Paris – she still needs to “make up for all those years I lost”. But then, getting a spot on the podium is not her priority.

“I’ll compete for my friends and for their dreams and hopes,” she says.

“The girls of Afghanistan will never surrender. Whatever pressure you put on an Afghan girl – restrict her, or even imprison her – she’ll definitely find a way out and will definitely achieve her goals. We fight and we will win.”

After two days of lengthy negotiations in Doha, Hamas has named Yahya Sinwar as its new overall chief, replacing Ismail Haniyeh who was assassinated in Tehran last week.

Since 2017, Sinwar has served as the group’s leader inside the Gaza strip. He will now become leader of its political wing.

The Hamas leadership unanimously chose Sinwar to lead the movement, a senior Hamas official told the BBC.

The announcement comes at a moment of soaring tensions in the Middle East, as Iran and its allies threaten retaliation for the killing of Haniyeh, which they blame on Israel. Israel has not commented.

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Over the course of two days in Doha, intensive meetings involving Hamas’s leading figures hammered out the options for the group’s next chief.

Many scenarios were discussed, but ultimately, just two names were put forward: Yahya Sinwar, and Mohammed Hassan Darwish, a shadowy figure who heads the General Shura Council, a body that elects Hamas’s Politburo.

The council voted unanimously to choose Sinwar, in what one Hamas official described to the BBC as “a message of defiance to Israel”.

“They killed Haniyeh, the flexible person who was open to solutions. Now they have to deal with Sinwar and the military leadership,” the official said.

Prior to his death, Ismail Haniyeh was viewed by regional diplomats as a pragmatic figure compared to others in Hamas – a key driver of the group’s political outreach.

Yahya Sinwar, on the other hand, is viewed as one of Hamas’s most extreme figures.

Sinwar currently tops Israel’s most-wanted list. Israel’s security agencies believe he masterminded the planning and execution of the 7 October 2023 attacks, which left over 1,200 people dead and 251 taken back into Gaza as hostages.

“The appointment of arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar as the new leader of Hamas, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, is yet another compelling reason to swiftly eliminate him and wipe this vile organisation off the face of the Earth,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on X.

“Yahya Sinwar is a terrorist, who is responsible for the most brutal terrorist attack in history,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari told Saudi news channel Al-Arabiya.

Sinwar has not been seen in public since the attacks in October, and is believed to be hiding “10 storeys underground” in Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in June.

Sinwar was born in Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza in 1962.

In the late 1980s, Sinwar founded the Hamas security service known as Majd, which among other things targeted alleged Palestinian collaborators with Israel.

He has spent much of his life in Israeli jail – and after his third arrest in 1988 he was sentenced to four life terms in prison.

However, he was among 1,027 Palestinian and Israeli Arab prisoners released by Israel in the 2011 exchange for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held captive for over five years by Hamas.

The 61-year-old was appointed head of the group’s political bureau in the Gaza Strip in 2017, a position he served in until now.

The US includes Sinwar on its blacklist of “international terrorists”.

“Any doubt is just a joke. Stress only makes us stronger,” Qin Haiyang – a part of China’s history-making men’s 4x100m medley quartet posted after their unprecedented victory over the US on Monday.

Qin’s seeming defiance came at the tail end of what has been a challenging time for China in the pool.

Some of the country’s top swimmers – including Qin and his relay teammate Sun Jiajun- have faced a slew of doping allegations, followed by contentious US claims that the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) was covering it up.

They were among 23 Chinese swimmers who returned positive doping tests ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

And although Chinese swimmers have been drug-tested twice as much as some other nations this year before heading to Paris, their performance has been met with scepticism.

After the medley event on Monday, Team GB’s Adam Peaty opened fire on the Chinese team, saying “there’s no point winning if you’re not winning fair”.

Swim legend Michael Phelps, who has been vocal about doping issues, also doubled down: “If you test positive, you should never be allowed to come back and compete again, cut and dry. I believe one and done,” he told the Associated Press news agency.

To the Chinese swimming team and their millions of fans back home, however, the historic victory brought joy and vindication.

The hashtag “China wins gold medal at 4x100m medley relay” was viewed 760 million times on Weibo.

One comment racked up more than 8,000 likes on Weibo: “China’s gold medals are squeaky clean, we won it with our competence!”

“It’s been so hard for the Chinese swimming team,” read another top comment.

The immense pressure the team has been under was reflected in comments by China’s new breakout star Pan Zhanle, who swam the crucial anchor leg of the relay, and also won the men’s 100m freestyle final, setting a new world record.

After his win last week, Pan, who was not among those who tested positive for doping, told Chinese media that he felt that the whole team was “looked down on” by some foreign swimmers. He also said that Australia’s Kyle Chalmers had snubbed him when he tried to say hello – which Chalmers denied.

Pan’s record-breaking swim was questioned by former Australian Olympic swimmer Brett Hawke who posted on Instagram that it’s not “humanly possible to beat that field”.

It wasn’t the first comment of its kind. German athlete Angelina Köhler cast doubt on Zhang Yufei’s bronze win in the women’s 100m butterfly – she too was among the 23 who had tested positive in 2021.

Afte the swim, Köhler, who did not make the podium, reportedly told media that “stories like that always have a bad flavour”,

Zhang, who won a silver and five bronzes in Paris, was defiant.

“Why should Chinese swimmers be questioned when they swim fast? Why did no one dare to question USA’s Michael Phelps when he got eight gold medals?” she asked in a press conference.

The tension has spilled beyond the pool. China’s anti-doping agency (Chinada) released a statement on Tuesday, accusing its US counterpart Usada of displaying double standards.

The press release highlighted the case of US sprinter Erriyon Knighton, a world silver medallist who is competing in the men’s 200m sprint this week. He was not suspended after testing positive for the banned substance trenbolone earlier this year. Like in the case of the Chinese swimmers, the arbitrator had found the result was likely caused by contaminated meat.

Chinese fans, meanwhile, have been reacting furiously, to the accusaitons against the country’s swimmers.

Adam Peaty’s Instagram account was flooded with angry comments – even his girlfriend’s account was not spared.

“Curious why you’re only attacking China but none of the other countries that won ahead of you… pretty weird,” a top comment under Peaty’s most recent post reads.

Following a barrage of critcism from Chinese fans, Brett Hawke, the former Olympic swimmer who is now a coach, deleted the video he had posted about Pan. He also limited comments on his posts.

And a recent post about the men’s medley results says: “Chinese men are victorious!”

Elon Musk’s X/Twitter is suing a group of major companies, alleging that they unlawfully conspired to boycott the site.

It accuses the food giants Unilever and Mars, private healthcare company CVS Health, and renewable energy firm Orsted – along with a trade association called the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) – of depriving it of “billions of dollars” in advertising revenue.

The lawsuit relates to the period in 2022 just after Mr Musk bought X, then known as Twitter, when advertising revenue dived.

Some companies had been wary of advertising on the platform amid concerns that its new owner was not serious enough about removing harmful online content.

X chief executive Linda Yaccarino said “people are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is constricted. No small group of people should monopolise what gets monetised”.

Mr Musk tweeted: “We tried being nice for 2 years and got nothing but empty words. Now, it is war.”

The WFA and the accused companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Advertising revenue at X slumped by more than half in the year after Mr Musk bought the firm as advertisers avoided the platform.

In its lawsuit, X alleges that the accused firms unfairly withheld spending by following safety standards set out by a WFA initiative called Global Alliance for Responsible Media (Garm).

Garm’s stated aim is to “help the industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetisation via advertising”.

By doing this, X claims the companies acted against their own economic self-interests in a conspiracy against the platform that breached US antitrust, or competition, law.

Bill Baer, who was assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s antitrust division under Barack Obama, said the lawsuit was unlikely to succeed.

“As a general rule, a politically motivated boycott is not an antitrust violation. It is protected speech under our First Amendment,” he said.

Professor Rebecca Haw Allensworth, of Vanderbilt University, said the boycott “was really trying to make a statement about X’s policies and about their brands”.

“That’s protected by the First Amendment,” she said.

Even if the case succeeds, the social media site cannot force companies to buy advertising space on the platform.

X is seeking unspecified damages and a court order against any continued efforts to conspire to withhold advertising spending.

It said in its lawsuit that it has applied brand-safety standards that are comparable to those of its competitors and “meet or exceed” those specified by Garm.

It also said X has become a “less effective competitor” in the sale of digital advertising.

The video-sharing company Rumble, which is favoured by right-wing influencers, made similar claims in a separate lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers on Tuesday.

The leader of the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah has said the response to the Israeli assassination of a senior commander in Beirut is coming.

Speaking in a televised speech to mark one week since Fuad Shukr’s killing, Hassan Nasrallah said the retaliation would be “strong” and “effective”, and that the assassination could not be treated as an ordinary attack.

He added that the group might act alone or in co-ordination with other Iranian-supported factions in the region.

Countries around the world have urged their citizens to leave Lebanon in recent days, amid concerns that a possible attack from the heavily armed Hezbollah on Israel could lead to a wider war between the two sides.

Iran has also vowed to retaliate following the assassination of the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran last week. Both Hamas and Iran blame Israel, which has not commented.

On Tuesday afternoon, low-flying Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier above Beirut, in the minutes before Nasrallah was due to begin his speech.

Nasrallah, who spoke for more than an hour and a half, said that the sonic booms were intended to provoke those who had gathered to listen to him.

Earlier on Tuesday, Israel said it had carried out an air strike against what it said was a “military structure” used by Hezbollah, the militia and political movement, in southern Lebanon.

Four people were killed in the strike on a house in the town of Maifadoun, around 19 miles (30km) from the Israeli border, the Lebanese health ministry said.

The four men were Hezbollah fighters, security sources told the AFP news agency. In an apparent response, the group launched drone strikes on towns in northern Israel, injuring two people.

Several countries, including the US, have urged citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as possible. The country’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that he was working to ensure that Hezbollah did not trigger a major escalation with its response to Shukr’s death.

The Israeli attack on Maifadoun was carried out by fighter jets, and was guided by intelligence agencies, the Israeli Defense Forces said in a statement posted to social media. Officers from the internal security agency Shin Bet and military intelligence agency Aman provided assistance to the military.

In response, Hezbollah fired what it called a “swarm” of drones at Israel, injuring two people in the northern town of Mazra’a. But a source in the group told the Reuters news agency that the attack was not part of its response to the death of Shukr.

US President Joe Biden met his senior national security team on Monday as concerns of a retaliatory attack on Israel grew.

Mr Biden said he had been briefed on preparations to support Israel, should it be attacked, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken said officials were working “around the clock” to prevent an escalation.

The United Nations’ rights chief Volker Turk called on “all parties, along with those states with influence, to act urgently to de-escalate what has become a very precarious situation”.

Elsewhere, several US military personnel have been injured in a strike on a base in Iraq. The rocket fire on the Ain al-Assed base is the latest in a series of attacks on the facility, which hosts American forces fighting the Islamic State group.

When Sheikh Hasina called crisis security talks to put down spiralling unrest in Bangladesh on Sunday, she appears to have been in denial that her time was up as prime minister.

Within hours, she would be swept away by people power – indeed, few could have predicted the speed of her exit.

In the end, it was the advice of close family rather than top security officials that persuaded her to flee, the BBC was told by her son.

Ms Hasina made her mind up just in time – crowds entered her residence within a couple of hours of her escaping.

The National Security Committee meeting – called for late on Sunday morning – brought the embattled prime minister together with the country’s top three military chiefs, senior security officials and police. The mood was sober.

Pressure on the prime minister had been mounting for weeks as anti-government protests raged around the country. Hundreds have been killed in the worst violence Bangladesh has seen since its war of independence in 1971.

On Sunday alone, at least 90 people lost their lives, mostly demonstrators shot by security forces – but also a growing number of police killed by the crowds.

BBC Bangla has learned from officials that Sheikh Hasina wanted to keep “two options” open. While there were preparations for her to leave the country, she wanted to stay in power until the last moment – by force.

Military leaders did not agree. On Sunday, ordinary people and protesters mingled with field-level soldiers and army officers in various parts of the country. After reviewing the situation, senior military officers realised things were out of control.

Individually, the military top brass at the meeting told the prime minister that soldiers could not shoot at civilians – but they could provide security back-up to police, sources told the BBC. Senior police chiefs also complained they were running out of ammunition, it later emerged.

Sheikh Hasina, however, would not listen – and no-one was willing to disagree with her to her face.

After the meeting, her press secretary delivered her defiant message. She called the protesters “terrorists” and urged people to resist those she described as “arsonists”.

Security forces feared they could soon have a situation approaching civil war on their hands.

Pictures of Sunday’s violence were going viral on social media as the death toll steadily rose. Images of young men with bullet wounds, shot by police and members of the ruling Awami League party’s youth wing, were triggering more anger.

As the ferocity of the clashes became clear, student leaders brought forward their call for a mass march on Dhaka by a day, taking the authorities by surprise.

Intelligence inputs suggested the students’ demands were gaining traction and thousands of people were planning to descend on the capital the following day.

If the security forces tried to stop the protesters, there would be another bloodbath.

So army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman decided to speak to the prime minister again.

Reliable sources said the three service chiefs met her on Sunday evening and politely explained that the situation on the ground was getting more and more volatile, and that crowds of thousands were expected in Dhaka on Monday morning. They could not guarantee the safety of her residence.

Sheikh Hasina did not take their advice, but journalists in Dhaka said they could sense power was already shifting. By Sunday night, police were absent in many places and numerous security barricades were unmanned.

On Monday morning, large crowds had started moving towards Dhaka. Gen Zaman was at Ms Hasina’s residence once again explaining to her the gravity of the situation. People were breaking the curfew and violence had already started.

Police were being withdrawn from many parts of Dhaka and Gen Zaman told her they could not prevent the crowd from reaching Gono Bhaban, the PM’s official residence in the capital, for much longer. An hour or so at best.

At this point, military chiefs decided to call on family members to intercede.

Police and military chiefs then held talks with Sheikh Hasina’s sister, Rehana Siddiq, to see if she could persuade her elder sibling to leave.

“The officials held discussions with Sheikh Rehana in another room. They asked her to explain the situation to Sheikh Hasina. Sheikh Rehana then talked with her elder sister, but Sheikh Hasina was determined to hold on to power,” the Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily said.

Then Ms Hasina’s son Sajeeb and daughter Saima, who both live abroad, spoke to her on the phone and insisted she should go. During these family negotiations, the army chief, who is related to Ms Hasina by marriage, was reportedly present throughout.

“My mum did not wish to leave the country at all. We had to persuade her,” Sajeeb Wazed Joy told the BBC on Tuesday, adding his mother began thinking of resigning on Saturday evening.

“We in the family begged her, we urged her, this is the mob, they are out for violence and they will kill you and we need to get you to safety. Only however long it took the mob to get there, that was how much time she had. They just left without any preparation.

“I rang her yesterday in Delhi. She’s in good spirits but she’s very disappointed. She’s very disheartened by the people of Bangladesh.”

On Monday morning, sources said, Sheikh Hasina got in touch with government officials in Delhi to request sanctuary. The advice from India, a staunch ally throughout her long career, was for her to leave.

A day earlier, Washington had reportedly been telling Indian foreign ministry officials that time was up for Ms Hasina. She had run out of options.

But once she reluctantly agreed to sign documents relinquishing her post, there was still the question of how to get her out of the country safely.

A senior military official, who did not wish to be named, told BBC Bangla that only the Special Security Force, the Presidential Guard Regiment and some senior military officers at army headquarters knew when Sheikh Hasina signed the resignation letter and boarded the military helicopter that would fly her out of her residence. The whole thing was done quite secretly.

At about 10:30 local time (05:00GMT), the authorities shut down the internet so that no news about Sheikh Hasina’s movements could spread on social media.

It was only reactivated after she had made her getaway.

According to senior army sources, arrangements were put in place to get Sheikh Hasina to the airport safely. There were concerns her convoy might be attacked, so the entire route was cleared and the departure point secured. But in the end, it was not safe to take her by road, so a helicopter was used instead.

Right up to the moment of departure, Sheikh Hasina was reluctant to get on it, her son said.

“She wanted my aunt to leave,” her son said. “My mother did not want to get on the helicopter. I was on the call, persuading my mother, telling my aunt, both of them that she had to leave.”

Once they did, they were flown from Gono Bhaban to a waiting Bangladeshi Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft that had been made ready.

Sajeeb Wazed Joy says he believes they went to Agartala, the capital of India’s eastern state of Tripura and were flown from there to Delhi. India had already been approached and agreed her transit via this route, officials said.

Other accounts say she was taken by helicopter to an airport in Dhaka, then by plane to Delhi.

Whichever route they took, at about 13:30 local time, Ms Hasina, her sister and a senior Awami League MP, Salman Fazlur Rahman, were transferred from the helicopter to the aircraft that took them to Delhi, officials said.

A video on social media showed four or five suitcases on the ground waiting to be loaded. Many of the things she left behind were being carted off by crowds who invaded her residence, even as she was still in the air.

Several hours later, the aircraft landed in Delhi, its passengers’ onward destination unclear.

Back in Dhaka, the internet was back on and all around Bangladesh, celebrations were breaking out marking the end of Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule.

A woman once viewed as a democrat but later reviled by many as a despot had fled like a fugitive under cover of internet darkness.

When Nazmul Arefin caught wind that Sheikh Hasina – the woman who had led Bangladesh with an iron fist for 15 years – was about to flee the country, he dropped everything and ran onto the streets of Dhaka.

Outside, thousands of anti-government protesters were already marching across the capital, although none knew what awaited them.

A weeks-long nationwide campaign of civil disobedience – which erupted over civil service job quotas – had triggered a violent crackdown, leaving hundreds dead in its wake.

And whether more bloodshed would follow remained an open question: “We were sceptical about whether the army would support the people, or side with the government – that was the doubt in the mind of everyone,” Mr Arefin says.

“If law enforcement and the army had turned on us yesterday, it could have become a massacre.”

But the 38-year-old’s fear was quickly replaced with ecstasy, after news spread like wildfire that Ms Hasina had resigned, and citizens began to declare Bangladesh “free again”.

As scenes of protesters storming her official residence and looting everything from velvet chairs to domesticated animals were broadcast around the world, Mr Arefin was witnessing something else.

“It was like a festival on the streets,” he tells the BBC.

“It was amazing – people of all ages and classes came out, from rickshaw pullers to high society people, there were families taking selfies with army officers. We were shouting and celebrating for a new Bangladesh.”

The prime minister’s downfall was one that few saw coming and the shock was palpable.

“The internet had been out for most of the day, so when we heard the army chief was addressing the nation on television, that was our first hint,” Shariful Islam, who was at home with his family when the news broke, told the BBC.

When it became clear what was unfolding, he says everyone “lost it” – his elderly parents and four-year-old daughter included.

“Oh my god, we were all shouting, dancing, clapping, celebrating, it was a taste of freedom, like something you barely experience.”

Ms Hasina, who had been in power since 2009 and ruled the South Asian nation for more than 20 years in total, had started her career as a symbol of democracy, overcoming military rule to usher in a new era of hope.

In the beginning, she was celebrated as a secular Muslim who had brought stability and economic reform to Bangladesh, lifting millions out of poverty in the process.

But when her long tenure finally came to an end on Monday, most were remembering her as an autocrat, who had sought to entrench her authority by silencing dissent.

“This was a dictatorship that lasted 15 years, no-one could speak their minds, people were thrown in jail for expressing their views, there were gross human rights violations, people disappeared. The fact that this is ending – that’s why the streets were full,” Mr Islam says.

As Bangladeshis wait to see how the vacuum created in the wake of Ms Hasina’s departure will be filled, hope and trepidation loom large.

“People are happy a dictator has stepped down, but there’s uncertainty [over] what will happen… the law-and-order situation is making people anxious,” Avirup Sarkar – a development professional in Dhaka, tells the BBC.

Sayem Faruk – an entrepreneur who runs an AI firm in the city – says that the first thing that needs to happen is an end to any looting and violence.

“We are going to exercise vigilance in the next few days as the caretaker government is formed and as the army starts taking control of the situation.”

The need for calm and peace on the streets has also been a top-down message from some of the students who started the protest movement back in July and have become its de facto leaders.

“Freedom is harder to defend than to gain,” Asif Mahmud, a leading figure in the demonstrations, wrote in a message to his tens of thousands of social media followers on Tuesday.

And another student who has been marching for weeks – 22-year-old Sazid Islam – told the BBC that although there’s a feeling that “freedom of speech has been restored” in Bangladesh, many who have been on the frontlines know the situation remains fragile.

“The fears I have now are that, since we have suddenly gained our political rights, if the situation deteriorates, we could face suppression again. Especially if we fail to uphold the values of the revolution.”

Whether everyday Bangladeshis will meet this moment by banding together and not allowing old religious or political divisions to take hold is also a topic of conversation.

“If you can call this a revolution. The issue now is how soon can you manage this?” Sumon Rahman, a journalism professor at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, told the BBC.

“I live quite close to the PM’s residence and I brought my kids there to see what’s happening. There was a lot of vandalism.”

Prof Rahman’s house in the Dhanmondi area is a short walk from the former residence of the nation’s founder, the toppled prime minister’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, which had been turned into a museum. It was set ablaze in Monday’s protests.

“The protesters burned it down totally. I also saw many pictures of the burned house shared on Facebook. The vandalism happened late into the night,” said Prof Rahman.

“There have also been reports of attacks on religious minorities, but it is unclear now if they have been attacked because they are minorities or because they are supporters of [Ms Hasina’s] Awami League.

“If you look at the history of Bangladesh… When there is a revolution, there will be counter-revolutions, coups, counter-coups. If you really want to reform the system, it is a huge duty, and you cannot just instantly remove the machinery as the country will simply fall apart,” he adds.

Samiul Haque, a strategic consultant from Dhaka, says many of his peers are going to want to see a completely new style of politics in Bangladesh, one which is built “from the ground up”.

“Young people feel that there should not be a return of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami,” the 32-year-old explains, referencing the nation’s opposition parties.

“Inequality had grown so much in Bangladesh as political and economic elites had cosied up to the government. They were reaping so much benefit that what we saw was a class-based movement – students started it, but even rickshaw pullers and normal people joined it. We all felt enough is enough.”

For some in the country, though, the most immediate concern is one of safety.

An Indian worker in a Bangladeshi garments factory in Dhaka told the BBC that he was worried his family, who form part of Bangladesh’s minority Hindu community, could be targeted because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s close alliance with Ms Hasina’s now fallen government.

“I am hearing about some Hindu properties being attacked but I am not sure if it’s true. But my area is peaceful. Many Muslim neighbours have assured us about our safety,” he says.

“I am hoping to get out along with my family as soon as I can. But I do hope to return – my life is here; my career is here. Bangladesh has given me everything.”

But Mr Arefin hopes that the country’s better angels will win out in the next few days and weeks.

“From this point, we are calling it Bangladesh 2.0 and we want to have a diversified and corruption-free country, where everyone can have freedom of speech, and no one will be afraid to raise their voices.”

And Mr Faruk says that he has faith that the demonstrations – which have unified many in the country of 170 million – will stamp out divisions, rather than amplifying them.

“This began as a movement against discrimination and this discrimination applies not only to jobs but everywhere in Bangladesh – attacks on minorities, the fundamentalist forces. We need to control those as well if we don’t want to turn into a failed state.”

Bangladesh is at a historic turning point.

Weeks of anti-government protests have toppled its long-serving prime minister Sheikh Hasina, and an interim government is expected to be formed.

After Ms Hasina resigned and fled the country on Monday, huge crowds stormed her official residence in Dhaka amid reports of looting and disorder in the capital.

At least 20 people were killed in the violence, adding to the more than 90 deaths on Sunday – which already marked the worst single-day casualty figure from any demonstrations in Bangladesh’s recent history.

Now, Ms Hasina – a former pro-democracy icon, who critics say had become increasingly autocratic during her 15-year reign – is in India. It’s not yet clear if she will stay there or head elsewhere.

The protests began in early July as peaceful demands from university students to abolish quotas in civil service jobs – a third of these are reserved for relatives of veterans from Bangladesh’s war for independence from Pakistan in 1971.

The campaigners had argued the system was discriminatory and needed to be overhauled. Although their request was largely met, the protests soon transformed into a wider anti-government movement.

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

As the movement expanded, clashes followed, and over 300 people were killed in the unrest.

Bangladeshi media and protesters blamed police for the spiralling death toll. The government, though, maintained that officers only ever opened fire out of self-defence or to protect state property.

Ms Hasina repeatedly cut off internet access in parts of the country, imposed a nationwide curfew, and described those demonstrating against her as “terrorists” seeking to “destabilise the nation”.

But the campaign of civil disobedience that had taken hold showed little signs of abating. And there were growing fears that a prolonged standoff could lead to more bloodshed.

Discontent was brewing for a long time in Bangladesh, and the protests didn’t happen in a vacuum.

Though the South Asian nation – which is home to 170 million people – was one of the fastest growing economies in the world, experts pointed out that growth had not translated into jobs for university graduates.

Estimates suggested that around 18 million young Bangladeshis were looking for jobs and university graduates faced higher rates of unemployment than their less-educated peers.

Bangladesh had become a powerhouse of ready-to-wear clothing exports. The country sold around $40 billion worth of clothes to the global market. The sector employed more than four million people, many of them women. But factory jobs were not sufficient for the aspiring younger generation.

And that’s partly why they wanted the quotas in government jobs to go – because that meant there would be more jobs for them.

Even after the top courts scrapped the quotas, the protests continued, spreading beyond students, because the brutal crackdown unleashed more anger against Ms Hasina’s government.

Her rule had transformed Bangladesh with new roads, bridges, factories and even a metro rail, but there were also allegations of rampant corruption.

Per capita income tripled in the last decade as more than 25 million people were lifted out of poverty over 20 years, accordng to the World Bank. But many felt that the growth was mostly helping those close to the PM’s Awami League.

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

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

The anti-corruption commission had began investigating former police chief Benazir Ahmed – once seen as a close ally of Ms Hasina – for amassing millions of dollars. He denied the allegations.

Even as Ms Hasina promised to tackle corruption, she admitted that she had sacked a household assistant for allegedly stealing $34 million of state funds.

Such shocking revelations didn’t escape ordinary Bangladeshis, who had been struggling with the escalating cost of living.

Rights activists pointed out that space for democratic activity too had shrunk on Ms Hasina’s watch – the government was accused of stifling dissent, silencing the media and government critics, and jailing or disappearing its strongest critics. But ministers denied the charges.

“The anger against the government and the ruling party have been accumulating for a long time,” Dr Luthfa said. “People are showing their anger now. People resort to protest if they don’t have any recourse left.”

It’s too early to say what Bangladesh’s immediate future holds.

Ms Hasina’s long tenure, although contentious, also brought some stability and economic growth. So amid the hope, there is concern about the political vaccum her sudden resignation has created.

The release of jailed former PM Khaleda Zia was ordered, along with student protesters.

The main opposition – Ms Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) – boycotted elections in 2014 and again in 2024, saying free and fair elections were not possible under Ms Hasina.

They wanted the polls to be held under a neutral caretaker administration. Ms Hasina had always rejected this demand but this is now a possibility.

Political parties and protest leaders began talks on Monday as international governments called for an orderly and democratic transition of power.

Bangladesh’s army chief Gen Waker-uz-Zaman – who announced the plan to form an interim government in the country – offered few details on what it could look like, or who might lead it.

As the only athlete sent by his country to the Olympics in Paris, sprinter Shaun Gill has been revelling in his temporary status as “the most famous man” in Belize.

He is one of four athletes sent to the 2024 Games as their nations’ sole representative. It is a responsibility that brings pride – and some extra anxiety.

Solo competitors told the BBC their jobs could be lonely, but being their nation’s default flagbearer during the opening ceremony had been exhilarating.

As a result of Gill’s sudden celebrity, others in the athletes’ village have been chasing his autograph, the 31-year-old told the BBC.

“I had a joke with one of my friends that I may need a security detail,” he laughed.

The larger Olympic delegations – such as those sent by the US and the UK – are able to choose their flagbearers from groups of hundreds of athletes.

But Belize, a Central American nation with a population of less than half a million, had only one candidate – as did Liechtenstein, Nauru and Somalia.

Gill waved his country’s flag with all the patriotic zeal he could muster, as he and other athletes paraded along the River Seine in boats. He went viral for his impassioned efforts in the driving rain.

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Carrying the hopes of a nation was pressurising, Gill admitted. He did not advance to the men’s 100m final, and reflected that jet lag had left him unable to run as fast as he hoped.

“When the performance is lacking, I’m like, ‘Man, I hope I didn’t make you all disappointed,’” he said.

Somalian runner Ali Idow Hassan is hoping that he manages to do what Gill did not: make it to the medals podium in the Stade de France.

If Hassan is fast enough in the men’s 800m on Wednesday, he will advance to the semi-finals.

Otherwise, the Olympic medal hopes of the east African nation will be over in little more than 100 seconds: the time it will take for Hassan and his rivals to dash around the track.

Some of the world’s smaller nations benefit from universality rules that are designed to ensure a diverse representation of countries during the sporting contest.

Hassan, 26, told the BBC he was “very happy” to be his nation’s solitary envoy at Paris 2024, but admitted there was a flipside: “I feel very sad when I’m alone.”

But Hassan has befriended athletes from other African countries. The experience of staying in the athletes’ village had been less isolating than might be expected, the competitors agreed.

Romano Püntener, a mountain-biker who represented Liechtenstein on his own, was hunted down in the compound by none other than Andy Murray.

The tennis ace wanted to swap pin-badges with Püntener, knowing that one from Liechtenstein was a rarity. The badges are regularly traded by athletes touring the international circuit.

Liechtenstein is a small, land-locked country between Austria and Switzerland, with a population of 38,000 people. Top-level athletes have been few and far between.

The Olympics had been “unforgettable” for Püntener, who said he had enjoyed the sheer investment he had received as his country’s only hope at the 2024 Games.

“It only helped me,” Püntener reflected. “We could really build the whole team around me, and I could decide who I wanted to have with me – and who not.”

The 20-year-old finished 28th in last week’s race, his Olympic debut. But since he was not expected to win a medal, he had been able to enjoy himself, and cherish the support of the 20 or 30 compatriots who turned out to cheer him on. Among them was the country’s prime minister.

But in a digital age, a deluge of support is capable of becoming a distraction when the sportsmen want to focus on delivering for their countries.

“It felt like I got a message from every person living in Liechtenstein,” said Püntener.

Gill said he had received “thousands” of well-wishes. “My phone freezes, my Instagram freezes,” he said. “I had to turn it off at one point because I couldn’t even have a moment of peace to myself… I do appreciate it, but I guess I had to just learn how to manage it real quick.”

Despite the huge support they may have received, the solitary competitors are running against the odds in many ways.

Winzar Kakiouea competed in the men’s 100m race for Nauru, an island in the Pacific that is the world’s smallest republic and heavily reliant on aid.

He told the New York Times many people he met had not heard of his country (population: 11,000), which did not even have a proper race track, only a “dirt oval”.

When the Games are over, and the spotlight moves on to something else, these competitors will return to lives that may look very different to those lived by the world’s sporting megastars.

Gill has chosen to retire from big races and will now focus on training the next generation of runners in Belize, as well as his own future career as an engineer.

Püntener will return to his home in Schaan, in the mountains of Liechtenstein, which is perfect for cross-country cycling. “For me, it feels like a big town,” he said.

Hassan will go back to training in Ethiopia, though he hopes one day he will live again in his birth city of Mogadishu.

Speaking on the eve of the men’s 800m contest, he was hopeful that improvements in Somalia’s security situation could mean more delegates being sent to future Olympics.

Somalia has a population of 17 million, but has been beset by a civil war for decades.

“One day, there will be more athletes,” Nassan predicted. “Ten athletes, 100 athletes will be here.”

The family who raised Imane Khelif, the boxer whose Olympics have been overshadowed by a gender eligibility row, has told the BBC “Imane was born female and has lived as a female”.

Her uncle, Rachid Jabeur, told BBC Arabic that he thought Khelif’s tough upbringing in Algeria has given her the mental strength to cope with the huge pressure that she has found herself under during the current games.

She is one of two boxers who are competing at Paris 2024 despite being banned from last year’s World Championships by the International Boxing Association (IBA), after she was reported to have failed eligibility tests, a situation which has sparked huge controversy.

Imane and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting have been strongly backed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which runs the boxing competitions at the Games, and has ruled that the pair are both women and are eligible to compete.

• Olympic boxing gender row explained

Rachid, the uncle of Imane, who is guaranteed to win at least a bronze medal in Paris, spoke to the BBC from the city of Tiaret in north-western Algeria.

It was only through leaving her remote village to live with her uncle and her aunt that Imane was able to overcome social stigma and forge her career as a boxer.

The eldest of six sisters and one brother, she grew up in Ain Mesbah, a rural village where traditionally only boys would play outside, and girls would rarely leave their homes.

Imane’s sporting talent was discovered by a local boxing coach as she was playing football in the street with boys. The coach invited her to train at a sports centre, about 10km from her home village.

Imane’s father, Amar Khelif, agreed to let her daughter participate in the training. Imane’s mother sold scrap metal and couscous to raise the bus fare for the journey to and from the centre.

Rachid Jabeur told the BBC that it wasn’t long before rumours and gossip began to spread in Imane’s home village. Locals started to question the family’s decision to let her go alone: “Why [would] a girl her age travel without her family?”

This led Imane’s father, a shepherd and a blacksmith, to change his mind and to ask his daughter to stop training with the coach.

Imane was about to give up her sporting aspirations. But then Rachid and his wife contacted Imane’s father to say they would look after her, as they lived closer to the sports centre.

“We welcomed her into our home in the city [Tiaret] where we cared for her with special meals and for sports training,” Rachid said.

“We supported and encouraged her as part of our family.”

Like her mother, Imane also would sell scrap copper to cover her training costs but still faced harassment because it was unusual for a girl to take part in boxing, even in a city.

“I always told my sons to accompany her to and from training sessions to protect her,” Rachid said.

Imane’s boxing skills improved rapidly. Three years after moving to live with her uncle, she joined the Algerian national team and competed at the 2018 women’s World Championships, where she came 17th after being eliminated in the first round.

A year later, her boxing career allowed her to start supporting her family financially, as well as charities in her home village.

Rachid said that he believes Imane’s tough upbringing has given her the strength to cope with the controversy that has surrounded her at the Olympics.

“She is always trying to overcome this bullying, and there are people around her who support her.”

“She does not believe in defeat and does not care about these rumours.”

Rachid has advised her to avoid her mobile phone and social media during the controversy.

Imane will meet Janjaem Suwannapheng, who beat favourite Busenaz Surmeneli – the 2020 Olympic champion from Turkey – in the welterweight semi-final on Tuesday 6 August.

Even if she loses, she will leave Paris with a bronze medal.

Boxing at the Olympics is being run by the IOC which has insisted both Imane and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting are eligible to compete in the women’s competition.

IOC president Thomas Bach has said there was “never any doubt” the pair are women.

Imane reached the final of last year’s World Championships before being disqualified by the IBA – which was suspended by the IOC in 2019 because of concerns over its finances, governance, ethics, refereeing and judging.

The IBA said Imane had “failed to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition, as set and laid out” in its regulations, while the IOC said the pair had been “suddenly disqualified without any due process”.

Regular power cuts had become a feature of South African life and fed feelings the country was moving in the wrong direction, but the electricity supply has been uninterrupted since March leaving people to wonder what has changed.

It is a crisp winter’s day in Johannesburg, a clear blue sky shimmering over the bustling township of Alexandra, or Alex, as it is more commonly known here in South Africa.

Sizeka Rashamosa is standing in her restaurant, a stream of people swirling around her, some delivering crates of beer, another grilling meat on a hotplate. A group of young men are sitting at a sun-drenched table.

“I can’t talk,” she says, “I’m busy.”

It is a far cry from when we first met in March last year, at the height of South Africa’s power crisis and frequent load-shedding, the official term for scheduled power cuts.

Back then Ms Rashamosa had very little electricity, and just one customer. A reflection of the wider impact on the economy.

“The power is everything,” she said at the time. “I’m very stressed. We don’t have money because of the electricity, you can see it’s dark. I don’t think I’ll survive in my business. We’ll have to close down after 25 years. It’s terrible.”

But now, when she finally finds a few minutes to talk, things are more positive.

“The load-shedding is much better now,” she says. “You can see, there’s electricity. And now I’m busy. I’m going to stay open, no plans to close, not anymore.”

It is a remarkable turnaround.

Load-shedding began in 2007, reaching a low last year with power cuts often lasting more than half a day.

This year it was expected to get worse. But now there has been no load-shedding for more than four months – since 05:00 on 26 March to be precise – the longest break in more than four years.

How has the turnaround happened, and will power cuts return?

It is largely because of a set of programmes from the state-owned power provider Eskom and the government over the last two years.

In July 2022 President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the Energy Action Plan, and the following February he declared a national state of disaster over the electricity crisis.

Soon after he created the role of electricity minister, appointing Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.

And then Eskom launched the two-year Generation Operational Recovery Plan, the key aim of which was to increase the amount of power – known as the “Energy Availability Factor” (EAF) – to 70% of the network’s potential.

At the same time Eskom overhauled its leadership, which most point to as a crucial factor.

For years the company had been beset by corruption under former President Jacob Zuma, known as “state capture”, when it fell victim to acts of theft and sabotage. A former CEO even claimed to be have been poisoned.

“If you look at them now, it’s a good mix. You have technical people, you have financial people, you have people with skills in turn around,” says energy analyst Ruse Moleshe.

“Our 40,000 employees that we have are more committed, more motivated, because load-shedding really was discouraging all of us, morale was very low,” says Daphne Mokwena, Eskom’s national spokesperson.

Another significant move last year was a 254bn rand ($14bn; £10.9bn) debt-relief package from the treasury to plug Eskom’s financial blackhole.

As a result there has been a substantial reduction in unplanned outages at Eskom’s power stations, that had been caused by break downs in units.

This in turn meant that a programme of planned maintenance could be carried out.

That has led to more energy capacity, and on 23 July it reached 35,000 MW, its highest in six years.

“There’s been a pipeline of these large projects,” says energy expert Chris Yelland, referring to the plans that had been put in place since July 2022.

“It’s like having a pipe where you stuff marbles in one end, and you keep on stuffing them in because it takes a long time, and eventually the marbles start popping out.”

Then there are the external factors.

“The first thing one can say is that the total demand for electricity [from Eskom] by the South African economy as a country has been reducing, for a decade,” says Mr Yelland.

This is down to two factors – the increasing energy bills and the spread of alternative energy sources.

“Every year we have an electricity price increase from Eskom at several times the inflation rate so the real price of electricity is going up and has been doing so for years,” says Mr Yelland.

“And there has been a remarkable increase in solar and battery energy storage systems across the board from individual residential applications, to commercial, industrial mining and agricultural.”

Sluggish economic growth has also led to less upward pressure on the demand for power.

Minister Ramokgopa holds frequent media briefings in the capital, Pretoria, by far the most in South Africa’s government, and regularly visits Eskom’s power stations.

He was typically upbeat in his latest briefing, particularly proud of the fact so much was being achieved in winter, the time of year that sees the most demand on power.

But could all of this have happened much sooner?

“I think we could have managed this situation better when we were told much earlier ‘you’re going to run out of capacity, invest in new generation capacity’,” Mr Ramokgopa told the BBC.

“We thought the market will resolve that problem, when in fact the state must lead, and we didn’t create conditions for the market to respond appropriately.”

He also admits that load-shedding played a role in the disastrous election result in May for the African National Congress (ANC) when it saw its vote share fall below 50% for the first time.

“Our core base was not convinced that the administration is capable and willing to resolve the problem. We have paid the penalty, we are here, government of national unity are committed to that and to resolve the South African problem. I’m confident that we’ll get it right.”

As a result of the changes is load-shedding now a thing of the past?

“It is too soon to claim victory,” said President Ramaphosa in an address last month.

“Our electricity system is still vulnerable and we cannot yet rule out – yes – possible challenges going forward.”

There is still the occasional power cut – what is known as “load reduction” – whereby Eskom switches off power in high-usage areas to prevent damage to local infrastructure, like transformers, which would in turn lead to more lengthy power cuts.

Eskom mainly attributes this to illegal connections and overcrowding of properties – what it and the government refer to as “backyard dwellers”.

The government says 5% of South African households are affected by load reduction.

But things seem genuinely positive.

“We’re not out of the woods yet, but the probability of us going back to load-shedding is very slim if we keep doing what we are doing currently”, says Daphne Mokwena.

Back in Alex, Ms Rashamosa is preparing for a busy weekend, one she could not have imagined this time last year.

“Life is much better now,” she says, then darts off into the back of her restaurant.

• The roots of Eskom’s power problem
• Load-shedding could switch South Africans off the ANC
• South Africa turns to solar to help stop power cuts
• No power, no pinot – power cuts hit vineyards

Robert F Kennedy Jr’s independent White House bid was buoyed by Democratic Party chaos and dissatisfaction with two familiar candidates. But bizarre headlines, a new opponent and limited cash have left him struggling.

The 70-year-old’s recent confession about dumping a dead bear in Central Park is just the latest strange twist to a campaign that was already sagging in the polls.

Mr Kennedy seems determined to test the proposition that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

In a move to get ahead of a lengthy profile published on Monday in the New Yorker magazine, he released a video where he discusses an accident involving a bear cub a decade ago – and the unlikely series of events that followed.

In the video, Mr Kennedy is speaking to actress and comedian Roseanne Barr over a half-eaten meal of takeaway beef ribs. He describes how he watched a nearby car hit and kill a bear cub while on a day trip hunting with a falcon.

He said he initially wanted to take the dead animal home and skin it. After his schedule changed, he decided to discard the carcass in New York City’s Central Park – along with an old bicycle, in an effort to make it look like a cycling accident.

When someone discovered the bear and the bicycle the next day, it became a headline story in the New York City tabloids and television news programmes.

Needless to say, the entire episode – which sounds like a youthful practical joke gone wrong, but took place when the candidate was 60 – is odd.

The falconry trip. The photograph, published in the New Yorker, of RFK Jr posing with the dead bear. The planned skinning and eating. The animal’s final resting place in New York’s famous urban park. Even the video itself with Ms Barr – who has herself been embroiled in more than a few controversies – holding a teacup and nodding along as Mr Kennedy recounted his tale.

His explanation, that the decision to pick up the dead bear was his “little bit of redneck” coming out, doesn’t quite fit for the nephew of former President John F Kennedy – a member of an American political dynasty.

All this is standard fare for Mr Kennedy, however, whose top news lines during his campaign have veered from scandalous to plain bizarre.

In May, the New York Times ran an article revealing he had told lawyers involved in his 2012 divorce proceedings that he was suffering from a memory issue relating to a dead brain parasite.

In mid-July, Mr Kennedy texted an apology to a former family nanny after Vanity Fair magazine published a story in which she accused him of unwelcome sexual advances.

“I have no memory of this incident but I apologise sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable,” he wrote.

In comments to the media, he said the Vanity Fair article contained a lot of “garbage” but conceded that he had a “very, very rambunctious youth” and that he was “not a church boy”.

There was a point earlier this year when Mr Kennedy – who launched his independent presidential bid after initially running for the Democratic nomination – was averaging around 15% in presidential preference polls. He narrowly missed qualifying for the first presidential debate in late June.

Mr Kennedy appeared to be capitalising on voter dissatisfaction with both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. His pitch blended anti-establishment and anti-corporate rhetoric with liberal social positions and a heavy dose of environmentalism and controversial vaccine scepticism.

With Mr Biden’s dismal performance during that first debate, the door may have opened for Mr Kennedy to elbow his way into the American political conversation.

Instead, he virtually disappeared off the presidential campaign trial.

He has spent little on advertising and grassroots organising. His biggest headlines involved the aforementioned brain worms, sex-harassment allegations and bear-cub escapades.

Meanwhile, his polling support has dropped to the low single digits.

According to Clifford Young, president of Ipsos public affairs, Mr Kennedy’s decline was inevitable, even without all distracting headlines.

“He was a protest option,” he said. “There was a lot of indifference when it came to the two candidates. People didn’t like either choice and it was an expression of indifference or disdain.”

Now, he says, Democrats and Republicans have consolidated their political support.

• EXPLAINER: RFK Jr and others running for president
• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• ANALYSIS: Three ways Trump will try to end Harris honeymoon
• SWING STATES: Where the election could be won and lost
• VOTERS: US workers in debt to buy groceries

Mr Kennedy was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the Republican National Convention in late July, where he had a telephone conversation with the former president.

According to media reports, Mr Kennedy offered to endorse the former president in exchange for a role in his next administration – an offer Trump declined.

At this point, it seems unlikely that Mr Kennedy will generate much interest when Americans head to the polls in November. Even a modest performance could tip the presidential race, however, if that support comes in one of the key battleground states where the independent candidate is on the ballot.

In 2016, Green Party candidate Jill Stein received more votes than the difference between Trump and Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan – the three decisive states in that race. If a fraction of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader’s Florida support had gone to the Democrats, Al Gore would have won the White House in 2000.

Mr Young said Mr Kennedy’s appeal is different from those two notable Green Party candidates, however. He is pulling mostly from the disaffected centre of American politics – low propensity voters who tilt slightly to the right.

The Green Party candidates, on the other hand, were damaging the Democrats by pulling almost exclusively from the left.

Mr Kennedy could still play the spoiler, but it would have to be another extremely close race. And, in the meantime, his chance to shape his campaign’s direction on a larger scale seem to have been buried under an avalanche of strangeness.

Filipino gymnast Carlos Yulo won his second Olympic gold medal in two days, becoming only the second athlete to take home the Games’ top prize for his country.

A three-bedroom condo, thousands of dollars and a lifetime of free ramen are among the flurry of gifts that the government and local brands have pledged to reward the 24-year-old with for his historic wins in the men’s floor exercise and vault events.

Mr Yulo’s feat has also made him the country’s latest social media sensation.

“Another gold for the Philippines! History is made again! Ang galing galing mo! [You are incredible!]” wrote a user on X.

Mr Yulo scored an average of 15.116 on the vault on Sunday, ahead of Armenia’s Artur Davtyan (14.966) and Britain’s Harry Hepworth (14.949).

He punched his arms into the air and embraced fellow athletes on hearing his score. He went into the competition without high expectations, he had told reporters.

“I was just hoping to perform well. I didn’t really expect a medal,” Mr Yulo had said.

“It really felt like a bonus for me. It’s crazy, because last night I couldn’t sleep. I was so hyped because I had won that gold medal [the day before].

Barely 24 hours ago, Mr Yulo had scooped the gold for the men’s floor exercise with 15 points, edging out Artem Dolgopyat of Israel by just 0.034 of a point. Mr Dolgopyat had been the defending Olympic champion and world title holder.

Mr Yulo’s double gold feat is now the most discussed topic on X, formerly known as Twitter, in the Philippines.

“It took 100 years for us to hear Lupang Hinirang [the Philippines’ national anthem] two nights in a row while the world is watching. Thank you so much for the pride and historic moment!” wrote an X user.

A century has passed since the Philippines’ debut in the Olympics in 1924. Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz earned the country’s first Olympic gold medal in Tokyo three years ago.

Philippine celebrities and public figures, including president Ferdinand Marcos Jr and First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, also congratulated Mr Yulo.

“No words can express how proud we are of you, Caloy. You have achieved GOLD for the Philippines not once, but twice! Filipinos all over the world stood united, cheering and rooting for you,” Mr Marcos wrote on Facebook.

The Philippine government will hand the gymnast 10 million Philippine pesos ($173,300; £135,400) – a reward promised to any gold medalists – while a real estate firm has promised him a fully furnished three-bedroom unit at McKinley Hill, the largest condominium development in metropolitan Manila.

The House of Representatives has pledged to give Mr Yulo an additional 6 million pesos in cash incentives, with speaker of the lower house, Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, describing him as a “sports hero” and “national treasure”.

Even medical clinics and universities have rolled out the red carpet for the national hero – a gastroenterologist has offered Mr Yulo free consultations and colonoscopies for life while the University of Mindanao has pledged free university credits.

Also awaiting him are lifetime supplies of ramen, mac and cheese and grilled chicken offered by various restaurant chains.

Meanwhile, the capital city Manila, where Mr Yulo was born and raised, is preparing a “hero’s welcome” for him.

“The grandest welcome will greet him and all our Paris Olympians. When we meet him, we will present Carlos Yulo cash incentives, awards and symbols of the eternal gratitude of the proud capital city of the Philippines,” the city’s mayor, Honey Lacuna, said.

Israel’s leading human rights organisation says conditions inside Israeli prisons holding Palestinian detainees amount to torture.

B’tselem’s report entitled “Welcome to Hell”, contains testimony from 55 recently released Palestinian detainees, whose graphic testimony points to a dramatic worsening of conditions inside prisons since the start of the Gaza war 10 months ago.

It’s the latest in a series of reports, including one last week by the UN, which contain shocking allegations of abuse directed against Palestinian prisoners.

B’tselem says the testimony their researchers have gathered is remarkably consistent.

“All of them again and again, told us the same thing,” says Yuli Novak, B’tselem’s executive director.

“Ongoing abuse, daily violence, physical violence and mental violence, humiliation, sleep deprivation, people are starved.”

Ms Novak’s conclusion is stark.

“The Israeli prison system as a whole, in regard to Palestinians, turned into a network of torture camps.”

Since the deadly Hamas attacks of 7 October, in which around 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed, the number of Palestinian detainees has doubled to around 10,000.

Israel’s prisons – some run by the army, others by the country’s prison service – have become overwhelmed.

Jails are overflowing, with a dozen or more inmates sometimes sharing cells designed to accommodate no more than six.

B’tselem’s report describes overcrowded, filthy cells, where some inmates are forced to sleep on the floor, sometimes without mattresses or blankets.

Some prisoners were captured in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks. Others were rounded up in Gaza as Israel’s invasion got under way, or were arrested in Israel or the occupied West Bank.

Many were later released without charge.

Firas Hassan was already in jail in October, held under “administrative detention”, a measure by which suspects – though it has overwhelmingly been applied to Palestinians – can be detained, more or less indefinitely, without charge.

Israel says that its use of the policy is necessary, and compliant with international law.

Firas says he saw with his own eyes how conditions quickly deteriorated after 7 October.

“Life totally changed,” he told me when we met in Tuqu’, a West Bank village south of Bethlehem.

“I call what happened a tsunami.”

Mr Hassan has been in and out of jail since the early nineties, twice charged with membership of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an armed group designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel and much of the West.

He makes no secret of his past affiliation, saying he was “active”.

Familiar with the rigours of life in prison, he said nothing prepared him for what happened when officers entered his cell two days after 7 October.

“We were severely beaten by 20 officers, masked men using batons and sticks, dogs and firearms,” he said.

“We were tied from behind, our eyes blindfolded, beaten severely. Blood was gushing from my face. They kept beating us for 50 minutes. I saw them from under the blindfold. They were filming us while beating us.”

Mr Hassan was eventually released, without charge, in April, by which time he said he had lost 3 stone (20kg).

A video filmed on the day of his release shows a gaunt figure.

“I spent 13 years in prison in the past,” he told B’tselem researchers later that month, “and never experienced anything like that.”

But it’s not just Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank who talk about the abuse in Israeli prisons.

Israeli citizens, like Sari Khourieh, an Israeli Arab lawyer from Haifa, say it has also happened to them.

Mr Khourieh was held at the Megiddo prison in northern Israel for 10 days last November. The police said that two of his Facebook posts had glorified the actions of Hamas – a charge quickly dismissed.

But his brief experience of prison – his first – nearly broke him.

“They just lost their mind,” he says of the scenes he witnessed at Megiddo.

“There was no law. There was no order inside.”

Mr Khourieh says he was spared the worst of the abuse. But he says he was stunned by the treatment of his fellow inmates.

“They were hitting them badly for no reason,” he told us. “They were screaming, the guys, ‘we didn’t do nothing. You don’t have to hit us.’”

Speaking to other detainees, he quickly learned that what he was seeing was not normal.

“It wasn’t the best treatment before 7 October, they told me, but afterwards everything was different.”

During a brief spell in an area of isolation cells known by the prisoners as Tora Bora (a reference to al-Qaeda’s network of caves in Afghanistan), Mr Khourieh says he heard a beaten inmate pleading for medical help in an adjacent cell.

According to Mr Khourieh, doctors tried to revive him, but he died shortly afterwards.

According to last week’s UN report, “announcements by IPS (Israel Prison Service) and prisoners organisations indicate that 17 Palestinians have died in the custody of the IPS between 7 October and 15 May”.

Israel’s military advocate, meanwhile, said on 26 May that it was investigating the deaths of 35 Gaza detainees in army custody.

Several months after Mr Khourieh’s release – again, without charge – the lawyer is still struggling to make sense of what he witnessed at Megiddo.

“I’m an Israeli…I’m a lawyer,” he told us. “I’ve seen the world outside the prison. Now I’m inside. I see another world.”

His faith in citizenship and the rule of law, he says, has been shattered.

“It was all crushed after this experience.”

We put claims of the widespread mistreatment of Palestinian detainees to the authorities involved.

The army said it “rejects outright allegations of systematic abuse of detainees”.

“Concrete complaints regarding misconduct or unsatisfactory conditions of detention,” the army told us, “are forwarded to relevant bodies in the IDF, and are dealt with accordingly.”

The prison service said it “was not aware of the claims you described, and as far as we know, no such events have occurred”.

Since 7 October, Israel has refused to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross access to Palestinian detainees, as international law requires.

No explanation has been given for this refusal, but the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has frequently expressed its frustration over the ICRC’s failure to gain access to Israeli and other hostages being held in Gaza.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) has accused the government of “consciously defying international law”.

Last week, the treatment of Palestinian prisoners ignited a furious public row, as far right demonstrators – including members of Israel’s parliament – violently tried to prevent the arrest of soldiers accused of sexually abusing a prisoner from Gaza at the Sde Teiman military base.

Some of those protesting were followers of Israel’s hardline security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, the man in overall charge of the prison service.

Mr Ben Gvir has frequently boasted that under his watch, conditions for Palestinian detainees have deteriorated sharply.

“I’m proud that during my time we changed all the conditions,” he told members of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, during a rowdy session in July.

For B’Tselem, Mr Ben Gvir bears a heavy responsibility for the abuses now being reported.

“These systems were put in the hands of the most right wing, most racist minister that Israel ever had,” Yuli Novak told us.

For her, Israel’s treatment of prisoners, in the wake of the traumatic events of 7 October, is a dangerous indicator of the nation’s moral decline.

“The trauma and anxiety walks with us each and every day,” she says.

“But to let this thing turn us into something that it not human, that doesn’t see people, I think is tragic.”

The tech world is digesting a US judge’s potentially seismic ruling that Google illegally monopolises online search and related advertising

It took four years to get to this point, and Google-owner Alphabet’s inevitable appeal means this the legal process is likely to carry on for some time yet.

But already the potential consequences of the judge’s decision are being considered, ranging from cash fines to other, more complicated remedies.

The US government specifically wants “structural relief” – so what could that look like?

• Google’s online search monopoly is illegal, US judge rules

The nuclear option would be to demand Google breaks itself into smaller chunks – a move US officials have not ruled out.

Google is much more than just search.

Just look at Android, a firm it bought for $50m (£39.3m) in 2005, which now runs on the majority of smartphones – or YouTube, a $1.65bn acquisition in 2006, which now generates many multiples of that in revenue each year.

The argument might be that all of these can remain under Google, but the actual search engine should be spun off into a separate business.

That might cause consternation for Alphabet executives. But as long as Google remained the default search engine on devices, the average consumer would be unlikely to notice the difference.

“Any such move would certainly be met with years of litigation and regulatory bun-fighting, but it seems to be far more ‘on the table’ than at any time in Google’s history,” said Gareth Mills, Partner at legal firm Charles Russell Speechlys.

“There will now be a separate hearing where the Judge will have no option to consider the divesture of Google from all or part of its search engine part of the business, or imposing other corporate governance controls to negate the anti-competitive conduct found to have already occurred.”

Another potential remedy centres on Google’s practice of paying other companies to use it.

The US said Google was currently paying firms like Apple huge amounts of money each year to be pre-installed as the default search engine on their devices or platforms.

The judge agreed.

The contention is, had Google never spent that money, the big firms might have been encouraged to develop their own search experience.

Instead, Apple’s Safari browser for example uses Google by default whenever you use it to search the web.

If remedial action significantly affected Google’s ability to pay other companies to use it, perhaps those firms might start a rival.

Here though they would run up against Google’s incredibly strong customer recognition for search. Despite its own high brand profile, it is hard to imagine telling someone to “Apple” something.

The iPhone-maker will of course be keen to keep the money from Google rolling in, which according to one analyst amounted to $20 billion in 2022.

“Any disruption to the revenue stream will have significant implications for Apple,” said Dipanjan Chatterjee from Forrester Research.

“As the case works through the legal system, and the likely outcome appears to be opening up search engine exclusivity, you can fully expect a brand as obsessed as Apple is about customer experience to have a Plan B to ensure a smooth transition for its customers.”

Something that’s easier to imagine is some kind of choice screen, where people opening a browser for the first time are asked whether they’d like to use Google or an alternative like Microsoft’s Bing.

It is somewhat harder to picture that causing people to abandon Google in their droves, however, for the simple reason that for most people it simply works well.

Those of us with grey hairs will recall Google being one of several search engines to emerge at the dawn of the internet, with familiar rivals including Yahoo and Ask (formerly AskJeeves), and possibly less-familiar rivals including Lycos and AltaVista.

But over the next decade, Google didn’t just become the dominant player in the market, it became part of the way we speak.

Despite Microsoft launching its rival, Bing, in 2009, nothing has yet knocked Google off its perch.

Microsoft boss Satya Nadella testified in Google’s trial, perhaps hoping a judgment like this could finally help give Bing wings.

“The court may seek other ways to dismantle Google’s position as a default search engine but some of those remedies likely go beyond the facts driving this case,” said Professor Anu Bradford of Columbia Law School.

“For example, the EU is going further with its recent Digital Markets Act that forces even Google’s own Android phones to present users with a ‘choice screen’ that lets the user choose one’s preferred search engine when setting up the phone.

“One question is whether this new ruling paves way for such regulatory demands in the future.”

Whatever happens next, past experience suggests it won’t happen quickly.

Back in 1999, Microsoft found itself in a very similar situation to where Google is now.

The firm had just been found by a US judge to have created a monopoly, and a year later a court ordered the firm to be broken up.

Microsoft appealed the decision, and in 2001 the original decision to break it up was overturned.

By the end of 2002 Microsoft had agreed a settlement with the US Department of Justice, which a judge accepted.

But some US states disagreed, and it wasn’t until 2004 – five years after the original ruling – that the settlement was officially signed off.

It is a steep climb from the main road to 79-year-old Matlohang Moloi’s home, through the mountains that make Lesotho one of the highest countries in the world.

The mother of 10 welcomes me to her neat house, showing me photos of her large family. I am here to talk about one of her children – her firstborn son, Tlohang.

At 38 he became part of a grim statistic. Lesotho, the kingdom in the sky, is home to the world’s highest suicide rate.

“Tlohang was a good son. He had told me about his mental health struggles,” Ms Moloi says.

“Even that day he took his own life, he came to me and said ‘mother, one day you will hear that I have taken my life’.

“His death hurt me a lot. I really wish he could have explained in more detail what was troubling him in his mind. He was worried if he told people they’d think he’s a weak person who can’t solve his own problems.”

According to the World Health Organization, 87.5 people per 100,000 of the population take their own life every year in Lesotho.

By contrast that is more than double the next country on the list, Guyana in South America, where the figure is just over 40.

It is also almost 10 times the global average, which stands at nine suicides per 100,000 people.

That is a statistic that NGOs – such as HelpLesotho – are determined to change, by equipping young people with the skills to manage their mental health.

In the town of Hlotse, about two hours’ drive from the capital, Maseru, I sit in on on one of the regular group therapy sessions for young women, run by social worker Lineo Raphoka.

“People think it’s against our African principles, our cultural experiences, against our spirituality as Africans, and as a community at large,” 24-year-old Patience tells the group.

“But we are also shying away from the fact that it is happening. I’m talking from a perspective where I’ve lost three friends from suicide, I’ve personally attempted.”

Everyone here has experienced suicidal thoughts, or know someone who has died by suicide.

Thirty-five-year-old Ntsoaki becomes emotional, as she tells the group her story of being raped in hospital.

“The doctor told me I was too attractive. Then he took out a gun and told me he wanted to have pleasure with me, and if I didn’t he would kill me.

“Every time with suicide, I always thought it was the only solution. I couldn’t do it, I had no strength to do it. The only thing that kept me moving or alive were the faces of my brothers. They believe I’m strong, but I’m weak.”

The group reassures her she is strong for sharing her feelings.

As the session finishes, all the women are chatting and smiling, saying they feel better for sharing their stories.

The reasons people take their own lives are often complicated, and it is difficult to isolate a single cause.

Despite that, Ms Raphoka says she sees patterns that explain why Lesotho has such a high suicide rate.

“Mostly they go through situations such as rape, unemployment, loss because of death. They abuse drugs and alcohol.”

According to a World Population Review report in 2022, 86% of women in Lesotho have experienced gender-based violence.

Meanwhile the World Bank says two in five young people are not in employment or education.

“They’re not getting enough support from their families, friends or any kind of relationships that they have,” Ms Raphoka continues.

It is something you often hear in Lesotho. People say time and again that they do not feel comfortable talking about their mental health – and that others might judge them.

Sitting in a bar in Hlotse one evening, where the male clientele drink local beer and chat politics while football plays on the TV, I steer the conversation towards mental health.

“We do talk about it, we say let’s open up,” Khosi Mpiti tells me.

Some are afraid that if they reveal too much they could be gossiped about. Despite this, he says things are getting better.

“As a group [of friends] we’re very supportive. If I’m having a problem I tell the group, and we support each other.”

When people do seek help though, they are confronted with a struggling public health system.

The country’s only psychiatric unit was last year criticised by the ombudsman – an official whose job it is to look after the public’s interests – for not having had a psychiatrist since 2017.

She also highlighted widespread abuses, including “living conditions that violate human rights”.

There was previously also no national mental health policy to deal with the crisis, although the government – elected in October 2022 – says it is in the process of drafting one.

“Mental health has become a pandemic,” admits Mokhothu Makhalanyane, an MP who leads a parliamentary committee that deals with health issues.

“We are making sure that advocacy is intensified, from primary school, to high schools, to places where young people gather, such as football tournaments,” he tells the BBC.

“The policy will also be specific in terms of treatment, and will allow those affected to go for rehabilitation.”

He also says Lesotho can learn from its battle against HIV/Aids.

In 2016 it became the first country to introduce a “test-and-treat” strategy, meaning people can start treatment as soon as they are diagnosed. Rates of infection have consistently fallen.

“The experience that we had is that talking openly, and not blaming or criticising the people for their situation, helped turn things around.”

Back up in the mountains, Ms Moloi takes the short walk to tend to Tlohang’s grave.

His final resting place is a plot with a stunning vista, dotted with streams, greenery and small houses.

Ms Moloi is one of many people living in Lesotho who are dealing with the grief of death by suicide.

As we take in the view, she says she has a message for those who find themselves in the same headspace as her son.

“I would tell people that taking your own life is never a solution. What you have to do is to talk to people around you so they can help you.”

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A Polish man has pleaded not guilty to punching Denmark’s prime minister, saying he was too drunk to remember the incident.

The suspect, who cannot be named because of legal restrictions, has gone on trial in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, charged with violence against a public servant, as well as several counts of indecent exposure and fraud relating to other incidents.

He has pleaded guilty to some of the other charges and could face a prison sentence and deportation.

PM Mette Frederiksen suffered minor neck and shoulder injuries as a result of the attack, which took place just three weeks after Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was seriously injured in an assassination attempt.

The 39-year-old Polish man told the court he had been having a bad day when he came face to face with Ms Frederiksen in Copenhagen in June, just two days before the European Parliament elections.

“I’m standing face to face with Mrs Prime Minister, [then] I can’t remember anything else until I am arrested,” he said, quoted by AFP news agency.

Ms Frederiksen, who was punched in the shoulder, was able to leave the scene unaided.

She said at the time she was “shaken” by the incident, but “fine”.

The prime minister was taken to hospital for a check-up and then withdrew from the last day of campaigning for the European elections.

She will not be called as a witness in the trial.

But one of her bodyguards has testified, saying that the man came up to her on a busy street, said something incomprehensible to her and gave her “a hard punch with his fist on her shoulder”.

Ms Frederiksen, 46, is leader of Denmark’s Social Democrats, the biggest party in Denmark’s coalition government.

She took office in 2019, making her the youngest prime minister in Danish history.

David Lynch has revealed he’s been diagnosed with emphysema, a chronic lung disease, from “many years of smoking”.

The Hollywood film director, who was behind the hit mystery TV series Twin Peaks, said that despite the diagnosis, he is in “excellent shape” and will “never retire”.

In an interview with the British film magazine Sight and Sound, the 78-year-old said the condition affects his mobility which means he will only be able to direct films remotely in future.

Lynch has now posted on X, formerly Twitter, saying his diagnosis is the “price to pay” for his smoking habit but revealed he quit two years ago.

Emphysema is a form of COPD or Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

It occurs when there is damage to the air sacs in the lungs.

The main symptoms are shortness of breath, a persistent chesty cough, frequent chest infections and wheezing.

The breathing problems tend to get gradually worse over time.

The main cause of COPD is smoking, although the condition can sometimes affect people who have never smoked.

“I have to say I enjoyed smoking very much” he wrote “but there is a price to pay for this enjoyment”.

Emphysema is a condition which causes shortness of breath and a persistent cough.

But despite living with it he says he is “filled with happiness” and has thanked fans for their concern.

Lynch has directed 10 feature films including the Oscar-nominated Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and The Elephant Man.

His last film project was a reboot of the third season of Twin Peaks called Twin Peaks: the Return which premiered in the US in 2017.

A US funeral home where 190 decaying bodies were found has been ordered to pay $950m (£746m) to the families of the victims.

The Return to Nature home, in the town of Penrose, Colorado, had given fake ashes to grieving relatives instead of their loved-ones’ remains.

A judge ordered the payment in a civil case, but it’s unlikely to be paid as the funeral home owners, Jon and Carie Hallford, had been in serious financial difficulties.

Neither attended the hearings. Mr Hallford is in custody, while his wife is out on bail.

“I’m never going to get a dime from them, so, I don’t know, it’s a little frustrating,” Crystina Page, who hired the funeral home to cremate her son’s remains in 2019, told the Associated Press.

Ms Page, who carried what she thought were her son’s ashes for four years before his body was identified at the home, also said the couple’s non-appearance in court felt like a slap in the face.

The victims’ lawyer, Andrew Swan, told AP that while the couple’s financial position was known from the outset, his clients wanted answers.

“I would have preferred that they participate, if only because I wanted to put them on the witness stand, have them put under oath and ask them how they came to do this, not once, not twice, but hundreds of times,” he said.

More than 100 family members are involved in the civil case, which has been left open in case others come forward.

The Hallfords also face hundreds of state and federal criminal charges, including abuse of a corpse, theft, money laundering and forgery.

They had been offered a plea deal by state prosecutors on 190 counts of abuse of a corpse, the BBC’s US partner CBS says. However, it is unclear if it still stands.

Located about 30 miles (48km) south of Colorado Springs, the funeral home specialised in burials where no chemicals, including embalming fluid, were used and where remains were buried in a biodegradable casket.

It came under investigation after reports of a foul odour coming from the property led to officials discovering 115 bodies there early last October.

Jon Hallford was accused by officials of attempting to conceal the “improper storage of human remains”.

Green funerals are allowed in the state but remains must be buried within 24 hours or be properly refrigerated.

Funeral home operators in Colorado are currently not required to be licensed, have a degree in mortuary science or even graduate high school.

Tougher legislation has been passed since the scandal erupted, but will not come into force until 2026.

An Australian father-of-three was killed by a crocodile after falling into a river when a path gave way, his family have said.

Dr Dave Hogbin was on holiday in Queensland with his wife and three boys when a riverbank gave way and he fell into the Annan River in Cooktown.

His wife tried to pull him out of the water, but she too began slipping down the river bank, prompting him to let go of her arm. His family called him a “hero”, hailing his “final selfless act”.

Queensland Police said they believed human remains found in a crocodile in Cooktown to be of a 40-year-old man, from New South Wales, who went missing on Saturday. The remains are yet to be formally identified.

Writing for News.com.au, journalist Alexis Carey, sister-in-law of Dr Hogbin, said his family wanted to speak out to raise awareness over how dangerous the area is and so his children “know exactly how amazing a man he really was”.

The GP, from Newcastle, New South Wales, had been on a camping holiday with his wife Jane and three sons – aged seven, five and two – when he was taken by a 4.9m (16ft) crocodile on Saturday afternoon, she wrote.

Clearing up an initial suggestion from police that he had been fishing, Ms Carey said the family had been walking along a path on a 5m high (16ft) river bank when a portion of it gave way and he was unable to get out of the water.

She said his wife, also a GP, slid down to pull Dr Hogbin out and was able to grab his arm, but she also began slipping into the river herself.

“Dave’s final, decisive act was to let go of Jane’s arm when he realised she was falling in, despite knowing she was his only lifeline. Within moments, he was taken,” Ms Carey said.

“Dave’s brave decision in that terrifying moment very likely saved his wife’s life, ensuring she was able to return to their boys.”

She said the fact his children did not witness their dad’s final moments was a “small piece of consolation”.

Dr Hogbin’s wife, Jane, said: “We were just enjoying a standard day of our holiday and everything just changed within 30 seconds. He wasn’t doing anything wrong – in fact, he was doing everything right, and this still happened…

“He saved me – his last act was to not pull me in with him.”

Paying tribute to her husband, she described him as a dedicated father and “fiercely loyal and protective”.

A GoFundMe page set up to help support the family has raised more than A$56,600 (£28,880).

Queensland Police said the remains found in the crocodile would be tested further to aid identification.

A report for the coroner is being prepared and the search has been suspended.

Last month, police found human remains while searching for a 12-year-old who they believe was the victim of a crocodile attack.

In April, a 16-year-old boy died in a suspected crocodile attack in Torres Strait waters while trying to swim ashore from a broken-down dinghy.

Banksy has unveiled a second new artwork in south-west London, this time depicting two elephants poking their heads out of blocked out windows.

The artwork has been painted on the side of a house in Edith Terrace in Chelsea.

The Bristol-based street artist shared a photo of the wall art on Instagram, which is his usual method of claiming his work.

It comes a day after he revealed a goat stencil on a wall near Kew Bridge in Richmond.

That piece featured a silhouette of a goat painted on top of a ledge with rocks falling down below it and a CCTV camera pointed towards the animal.

Banksy did not write a caption for either Instagram post causing fans to speculate on the meaning of the artworks.

The church of a controversial South African preacher has been burned down after he allegedly wielded machetes at a primary school and forcibly removed his grandchildren.

Pastor Mboro’s Incredible Happenings Church was set alight by angry schoolchildren on Tuesday, local reports said.

The day before, a widely circulated video appeared to show Pastor Mboro – real name Paseka Motsoeneng – waving blades during a tense stand-off with teachers in Katlehong, a township just outside Johannesburg.

He is flanked by a man carrying what police have since identified as a replica firearm.

Provincial authorities said the two young children filmed being removed are at the centre of a custody battle after their mother passed away.

Five people were arrested following the incident at the school, police said.

They said the video showed “acts of intimidation and violence” and men “harassing learners and teachers”.

Separate video footage shows Pastor Mboro’s church, housed in a marquee tent, going up in flames as thick, black smoke billows from it.

Pupils in school uniform were seen running from the church, which was also looted, News 24 reported.

Authorities in the district of Ekurhuleni, where the church is located, said on social media platform X: “Anger erupted after Mboro wasn’t arrested following yesterday’s incident, leading to the tent burning.”

The post said Pastor Mboro was arrested on Tuesday morning, but the police have not confirmed if he was one of the five people detained.

Pastor Mboro is a self-styled prophet with thousands of followers across South Africa.

He has claimed to perform miracles such as healing people during sermons and delivering a fish from the womb of a pregnant woman.

South African education minister Siviwe Gwarube commented on the incident at the primary school, posting on X: “I am absolutely incensed by this attack on our schools, staff and learners.

“No one – absolutely no one – should break into schools with weapons interrupting teaching and learning time and terrorising children.”

Police said those arrested have been charged with crimes such as assault, intimidation and malicious damage to property.

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Tim Walz touted his rural roots and said Donald Trump would take the US “backwards” as he appeared for the first time as Kamala Harris’s running mate at a raucous Democratic Party rally.

At the event in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, the party’s new nominee for vice-president said their Republican rivals in November’s election were “weird as hell”.

The Minnesota governor spoke in front of thousands of supporters just hours after he was announced as Ms Harris’s pick for the role.

The Trump campaign, meanwhile, was quick to attack Mr Walz as a “dangerously liberal extremist”.

The 60-year-old is billed as someone who could win back rural and working-class voters who have gravitated to Donald Trump in crucial midwestern states.

At the rally in the key swing state of Pennsylvania, Ms Harris, currently the US vice-president, said she and Mr Walz were the “underdogs” in what is expected to be a close election but had the momentum.

She introduced her running mate as “a fighter for the middle class, a patriot”.

Mr Walz then recounted his small-town roots in Nebraska and his career as a national guardsman and teacher, before attempting to draw a contrast with Trump.

“He doesn’t know the first thing about service – because he’s too busy serving himself,” said the former army sergeant and football coach.

He got some of the loudest cheers of the night when he took aim at the former president’s criminal record, with chants of “lock him up” from those in the arena.

He also sparked applause when he invoked a viral attack line that caught the eye of the Harris campaign as she considered who would be her running mate.

“These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell,” Mr Walz said of their Republican challengers.

The governor also said he “can’t wait to debate” Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, “that is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up”.

The pair mostly pitched themselves as defenders of individual freedoms, including on abortion rights and safety from gun violence.

Mr Walz showed the plain-spoken, folksy style that has won praise from Democrats, as he took a jab at Republicans on the issue of abortion access.

“Mind your own damn business!” he said, drawing an ovation from the crowd of more than 10,000 at Temple University.

Ms Harris and Mr Walz have just launched a five-day tour of key battleground states.

They will also speak at the Democratic National Convention, which runs from 19 to 22 August in Chicago.

As the current two-term governor of Minnesota, Mr Walz has overseen one of the most productive legislative periods in state history, implementing a sweeping progressive agenda.

Democrats have used control of the state legislature to guarantee abortion rights, pass gun control measures and institute paid family leave.

Republicans have criticised Mr Walz for Minnesota’s mask mandate and a shutdown of businesses and schools during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as his delay in deploying the National Guard to deal with rioting after George Floyd’s murder in 2020.

Also in Philadelphia earlier on Tuesday was Mr Vance, Trump’s running mate, who assailed the new Democratic White House ticket.

The Ohio senator told reporters that Ms Harris’s choice of Mr Walz shows that “when given the opportunity she will bend the knee to the most radical elements of her party”.

Trump’s campaign said in a statement: “Just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare.”

President Joe Biden, who suspended his own election campaign last month and endorsed Ms Harris, said in a statement that the Democratic ticket “will be the strongest defenders of our personal freedoms and our democracy”.

Another of the finalists to be Ms Harris’s running mate, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, was also at the rally.

He had faced sharp criticism from the left over his support for Israel and his handling of college protests sparked by the war in Gaza.

Some Trump advisers have expressed relief that Ms Harris did not pick Mr Shapiro because of concerns he could help deliver the pivotal state of Pennsylvania.

Before entering the governor’s office, Mr Walz represented a Republican-leaning district in the US Congress for 12 years.

He won that seat in 2006 – the only Democrat to have done so in the mostly rural district over the past three decades.

Mr Walz is a native of Nebraska and the son of a school administrator and a stay-at-home mother.

He grew up farming and hunting and served in the Army National Guard for 24 years after joining aged 17.

The young Mr Walz also taught secondary school pupils – first for a year in China, a country he says he has visited about 30 times. He speaks some Mandarin.

His wife, Gwen Whipple, a fellow teacher, drew him to her native Minnesota, where he taught social studies and geography and coached American football.

SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote

ANALYSIS: Three ways Trump will try to end Harris honeymoon

SWING STATES: Where the election could be won and lost

EXPLAINER: RFK Jr and others running for president

As they walked out for the first time as presidential running mates on Tuesday night, Tim Walz turned to Kamala Harris and mouthed one word: “wow”.

It spoke to the enthusiastic response from the Philadelphia crowd, but also reflected the unlikely journey that the Minnesota governor has been on over the past week.

Few people had Mr Walz on their early lists of possible vice-presidential choices. But on Tuesday, the dark horse won the race.

In a year when “vibes” have been everything in politics – on the economy, on the campaign trail – that is exactly what Kamala Harris has gone for: good vibes.

The Minnesota governor has a “midwestern nice” appeal, even when he is throwing political punches. His background – a teacher, a football coach, an Army National Guard enlisted soldier – broadcasts “meat-and-potatoes middle America”, as does perhaps his balding, rotund, slightly dishevelled appearance.

All of this was on display here in Philadelphia.

After noting that violent crime rates went up under Donald Trump, he added – with a smile – “and that doesn’t even count the crimes he committed”. He called the Republican ticket “weird as hell” –a label that has become a Democratic mantra in just a matter of days. And on the topic of abortion, he said government should follow a midwestern golden rule: “Mind your own damn business”.

Mixing humour with jabs – and speaking openly of the “joy” he sees in Democratic politics – may prove to be a more effective way to convince undecided voters who were simply not convinced by the dark “threat to democracy” rhetoric the Biden campaign had been using.

Mr Walz’s aw-shucks affability stood in sharp contrast with other possible choices – the polished and ambitious Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, with his arrow-straight military demeanour.

Mr Shapiro served as the warm-up act for the new Democratic ticket, and he received a hero’s welcome from his home-state crowd. It was a reminder of what Ms Harris passed over in picking Mr Walz – a popular politician with a silver tongue from perhaps the most important state on the electoral map.

Mr Walz was a safer pick than the Pennsylvanian, however, whose criticism of pro-Palestinian protesters and support for using public funds for private schools prompted objections from key parts of the Democratic base. These risked reopening intraparty divisions at a time when Democrats were finally pulling together.

And while Minnesota is not a battleground state, the Harris campaign may hope that Mr Walz has midwestern appeal in places like Wisconsin and Michigan, which will ultimately help decide this election.

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By taking a Republican-held House seat in 2006, Mr Walz has already shown he can win round a significant number of rural and Republican voters.

And Mr Walz has proven adept at defending his record of progressive legislation in a way that moderates and independent voters can understand.

He’s also a native of Nebraska, which in 2020 delivered one of its electoral votes to Joe Biden. It’s by far the smallest battleground, but in a close race it could be the difference between victory and defeat.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat grandee who was so instrumental in persuading Joe Biden to step aside for Ms Harris, has been gushing in her praise of the “wonderful” Mr Walz.

It is no surprise. His 2006 victory helped deliver the House majority to Ms Pelosi as House Speaker, and to the Democrats for the first time in 12 years.

Republicans are going to try to erase these early good vibes and replace them with a darker picture.

The Trump campaign has already branded him a “dangerously liberal extremist” and a “far-left lunatic”.

They point to his record in Minnesota of enacting left-wing social programmes and accuse him of not doing enough to control the demonstrations that broke out after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in 2020.

At the very least, Republicans may welcome not having to face-off against Mr Shapiro, who has a more centrist profile and might have given Ms Harris a decisive boost in Pennsylvania.

JD Vance, Mr Walz’s Republican adversary for the vice-presidency, said the choice showed Ms Harris was willing to “bend the knee to the most radical elements of her party”.

Trump, meanwhile, said Mr Walz will unleash “HELL ON EARTH and open our borders to the worst criminals imaginable”.

But even if Mr Walz provides a more inviting target for Republicans, making that rhetoric stick on his friendly, meat-and-potatoes persona will be no easy task for the Trump campaign.

Now the newly minted Democratic ticket hits the campaign trail, with 91 days left until election day.

“That’s easy,” Mr Walz said of the three-month home stretch. “We can sleep when we’re dead”.

When Sheikh Hasina called crisis security talks to put down spiralling unrest in Bangladesh on Sunday, she appears to have been in denial that her time was up as prime minister.

Within hours, she would be swept away by people power – indeed, few could have predicted the speed of her exit.

In the end, it was the advice of close family rather than top security officials that persuaded her to flee, the BBC was told by her son.

Ms Hasina made her mind up just in time – crowds entered her residence within a couple of hours of her escaping.

The National Security Committee meeting – called for late on Sunday morning – brought the embattled prime minister together with the country’s top three military chiefs, senior security officials and police. The mood was sober.

Pressure on the prime minister had been mounting for weeks as anti-government protests raged around the country. Hundreds have been killed in the worst violence Bangladesh has seen since its war of independence in 1971.

On Sunday alone, at least 90 people lost their lives, mostly demonstrators shot by security forces – but also a growing number of police killed by the crowds.

BBC Bangla has learned from officials that Sheikh Hasina wanted to keep “two options” open. While there were preparations for her to leave the country, she wanted to stay in power until the last moment – by force.

Military leaders did not agree. On Sunday, ordinary people and protesters mingled with field-level soldiers and army officers in various parts of the country. After reviewing the situation, senior military officers realised things were out of control.

Individually, the military top brass at the meeting told the prime minister that soldiers could not shoot at civilians – but they could provide security back-up to police, sources told the BBC. Senior police chiefs also complained they were running out of ammunition, it later emerged.

Sheikh Hasina, however, would not listen – and no-one was willing to disagree with her to her face.

After the meeting, her press secretary delivered her defiant message. She called the protesters “terrorists” and urged people to resist those she described as “arsonists”.

Security forces feared they could soon have a situation approaching civil war on their hands.

Pictures of Sunday’s violence were going viral on social media as the death toll steadily rose. Images of young men with bullet wounds, shot by police and members of the ruling Awami League party’s youth wing, were triggering more anger.

As the ferocity of the clashes became clear, student leaders brought forward their call for a mass march on Dhaka by a day, taking the authorities by surprise.

Intelligence inputs suggested the students’ demands were gaining traction and thousands of people were planning to descend on the capital the following day.

If the security forces tried to stop the protesters, there would be another bloodbath.

So army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman decided to speak to the prime minister again.

Reliable sources said the three service chiefs met her on Sunday evening and politely explained that the situation on the ground was getting more and more volatile, and that crowds of thousands were expected in Dhaka on Monday morning. They could not guarantee the safety of her residence.

Sheikh Hasina did not take their advice, but journalists in Dhaka said they could sense power was already shifting. By Sunday night, police were absent in many places and numerous security barricades were unmanned.

On Monday morning, large crowds had started moving towards Dhaka. Gen Zaman was at Ms Hasina’s residence once again explaining to her the gravity of the situation. People were breaking the curfew and violence had already started.

Police were being withdrawn from many parts of Dhaka and Gen Zaman told her they could not prevent the crowd from reaching Gono Bhaban, the PM’s official residence in the capital, for much longer. An hour or so at best.

At this point, military chiefs decided to call on family members to intercede.

Police and military chiefs then held talks with Sheikh Hasina’s sister, Rehana Siddiq, to see if she could persuade her elder sibling to leave.

“The officials held discussions with Sheikh Rehana in another room. They asked her to explain the situation to Sheikh Hasina. Sheikh Rehana then talked with her elder sister, but Sheikh Hasina was determined to hold on to power,” the Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily said.

Then Ms Hasina’s son Sajeeb and daughter Saima, who both live abroad, spoke to her on the phone and insisted she should go. During these family negotiations, the army chief, who is related to Ms Hasina by marriage, was reportedly present throughout.

“My mum did not wish to leave the country at all. We had to persuade her,” Sajeeb Wazed Joy told the BBC on Tuesday, adding his mother began thinking of resigning on Saturday evening.

“We in the family begged her, we urged her, this is the mob, they are out for violence and they will kill you and we need to get you to safety. Only however long it took the mob to get there, that was how much time she had. They just left without any preparation.

“I rang her yesterday in Delhi. She’s in good spirits but she’s very disappointed. She’s very disheartened by the people of Bangladesh.”

On Monday morning, sources said, Sheikh Hasina got in touch with government officials in Delhi to request sanctuary. The advice from India, a staunch ally throughout her long career, was for her to leave.

A day earlier, Washington had reportedly been telling Indian foreign ministry officials that time was up for Ms Hasina. She had run out of options.

But once she reluctantly agreed to sign documents relinquishing her post, there was still the question of how to get her out of the country safely.

A senior military official, who did not wish to be named, told BBC Bangla that only the Special Security Force, the Presidential Guard Regiment and some senior military officers at army headquarters knew when Sheikh Hasina signed the resignation letter and boarded the military helicopter that would fly her out of her residence. The whole thing was done quite secretly.

At about 10:30 local time (05:00GMT), the authorities shut down the internet so that no news about Sheikh Hasina’s movements could spread on social media.

It was only reactivated after she had made her getaway.

According to senior army sources, arrangements were put in place to get Sheikh Hasina to the airport safely. There were concerns her convoy might be attacked, so the entire route was cleared and the departure point secured. But in the end, it was not safe to take her by road, so a helicopter was used instead.

Right up to the moment of departure, Sheikh Hasina was reluctant to get on it, her son said.

“She wanted my aunt to leave,” her son said. “My mother did not want to get on the helicopter. I was on the call, persuading my mother, telling my aunt, both of them that she had to leave.”

Once they did, they were flown from Gono Bhaban to a waiting Bangladeshi Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft that had been made ready.

Sajeeb Wazed Joy says he believes they went to Agartala, the capital of India’s eastern state of Tripura and were flown from there to Delhi. India had already been approached and agreed her transit via this route, officials said.

Other accounts say she was taken by helicopter to an airport in Dhaka, then by plane to Delhi.

Whichever route they took, at about 13:30 local time, Ms Hasina, her sister and a senior Awami League MP, Salman Fazlur Rahman, were transferred from the helicopter to the aircraft that took them to Delhi, officials said.

A video on social media showed four or five suitcases on the ground waiting to be loaded. Many of the things she left behind were being carted off by crowds who invaded her residence, even as she was still in the air.

Several hours later, the aircraft landed in Delhi, its passengers’ onward destination unclear.

Back in Dhaka, the internet was back on and all around Bangladesh, celebrations were breaking out marking the end of Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule.

A woman once viewed as a democrat but later reviled by many as a despot had fled like a fugitive under cover of internet darkness.

Hours after Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country on Monday following mass protests, a development professional in the capital, Dhaka, received a panicked phone call from his cousin.

Avirup Sarkar is a Bangladeshi Hindu, living in a country that is 90% Muslim. His widowed cousin lives in a sprawling joint family house in a mixed neighbourhood in Netrokona, a district crisscrossed by rivers, about 100km (62 miles) north from Dhaka.

“She sounded terrified. She said the house had been attacked and plundered by a mob,” Mr Sarkar, a social protection specialist, told me on the phone from Dhaka.

His cousin said the mob of about 100 people, armed with sticks, stormed the house, smashing furniture, TV, bathroom fittings and doors. Before leaving, they took all the cash and jewellery. They didn’t assault any of the 18-odd residents, including half-a-dozen children belonging to seven families, that lived there.

“You people are descendants of the Awami League! This country is in a bad shape because of you. You should leave the country,” the mob shouted at the residents before leaving with the loot.

Mr Sarkar told me that he was shocked, but not entirely surprised by the incident. Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, he says, are largely viewed as supporters of Sheikh Hasina’s secular Awami League party and are often attacked by rivals in a country where Islam is the state religion.

After Ms Hasina fled the country, social media was flooded with reports of Hindu properties and temples being attacked. India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told parliament on Tuesday: “What was particularly worrying was that minorities, their businesses and temples also came under attack at multiple locations. The full extent of this is still not clear.”

However, young Muslim groups were also protecting Hindu homes and shrines to prevent further vandalism.

“Bangladeshi Hindus are an easy target,” Mr Sarkar told me. “Every time the Awami League loses power, they are attacked.”

This was not the first time his cousin’s house was attacked, Mr Sarkar says. Minorities in Bangladesh were targeted in 1992 after a Hindu mob tore down the Babri mosque in the Indian city of Ayodhya. Mr Sarkar’s sister’s home was ransacked by a mob.

There have been many religious attacks on Hindus in the following decades. A Bangladeshi human rights group, Ain o Salish Kendra, reported at least 3,679 attacks on the Hindu community between January 2013 and September 2021, including vandalism, arson and targeted violence.

In 2021, following mob attacks on Hindu minority households and temples in Bangladesh during and after Durga Puja, the country’s biggest Hindu festival, rights group Amnesty International said: “Such repeated attacks against individuals, communal violence and destruction of the homes and places of worship of minorities in Bangladesh over the years show that the state has failed in its duty to protect minorities.”

On Monday, other members of Mr Sarkar’s family also faced the prospect of violence. His parents’ home in Kishoreganj, 120km from Dhaka, was spared because “we are a well-known family in the neighbourhood and knew everyone”.

Mr Sarkar says his mother, who runs a local school, received a phone call from her business partner, saying that people were making lists of properties to attack.

The partner then said, “Your name is not on the list. But please be careful.”

Later, Mr Sarkar’s father, who had locked in the family, saw a small crowd congregating outside their iron gate.

“My father heard someone coming up to the crowd and telling them, ‘Don’t do anything here, not here’. The mob dispersed.”

But some distance away, in the Nogua area of Kishoreganj, reports emerged of Hindu households being looted.

“I heard 20-25 houses had been attacked there. My Hindu friend’s gold shop was broken into and the ornaments on display were looted. They could not break or take away the vault though,” Mr Sarkar said.

Some 200km north of Dhaka, Mr Sarkar’s wife’s home in a neighbourhood in Sherpur district was also on the edge. Although her house escaped attack, a mob looted a neighbouring Hindu home. The silver lining: as news of the violence spread, local Muslims rallied to form protective rings around Hindu homes and temples.

“This has also happened all over Bangladesh. Muslims have also protected Hindu properties,” says Mr Sarkar.

But this is not where things ended. As night fell on Monday, a mob began collecting outside Mr Sarkar’s 10-storey apartment building in Dhaka, where he lives with his wife and infant daughter. He reckoned they had come looking for a councillor from Awami League who lived in the same building.

“I came out on my sixth-floor balcony and saw the crowd throwing stones at the building and trying to break in. The gates were locked properly, so they couldn’t enter. Some cars in the parking lot and window panes were damaged,” Mr Sarkar says.

Back in Netrokona, Mr Sarkar’s cousin told him that the family feared more attacks. He called a friend in the army and requested that a military van patrol the neighbourhood regularly.

“This is a harrowing time. There is no law and order. And we are being targeted again,” he says.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who is a longtime political foe of Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina, has been named the country’s interim leader.

The appointment of the 84-year-old as chief adviser of the interim government comes a day after Ms Hasina fled the country after weeks of deadly unrest.

While Prof Yunus has been lauded for his pioneering use of microloans, Ms Hasina has regarded him as a public enemy and a local court recently handed him a jail term in what he described as a politically-motivated case.

Students who led the protests said they would not accept a military-led government and had pushed for Prof Yunus to lead the interim administration.

The decision to name Prof Yunus as chief adviser came after a meeting between President Mohammed Shahabuddin, military leaders, and student leaders.

“When the students who sacrificed so much are requesting me to step in at this difficult juncture, how can I refuse?” Prof Yunus had said.

He is returning to Dhaka from Paris where he is undergoing a minor medical procedure, his spokesperson said.

In 1983, Prof Yunus started Grameen Bank, which offers small, long-term loans to help poor people start their own small businesses. The concept has since taken off around the world.

In 2006, Prof Yunus and the bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

He is known internationally as the “banker to the poor”, but Ms Hasina had described him a “bloodsucker” of the poor and accused his bank of charging exorbitant interest rates.

In January, Prof Yunus was sentenced to six months in jail for violating the country’s labour laws by failing to create a welfare fund for their workers.

His supporters had said the case was politically motivated, while Prof Yunus, who is appealing the verdict, had said it was “contrary to all legal precedent and logic”.

There have also been other cases against him, including tax evasion and serving at Grameen Bank beyond the mandatory retirement age – but Prof Yunus and his lawyer maintain that these are baseless.

The protests began in early July with peaceful demands from university students to abolish quotas in civil service jobs, but snowballed into a broader anti-government movement.

In all, more than 400 people are believed to have died in clashes between government forces and protesters.

On Monday alone, more than 100 people died in violent clashes across the country, making it the single deadliest day since the protests began last month. Hundreds of police stations were also torched.

As protesters stormed and looted the prime minister’s official residence, Ms Hasina fled neighbouring India, ending nearly 15 years of rule.

Prominent opposition figures jailed under her rule, including ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia and activist Ahmad Bin Quasem, have since been released.

Ms Zia chairs the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which boycotted elections in 2014 and again in 2024, saying free and fair elections were not possible under Ms Hasina.

The 78-year-old served as prime minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996, but was imprisoned in 2018 for corruption, although she claims the charges were politically motivated.

Rights groups say Mr Quasem was taken away by security forces in 2016, just one of hundreds of forced disappearances in the country under Ms Hasina’s rule.

Across the border in India, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said he was “deeply concerned till law and order is visibly restored” in Bangladesh, with which India shares a 4,096-km (2,545-mile) border and has close economic and cultural ties.

He gave the first official confirmation that Ms Hasina had made a request to travel to India at “very short notice” and subsequently arrived in Delhi.

India also deployed additional troops along its border with Bangladesh.

“Our border guarding forces have also been instructed to be exceptionally alert in view of this complex situation,” Mr Jaishankar said.

Foreign leaders have called on Bangladesh to uphold democracy after Prof Yunus’ appointment.

“Any decisions that the interim government makes, they need to respect democratic principles… to uphold the rule of law [and] reflect the will of the people,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Australian foreign minister Penny Wong called on all parties to refrain from violence and “respect universal rights”.

“We urge a full and independent and impartial investigation into the events in recent weeks,” she added.

After two days of lengthy negotiations in Doha, Hamas has named Yahya Sinwar as its new overall chief, replacing Ismail Haniyeh who was assassinated in Tehran last week.

Since 2017, Sinwar has served as the group’s leader inside the Gaza strip. He will now become leader of its political wing.

The Hamas leadership unanimously chose Sinwar to lead the movement, a senior Hamas official told the BBC.

The announcement comes at a moment of soaring tensions in the Middle East, as Iran and its allies threaten retaliation for the killing of Haniyeh, which they blame on Israel. Israel has not commented.

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Over the course of two days in Doha, intensive meetings involving Hamas’s leading figures hammered out the options for the group’s next chief.

Many scenarios were discussed, but ultimately, just two names were put forward: Yahya Sinwar, and Mohammed Hassan Darwish, a shadowy figure who heads the General Shura Council, a body that elects Hamas’s Politburo.

The council voted unanimously to choose Sinwar, in what one Hamas official described to the BBC as “a message of defiance to Israel”.

“They killed Haniyeh, the flexible person who was open to solutions. Now they have to deal with Sinwar and the military leadership,” the official said.

Prior to his death, Ismail Haniyeh was viewed by regional diplomats as a pragmatic figure compared to others in Hamas – a key driver of the group’s political outreach.

Yahya Sinwar, on the other hand, is viewed as one of Hamas’s most extreme figures.

Sinwar currently tops Israel’s most-wanted list. Israel’s security agencies believe he masterminded the planning and execution of the 7 October 2023 attacks, which left over 1,200 people dead and 251 taken back into Gaza as hostages.

“The appointment of arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar as the new leader of Hamas, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, is yet another compelling reason to swiftly eliminate him and wipe this vile organisation off the face of the Earth,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on X.

“Yahya Sinwar is a terrorist, who is responsible for the most brutal terrorist attack in history,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari told Saudi news channel Al-Arabiya.

Sinwar has not been seen in public since the attacks in October, and is believed to be hiding “10 storeys underground” in Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in June.

Sinwar was born in Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza in 1962.

In the late 1980s, Sinwar founded the Hamas security service known as Majd, which among other things targeted alleged Palestinian collaborators with Israel.

He has spent much of his life in Israeli jail – and after his third arrest in 1988 he was sentenced to four life terms in prison.

However, he was among 1,027 Palestinian and Israeli Arab prisoners released by Israel in the 2011 exchange for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held captive for over five years by Hamas.

The 61-year-old was appointed head of the group’s political bureau in the Gaza Strip in 2017, a position he served in until now.

The US includes Sinwar on its blacklist of “international terrorists”.

Elon Musk’s X/Twitter is suing a group of major companies, alleging that they unlawfully conspired to boycott the site.

It accuses the food giants Unilever and Mars, private healthcare company CVS Health, and renewable energy firm Orsted – along with a trade association called the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) – of depriving it of “billions of dollars” in advertising revenue.

The lawsuit relates to the period in 2022 just after Mr Musk bought X, then known as Twitter, when advertising revenue dived.

Some companies had been wary of advertising on the platform amid concerns that its new owner was not serious enough about removing harmful online content.

X chief executive Linda Yaccarino said “people are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is constricted. No small group of people should monopolise what gets monetised”.

Mr Musk tweeted: “We tried being nice for 2 years and got nothing but empty words. Now, it is war.”

The WFA and the accused companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Advertising revenue at X slumped by more than half in the year after Mr Musk bought the firm as advertisers avoided the platform.

In its lawsuit, X alleges that the accused firms unfairly withheld spending by following safety standards set out by a WFA initiative called Global Alliance for Responsible Media (Garm).

Garm’s stated aim is to “help the industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetisation via advertising”.

By doing this, X claims the companies acted against their own economic self-interests in a conspiracy against the platform that breached US antitrust, or competition, law.

Bill Baer, who was assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s antitrust division under Barack Obama, said the lawsuit was unlikely to succeed.

“As a general rule, a politically motivated boycott is not an antitrust violation. It is protected speech under our First Amendment,” he said.

Professor Rebecca Haw Allensworth, of Vanderbilt University, said the boycott “was really trying to make a statement about X’s policies and about their brands”.

“That’s protected by the First Amendment,” she said.

Even if the case succeeds, the social media site cannot force companies to buy advertising space on the platform.

X is seeking unspecified damages and a court order against any continued efforts to conspire to withhold advertising spending.

It said in its lawsuit that it has applied brand-safety standards that are comparable to those of its competitors and “meet or exceed” those specified by Garm.

It also said X has become a “less effective competitor” in the sale of digital advertising.

The video-sharing company Rumble, which is favoured by right-wing influencers, made similar claims in a separate lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers on Tuesday.

An American woman who was found chained to a tree “screaming” in a forest in the western Indian state of Maharashtra had shackled herself, police and her doctor have told the BBC.

Lalita Kayi, 50, was rescued about 10 days ago from the dense forests of Sindhudurg district after her cries for help were heard by shepherds.

In a written statement to the police, she had alleged that her husband “chained her and left her in the forest to die without food or water”.

Ms Kayi, who is receiving treatment in a psychiatric facility, has not spoken publicly. The US embassy has also refused to comment, citing her right to privacy.

Ms Kayi’s discovery had shocked India and police had constituted several teams to investigate how she came to be in the forest.

Saurabh Agarwal, superintendent of police for Sindhudurg, told BBC Marathi on Tuesday that Ms Kayi had now said that she was not married and that she was probably suffering from hallucinations when she gave her first statement.

Police said she told them she had been distressed because her visa had run out and she was running out of money, so she had bought locks and chains and tied herself to the tree.

Dr Sanghamitra Phule, superintendent of the psychiatric hospital where Ms Kayi is being treated, told BBC Marathi that “her condition is improving”.

“She eats, walks and also exercises. She is under treatment and we are also giving her some nutrients that her body was lacking.”

Dr Phule said her family had been traced in the US and that Ms Kayi was in touch with them on the phone.

She was found on 27 July by a cow herder who had taken his cattle to graze in the forest and heard “a woman screaming loudly”.

“The sound was coming from the forest on the side of the mountain. When I went there, I saw that one of her legs was tied to a tree. She was screaming like an animal. I called other villagers and the local police.”

They police sawed off the chain and rescued her. Ms Kayi, who appeared completely emaciated, was taken to hospital and after her physical health improved, she was moved to the psychiatric facility for further treatment.

Police said that on her, they found a copy of her passport – which stated that she was a US citizen who came from Massachusetts – and some other documents with her home address in Tamil Nadu. She also had a mobile phone, a tablet and 31,000 rupees ($370; £290) in her possession.

Ms Kayi, who was initially unable to speak, communicated with the police and doctors by scribbling notes on a pad.

She said she was married to a man in the southern state of Tamil Nadu and blamed him for tying her to the tree. She claimed that she had gone without food and water for 40 days. Police had questioned her claim, saying it was unlikely that someone would survive without food or water for so long.

Banksy has unveiled a second new artwork in south-west London, this time depicting two elephants poking their heads out of blocked out windows.

The artwork has been painted on the side of a house in Edith Terrace in Chelsea.

The Bristol-based street artist shared a photo of the wall art on Instagram, which is his usual method of claiming his work.

It comes a day after he revealed a goat stencil on a wall near Kew Bridge in Richmond.

That piece featured a silhouette of a goat painted on top of a ledge with rocks falling down below it and a CCTV camera pointed towards the animal.

Banksy did not write a caption for either Instagram post causing fans to speculate on the meaning of the artworks.

The prime minister has said those caught being involved in riots across England and Northern Ireland can expect to be rapidly processed through the courts.

After chairing his second emergency co-ordination meeting with police chiefs in as many days Sir Keir Starmer emerged to say he was now expecting “substantive sentencing” of rioters within days.

James Nelson, 18, of Bolton, is thought to be the first person to be jailed for their part in the disorder. He was convicted of causing criminal damage in the town and given a two-month prison sentence.

Nigel Farage, leader of the opposition Reform UK party, has gone on social media to say he does not support “street protests, violence or thuggery in any way”.

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In Northern Ireland on Tuesday evening, a young boy was left with minor facial injuries after an attack in west Belfast which police are treating as a hate crime.

It is understood there are at least 30 potential gatherings planned for Wednesday that police are aware of but they believe the situation is “manageable”.

More than 400 arrests have been made so far after days of disorder in various UK towns and cities following the killing of three girls in Southport – fuelled by misinformation spread online that the suspect was an asylum seeker.

Inquests are to be opened later at Bootle Town Hall, Merseyside, into the deaths of Bebe King, six, Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven.

Around 100 people have already been charged in connection with the recent disturbances in parts of England and Northern Ireland.

On Tuesday night charges continued to be brought by police forces with defendants expected in court on Wednesday.

Merseyside Police said two 38-year-old men had been charged with violent disorder in connection with unrest in Southport and Liverpool.

Sir Keir praised the “robust and swift response” of the criminal justice system, adding he expected sentencing of some of those involved to take place by the end of the week.

Speaking to reporters after chairing his second Cobra meeting in two days, the prime minister said: “That should send a very powerful message to anybody involved, either directly or online, that you are likely to be dealt with within a week.

“Nobody, but nobody, should be involved themselves in this disorder.”

Mr Farage proposed a plan to stop the rioting which involved ending “mass immigration” and getting “all the police chiefs across the UK together and to say to them, start policing even-handedly”.

Nearly 6,000 public order officers are being mobilised to respond to any disorder in the coming days, according to police sources.

The Metropolitan Police said it was “aware” of events planned in parts of London on Wednesday and would “use every power, tactic and tool available to prevent further scenes of disorder”.

Earlier the director of public prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, told the BBC prosecutors were considering terrorism offences for some suspects.

He also said his teams would consider seeking the extradition of social media influencers allegedly playing a role in the disorder from abroad.

Separately, Jordan Parlour, 28, from Leeds, appeared before magistrates to indicate a guilty plea to a charge of using threatening words or behaviour intending to stir up racial hatred, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

The CPS said the charge related to a series of Facebook posts made by Parlour in connection with disorder in Leeds on 3 August about attacking a hotel where asylum seekers were housed.

He has been remanded in custody until a sentencing hearing on Friday.

The government also said on Tuesday said it would make more than 500 new prison places available to ensure those taking part in the violence could be jailed.