Kamala Harris, the de facto Democratic nominee for US president, has named Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as her running mate ahead of the November election.

The decision ends intense speculation over which candidate Harris would pick to go up against Donald Trump, the Republican nominee and former president, and his choice for vice-president, the Ohio senator JD Vance.

Walz first ran for office in 2006 in a Republican-leaning congressional district, upsetting the incumbent. He kept the seat until he won the Minnesota governorship in 2018, then again in 2022. Under his leadership, the state has seen significant progressive legislative wins in recent years, including universal school meals, legalized marijuana, abortion protections and gun control measures.

Before he entered public office, he was a school teacher in Mankato, Minnesota, teaching geography to high school students. He also served in the army national guard for 24 years.

In an Instagram post announcing the pick, Harris said: “One of the things that stood out to me about Tim is how his convictions on fighting for middle-class families run deep. It’s personal.”

She cited his upbringing in Nebraska, and how after his father’s death to cancer, his family relied on social security survivor benefits to make ends meet. He used the GI bill to attend college. He coached high school football and advised the high school’s gay-straight alliance. His background is “impressive in its own right”, but also informs his governing, she said.

Minnesota Democrats’ legislative record played into her choice – she noted a law that constitutionally protects access to abortion and one requiring universal background checks for gun purchases.

“But what impressed me most about Tim is his deep commitment to his family,” she added.

“We are going to build a great partnership. We are going to build a great team. We are going to win this election.”

Walz posted a short statement to X on Tuesday. “Vice President Harris is showing us the politics of what’s possible. It reminds me a bit of the first day of school,” he said.

His midwesterner dad charm and straight-talk propelled him up the list as a potential vice-presidential pick, though, and as the head of the Democratic Governors Association, he has been stumping for Biden and Harris for the past year.

It was his simple retort against Trump and his allies that caught national Democrats’ attention most: he called them weird. His clips on TV shows went viral, showing him pushing back on Republicans’ “weird behavior” while showcasing a list of what he had accomplished as a Democratic governor and how Democrats would govern if they win the White House again.

Walz explained in a TV interview why he had started calling Trump weird. It’s true that Trump’s policy would put women’s lives on the line and that he’s a threat to constitutional values, Walz said. But he’s also on the campaign trail “talking about Hannibal Lecter and shocking sharks and just whatever crazy thing pops into his mind”.

“Have you ever seen the guy laugh? That seems very weird to me, that an adult can go through six and a half years of being in the public eye. If he has laughed, it’s at someone, not with someone. That is weird behavior,” Walz said of Trump.

Walz grew up in small-town Nebraska, giving him rural bona fides that will help voters who have moved away from Democrats in recent years.

“The golden rule that makes small towns work so we’re not at each others’ throats all the time in a little town is: mind your own damn business,” Walz said in one TV spot.

His former colleagues praised his ability to connect with those crucial voters in the Rust belt, and to not only explain what’s bad about Republicans, but what Democrats would actually do in office.

Tim Ryan, a former Democratic US representative and Walz’s friend, called to mind a recent clip in which Walz mentioned that Minnesota ranked in the top three for happiest states in the nation. “Isn’t that really the goal here? For some joy? When he mentioned that I was like, dang man, that’s really good. That’s really good, because it gets us out of the political space and into the human being space.”

Some political commentators had suggested that, as the first woman of color nominated by a major party, Harris was mostly likely to pick a white man to balance the ticket.

The 59-year-old former California senator is looking to build on a successful campaign launch after stepping in to replace Joe Biden, who bowed to pressure from Democratic colleagues and dropped out of the race after a disastrous debate performance against Trump.

Harris and Walz can expect a rapturous welcome at the Democratic national convention in Chicago starting on 19 August. She has been endorsed by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

A New York Times/Siena College national opinion poll published on 25 July found that Harris has narrowed what had been a sizable Trump lead. Trump was ahead of Harris 48% to 46% among registered voters, compared with a lead of 49% to 41% over Biden in early July.

Republicans immediately began attacking Walz as a “radical leftist” and claimed that picking Walz was “a massive gift to Republicans”, suggesting his presence on the ticket will tank the Harris campaign.

In a statement, the Trump campaign called Walz a “west coast wannabe” who has “spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden state”. The campaign brought up a clip from 2017 where Walz talks about electoral maps that show broad swathes of red, saying those areas are “mostly cows and rocks”.

“If Walz won’t tell voters the truth, we will: just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare,” the Trump campaign said.

As Kamala Harris named Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, as her running mate, recent polls showed the vice-president moving ahead of Donald Trump in the race for the White House.

Among recent national head-to-head polls, SurveyUSA put Harris up three points ahead of Trump, 48%-45%; Morning Consult put her up four points, 48%-44%; YouGov and CBS News made it a one-point Harris lead, 50%-49%; and University of Massachusetts Amherst put Harris up three, 46%-43%.

Those results were mostly within the margin of error.

But Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of its poll, pointed to a key finding: a seven-point swing to the Democrat since January, when Trump led Joe Biden by four.

“For weeks after the first presidential debate in June,” Nteta said, “Democratic donors, prominent Democratic elected officials and members of the news media made the case that President Joe Biden faced long odds to defeat former President Donald Trump and called for Biden to step down.

“In the aftermath of Biden’s historic decision to forgo his re-election campaign, it seems as if Biden’s critics were indeed correct as his replacement, Vice-President Kamala Harris, has emerged as the frontrunner in the race for the White House.

“While there are still three months to go, the Harris campaign and the Democratic party must like their chances to maintain control of the White House and to send former President Trump to his second consecutive defeat in his quest to return to Pennsylvania Avenue.”

There was also good news for Harris from the Hill, as the site’s “ultimate hub for polls, predictions and election results” showed the Democrat with a positive favourability rating for the first time, after a steep climb since mid-July, when Biden stepped down.

As to be expected, August polls in the seven battleground states where the election is expected to be decided presented a more mixed picture.

In polls concluding in August, Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, found Harris up one in Georgia but down two on Trump in Arizona and down one in Pennsylvania. Trafalgar/Insider Advantage, a right-leaning operation, put Trump up two in Georgia.

According to battleground averages maintained by the polling site FiveThirtyEight, Trump led Harris by four points in Georgia and two points in Arizona, with Harris up by two points Michigan, one in Pennsylvania and one and a half in Wisconsin.

North Carolina polls collected by FiveThirtyEight but not averaged showed Trump up but with a shrinking lead, down from nine points in mid-July to two points in early August.

There was also good news for Harris in a solidly Democratic state, New York, where Trump showed signs of progress while Biden led the blue ticket. With Harris in place, Siena College found her up 14 points, 53%-39%.

On Monday, Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight and an influential voice among polling analysts, said Harris “now has a real lead in national polls – about two points – and has also been ahead in most recent polls of” Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Concerns about economic conditions should not be counted out, Silver said, on a day of Wall Street sell-offs and reports of recession fears. “But the momentum in the polls outweighs it for now.”

When Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, was named as Kamala Harris’s running mate on Tuesday, one of his first endorsements came from Wonder Woman.

“Twenty-four years in the army national guard. A school teacher. A champion who understands America. I can’t wait to call Tim Walz our vice-president!”

Granted, the tweet actually came from Linda Carter, the actor who played Wonder Woman on US TV from 1975 to 1979. But amid Democratic enthusiasm for Harris’s short-notice campaign to be the first female president, the source seemed fitting.

In the preceding days, as Harris considered her options, Walz, 60, was widely seen as more likely to fire up young Americans and progressives than Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania governor, and Mark Kelly, the Arizona senator, both reported to have made the final round of interviews and deliberations.

On Tuesday, Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of NextGenPac, said: “Young voters are excited to see Kamala Harris declare Tim Walz as her running mate.”

Calling Walz “a proven champion of our youth movement”, Ramirez said that as governor, the former high school football coach had helped “pass significant legislation … that protects our rights, fights for climate justice, and builds a stronger economy for everyday people”.

Walz, Ramirez said, had “championed progressive change in Minnesota – enshrining abortion rights, establishing paid sick and family leave, enacting a nation-leading child tax credit, and signing 40 climate initiatives into law”.

The Lincoln Project, a group founded by anti-Trump Republicans, also greeted the pick – and tweeted an image of Walz grinning broadly while being hugged by a group of schoolchildren.

The picture was taken from a signing ceremony in which Walz made law a measure to guarantee free breakfast and lunch to all children regardless of income.

Writers for the Bulwark, a conservative anti-Trump site, had backed Shapiro. But staffers Sam Stein and Andrew Egger wrote: “As a matter of modern politics … this one shouldn’t have shocked us.

“In an era where vibes rule everything around us, Walz, by the end, was the guy riding the zeitgeist.

“The Minnesota governor’s ascension to the VP slot marks the first time that TikTok has helped choose a running mate. Walz was most assuredly not a frontrunner when this process started. He wasn’t even among the top three midwestern governors in the mix.

“But his quick ability to brand the Republican ticket as ‘weird’ earned him immediate plaudits among the Democratic faithful. His economic populist pitch, his non-coastal elite resume, and his mockery of JD Vance kept adding to the momentum.”

Momentum for Harris has been fuelled by organising and fundraising groups that have sprung up since Joe Biden stood aside.

One such group, White Dudes for Harris, called Walz “an amazing leader who delivered a powerful speech last week highlighting the importance of protecting fertility treatments like IVF and rejecting Project 2025”, the far-right plan for a second Trump administration steered by the Heritage Foundation, a Washington thinktank.

High-profile Democrats offered praise of Harris’s pick.

Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, anticipated Republican attacks when she told MSNBC: “To characterize him as left is so unreal. He’s right down the middle. He’s a heartland-of-America Democrat.”

The Republican National Committee duly sent out a list of talking points, calling Walz “a far-left radical”, by his own admission “more than happy” to be called a big government liberal.

Keith Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general and a former colleague of Walz in the US House, said Walz had “the courage of a veteran, the compassion of a schoolteacher, the grit of a football coach, and the experience of both a congressman and governor”.

Ellison also highlighted Walz’s record in office, including overseeing “universal background checks and a red flag law to protect people from gun violence”.

“Tim Walz built a record of putting people first because that’s just the kind of person he is,” Ellison said.

Many celebrants highlighted Walz’s experience outside politics. Glenn Kirschner, a federal prosecutor turned MSNBC analyst, said: “I like, and am inspired by, Tim Walz.

“He has military experience, as a sergeant/non-commissioned officer. Those of us who served know that it’s the NCOs that make it all work. He was a high-school social studies teacher and football coach. He’s direct, plain-spoken, and an honest, honorable man.”

Advocates for Shapiro and Kelly had pointed to their coming from battleground states, home to contests which will decide the election in November, while Walz comes from a state that has been solidly Democratic for decades.

But on Tuesday, Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, a leading polling analyst, pointed to progressive doubts about one competitor to Walz when he said: “Yes, Governor Josh Shapiro could have brought a bigger payoff (19 electoral votes) but Governor Tim Walz fills the age-old bill for VP nominees: first, do no harm.”

Elsewhere, Matthew Dowd, a former Republican operative, saluted a “smart pic by VP Harris” that he said would work to her advantage in northern battleground states.

Walz, Dowd said, would “help the entire campaign effort especially in places like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. As a native Michigander I can tell you Walz fits perfect in the Wolverine state.”

Shapiro agreed, issuing a statement saluting “an exceptionally strong addition to the ticket who will help Kamala move our country forward”.

“Over the next 90 days,” Shapiro said, “I look forward to traveling all across the commonwealth to unite Pennsylvanians behind Kamala Harris’s campaign to defeat Donald Trump, become the 47th president of the United States, and build a better future for our country.”

Elon Musk has called the prime minister “two-tier Keir” in reference to the conspiracy theory that police are treating white far-right “protesters” more harshly than minority groups.

Downing Street would not engage again with the billionaire owner of X, having previously said his comments about a potential civil war in the UK had “no justification”. Since that criticism, Musk has been repeatedly targeting Keir Starmer on his social media platform.

However, the Guardian understands Labour MPs have been privately warned not to engage in debate on Twitter about the far-right violence and to instead amplify calls for unity.

In a letter to MPs from the chief whip Alan Campbell, he says it is “important that you do not do anything that risks amplifying misinformation on social media and do not get drawn into debates online.”

The safeguarding minister Jess Phillips received criticism from Conservatives on Tuesday for saying a group of Muslim men who were seen shouting at members of the media were provoked by misinformation into believing the far-right would be present. Former home secretary James Cleverly said Phillips should “think about the consequences” of her words.

But ministers have engaged robustly to dismiss suggestions of “two tier” policing, including the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, and the courts minister Heidi Alexander. Musk has promoted the idea of different approaches to policing based on race that has been spread by Tommy Robinson and the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage amid a series of far-right riots across towns and cities in England and in Belfast.

In a slew of tweets aimed at Starmer, Musk, who is one of the world’s richest men, also questioned whether the riots were taking place in Britain or the Soviet Union, in response to a video purporting to show someone being arrested for making offensive comments on Facebook.

Musk’s provocative interventions come after Downing Street criticised him on Monday for posting that “civil war is inevitable” under a video of violent riots in Liverpool.

Starmer’s spokesperson said on Monday the violence came from a small minority of people who “do not speak for Britain” and said the prime minister did not share the sentiments of Musk, who has previously been criticised for allowing far-right figures back on to his social media platform.

“There’s no justification for comments like that,” the spokesperson said. “What we’ve seen in this country is organised, violent thuggery that has no place, either on our streets or online.

“We’re talking about a minority of thugs that do not speak for Britain, and in response to it, we’ve seen some of the best of our communities coming out and cleaning up the mess [and] the disruption of those that don’t speak for our country, and we’ve seen the response for people that do speak for our country. I think you can tell from that that the prime minister does not share those sentiments.”

Responding to the theory of “two-tier” policing that is circulating on social media, ministers dismissed claims that groups were being treated differently by police.

Mahmood posted on X on Tuesday: “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re protesting – if you turn up in a mask, with a weapon, intent on causing disorder, you will face the full force of the law. To those working with police and community organisations with pride and civic duty – you are the best of us.”

On Monday, Farage condemned the rioting on the streets, saying “the levels of intimidation and threat to life have no place in a functioning democracy”. But he went on to claim there was a widespread impression of “two-tier policing”, which he said was contributing to a “sense of injustice”.

In his letter to Labour MPs, the chief whip said MPs should be giving space on their social media to “amplify what is best about your local communities” and said they should be engaging in the community response, including with faith leaders.

Calling it an “immensely difficult time for local communities”, Campbell stressed it was the job of MPs to help “restore order and calm”.

Stressing that MPs should not get into online debate, Campbell said: “What is happening is not a matter for debate, it is an issue of crime and disorder.”

Adam Peaty has claimed athletes at Paris 2024 have found worms in their food as he criticised inadequate catering at the Olympic village. The six-time Olympic medallist complained about the quantity and quality of food on offer as he said it would affect the performances of athletes.

“The catering isn’t good enough for the level the athletes are expected to perform,” he told the i. “We need to give the best we possibly can. [In] Tokyo the food was incredible. Rio was incredible. But this time around? There wasn’t enough protein options, long queues, waiting 30 minutes for food because there’s no queueing system.”

As part of the Games’ sustainability pledges organisers have aimed to make 60% of all meals served meatless and a third plant-based, but Peaty said that did not work for him. “The narrative of sustainability has just been pushed on the athletes,” he said. “I want meat, I need meat to perform and that’s what I eat at home, so why should I change?

“I like my fish and people are finding worms in the fish. It’s just not good enough. The standard, we’re looking at the best of the best in the world, and we’re not feeding them the best.”

A Paris 2024 spokesperson told the i: “We are listening to the athletes and take their feedback very seriously. Since the opening of the village, our partner Sodexo Live! has been working proactively to adapt supplies to the growing use of the Olympic Village restaurants, as well as to the actual consumption by athletes observed over the first few days. As a result, the quantities of certain products has been significantly increased and additional staff have been deployed to ensure the service runs smoothly.”

Meanwhile, the athlete training session for the marathon swimming was cancelled on Tuesday as concerns over the water quality of the Seine continued. Athletes had been due to take to the water for familiarisation sessions before the women’s 10 kilometre marathon on Thursday and the men’s race on Friday, but water quality assessments found that levels of Enterococci – an indicator of faecal pollution – were too high in the river.

A statement from World Aquatics said: “The water quality review showed E. coli levels ranged from 326 to 517 (considered “very good” to “good”) at the four collection points taken on 5 August between 5am and 6am. However, Enterococci levels exceeded World Aquatics maximum thresholds during the morning review. The latest Enterococci samples (taken between 12:30 and 13:20 on 4 August) showed levels exceeding the maximum acceptable World Aquatics thresholds.” Another familiarisation session is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

British civil servants appear to have suspended the processing of arms export licences for sales to Israel pending the completion of a wider government review into the issue.

Exporters seeking arms sales licences are reportedly receiving messages from the Department for Business and Trade saying that applications are suspended pending the review.

Whitehall sources insisted this did not represent a change in policy and might be administrative procedures.

No fixed date has been set for the completion of the review of the risk of weapons sales to Israel in light of allegations of breaches of humanitarian law in the Gaza conflict. The task has been made more complex due to a desire by ministers to draw a distinction between arms that are sold to Israel for defensive purposes and those sold for offensive purposes for use in Gaza.

Government sources say the process is taking time since ministers have to ensure any decision to suspend is legally sound and complies with arms export licensing laws.

The previous government announced in June that 108 arms export licences had been granted for Israel between the Hamas attack on 7 October and the end of May 2024. The value of the licences has not been revealed.

The Jewish Chronicle and Mail on Sunday have reported that applicants for arms export licenses have received a reply saying “suspended pending policy review”.

A business department spokesperson said: “There has been no change in our approach to export licences to Israel. We continue to review export licence applications on a case by case basis against strategic export licensing criteria.”

After a freedom of information request, Christian Aid revealed 20 companies had been issued with standard individual export licences issued for military goods to Israel between 7 October and 31 May. A further 30 named companies had military export licence applications pending.

The department told Christian Aid that granting a licence did not mean that an export had taken place. Some licences might expire unused and others might expire after partial use.

William Bell, Christian Aid’s head of Middle East policy, said: “The only way to categorically ensure arms sold to Israel are not used in violation of human rights is with a black and white ban. That is what this new government should be ready to do. No ifs and buts. It is frankly reprehensible for any company to make a profit from this war.”

British civil servants appear to have suspended the processing of arms export licences for sales to Israel pending the completion of a wider government review into the issue.

Exporters seeking arms sales licences are reportedly receiving messages from the Department for Business and Trade saying that applications are suspended pending the review.

Whitehall sources insisted this did not represent a change in policy and might be administrative procedures.

No fixed date has been set for the completion of the review of the risk of weapons sales to Israel in light of allegations of breaches of humanitarian law in the Gaza conflict. The task has been made more complex due to a desire by ministers to draw a distinction between arms that are sold to Israel for defensive purposes and those sold for offensive purposes for use in Gaza.

Government sources say the process is taking time since ministers have to ensure any decision to suspend is legally sound and complies with arms export licensing laws.

The previous government announced in June that 108 arms export licences had been granted for Israel between the Hamas attack on 7 October and the end of May 2024. The value of the licences has not been revealed.

The Jewish Chronicle and Mail on Sunday have reported that applicants for arms export licenses have received a reply saying “suspended pending policy review”.

A business department spokesperson said: “There has been no change in our approach to export licences to Israel. We continue to review export licence applications on a case by case basis against strategic export licensing criteria.”

After a freedom of information request, Christian Aid revealed 20 companies had been issued with standard individual export licences issued for military goods to Israel between 7 October and 31 May. A further 30 named companies had military export licence applications pending.

The department told Christian Aid that granting a licence did not mean that an export had taken place. Some licences might expire unused and others might expire after partial use.

William Bell, Christian Aid’s head of Middle East policy, said: “The only way to categorically ensure arms sold to Israel are not used in violation of human rights is with a black and white ban. That is what this new government should be ready to do. No ifs and buts. It is frankly reprehensible for any company to make a profit from this war.”

The president of Bangladesh has dissolved the country’s parliament after an ultimatum issued by the coordinators of student protests that forced the resignation on Monday of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.

The office of the president, Mohammed Shahabuddin, also announced that the former prime minister and opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia had been officially released from prison and given a full presidential pardon.

The announcements came as student protest leaders were in a meeting on Tuesday with the army chief, Gen Waker-Uz-Zaman, after the military announced it would form an interim government following the departure of Hasina.

On Monday, Hasina resigned and fled the country after at least 300 people were killed in a crackdown on demonstrations that began as student protests against preferential job quotas and swelled into a movement demanding her downfall.

Celebrations erupted on Monday after Hasina resigned, and continued overnight. The prime minister’s residence was overrun and looted and several of the ruling party’s offices were set alight.

Reports suggested calm had returned to the streets on Tuesday and many of the crowds were helping in the clear-up or congregating in peaceful gatherings around the capital, Dhaka, and other towns and cities.

Zaman planned to meet the protest organisers at noon local time (0600 GMT), the army said, a day after Zaman announced Hasina’s resignation in a televised address and said an interim government would be formed.

Zaman held talks with leaders of major political parties – excluding Hasina’s long-ruling Awami League – to discuss the way ahead.

An interim government would hold elections as soon as possible after consulting all parties and stakeholders, Shahabuddin said in a televised address late on Monday.

He said the release of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) chair and Hasina’s nemesis, Zia, 78, who was convicted in a graft case in 2018 but moved to a hospital a year later as her health deteriorated, was “unanimously decided”. She has denied the charges against her.

Nahid Islam, one of the key coordinators of Bangladesh’s student protest movement, issued a fresh ultimatum to the president in a video statement, demanding the dissolution of parliament and warning of further protests if this demand was not met.

“We still see the existing parliament in place even after the people’s uprising ousted the fascist Hasina government. So, we are giving an ultimatum: by 3pm today, it has to be dissolved,” he said. He also urged people to remain calm and peaceful.

Early on Tuesday, there were international commendations for the Bangladesh army’s conduct. A White House spokesperson said: “The United States has long called for respecting democratic rights in Bangladesh, and we urge that the interim government formation be democratic and inclusive. We commend the army for the restraint they have showed today.”

The US Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said the interim government must aim to set up swift democratic elections. “PM Hasina’s violent reaction to legitimate protests made her continued rule untenable. I applaud the brave protesters and demand justice for those killed.”

In the UK, the British foreign secretary, David Lammy, called for a full UN investigation into the killings.

Hasina won a fifth term in January in an election boycotted by the opposition and called out as not free and fair by international observers.

Her government was accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including through the killing of opposition activists.

The latest student-led protests began over a quota system they said disproportionately allocated government jobs to the descendants of freedom fighters from the 1971 independence war.

The resulting crackdown led to the worst violence since Bangladesh was founded. During a briefing at army headquarters, Zaman promised an investigation into the deaths.

The coordinators of the student protests on Tuesday called for the formation of a new interim government with the economist and Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus as its chief adviser, according to a video released on Facebook.

“In Dr Yunus, we trust,” Asif Mahmud, a leader of the Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group, wrote on Facebook.

Yunus, who was in Paris, had agreed to the role, a spokesperson told Reuters. They said he planned to return to Bangladesh “immediately” after undergoing a minor medical procedure in the French capital.

In an interview with India’s the Print, he said Bangladesh had been “an occupied country” under Hasina. “Today all the people of Bangladesh feel liberated,” Yunus was reported as saying.

Yunus, 84, and his Grameen Bank won the 2006 Nobel peace prize for its work to lift millions out of poverty by granting tiny loans of under $100 to the rural poor of Bangladesh, but he was indicted by a court in June on charges of embezzlement that he denied.

“Any government other than the one we recommended would not be accepted,” Islam said in a video with three other organisers. “We wouldn’t accept any army-supported or army-led government.”

“We have also had discussions with Muhammad Yunus and he has agreed to take on this responsibility at our invitation,” Islam added.

In January, Yunus was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, along with three other people, for violating labour laws at Grameen Telecom, the not-for-profit company he founded in 1983.

In June, Yunus told the Guardian he had come under 20 years of pressure from the Bangladeshi government for his work, which is credited with improving the lives of millions of poor people, particularly women.

The World Bank, among the first development partners to support Bangladesh after its independence and which has committed about $41bn in grants and interest-free credits, said it was assessing events but remained committed to supporting the “development aspirations of the people”.

The World Bank’s board in June approved two projects totalling $900m to help Bangladesh strengthen financial sector policies and improve infrastructure.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Investigators will question Boeing officials during a hearing starting on Tuesday about the midflight blowout of a panel from a 737 Max, an accident that further tarnished the company’s safety reputation and left it facing new legal jeopardy.

The two-day hearing could provide new insight into the 5 January accident, which caused a loud boom and left a gaping hole in the side of the Alaska Airlines jet.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has said in a preliminary report that four bolts that help secure the panel, which is call a door plug, were not replaced after a repair job in a Boeing factory, but the company has said the work was not documented. During the two-day hearing, safety board members are expected to question Boeing officials about the lack of paperwork that might have explained how such a potentially tragic mistake occurred.

“The NTSB wants to fill in the gaps of what is known about this incident and to put people on the record about it,” said John Goglia, a former NTSB member. The agency will be looking to underscore Boeing’s failures in following the process it had told the Federal Aviation Administration it was going to use in such cases, he said.

The safety board will not determine a probable cause after the hearing. That could take another year or longer. It is calling the unusually long hearing a fact-finding step.

Among the scheduled witnesses is Elizabeth Lund, who has been Boeing’s senior vice-president of quality – a new position – since February, and officials from Spirit AeroSystems, which makes fuselages for Max jets.

Spirit installed the door plug – a panel that fills a space created for an extra exit on some planes – on the Alaska Airlines jet, but the panel was removed and the bolts taken off in a Boeing factory near Seattle to repair rivets.

The NTSB’s agenda for the hearing includes testimony about manufacturing and inspections, the opening and closing of the door plug in the Boeing factory, safety systems at Boeing and Spirit, and the FAA’s supervision of Boeing.

The FAA administrator, Mike Whitaker, has conceded that his agency’s oversight of the company “was too hands-off – too focused on paperwork audits and not focused enough on inspections”. He has said that is changing.

Tension remains high between the NTSB and Boeing. Two months after the accident, the board chair, Jennifer Homendy, and Boeing got into a public argument over whether the company was cooperating with investigators.

That spat was largely smoothed over, but in June a Boeing executive angered the board by discussing the investigation with reporters and – even worse in the agency’s view – suggesting that the NTSB was interested in finding someone to blame for the blowout.

NTSB officials see their role as identifying the cause of accidents to prevent similar ones in the future. They are not prosecutors, and they fear that witnesses will not come forward if they think NTSB is looking for culprits.

So the NTSB issued a subpoena for Boeing representatives while stripping the company of its customary right to ask questions during the hearing.

The accident led to several investigations of Boeing, most of which are still under way.

The FBI has told passengers on the Alaska Airlines flight that they might be victims of a crime. The justice department pushed Boeing to plead guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit fraud after finding that it failed to live up to a previous settlement related to regulatory approval of the Max.

Boeing, which has yet to recover financially from two deadly crashes of Max jets in 2018 and 2019, has lost more than $25bn since the start of 2019. Later this week, the company will get its third chief executive in four and a half years.

Testimony from NTSB hearings is not admissible in court, but lawyers suing Boeing over this and other accidents will be watching, knowing that they can seek depositions from witnesses to cover the same ground.

“Our cases are already solid – door plugs shouldn’t blow out during a flight,” said one of those lawyers, Mark Lindquist of Seattle. “Our cases grow even stronger, however, if the blowout was the result of habitually shoddy practices. Are jurors going to see this as negligence or something worse?”

Shares on Wall Street have risen and many Asian and European markets staged a recovery after this week’s global stock market rout, but analysts warned: “We might not be out of the woods.”

The FTSE 100 index in London was 40 points, or 0.5%, up by late afternoon on Tuesday, after losing 166 points, or 2%, on Monday, its biggest one-day points drop in more than a year. Germany’s Dax also rose by 0.5% and France’s Cac went up 0.2%, but the Italian bourse slid by 0.4%.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones edged up by 1.2% in early trading, while the S&P 500 rose by 1.6% and the Nasdaq climbed 1.5%, after Wall Street’s worst day in almost two years on Monday.

The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo closed 10.2% higher – up 3,217 to 34,675, a record daily points rise – as investors bought into bargains after the 12.4% rout the previous day that triggered a fall in European and US markets. The Nikkei experienced its biggest drop in 37 years on Monday.

Other markets in Asia also recovered after the rollercoaster ride at the start of the week. South Korea’s Kospi index gained about 3%, while Australia’s ASX200 added 0.4% and the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets in China rose by 0.2% and 0.8% respectively.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was among a small number of markets that recorded further modest losses, slipping by 0.3%.

“We might not be out of the woods yet,” said Fawad Razaqzada, a market analyst at City Index, “though conditions could stabilise as the week progresses. With a quieter US economic calendar ahead, there will be fewer new recessionary signals to unsettle traders, and the potential for supportive comments from Federal Reserve officials could ease market pressure.”

The dollar gained 0.6% to 144.75 yen, the first day it has traded higher against the Japanese currency this month. However, the dollar could weaken more broadly in the coming days and weeks amid expectations of a sharper pivot by the US Federal Reserve than previously expected, Razaqzada said.

Markets are now expecting the Fed to cut interest rates by 50 basis points at its September meeting, with futures implying an 87% chance of such a big move.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs, led by Peter Oppenheimer, said investors had been growing increasingly complacent, interpreting “bad news as good news”.

They said: “Has the correction gone far enough? At this stage probably not. Valuations have moderated but remain elevated, particularly in the US.”

The week started with a global stock plunge reminiscent of 1987’s Black Monday crash that swept around the world and pummelled Wall Street with more steep losses, as fears worsened about a slowing US economy.

It was the first chance for traders in Tokyo to respond to the global sell-off that began on Friday, after US government figures showed employers slowed their hiring last month by much more than economists expected, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%.

It was the latest piece of data on the US economy to come in weaker than expected, raising fears that the Fed has pressed the brakes on the economy by too much for too long through high interest rates in the hope of bringing down inflation.

Fed officials tried to reassure markets on Monday. Its San Francisco president, Mary Daly, said it was “extremely important” to prevent the labour market tipping into a downturn and that she expects interest rates to be cut later this year.

Investors also pointed to the Bank of Japan’s decision last week to raise its main interest rate from almost zero. This helps boost the value of the Japanese yen but it could also force traders to exit deals where they borrowed money for virtually no cost in Japan and invested it in higher-yielding assets around the world. This is known as “carry trades”.

JP Morgan Chase said the recent unwinding in carry trades had further to run as the yen remains one of the most undervalued currencies.

“We are not done by any stretch,” Arindam Sandilya, a co-head of global FX strategy, said on Bloomberg TV. “The carry trade unwind, at least within the speculative investing community, is somewhere between 50% and 60% complete.”

Shares on Wall Street have risen and many Asian and European markets staged a recovery after this week’s global stock market rout, but analysts warned: “We might not be out of the woods.”

The FTSE 100 index in London was 40 points, or 0.5%, up by late afternoon on Tuesday, after losing 166 points, or 2%, on Monday, its biggest one-day points drop in more than a year. Germany’s Dax also rose by 0.5% and France’s Cac went up 0.2%, but the Italian bourse slid by 0.4%.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones edged up by 1.2% in early trading, while the S&P 500 rose by 1.6% and the Nasdaq climbed 1.5%, after Wall Street’s worst day in almost two years on Monday.

The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo closed 10.2% higher – up 3,217 to 34,675, a record daily points rise – as investors bought into bargains after the 12.4% rout the previous day that triggered a fall in European and US markets. The Nikkei experienced its biggest drop in 37 years on Monday.

Other markets in Asia also recovered after the rollercoaster ride at the start of the week. South Korea’s Kospi index gained about 3%, while Australia’s ASX200 added 0.4% and the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets in China rose by 0.2% and 0.8% respectively.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was among a small number of markets that recorded further modest losses, slipping by 0.3%.

“We might not be out of the woods yet,” said Fawad Razaqzada, a market analyst at City Index, “though conditions could stabilise as the week progresses. With a quieter US economic calendar ahead, there will be fewer new recessionary signals to unsettle traders, and the potential for supportive comments from Federal Reserve officials could ease market pressure.”

The dollar gained 0.6% to 144.75 yen, the first day it has traded higher against the Japanese currency this month. However, the dollar could weaken more broadly in the coming days and weeks amid expectations of a sharper pivot by the US Federal Reserve than previously expected, Razaqzada said.

Markets are now expecting the Fed to cut interest rates by 50 basis points at its September meeting, with futures implying an 87% chance of such a big move.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs, led by Peter Oppenheimer, said investors had been growing increasingly complacent, interpreting “bad news as good news”.

They said: “Has the correction gone far enough? At this stage probably not. Valuations have moderated but remain elevated, particularly in the US.”

The week started with a global stock plunge reminiscent of 1987’s Black Monday crash that swept around the world and pummelled Wall Street with more steep losses, as fears worsened about a slowing US economy.

It was the first chance for traders in Tokyo to respond to the global sell-off that began on Friday, after US government figures showed employers slowed their hiring last month by much more than economists expected, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%.

It was the latest piece of data on the US economy to come in weaker than expected, raising fears that the Fed has pressed the brakes on the economy by too much for too long through high interest rates in the hope of bringing down inflation.

Fed officials tried to reassure markets on Monday. Its San Francisco president, Mary Daly, said it was “extremely important” to prevent the labour market tipping into a downturn and that she expects interest rates to be cut later this year.

Investors also pointed to the Bank of Japan’s decision last week to raise its main interest rate from almost zero. This helps boost the value of the Japanese yen but it could also force traders to exit deals where they borrowed money for virtually no cost in Japan and invested it in higher-yielding assets around the world. This is known as “carry trades”.

JP Morgan Chase said the recent unwinding in carry trades had further to run as the yen remains one of the most undervalued currencies.

“We are not done by any stretch,” Arindam Sandilya, a co-head of global FX strategy, said on Bloomberg TV. “The carry trade unwind, at least within the speculative investing community, is somewhere between 50% and 60% complete.”

A Berlin court has convicted a pro-Palestinian activist of condoning a crime for leading a chant of the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” at a rally in the German capital four days after the Hamas attacks on Israel, in what her defence team called a defeat for free speech.

The presiding judge, Birgit Balzer, ordered 22-year-old German-Iranian national Ava Moayeri to pay a €600 (£515) fine on Tuesday, rejecting her argument that she meant only to express support for “peace and justice” in the Middle East by calling out the phrase on a busy street.

Balzer said she “could not comprehend” the logic of previous German court rulings that determined the saying was “ambiguous”, saying to her it was clear it “denied the right of the state of Israel to exist”.

She said this opinion could be covered by the freedom of expression in Germany but that the slogan’s use had to be evaluated in the context of “the biggest massacre of Jews since the Shoah – that is the elephant in the room”.

The case, heard under tight security, was one of several since the 7 October Hamas attacks in Israel and the subsequent destruction of Gaza that have examined Germany’s strict limits on pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Moayeri’s lawyers called it the first trial in Berlin that centred on the use of the politically charged phrase.

Balzer said the slogan was particularly controversial in Germany, which considers support for Israel to be a matter of Staatsräson, or reason of state, at the core of its national identity due to its responsibility for the Holocaust.

She added that Germans had an obligation to make Jews in the country feel “safe and comfortable”, particularly in the face of a rise in antisemitic crimes since 7 October.

About 100 protesters gathered outside the courthouse could be heard chanting “Free, free Palestine” as the verdict was read out. Moayeri smiled at 20 supporters who were allowed to attend the hearing, many of them wearing keffiyehs, and was met with cheers when she left the building. Two members of the public shouted “against repression” after the judge closed the trial.

The sentence for Moayeri, who had no previous criminal record and described herself as an activist for feminist and refugee causes, came in below the €900 fine demanded by state prosecutors, who later said they would consider an appeal.

Condoning a crime can result in a prison sentence of up to three years.

Moayeri’s lawyer, Alexander Gorski, condemned what he called a win for “state oppression” of protesters and said he would challenge the verdict before a higher court.

The defendant was one of the co-organisers of a protest on 11 October near the Sonnenallee in the capital’s diverse Neukölln district, a bustling boulevard that has been the scene of several pro-Palestinian protests, some of them violent.

However, Moayeri told the court that the rally in question, which was held in the late morning, had been organised in response to media reports that a teacher had hit a pro-Palestinian student and that the protesters had gathered to condemn “violence in schools”.

Two police officers who had been dispatched to the scene of the protest, which was banned by Berlin authorities, disputed that account in court, saying that participants had waved Palestinian flags and worn keffiyehs and that none of the chanted slogans mentioned school safety.

Moayeri’s legal team said the slogan must be seen as a “central expression of the global Palestine solidarity movement” with a historical origin predating Hamas. They said Moayeri should be taken at her word that she rejected “any form of antisemitism”.

“Between the river and the sea” is a fragment from a slogan used since the 1960s by an array of activists with different agendas. It has a range of interpretations around the world, from the genocidal to the democratic.

The full saying is a reference to land between the Jordan River to the east and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, encompassing Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

The German legal framework assessing the slogan is complex, with courts zigzagging between more and less severe interpretations.

Last November, the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, banned Hamas activities in Germany as well as “from the river to the sea”, which she declared to be a Hamas slogan.

In February, the justice minister, Marco Buschmann, said the phrase could constitute “antisemitic incitement” and be understood as “condoning the killings committed in Israel”.

German police have frequently used the saying as justification to revoke permission for organised protests, or made its avoidance a condition for granting their permission.

A Bavarian court ruled in June that the phrase expected to be used in an upcoming demonstration in Munich did not constitute a crime and could not be banned outright, finding that the “benefit of the doubt” around the slogan must prevail.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany, which represents the roughly 200,000-strong community, criticised that decision as “incomprehensible”.

“Hamas’s battle cry means the annihilation of Israel and the expulsion and destruction of the Jews living there,” it said, adding it was the German state’s “urgent duty” to “create clarity” about the phrase.

While far-right extremists from all corners of the internet are targeting vice-president Kamala Harris as she takes the reins of the Democratic ticket, one of the longer standing US-based neo-Nazi terror groups is also attempting to continue its covert activities as the presidential election season begins in earnest.

Rinaldo Nazzaro, 51, a former Pentagon contractor and analyst at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) turned founder of the Base, wrote on his personal Telegram account that he’s seeking a stateside leader for his organization and is willing to pay them a salary of up to $1,200 a month.

The Russia-based leader, who is the subject of an FBI investigation and once called a Department of Justice “matter” by a US government official, is not known to have set foot in the US in years. With the recent surge in racially motivated riots in the United Kingdom, authorities across the west have become increasingly concerned with Russian sponsorship of far-right extremists.

The Base was considered a domestic terrorism threat in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election campaign. The group adheres to the principles of accelerationism; a hyper violent political doctrine calling on followers to hasten the collapse of society through acts of terrorism.

“You must have knowledge and experience in fieldcraft, wilderness survival, and/or small unit tactics,” he said in the post read over 500 times. Nazzaro makes it clear the “A-Team Leader,” who he says has to be 21 years old, have a valid driver’s license and a clean record, must also come with specific skills.

“Prior military experience is not required but is highly desirable,” he said. “As the team leader, your responsibilities will include recruiting, vetting, and retaining a 6-man (or possibly 12-man) A-Team; organizing, conducting, and documenting team training sessions at least once per month.”

Nazzaro claims the funding will come from a mixture of his own personal finances and monthly donations through cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Monero. He wants anywhere between six and up to 12 members in the cell, “which would mean $1200/month for the team leader.”

The call for donations isn’t a new development within the online, far-right ecosystem: NSC-131, a New England-based neo-Nazi group, founded by a former member of the Base, has claimed to have raised over $15,000 in donations via multiple crowdfunding and crypto schemes.

A 2020 Guardian investigation revealed Nazzaro had purchased several acres of undeveloped land near Republic, Washington, that he intended to use as a training ground for the Base. His latest job listing asks for a candidate who preferably lives near Republic and that land.

Nazzaro’s post calls for the leader to pay group members a stipend and to plan a meeting location in that region as a sort of paramilitary launchpad if a civil war or societal collapse does ensue.

Joshua Fisher-Birch, an analyst at the Counter Extremism Project who has kept tabs on the Base since its inception, says the group maintains several American members and that Nazzaro often talks of having poured thousands in personal finances into the group.

“Nazzaro has claimed that he has supported the accelerationist movement with over $10,000 through his ‘personal stash of crypto,’ and he has claimed that he has spent over $20,000 on the Base, not including land in Washington state he purchased,” said Fisher-Birch, who pointed out records he reviewed in the past showing Nazzaro receiving over $3,000 in Bitcoin donations.

Fisher-Birch believes accelerationist entities, unlike the louder white supremacist group Patriot Front that openly marches in public streets, are turning to more furtive activities as November approaches.

“Neo-Nazi accelerationist groups are mainly keeping a low profile,” he said. “Their focus on promoting chaos raises the possibility that they will encourage violence or commit acts of intimidation before the election.”

First appearing in 2018, the Base was already the subject of a major nationwide FBI counterterrorism investigation netting more than a dozen of its members in prison. Over the years, members of the Base have plotted an assassination in Georgia and mass shootings, while several countries designated it as an official terrorist organization alongside the likes of Islamic State.

Last week, the European Union moved to do the same, making the Base the first far-right organization to make its sanctions list. Nazzaro has admitted in the past that he and some of his family members faced US banking troubles because of those types of international designations.

Recent activities aside, the Base is a shadow of what it was following those mass arrests in the US and infiltration by both an FBI undercover and at least one anti-fascist activist.

Though it is unlikely to boast the nearly 50 members it counted at its zenith in 2020, its Telegram posts continue to show masked men posing with firearms and in paramilitary fatigues in states across the country. One image, released in April, shows three well-armed members of the group wearing tactical outfits and holding military-style rifles in Utah.

But the Base also continues to revel in its past and still uses a propaganda video showing a firing line of its members from a 2019 paramilitary training camp in rural Pennsylvania and embarrassingly, among the attendees was the anti-fascist infiltrator.

Both Nazzaro and the official Telegram account of the Base have encouraged Europeans to join.

“In 2023 and 2024, the Base posted photos of members or pictures of propaganda activity allegedly in Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, Sweden and Ukraine,” said Fisher-Birch. Last week, the Base posted an image of a new member in France.

Multiple sources in the counterterrorism field who spoke to the Guardian confirmed that Dutch and Belgian government officials were concerned about the Base and its growing presence in their respective countries, which pushed the group to be on the EU sanctions list.

Nazzaro, who is married to a Russian national and is believed to be living in St Petersburg, has long faced allegations from inside the Base and elsewhere that he is a Russian intelligence asset. In a 2020 appearance on Russian television, he tried to dispel those rumors, claiming “I’ve never had any contact with any Russian security services” and that he is a misunderstood family man.

Russian intelligence services are strongly suspected of recent destabilization operations on European soil; financing far-right extremists, sabotaging critical infrastructure and targeted killings, all in a bid to undermine the west and its support of Ukraine’s war effort.

“Nazzaro’s proposed plan to fund the organization of a group inside the US is notable in its timing and substance,” said Lucas Webber, a research fellow and an expert on global terrorism at the Soufan Center who reviewed the post.

Webber made clear the chatter surrounding Nazzaro and his links to Kremlin security services has never been fully disentangled, but his tradecraft is significant.

“While it is difficult to pin down his exact connections to the Russian government, he issued the call at a time when the US government is increasing warnings about foreign election meddling,” he said. “It also comes amidst an upsurge in suspected sabotage incidents in Europe and as French officials are concerned about a potential nexus between Russia and domestic activist and dissident groups.”

The remains of a member of the smallest ancient human species on record, who stood at just 1m tall, have been discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores.

The fossil arm bone belonged to a tiny adult human who roamed the island 700,000 years ago alongside pygmy elephants, Komodo dragons and giant rats the size of rabbits. It is thought to be from a very early individual of the “hobbit” species Homo floresiensis that has perplexed scientists since its discovery two decades ago.

The latest fossil suggests that the species underwent an early and dramatic reduction in body size in response to the unique evolutionary pressures of being marooned on an island.

“Island dwarfism was well known before from fossil remains of megafauna on islands in the Mediterranean and Indonesia, that were miniature versions of their mainland ancestors,” said Dr Gert van den Bergh, a palaeontologist and co-author based at the University of Wollongong, Australia. “As long as animals are concerned, no one has a problem with island dwarfism, but when it comes to hominins it seems somehow more difficult to accept.”

Since the discovery of the first “hobbit” fossils, dating from 60,000 years ago, the miniature human’s evolutionary origins have been fiercely disputed. Some experts have questioned whether floresiensis was even a unique species or simply a tribe of modern humans afflicted by a congenital stunting disease, while others proposed they were related to a more primitive ape-like species that was small to begin with.

The scientists behind the latest discovery say it adds weight to the theory that the “hobbits” descended from Homo erectus, or Java man, an archaic hominin roughly similar in stature to us, which somehow became stranded on Flores. The tiny arm bone is similar in anatomy to previously discovered “hobbit” skeletons, while a newly discovered pair of teeth from the same site bear a resemblance to Homo erectus teeth – although much smaller.

Based on the estimated length of the bone, the team was able to calculate the body height of the ancient human to be about 100cm tall. This is about 6cm shorter than the estimated body height of the 60,000-year-old skeleton discovered 75km away on the same island.

“This 700,000-year-old adult humerus is not just shorter than that of [the original] Homo floresiensis, it is the smallest upper arm bone known from the hominin fossil record worldwide,” said Prof Adam Brumm from Griffith University’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution and a co-author of the paper. “This very rare specimen confirms our hypothesis that the ancestors of Homo floresiensis were extremely small in body size. However, it is now apparent from the tiny proportions of this limb bone that the early progenitors of the ‘hobbit’ were even smaller than we had previously thought.”

Island dwarfism is thought to emerge because a smaller body size can be advantageous in surviving periodic food shortages on islands – and being big is less of a bonus with no large carnivorous mammals to contend with.

Some questions remain unanswered, including how the ancestors of floresiensis washed up on the island in the first place. Stone tools show that the island was occupied as early as 1m years ago.

“It was generally thought that only modern humans with boat technology would have been able to reach an oceanic island surrounded by deep sea straits such as Flores,” said van den Bergh.

Prof Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum, who was not involved in the research, said: “Being able to track a single evolving hominin lineage over that timescale holds great promise for future research.”

“Many researchers assume a dwarfing process occurred on Flores itself, but there is currently no way of knowing that at the moment, since the process could have already started on other islands, such as Sumbawa or Sulawesi, prior to the arrival on Flores,” Stringer added.

The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

A final novel by the late American writer and cultural anthropologist, Zora Neale Hurston, will be published for the first time next year.

The author of Their Eyes Were Watching God was working on a sequel to her 1939 novel Moses, Man of the Mountain when she died in 1960. That sequel, titled The Life of Herod the Great, will be available to buy in January 2025.

Until recently, the manuscript had been in Hurston’s archives at the University of Kansas, accessible only to scholars. It is unfinished and will be published in that state, alongside commentary from academic and literary critic Deborah Plant.

The forthcoming title is a historical novel that tells the story of Herod the Great, a Judean king who lived during the first century BCE. According to the account in the Bible, Herod was responsible for the “massacre of the innocents”, ordering the execution of all male children who are two years old or younger around Bethlehem. However, most Herod biographers do not believe this event occurred.

Hurston paints the ruler “in a light very different from his villainous portrayal in the New Testament”, according to the book’s UK publisher HQ, an imprint of HarperCollins. “In Hurston’s retelling, Herod is a forerunner of Christ, a religious and philosophical man who enriched Jewish culture and lived a life of valour and vision.”

The historical Herod “seemed to have been singled out by some deity and especially endowed to attract the zigzag lightning of fate”, Hurston wrote. The Life of Herod the Great will also feature Hurston’s findings from letters she sent to friends and associates about Herod’s rise, reign and his waning days.

HQ Fiction’s editorial director Clare Gordon described the long-awaited sequel as being “nothing short of a masterpiece”.

“Although it was written in the 1950s, its message still resounds with the world of today,” Gordon said. “As Zora herself writes in her foreword: ‘It is history, and history alone, which will mature our judgment and prepare us to take right views.’”

The Life of Herod the Great will be published on 7 January 2025, on what would have been Hurston’s 134th birthday.