Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was conceived in the Kremlin as a short, sharp military operation.

The expectation was that it would take a matter of days, a few weeks maximum, for Russia to establish control over its neighbour.

That was nearly two-and-a-half years ago.

The war in Ukraine rages on. It has not gone at all as Moscow had intended.

But here’s the thing. Over the last 29 months, so often we’ve heard senior Russian officials claiming that the operation is going “according to plan.”

President Vladimir Putin last said that in May, despite everything that had happened in the preceding two years: the heavy Russian casualties on the battlefield, the destruction of multiple Russian warships in the Black Sea, drone attacks deep inside Russia (even on the Kremlin itself), the shelling of Russian towns and villages near the Ukrainian border, the mutiny by Wagner mercenary fighters who had marched on Moscow.

Now there is a new addition to the list: this week’s cross-border Ukrainian assault on Russia’s Kursk region.

First, a disclaimer: it’s difficult to know exactly what is happening right now in the Sudzha district of Kursk region. It is unclear how many Ukrainian troops are there, how much territory they have seized and what their final objective may be.

Today’s edition of the Russian broadsheet Nezavisimaya Gazeta declared: “Events on the Kursk front are shrouded in the notorious fog of war.”

But even in fog, some things are clear.

It’s evident that what is unfolding in Kursk region is further evidence that Russia’s war in Ukraine has not gone “according to plan”. Events appear to have taken Russia’s political and military leadership completely by surprise.

Don’t expect Moscow to admit that.

More likely, Russian officials will use the Ukrainian assault to try to rally the Russian public around the government and bolster the official Kremlin narrative that (a) in this conflict Russia is not the aggressor, and (b) Russia is a besieged fortress surrounded by enemies who are plotting to invade and destroy it.

In reality it was Russia that launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

There’s clearly a big difference in language. When Russia poured its troops across the border into Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin called this a “special military operation” and claimed that Russia was “liberating” towns and villages.

Moscow has described Ukrainian troops pushing into Russia as “a terrorist attack” and “a provocation.”

The assault by Ukrainian forces on Kursk region and the fierce fighting there are a sign that hostilities are coming closer to home. But will that turn Russian public opinion against the war?

Not necessarily.

Last year I visited Belgorod, a Russian region which, like Kursk, borders Ukraine. It was being shelled from across the border. Everyone I met told me that nothing like this had happened before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine: before February 2022 it was all peace and quiet in Belgorod region.

But instead of concluding that the “special military operation” had been a mistake, most people I spoke to called for Russia to step up its military action and push deeper into Ukrainian territory.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is calling for exactly that. In a social media post today he wrote:

“We can and we should take more land of the Ukraine that still exists. [We should go to] Odesa, to Kharkiv, to Dnipro, Mykolaiv. To Kyiv and onwards.”

But Dmitry Medvedev doesn’t get to call the shots. Vladimir Putin does. We wait to see how he responds to what have been a dramatic few days in southern Russia.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has been sworn in as Bangladesh’s interim leader. He vowed to “uphold, support and protect the constitution” during the ceremony, saying he would perform his duties “sincerely”.

The 84-year-old declared there is “a lot of work to be done” as he arrived in the country earlier on Thursday.

“People are excited,” he told the BBC moments after flying into the capital Dhaka from France.

His plane touched down just days after Sheikh Hasina – the woman who ruled Bangladesh with an iron fist for 15 years – fled across the border to India.

Ms Hasina resigned as prime minister after weeks of student-led protests – which left hundreds dead – escalated and culminated in calls for her to stand down.

The decision to name Prof Yunus as chief adviser of the interim government followed a meeting between President Mohammed Shahabuddin, military leaders and student leaders.

The students had been clear they would not accept a military-led government, but wanted Prof Yunus to lead.

The hope is Prof Yunus, the so-called banker for the poor, will bring democracy back to Bangladesh after years of autocratic rule.

On Thursday, he emphasised the need for “discipline” as Bangladesh begins to rebuild.

“Hard work and get it done,” the smiling professor added as he made his way through the airport. “New opportunities have arrived.”

“Today is a glorious day for us,” he later told reporters, adding it was as if “Bangladesh has got a second independence” as he called for the restoration of law and order.

Bangladesh has been thrown into turmoil in recent weeks. More than 400 people are reported to have died after protests demanding the end of a civil service quota system began in June.

Many of those killed died after the Supreme Court backed student demands and largely scrapped the quota system last month.

In more recent weeks, the protests had become an anti-government movement. Students and their supporters had planned to march on the prime minister’s residence on Monday.

But before the march could get properly moving, the news came that Sheikh Hasina had left Bangladesh and resigned as prime minister. She is currently in Delhi.

Prof Yunus paid tribute to those who died, saying they had “protected the nation” and given it “new life” after Ms Hasina’s rule.

She had begun that rule as a symbol of democracy but, by the time she fled, she was considered an autocrat who had sought to entrench her authority by silencing dissent.

Prisons were filled with people who sought to speak out against her. Prof Yunus – lauded for his pioneering use of micro-loans – was one of those who found themselves in legal trouble during her tenure.

Ms Hasina regarded him as a public enemy – he is currently on bail, appealing against a six-month jail term in what he has called a politically-motivated case.

Speaking on Thursday, he called on the country’s young people to help him rebuild the South Asian country.

“Bangladesh can be a beautiful country, but we destroyed the possibilities,” he said.

“Now we have to build a seedbed again – the new seedbed will be built by them,” he added, gesticulating towards the students who had arrived to greet him.

Police in Barcelona are hunting for the separatist former leader of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, who made a dramatic return to Spain after a seven-year exile despite facing an outstanding arrest warrant.

The Mossos d’Esquadra – Catalan police – set up roadblocks within Barcelona and leading out of the city as part of Operation Jaula – or “cage” – aimed at finding Mr Puigdemont, who was seen leaving a rally this morning in a car. The operation was reportedly ended a few hours later.

For much of the past several years he has lived in Brussels, after police indicted him on charges linked to a failed bid for Catalan independence in 2017.

At the time, Catalonia’s pro-independence leaders including Mr Puigdemont organised a referendum – which was ruled illegal by Spain’s constitutional court – and later declared independence for the region. Madrid imposed direct rule on the region shortly after and Mr Puigdemont fled to Belgium.

On Thursday morning, Mr Puigdemont briefly addressed hundreds of supporters who gathered near the Catalan parliament in Barcelona, shortly ahead of the expected investiture of a new head of the Catalan government.

He said he had returned “to remind you that we are still here” and added: “Holding a referendum is not and will never be a crime.”

Mr Puigdemont then disappeared.

Many were expecting him to turn up inside the parliament building in time for the investiture ceremony at 10:00 (08:00 GMT), but he was nowhere to be seen.

A Catalan police officer was detained on suspicion of helping Mr Puigdemont flee, a spokesperson for the Mossos d’Esquadra said.

The officer allegedly owns a car in which Mr Puigdemont escaped after making his address, Spanish media said.

Roadblocks have now been set up across the city, a spokesperson for Catalonia’s interior department said in a statement.

Spanish TV also showed images from La Jonquera, a municipality bordering France, where police could be seen stopping cars and checking the boots.

Puigdemont ally Aleix Sarri criticised the police operation on X, saying: “Hundreds of policemen encircle Barcelona to arrest President Puigdemont. A hunt paid with public money to please the powers in Madrid. This is not what a democracy does.”

Police reportedly used pepper spray to disperse Puigdemont supporters who gathered near the parliament.

Ignacio Garriga of the far-right Vox party, which strongly opposes independence for Catalonia, said Vox would “do everything necessary to ensure that Puigdemont is arrested”.

Some Spanish commentators are puzzled at the fact that police were unable to arrest Mr Puigdemont despite him announcing he would return to Catalonia earlier this week.

On Wednesday, he posted a video on X saying that he had “started the return trip from exile” and added that his arrest would have been illegal and arbitrary.

There appear to be several motives behind Carles Puigdemont’s return to Spain.

Firstly, he wants to pressure the authorities into applying the country’s new amnesty law – which withdraws legal action against Catalan nationalists – to him, after the supreme court excluded him from its application on technical grounds.

He also aims to disrupt the investiture of Socialist Salvador Illa as the new Catalan president today.

The former Spanish health minister would become the region’s first non-nationalist leader since 2010.

Equally important for Mr Puigdemont is to assert himself and his Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) party as the main pro-independence force.

He is keen to cast his separatist rival, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), as being complicit with Spanish unionism because of its agreement to support Mr Illa’s investiture.

Until a new local government is in place, ERC is still responsible for the Catalan police force, making the former regional president’s return particularly uncomfortable for the party.

Heavy fighting in Russia’s Kursk region has entered a third day, with efforts “ongoing” to expel Ukrainian forces from the country, Moscow’s defence ministry has said.

Russia says at least 1,000 Ukrainian troops, supported by tanks and armoured vehicles, crossed the border on Tuesday.

Some 3,000 people have had to evacuate the region, as ongoing military altercations have killed at least four people, Kursk’s deputy Governor Andrei Belostotsky said on Thursday.

Ukraine’s military is yet to directly comment on the reports, but President Volodymyr Zelensky said, without referencing the assault: “Everyone can see that the Ukrainian army knows how to surprise [and] achieve results.”

Mykhailo Podolyak, a long-term aide to President Zelensky wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “War is war, with its own rules, where the aggressor inevitably reaps corresponding outcomes.”

Russia’s Defence Ministry said “breakthrough attempts” by the Ukrainian army’s formations in the Sudzha and Korenevo districts in Kursk region had been thwarted in a combined effort by the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the military.

Mr Belostotsky claimed Kyiv’s forces were beginning to retreat from the region.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov said the “advance” into the Kursk region had been stopped, with Russian forces “continuing to destroy the adversary in areas directly adjacent to the Russian-Ukrainian border”.

While the FSB made claims to a similar effect on Tuesday, when initial reports of a potential Ukrainian incursion surfaced.

In its latest report, the Institute for the Study of War, a well-respected think tank, said geo-located footage from the past two days showed that Ukrainian armoured vehicles had advanced to positions 10km (6.2 miles) into the Kursk region.

Meanwhile, footage verified by the BBC has shown fighter jets flying low overhead in the region in recent days.

Ukraine’s key allies seemed surprised by the offensive – with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying the US was reaching out to Ukraine for more information.

Russia’s military leadership is under severe scrutiny domestically, as some popular and generally well-informed pro-war Telegram channels have said the situation on the ground is not as stable as the Kremlin has suggested.

The influential pro-war Rybar Telegram channel went on to strongly criticise the highest ranks of the Russian military on Wednesday, saying that “for two months the full information was sent to the useless headquarters”, adding that there was enough time “to make an appropriate decision”.

Rybar’s concerns were echoed by several other pro-war bloggers.

Local leaders in regions adjacent to Kursk, both in Russia and in Ukraine, ordered residents to evacuate the area since news of the incursion.

On Wednesday, the head of the Ukrainian region of Sumy, Volodymyr Artyukh, ordered the evacuation of areas bordering Kursk.

While in the Russian region of Belgorod, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Thursday that settlements across his province were attacked by Ukrainian forces over the past 24 hours.

This is not the first incursion into Russia by fighters based in Ukraine. Some groups of anti-Kremlin Russians launched raids last year, which were repelled.

The forces crossed into the Belgorod and Kursk regions again in March, where they engaged in clashes with Russian security forces.

On Wednesday evening, Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko said the Ukrainian army had established control over the Sudzha gas hub, a major gas facility involved in the transit of natural gas from Russia to the EU via Ukraine, which has continued despite the war.

It is the only point of entry for Russian gas into the EU.

But on Thursday gas was reportedly still flowing from Sudzha.

Russia’s National Guard said it had reinforced security around Kursk’s nuclear power station, which lies some 70km north-east of Sudzha.

For the past few months Russia has made incremental gains in eastern Ukraine, as many of Kyiv’s ground forces have faced relentless attacks in the eastern Donbas region.

In a recent interview Ukraine’s head of defence intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said the main offensive by Russian forces “is expected to be over in a month and a half to two months”.

A renowned British crocodile expert has been jailed for 10 years and five months in Australia, after admitting to sexually abusing dozens of dogs, in a case which horrified the nation.

Adam Britton, a leading zoologist who has worked on BBC and National Geographic productions, pleaded guilty to 56 charges relating to bestiality and animal cruelty.

He also admitted to four counts of accessing child abuse material.

The Northern Territory (NT) Supreme Court heard the 53-year-old filmed himself torturing the animals until almost all died, and then shared the videos online under pseudonyms.

His abuse went unnoticed for years, until a clue was found in one of his videos. Britton was arrested in April 2022 after a search of his rural Darwin property, which also uncovered child abuse material on his laptop.

Much of the detail of Britton’s crimes are too graphic to publish, and so “grotesque” Chief Justice Michael Grant warned the courtroom they could cause “nervous shock”.

As the facts of the case were read aloud, some members of the public rushed outside. Others watching from the gallery cried and mouthed insults at Britton. He at times hung his head and reached for tissues.

Calling the offending “devious”, Justice Grant said the “unalloyed pleasure” Britton took in torturing the animals was “sickeningly evident”.

“[Your] depravity falls entirely outside any ordinary human conception,” he said.

Including time already served, Britton could be eligible for parole in September 2028. He is also banned from owning any mammals for the rest of his life.

Mr Britton’s lawyer argued his offending was driven by a rare disorder causing intense, atypical sexual interests.

In court on Thursday, they read out a letter from Britton, who apologised for his “demeaning crimes”.

“I deeply regret the pain and trauma that I caused to innocent animals and consequently to my family, friends and members of the community,” it said.

Adding that his family was not aware or involved in any way, he wrote: “I will seek long term treatment and… I will find a path towards redemption.”

Born in West Yorkshire, Britton grew up in the UK before moving to Australia more than 20 years ago to work with crocodiles.

With a PhD in zoology, he had built a global reputation for his expertise, even hosting Sir David Attenborough while the veteran broadcaster filmed part of the Life in Cold Blood docuseries on his property.

Locals have told media he seemed like a quiet but passionate defender of animals.

But he was harbouring a “sadistic sexual interest” in them, court documents say. Exchanges with “like-minded” people in secret online chatrooms detail how Britton began molesting horses at the age of 13.

“I was sadistic as a child to animals, but I had repressed it. In the last few years I let it out again, and now I can’t stop. I don’t want to. :),” he wrote in one message tendered to the court.

For at least the past decade, Britton had exploited his own pets and manipulated other dog owners into giving him theirs.

“My own dogs are family and I have limits,” he explained in a Telegram chat entered into evidence.

“I only badly mistreat other dogs… I have no emotional bond to them, they are toys pure and simple. And [there are] plenty more where they came from.”

He tortured at least 42 dogs, killing 39 of them, according to court documents seen by the BBC. The files only detail his crimes over the 18 months before his arrest, but still fill more than 90 pages.

Using online marketplace Gumtree Australia, Britton would find people who were often reluctantly giving their pets away due to travel or work commitments. He would build a “rapport” with them to negotiate taking custody of the animals and if they reached out for updates on their old pets, the court heard he would tell them “false narratives” and send them old photos.

In reality, he was abusing the animals in a shipping container on his property that had been fitted out with recording equipment – which he called his “torture room” – before sharing footage of his crimes online using aliases.

Britton would also coach others on how to copy his behaviour and get rid of the evidence.

Asked how to dispose of the dogs’ remains, Britton – who shared his sprawling property on the outskirts of Darwin with eight crocodiles – said “some I feed to other animals”.

He was only caught after uploading a clip in which he tortured at least eight dogs – all except one were puppies – which was passed on to NT police in an anonymous tip-off.

Britton usually went to great lengths to avoid identifying himself or his location in his videos, but in this one a bright orange City of Darwin dog leash could be seen in the background.

Within weeks, in April 2022, police swooped on his property and arrested Britton, who has been remanded in custody ever since.

They seized recording devices, animal remains and a laptop on which they also located 15 files containing child abuse material.

Animal advocates say the case shows the need for stronger animal cruelty penalties.

Speaking outside court, many who had travelled from all over the country for the hearing expressed disappointment at the sentence, but said it offered some solace to the owners of the pets Britton abused.

Addressing the zoologist directly, one activist told Britton he was “right where you should be – locked up.”

“Once respected and esteemed, you’re now a disgrace to the scientific community,” said Natalie Carey. “No one will ever look at you with admiration again.”

Austrian security officials say a 19-year-old arrested on Wednesday was planning to kill “a large crowd of people” in a suicide attack at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna.

Officials say the teen – who had previously pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group (IS) – confessed that he “intended to carry out an attack using explosives and knives”.

Swift’s three sold-out shows at the Ernst Happel Stadium have been cancelled. More than 195,000 people had been expected to attend.

Local media have also reported that the 19-year-old, the main suspect out of three, had stolen chemicals from his former workplace.

The Kurier newspaper, citing sources, reported that he used to work at a metal processing company in his home town of Ternitz, and that he had made progress in building a bomb.

The outlet also reported that he had planned to drive a car into the crowd expected to gather outside the stadium.

Security officials at a news conference on Thursday did not comment on where he got the chemicals, but public security chief Franz Ruf told reporters that chemical substances and technical devices found at the main suspect’s house showed “concrete preparatory actions”.

The head of Austria’s Directorate for Protection of the State and Intelligence (DSN) Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, said weapons were seized from the main suspect’s house, and that “his aim was to kill himself and a large crowd of people either today or tomorrow at the concert”.

Mr Ruf added the teen had posted a video online confessing to the plot, quit his job at the end of last month and told people that he had “big plans”.

They also revealed that the main suspect – an Austrian citizen who was born there but who had North Macedonian parents – had recently changed his appearance and “adapted it to Islamic State propaganda”, and had been consuming and sharing Islamist propaganda online.

A second suspect – a 17-year-old Austrian of Turkish or Croatian heritage – was employed at a company which would have “provided services” at the stadium where Swift was to perform.

A 15-year-old suspect has so far refused to talk to the authorities, and was “in the area” of the stadium when he was arrested.

Officials added that they were not looking for any other suspects.

Also at the press briefing was Interior Minister Gerhard Karner who said “a tragedy was averted”, and the attack was foiled with the help of international intelligence as Austrian law does not allow censorship of messenger applications.

“The terrorist threat has intensified throughout Europe and Austria was and is no exception,” he said, adding that major concerts are “often a favourite target of Islamist attackers”.

Coldplay are due to perform seven concerts in Vienna from 21 August as part of their Spheres World Tour.

Mr Haijawi-Pirchner said there was no information suggesting a specific threat to upcoming events in Austria, but security measures remain high.

Swift’s Vienna concerts were part of the European leg of her Eras Tour, which began in Paris in May.

The tour has made stops in a number of countries including Sweden, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Poland.

Swift is set to head to London to perform five shows at Wembley Stadium next week.

UK policing minister Diana Johnson said Scotland Yard would look at intelligence ahead of the Wembley Stadium dates.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has told Sky News that the city will “carry on” and that the police will work with City Hall and councils to ensure the concerts take place safely.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz could be America’s next vice-president. Nobody is more enthusiastic about it than former students in his small-town, midwest classroom.

At Mankato West High School, years before he joined the political scene, a young Mr Walz taught geography and social studies, supervised the lunchroom and coached the football team.

The Harris campaign has sought to highlight Mr Walz’s career as a teacher, even though he served six terms in Congress before he returned to Minnesota to run for governor, a position he’s held since 2018.

Those who knew him back then told the BBC that his teaching history is a guide to the politician he has become and the vice-president he could be.

It was 1999 and Jacob Reitan – the first openly gay student at Mankato West – was part of an effort to form the first gay-straight alliance at the school. GSAs, student-run organisations focused on supporting LGBTQ youth, emerged across the country through the nineties.

Mr Reitan still remembers the bullying he faced back then, from the homophobic insult spray-painted on his driveway to a smashed-in car window in the school parking lot.

But he told the BBC the Walzes promoted inclusion, kindness and “jointly made the school a place where it was safe to come out”.

And because the new GSA required a faculty advisor, Coach Walz stepped up.

“It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married,” he said in a 2018 interview, explaining why he took the role.

Mr Walz remained a firm supporter of same-sex rights and, in 2011, Mr Reitan stood by the then-congressman’s side as President Barack Obama signed his bill repealing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy for gay and lesbian Americans serving in the military into law.

“He’s so perfect as an addition to the Harris ticket,” Mr Reitan said.

Introducing him on Tuesday at their first joint campaign event, Ms Harris lavished more praise on Coach Walz than on Governor Walz, his current title.

“Tim Walz was the kind of teacher and mentor that every child in America dreams of having, and that every kid deserves,” she said.

“He’s the kind of person who makes them feel like they belong and then inspires them to dream big, and that’s the kind of vice-president he will be.”

The Trump campaign has assailed Mr Walz as “a dangerously liberal extremist” who, along with Ms Harris, forms a ticket that they say is too far left for most Americans to stomach.

They have scrutinised his record as Minnesota’s governor – from enacting an ambitious left-wing agenda to delaying deployment of the National Guard in response to violent protests following the murder of George Floyd.

The Harris campaign is leaning into a biography they believe can win over the rural and working-class voters she needs to defeat Mr Trump this November.

While Ms Harris grew up and built her career in liberal California, Mr Walz spent his childhood fishing, farming and hunting in rural Nebraska and came to politics later in life. He joined the National Guard at age 17.

For about 17 years, from 1989 to 2006, he worked in public high schools – first for a year in China, then in Nebraska and later in his wife’s native Minnesota.

And former students like Mr Reitan are glowing in their praise for the ex-educator.

For brothers Jake and Josh Jagdfeld, attending Mankato West was akin to “home-schooling with the Walzes”.

Josh Jagdfeld took classes with both Tim and Gwen Walz in the 10th grade, and he remembers worrying politics would change his favourite teacher.

But when they met on Monday night, Mr Walz greeted him with a shout of “Mankato West in the building!” and a big hug.

“He’s warm, engaging, cares about everybody he talks to. That’s exactly the same Tim Walz I knew,” Josh Jagdfeld told the BBC.

Coach Walz, a defensive coordinator for the school’s football team, tapped Jake Jagdfeld as line-backer, putting him “in a position to succeed”.

When Coach Walz joined the team, Mankato West was reeling from a winless 0-27 season. Three years later, it won its first ever state championship.

“Great credit goes to him,” Jake Jagdfeld said. “He helped to create an inspirational environment for us young men to feel confident and work hard.”

In 2004, Noah Hobbs was in Mr Walz’s last geography class before he left teaching.

“He’s a very high-energy person, whether school was just starting or it was the end of the day, and that energy was infectious,” he said.

“The level of care that he gave to all students – not just the kids getting 4.0 [GPAs] – was really impactful for me as a young kid.”

Mr Hobbs believes the US is “looking for someone that is authentic, and Tim embodies that in a way not seen in politics at that level very often”.

Mr Walz’s evolution from teacher to politician has been described as accidental.

In his telling, it stemmed from an incident at then-President George W Bush’s 2004 campaign rally in Mankato.

He and another teacher chaperoned two students to the event but local organisers refused to let them in.

“They knew we were Democrats,” Matt Klaber, one of the students, told the BBC.

“At this time, the Bush campaign was turning away any possible protesters from their rallies and this was no exception.”

When Mr Klaber pulled out his ID, the staffers observed a faded John Kerry sticker on his wallet. The students were sent home.

Mr Walz has described being “struck by how deeply divided our country was becoming”. He went on to volunteer for the Kerry campaign, develop his own local contacts and then launched a bid for Congress in 2006.

“The news reports say part of what Kamala was looking for was chemistry and a governing partner,” said Mr Klaber.

“Then picking Mr Walz was a no-brainer. All the good things people have been saying about him as a person are absolutely true.”

When Mr Walz arrived on Capitol Hill, new members of Congress were learning in orientation sessions about their salary and benefits.

“They were talking about, ‘I know most of you are taking pay cuts,’” he told local Minnesota television station KSTP.

“And I leaned to my aide and said, ‘This is four times what I’ve ever made in my life.’

A man responsible for one of the most viral clips in Australian history has died at the age of 82.

The prison escapee and on-again off-again petty criminal – whose best-known alias was Jack Karlson – shot to fame in 2009, after a clip of his dramatic 1991 arrest outside a Chinese restaurant in Brisbane was uploaded to the internet and enthralled the world.

“What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal” Karlson – born Cecil George Edwards – theatrically shouted, while resisting a string of officers.

“Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest” and “get your hand off my penis” were among his other, now immortalised, phrases.

The seminal moment has inspired thousands of memes, musical remixes, reaction videos – and even a few tattoos. Democracy Manifest is also the name of a purebred Australian racehorse.

Karlson’s family confirmed he had passed away in hospital on Wednesday, following a battle with prostate cancer, surrounded by loved ones.

“He walked a full and colourful path and despite the troubles thrown at him, he lived by his motto – to keep on laughing,” they said in a statement.

Karlson had captivated the nation’s media again in June, after he reunited with one of the policemen, Stoll Watt, who had arrested him that fateful day, to announce an upcoming documentary into his obscure and eccentric life.

Although he was a convicted criminal, Karlson had always maintained that the 1991 incident was a case of mistaken identity.

And after the footage emerged on the internet, it was broadly speculated that Karlson had been confused for a Hungarian chess player, famous for dine-and-dash attempts across the country at the time.

“They thought I was some international gangster”, he said.

“Typical police grabbing you – if they can put something on you, they’ll do it.”

In a recent interview with ABC News, Karlson described his long life as one of adventure. It reportedly included three jail breaks and multiple run-ins with authorities.

And his theatrics apparently continued into his final weeks.

His niece Kim Edwards told Australian broadcaster SBS: “He had a few attempts to escape [hospital] and pulled his cords out a couple of times and asked us many times to sneak in his pipe.

“As a final send off we gave uncle a last taste of red wine through his drip just before it was removed.”

Those who knew him though, say his childhood was akin to a Charles Dickens tragedy – describing a youth spent in and out of care homes and government institutions.

Tributes have flooded social media following the news of his passing.

“Sad news: Mr Democracy Manifest has died. The cultural icon, whose arrest inspired a thousand t-shirts and millions of downloads, had advanced cancer,” Chris Reason, the reporter who covered the now infamous squabble, wrote on X.

“His immortal words will echo through generations.”

One fan, Danny Kingston, posted a photograph of himself wearing a T-shirt depicting the meme, captioned: “A true legend has left this planet. Godspeed Jack Karlson.”

Mr Watt – who formed a close friendship with Karlson since their reunion – remembered the 82-year-old as a “larger than life” figure “with a big heart”.

“It’s a sad day for Australia. We’ve just lost a true colourful character,” he told the ABC.

When two American astronauts blasted off on a test mission to the International Space Station on 5 June, they were expecting to be back home in a matter of days.

But things didn’t quite go to plan.

In fact, Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams are still there, floating high above the Earth nearly two months later.

The pair – who are stuck indefinitely – now face the sudden prospect of missing the summer entirely and even spending Christmas and New Year in space.

Mr Wilmore, 61, and Ms Williams, 58, flew a Boeing Starliner spacecraft to the station. It was the first flight of its kind with people on board and was a test designed to see how the new spacecraft performs before it is used more regularly.

Problems, however, emerged as it made its approach. These included leaks in its propulsion system and some of its thrusters shutting down.

So while they made it to the space station safely, they will need an alternative mode of transport to get home if the Starliner is not deemed safe to return to Earth.

At a news briefing on Wednesday, Nasa officials said no firm decisions had been made when it comes to next steps.

“Our prime option is to return Butch and Suni on Starliner,” Steve Stich, manager of Nasa’s Commercial Crew Program, said. “However, we have done the requisite planning to make sure we have other options open.”

One potential option being considered, they said, is to attach the two astronauts to a mission that is scheduled to launch in September, and return them to earth with that mission in February 2025.

That flight to the space station will be made by a SpaceX Crew Dragon craft. The initial plan was for four crew members to be aboard, but two of the seats could be left empty if needed.

That plan would mean the astronauts would spend more than eight months – rather than eight days – aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

If the Crew Dragon is used, the Starliner craft would be returned to Earth without any crew, under computer control.

Nasa officials said it could take a week or more for a final decision to be made.

• What a year in Space does to the body
• Starliner: The US Space industry’s next big thing?

Ken Bowersox, Nasa’s director of space operations, told reporters the chances of an uncrewed return of the Starliner “have increased a little bit based on where things have gone over the last week or two.”

“That’s why we’re looking more closely at that option to make sure that we can handle it,” he said.

Using a SpaceX craft to return the astronauts would be a blow to Boeing, which has for years tried to compete with the company and its more experienced Crew Dragon.

Earlier this week, Nasa used a SpaceX rocket to deliver more food and supplies to the ISS, including extra clothes for the two astronauts.

Last month, in a short press briefing, the pair said they were “absolutely confident” in the return trip and Starliner was “truly impressive.”

This is the third stint aboard the ISS for Ms Williams, a retired Navy helicopter pilot, while Mr Wilmore is a former fighter jet pilot who has been to space twice before.

“We’ve been thoroughly busy up here, integrated right into the crew,” Ms Williams told reporters during a recent briefing call.

“It feels like coming back home. It feels good to float around. It feels good to be in space and work up here with the International Space Station team,” she said. “So yeah, it’s great to be up here.”

Boeing was hoping that the maiden Starliner mission would pave the way for regular use of its capsule for missions back and forth to the station. The Space X Crew Dragon has been approved for Nasa missions since 2020.

• A fiery end? How ISS will end its life in orbit
• How long Space missions mess with our minds

Although the astronauts will spend much more time in space than they initially planned, others have spent much longer periods above the Earth’s surface. Russian Valeri Polyakov spent 437 days in space in aboard the Mir space station in the mid-1990s.

Last year, Frank Rubio returned from the ISS after 371 days, the longest time an American has spent in space.

And Russia’s Oleg Kononenko, also currently aboard the ISS, is the first person to have spent more than 1,000 days in space during the course of their career.

In their briefings and interviews, the two Americans have been upbeat about their situation. “I’m not complaining that we’re here for a couple extra weeks,” Ms Williams said last month.

As things stand, the pair may be there for many more weeks to come.

A fourth Banksy artwork revealed in London in as many days appears to have been stolen.

On Thursday, the Bristol-based street artist posted an image on Instagram of the silhouette of a wolf howling at the moon on a satellite dish in Rye Lane, Peckham, south London.

The Banksy press team told the BBC they “believed” it had been stolen.

The Metropolitan Police said it had been called to reports of a “stolen satellite dish containing artwork” but no arrests had been made.

A witness, Tom Kellow, was on his lunch break when he saw the satellite dish getting removed.

He said: “They had a ladder. There was one guy on the roof and the other two were watching the ladder.

“They saw me filming and it got a bit tetchy. One gave me a kick in the side and another tried to throw my phone on the roof. Luckily it hit a tree and came back down again.

“I told a police officer in the area about it.

“It’s a great shame we can’t have nice things and it’s a shame it couldn’t have lasted more than an hour.”

The artwork was the fourth Banksy to be revealed in London since Monday. The street artist also claimed credit for the three other black silhouette compositions, which appeared around the capital as part of an animal-themed series.

According to Google maps, the satellite dish in Rye Lane was not believed to have been there before the artwork appeared.

Banksy unveiled his third piece on Wednesday, which depicts three monkeys seemingly swinging on a railway bridge in Brick Lane, east London.

On Tuesday, the anonymous street artist posted a photo of two elephant silhouettes, with their trunks stretched towards each other, created on the side of a house in Edith Terrace in Chelsea.

He posted an artwork of a goat perched on top of a wall near Kew Bridge in Richmond on Monday.

The BBC understands the art series is set to conclude at the end of this week.

Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina has pleaded guilty to treason charges after she was arrested for donating money to a charity supporting Ukraine.

Russian prosecutors are seeking a 15-year sentence after the security services accused Ms Karelina of collecting money that was used to purchase tactical supplies for the Ukrainian army.

She was detained by authorities in Yekaterinburg, about 1,600km (1,000 miles) east of Moscow after a family visit in February.

The sentence comes one week after Russia and the West carried out the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War, where 24 people jailed in seven different countries were exchanged.

Ms Karelina’s lawyer said the prosecutors’ request for a 15-year sentence in a penal colony was too severe as the defendant had cooperated with the investigation.

Mikhail Mushailov also said it was “impossible” for Ms Karelina to have been included in the recent prisoner exchange, because an exchange can only happen once the court verdict comes into force.

“After the verdict, of course, we will work in this direction,” Mr Mushailov told reporters on Thursday.

The Los Angeles resident had been living away from Russia for several years and gained American citizenship in 2021.

She travelled to Russia for a family visit back in January, and has since been prevented from returning to her home in Los Angeles.

It has been widely reported that investigators brought the treason charge against her after discovering she had donated around $50 (£39) to Razom, a charity that supports Ukraine.

The charity said it was “appalled” to hear of the amateur ballerina’s arrest.

Ms Karelina’s charges and trial come after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in April last year increasing the maximum sentence for treason to life in jail, up from 20 years, as part of a crackdown on dissent.

Speaking with the BBC at the time of Ms Karelina’s arrest, her partner said she was “proud to be Russian” – and had remained confident that she could travel in the country, he explained.

Chris Van Heerden has been campaigning since news of the arrest for the US government to free his girlfriend from Russian detention.

The FSB said Ms Karelina had been detained in Yekaterinburg in February – the same city in which US journalist Evan Gershkovich was arrested on charges of espionage on 29 March last year.

On 1 August Mr Gershkovich was one of 16 prisoners freed and returned to Europe and the US in return for eight Russian prisoners who were released from prisons in the US, Norway, Germany, Poland and Slovenia.

In Dhaka, students are on the streets directing traffic and keeping things running as police stage a strike following the popular uprising that toppled prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

The police, normally highly visible, are nowhere to be seen on the usually loud and congested streets of the Bangladeshi capital.

It seems that only students and some paramilitary forces are trying to maintain law and order, after weeks of unrest in which hundreds have been killed. An interim government is promised, but has yet to take office.

Police now fear for their safety after the deadly crackdown that caused so much anger. It failed to quell anti-government protests that had begun over civil service job quotas last month.

Things are calmer two days after Ms Hasina escaped to India, but there are continuing reports of sporadic looting and violence during the power vacuum.

Many Bangladeshis, particularly the young, hope the country is at a turning point.

“I want freedom of expression. I want a corruption-free country. I want people to have the right to protest,” Noorjahan Mily, 21, an Open University student, told the BBC.

“I am uncertain about where the country is heading, because the government has changed. But whether the discrimination will remain or not, I will only be happy when their demands are met.”

The country is now trying to come to terms with the shock of what has just happened, now that power has been prised from the hands of the country’s long-time ruler.

More than 400 people were killed in the recent unrest, most of them civilians shot by security forces, but also a number of police. It’s the bloodiest episode since the war that brought the country independence in 1971.

At the airport, a worker handed me my bags, telling me the situation is very bad and the government used too much force.

“Many kids – as young as six, seven and eight – were killed,” he said.

Outside the airport, students wearing orange hi-vis vests were directing traffic.

“There’s no police here, only students,” the driver said. “There is no government, students are doing 100% security.”

He agreed with the students, saying they had done a good thing.

As we drove on, a group of students were putting out plastic cones to control the flow of vehicles.

“I’m here to protect my brothers and help with the traffic. From the very beginning, I participated in the quota movement that turned into a massive movement,” Julkernayeem Rahat, a business administration student at University of Asia Pacific, told the BBC.

“We are happy we’ve removed the autocratic government. We have gained our freedom and our sovereignty.”

He was confident that the man named as interim leader, Nobel Laureate Muhammed Yunus, will be able to form a government after a few months “with the help of students, lawyers, general people”.

“Bangladesh’s future is in the hands of the student leaders. God willing, things will be good,” said the 22-year-old.

Mahamudul Hassan, 21, is studying on the same course.

“I want democracy so that people of all walks of life can enjoy equal opportunities, equal rights.” He’s hoping for “a leader who can make those things happen”.

Mr Yunus was appointed to the post late on Tuesday by Bangladesh’s president, meeting a key demand of student protesters, who said they would not accept an army-led government. He is now heading back from having surgery in France and could be sworn in on Thursday.

“I’m looking forward to going back home and see what’s happening and how we can organise ourselves to get out of the trouble we’re in,” he told reporters on Wednesday at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, where he was due to fly to Dhaka.

Following reports of looting and revenge attacks on supporters of Sheikh Hasina, he has urged people to refrain from all kinds of violence, warning that if they did not, they risked everything being destroyed.

In an address to the nation on Wednesday, the army chief said he was certain Mr Yunus “will be able to take us through a beautiful democratic process and that we will benefit from this”.

How things turn out is still to be determined – but as far as traffic management goes, the students seem to be doing a good job.

The BBC found it flowing much better than when we visited in January for controversial elections, boycotted by the main opposition, that handed Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League a fourth term in power.

It almost seemed like business as usual when we saw a group of men pulling large metal rods for a construction project.

“The traffic system is better now. The students are managing well. It’s better than when the police were here,” said Mohammed Shwapan, who has been a Dhaka driver for 24 years. “Today is busier than yesterday.”

He supports the choice of interim leader.

“As Mr Yunus is well known internationally, he can mitigate any potential economic collapse.

“I am worried about the international debt, how will Bangladesh be able to manage payments. That’s why I think he can do a good job.”

The challenges ahead are enormous, and not just economic. There are many wounds to heal after Sheikh Hasina’s 15 years in power ended on Monday.

Her government is credited with economic reforms that have improved the standard of living for many in Bangladesh. But she was also accused of serious human rights abuses, including numerous extra-judicial killings and forced disappearances.

Many people have stories to tell of what their families went through.

On the plane to Dhaka, I managed to close my eyes for a few minutes. When I opened them, I found a handwritten note on an airsick bag in the back pocket of the seat in front.

On it, someone had written that his father was killed by Sheikh Hasina and his brother abducted. He had been in self-imposed exile for the last eight years for the safety of his wife and children.

Now he is coming back to what he calls “a free country”, to visit his father’s grave, the note said.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus has been chosen to lead Bangladesh’s interim government after the country’s former prime minister Sheik Hasina resigned and fled the country following weeks of violent unrest.

A well-known critic of Ms Hasina, Mr Yunus called the day of Ms Hasina’s departure Bangladesh’s “second liberation day”.

So what do we know about the 84-year-old Nobel laureate?

One of nine children, Mr Yunus was born to a family of Muslim merchants in the coastal Bangladeshi city of Chittagong. At 25 he travelled to the United States to study under a Fulbright scholarship, and returned to Bangladesh in 1971 – the same year the country won its independence from Pakistan in a brutal, bloody war.

Upon his return, Mr Yunus was elected to head Chittagong University’s economics department, and soon became passionately involved with combatting the famine that ravaged Bangladesh in the mid-70s.

“I became involved in the poverty issue not as a policymaker or a researcher,” he said in a 2005 lecture at the Commonwealth Institute in London. “I became involved because poverty was all around me.

“I could not turn my eyes away from it… I wanted to do something immediate to help people around me.”

It was in this way that Mr Yunus became a pioneer of a concept known as “microcredit”: when people who are too impoverished to borrow from a traditional bank are given extremely small loans, often allowing them to become self-employed.

In 1983 Mr Yunus founded Grameen Bank, the self-proclaimed “pioneer microcredit organisation in the world”, which has since accumulated more than nine million clients.

In a 2002 interview with the BBC, he described microcredit as a “need of the people”.

“Whatever name you give it, you have to have those financial facilities coming to them because it is totally unfair… to deny half the population of the world financial services,” he said.

Mr Yunus’s scheme was so successful that even beggars had been able to borrow money under his scheme.

Both Mr Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Peace Prize in 2006 for their work to “create economic and social development from below”, according to the Nobel Prize website.

Some analysts however have criticised the concept of micro-financial institutions, saying they charge exorbitant interest rates and use coercive debt collection methods.

Mr Yunus himself has weathered a storm of hostility and controversy in Bangladesh though, including from Ms Hasina, the leader he is now set to replace.

He attracted the ire of the former prime minister after announcing plans in 2007 to set up his own “Citizen Power” party.

Ms Hasina notoriously accused Mr Yunus of “sucking blood from the poor”, and in 2011 her government removed him as head of Grameen Bank. In 2013, he faced a state-backed smear campaign that accused him of being un-Islamic and promoting homosexuality, after he signed a joint statement criticising the prosecution of gay people in Uganda.

Mr Yunus has also faced charges based on allegations that he received money without government permission, and more recent allegations that he embezzled money from one of his company’s workers’ benefits fund.

In January of this year he was sentenced to six months in prison for violations of labour law, which he denied, and in June he and 13 others were indicted on embezzlement charges. Although he since been granted bail, he now faces more than 100 cases regarding labour violations and graft accusations.

Mr Yunus has denied all charges, claiming that attacks against him are politically motivated.

Such controversies have done little to Mr Yunus’s appeal with many of his supporters, though, who claim he is being targeted as a result of his acrimonious relations with Ms Hasina.

Asif Mahmud, a key leader of the Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group, posted a striking image to Facebook on Tuesday: a red tile with white text – the same format Mr Mahmud has used for dozens of statements relating to the protests and their aftermath.

This one had just five words: “In Dr Yunus, we trust.”

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.

“Police were exhausted. We heard that they didn’t have adequate ammunition,” retired Brigadier General M Sakhawat Hussain told the BBC.

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

After the meeting, she 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.

“She was adamant, neither would she resign nor was she willing to leave. The three chiefs came, and they tried to make her understand about what’s happening on the ground,” Gen Hussain said.

“They said it would be difficult for the troops to fire on the crowd. They said our troops are also part of the country. They come from villages, they would not open fire on their own people.”

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.

“She resigned when she realised that the army was not supporting her,” M Sakhawat Hussain, the retired brigadier general, said. “People were about to break the curfew and were gathering in Dhaka to march towards her residence.”

But once Sheikh Hasina 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.

The video begins with loud bangs on a door that leads to a dimly lit stairwell.

“They are entering my home arbitrarily. They are destroying the door,” a woman can be heard crying.

It is the voice of María Oropeza, a campaign co-ordinator for opposition coalition Vente Venezuela, who is live streaming her detention on Instagram.

The bangs increase in intensity as she tells her followers that she has done nothing wrong: “I am not a criminal.”

Officials from Venezuela’s military counterintelligence agency then burst through her door and the video cuts to black.

Ms Oropeza is the latest opposition figure who has been detained following the announcement in the early hours of 29 July of Venezuela’s disputed presidential election result.

In the days since, members of the security forces have seized Freddy Superlano and Roland Carreño – both of whom worked for the opposition party Popular Will – and Ricardo Estévez, a technical adviser for the same opposition movement as Ms Oropeza.

Amnesty International told the BBC they had “well-founded reasons to believe [the detained people’s] lives and integrity are at risk”.

The pressure group says that they have been seeing a new pattern of more targeted arrests by the Venezuelan authorities since the election.

Many of those detained have reportedly not been told why they were being arrested.

In the live stream of Ms Oropeza’s detention, she can be heard asking those banging on her door if they have a search warrant. She receives no answer.

Tension has been high since Venezuela’s National Electoral Council declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner of the election – a declaration that was immediately dismissed by the opposition, which said it had proof that it, not the government had won. Mass anti-government protests quickly followed.

President Maduro accused the opposition of instigating a “coup” and announced plans to build two new maximum-security prisons to house protesters it accuses of being “criminal fascists”.

The government says more than 2,000 people have been detained, some of which it accuses of “terrorism”.

Clara del Campo, Amnesty International’s Americas senior campaigner, said the arbitrary detentions had followed a “two-pronged trend”.

“On the one hand, they have been massive and indiscriminate when it comes to protesters who took to the streets to support the opposition’s claim to election victory and, on the other, targeted and selected towards human rights defenders and opposition members,” she explained.

According to Ms del Campo, the mass detention of protesters is aimed at punishing and dissuading people from publicly expressing dissent.

It is an observation echoed by Venezuelan human rights NGO Foro Penal, which told BBC Mundo that it had witnessed an unprecedented “escalation of repression”.

Foro Penal has received reports of people who had their phones checked arbitrarily while they were walking down the street, with the security officials stopping them citing social media posts or messages as the reason for their subsequent arrest.

The NGO told the BBC that people arrested in this manner have typically been held in detention centres without access to independent lawyers.

These detentions have led to a culture of fear, with some people now worried about sharing information on social media, attending protests, or even raising the alarm about people who have been seized for fear of punishment.

President Maduro himself has spoken of a strategy he called “Operation Tun Tun” (Operation Knock Knock).

Rights groups say it consists of the authorities going door-to-door to detain those with links to the protests or the opposition.

More than 2,000 have been detained since the election, according to government figures. Amnesty International says that among them are more than 100 children aged between 13 and 17 and at least six people with disabilities.

Ms Del Campo said those detained were “largely accused of ‘terrorism’ and related crimes, denied legal defence, remain disappeared and incommunicado, and are at high risk of ill treatment”.

She also said that human rights defenders and members of the opposition had been specifically targeted so as to “curtail political participation and the protection of rights”.

One of them is Kennedy Tejeda – a young pro-bono human rights lawyer with Foro Penal – who was arrested as he was trying to assist other people detained for protesting.

As well as implementing its “Operation Knock Knock”, the authorities have also targeted activists and opposition members in other ways.

The BBC has been told about dozens of people, including journalists and activists, whose passports have been revoked.

Edni López, a university professor and humanitarian worker who assisted many NGOs in Venezuela, was detained on the morning of 4 August at the international airport in the capital, Caracas.

She was planning to board a flight to Colombia from where she was going to fly to Argentina for a holiday with friends.

She last contacted her friends and boyfriend from the airport. In Whatsapp messages seen by the BBC, she told them that the migration authorities claimed her passport was “expired”, despite it being in date. They then lost contact with Ms López.

The airport later informed them she did not board her Avianca airlines flight.

A close friend of hers told the BBC that Ms López’s case was not unique: “Many people with no ties to any political cause have stated that their passports have been cancelled as well.”

The friend, who asked to remain unnamed, said that there were apparently “no clear criteria” for deciding whose passports were void and called the detentions “unconstitutional”.

The BBC has approached the Venezuelan government and Avianca for comment. Avianca said it could not comment on specific passenger cases unless ordered to by an authority, but added the airline only allowed passengers who in addition to meeting travel requirements had been approved by the country’s authorities beforehand.

We have not yet received a reply from the government.

Talking to reporters, Edni López’s mother made a plea to the country’s authorities: “Give me back my daughter, it’s not fair that a Venezuelan mother has to go through this.”

She also said that her daughter had a health condition that required daily medication.

After two days in which they visited several detention centres, her family finally learned that she was being held at one of them and told she would be taken to court in the city of La Guaira.

They have so far received no information about the charges being brought against her.

Her friend described the situation as “overwhelming”. “We don’t know the conditions of her captivity.”

Another person close to Ms López told the BBC: “The only reason we think this measure was taken is because she works in the humanitarian sector and because she is a university professor.”

The friend added that they had heard that the charges against Ms López were of a political nature.

“I can attest and testify that Edni has not participated in any political event, much less that she has issued or made a political publication on any [social] network or platform,” the friend insisted.

Ms López is not the only person to be detained at the airport.

A day earlier, prominent LGBT activist Yendri Omar Velásquez was also seized at the same airport as he was trying to leave Venezuela to report human rights violations to the United Nations.

He was told his passport was cancelled and was held for six hours before being released.

The impact of these detentions is immense, not only on those who are seized by the authorities but also on those close to them.

Ms López’s friends and relatives asked not to be named, fearing they could face repercussions for simply highlighting her plight.

Human rights groups say that this fear is exactly what the authorities are trying to achieve.

They argue that by targeting rights activists and lawyers – the very people that those swept up in the mass arrests may turn to for help – those already in detention are further isolated, and those who may think of speaking out will be deterred.

Within hours of Tim Walz being declared winner of the Democratic “veepstakes”, Republican accusations that he is pro-China came thick and fast.

“Communist China is very happy,” Donald Trump’s former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, said on Twitter/X. “No one is more pro-China than Marxist Walz.”

Tom Cotton, a Republican senator, said Mr Walz owed an explanation “about his unusual, 35-year relationship with Communist China”.

MAGA War Room, an influential X account supporting Donald Trump, unearthed a 2016 video in which Mr Walz told the farming policy outlet Agri-Pulse that the US and China did not need to have an “adversarial relationship”.

But what does the record show? Republicans may want to weaponise Mr Walz’s links to China, but it’s pretty slim pickings.

Mr Walz’s personal relationship with China does indeed extend back decades.

It began in 1989 when, fresh out of college, Mr Walz began a Harvard University volunteer programme teaching American history and English at the Foshan No 1 High School in southern China.

He later set up a business with his wife Gwen organising annual summer educational trips to China. The venture lasted more than a decade and by his own estimation, Mr Walz returned to the country around 30 times.

But if anything, Mr Walz has been pretty hawkish towards its government, particularly on human rights.

As a congressman, he met the Dalai Lama and – before his jailing – the high-profile Hong Kong democracy activist, Joshua Wong. Both men would place at the top of the Chinese government’s list of public enemies.

In terms of his congressional record, there is not much for China to like.

He spent over a decade on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China – a body focused on scrutinising the Chinese government’s human rights abuses.

In 2016, the same year he met the Dalai Lama, he also invited the then leader of Tibet’s government in exile, Lobsang Sangay, into his congressional office to meet a group of Minnesota high-schoolers.

Mr Walz lent his strong backing to the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which imposed sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials for human rights abuses during the city’s democracy protests.

Jeffrey Ngo, a democracy activist now based in the US, has praised Mr Walz’s commitment to getting the legislation passed in 2019.

“We knocked on every door when the #HKHRDA lacked momentum,” he wrote on X after Mr Walz was confirmed as the Harris VP choice. “Only Walz answered his.”

Mr Ngo praised Mr Walz as “the sole House Democrat willing to keep co-sponsoring the bill”. Republican Chris Smith was the bill’s other sponsor.

Mr Walz’s elevation to the Democratic ticket has prompted interest on Chinese social media.

He once described his decision to teach in China as “one of the best things I’ve ever done”, and there were signs of hope in some of the comments that, if he wins, it may signal better US-China ties.

One Weibo user pointed out that Walz’s “unique background gives him a real perspective on China”, and he could “promote cultural exchanges when… relations are extremely difficult”.

But others wondered whether that may be assuming too much.

The fact that his teaching posting took place in 1989 – the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing – was not lost on some.

The Chinese cannot say much about the massacre for risk of getting censored. They refer to it obliquely – one comment simply said “if you know, you know”.

Foreigners who were in China at that time “are the most anti-China”, said another user.

Indeed, Mr Walz has often spoken publicly about his horror at the crushing of the Tiananmen protests, and in 2009 he co-sponsored a resolution in Congress marking its 20th anniversary.

His wife Gwen has said that the events had such an effect on Walz, that he chose 4 June – the day Beijing sent the troops in – as the date of their wedding five years later. She said that “he wanted to have a date he’ll always remember”.

For more than two decades after Tiananmen, America’s foreign policy was founded on a deep, bipartisan agreement that trade and engagement with China was broadly a good thing.

It is no surprise that evidence can be found of Mr Walz expressing views that align with that consensus.

On the flip side, Donald Trump’s own-brand suits and ties were made in China, and he and his daughter Ivanka registered dozens of trademarks there.

Far from being pro-China, Mr Walz’s record marks him out as someone who has taken a more nuanced view.

He has spoken of the need for dialogue and cooperation on issues such as trade and climate change – but remains fiercely critical when it comes to human rights.

That stance was in evidence from the very start of the relationship. When returning to Nebraska after his year in China, he told a local newspaper that there were “no limits” to what the Chinese could accomplish.

“If they had proper leadership,” he added.

Taylor Swift fans with tickets to her concerts in Vienna have said they are “devastated” that the shows have been cancelled, but that they understand why and are grateful to police.

Austrian authorities have said a supporter of the Islamic State group was planning an attack on her stadium shows, which were due to take place on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

About 200,000 fans were expected to attend across the three nights, which are part of the US superstar’s record-breaking Eras tour.

They include Jessica Holroyd, who had flown to the city for the gig from Bristol.

“I found out the news when I was in the airport, and I had a bit of a cry in the airport toilets,” she said.

“It’s all quite emotional. I’ve been a fan since I was 15 and I’m 32 soon, so it’s just quite devastating, really.”

Ms Holroyd said the gigs were “such a momentous occasion for loads of people”.

“It feels like it might be the only opportunity to see her, particularly the Eras tour, so it just feels like a huge loss.”

However, she said she thought Austrian police had “handled it really well”.

“And as sad as it is, it seems like the best decision for everyone’s safety – the fans and the crew and Taylor, of course. It’s not worth the loss of life.”

Fellow Swiftie Natascha Strobl, an Austrian political scientist and author, was planning to go to two of the three gigs, and said she was “absolutely devastated”.

“I was looking forward to it for over a year, and made bracelets and planned outfits and planned the whole day,” she told BBC News.

“There are people sitting in hotel rooms who don’t know what to do, people who are supposed to fly over who don’t know what to do now. They’re in shock. There’s a lot of crying, of course.”

But she agreed that there could be “no debate when it comes to security”.

“If it’s not safe, it’s not safe,” she said, explaining that no-one could risk the prospect of a repeat of previous “devastating and shocking” atrocities like at Manchester arena, when 22 people were killed in a suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017.

Last week, three young girls were killed in a knife attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport.

“Of course, safety is paramount,” Ms Strobl said. “But still, we’re allowed to feel absolutely terrible about it.”

The news about the Vienna plotters has made people more nervous, she said.

“That’s what they want. They want to make us feel unsafe. They want to disturb our everyday life. So they won at least a little bit. And that’s just heartbreaking.

“I want to meet up with the others [fans] and at least console ourselves and be sad together, because we really, really wanted to go to the concerts, and being sad alone in our homes or hotel rooms is not helping anybody.”

Another fan, Nelo, had been planning to travel from his home in Slovenia.

“We were all preparing. We were all making the costumes. And we’ve been doing this for weeks, for months,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Adrian Chiles.

“It’s a big thing in life for such a concert to happen so nearby. So we were all very excited, really putting a lot of effort in.

“Then yesterday in the evening, we heard the first of the news that there were terrorists arrested. We were in a bit of in disbelief but we thought, OK, they’re going to heighten up the security measures and everything will be OK.

“But then we heard late in the evening that actually it’s all been cancelled, and it suddenly dawned upon us that the situation is really serious.”

Two suspects, aged 19 and 17, have been arrested.

The head of Austria’s domestic intelligence service, Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, told a news conference the 19-year-old had planned to carry out an attack using explosives and knives.

“We have seized these weapons and he considered either possibility and his goal was to kill himself and a large number of people either today or tomorrow at the concert,” Mr Haijawi-Pirchner said.

Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said: “The situation was serious, but a tragedy had been prevented.”

Swift said in a 2019 interview that an attack on one of her gigs was “her biggest fear”.

“After the Manchester Arena bombing and the Vegas concert shooting [also in 2017], I was completely terrified to go on tour this time because I didn’t know how we were going to keep three million fans safe over seven months,” she told Elle at the time.

“There was a tremendous amount of planning, expense, and effort put into keeping my fans safe.”

The next concerts in the singer’s schedule are in London, with five nights at Wembley Stadium from next Thursday.

A spokesman for the city’s Metropolitan Police said it worked “closely with venue security teams and other partners to ensure there are appropriate security and policing plans in place”.

They added: “There is nothing to indicate that the matters being investigated by the Austrian authorities will have an impact on upcoming events here in London.

“As always, we will continue to keep any new information under careful review.”

Chris Phillips, former head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, said the incident was “another reminder if we need it that terrorism and Islamic terrorism in particular is still an issue”.

However, fans going to the UK gigs should be “no more [worried] today than you were yesterday”, he told 5 Live.

“There’s an enormous amount of work behind the scenes which you’ll never hear about, and you don’t even see the results because a success is when nothing happens,” he said.

“I imagine as well that Taylor Swift, after the recent events in Southport, would be particularly sensitive to anything like this happening, and so would her management team.

“So maybe that’s the rationale behind cancelling these, particularly if they’ve arrested the two suspects.”

X can feel like two parallel universes at times.

There’s the version where the president of the United States chooses the platform to announce he won’t be running for re-election. That’s the one where the worldwide authority on a particular subject uses X to offer their expert take on unfolding events.

And then there’s the version where false claims, hate and conspiracy theories, including many posts relating to the recent riots and protests across the UK, are recommended to millions who have made absolutely no attempt to seek them out.

At the centre of it all is X’s owner Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest people. But this isn’t just a story about the monetisation strategy and algorithms employed by X under his tenure and how they are boosting divisive content.

It is increasingly also a story about how Mr Musk himself is choosing to wade in, overtly, to opine on unrest in the UK.

And nobody is quite sure what his game plan is.

Mr Musk bought what was then called Twitter in 2022. In November 2023, the site reinstated the account of the previously banned far-right activist and convicted criminal, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson.

Then this week, Mr Musk responded to a post from Yaxley-Lennon with two exclamation marks – in other words, stirring the pot.

Yaxley-Lennon had taken aim at UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for his words after riots broke out following the murder of three girls in Southport. Yaxley-Lennon had accused the Prime Minister of labelling everyone upset about the murders as “thugs”. Mr Starmer’s speech had specifically referred to thugs as being those throwing bricks at police officers.

Yaxley-Lennon had also been critical of the prime minister’s comments about increasing policing powers in response to the riots.

Mr Musk then later went on to suggest, in response to a video of rioting, that “civil war is inevitable”. The prime minister’s spokesperson said there was “no justification” for this claim.

Mr Musk doubled down again – responding to the prime minister’s post about attacks on Muslim communities by asking: “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?” And Mr Musk repeated the remark in a tweet of his own, making allegations about violence from anti-racist and Muslim counter-protesters and accusing the police of a “one-sided” approach.

It’s not as if X didn’t already contain plenty of content around events in Southport before Mr Musk’s interventions.

False claims that the person responsible for the killings in Southport was a Muslim refugee who arrived in the UK by boat in 2023 spread like wildfire across X. They then spilled out on to other social media platforms and were also posted on some Telegram channels – but much of the most frenzied, amplified conversation was happening on X.

The claims were shared by pseudo-news accounts, profiles with a track record of promoting evidence-free conspiracy theories about everything from the pandemic and vaccines to wars – and then also by prominent political commentators, politicians and influencers.

The profiles reaching the most users with these ideas had often purchased blue ticks meaning their posts were granted more prominence on the platform.

Mr Musk, with his own blue tick and 193 million followers, has been interacting with some profiles sharing divisive content and, in doing so, amplifying their message.

There’s not currently a definitive answer as to what is driving Mr Musk.

His presence as an active player on his own platform is certainly keeping X talked about.

For all the furore around his ownership of X, last month the site said it had 251 million global daily active users in the second quarter of this year, an increase of 1.6% from the same period of the previous year. Of course, this can be attributed to a range of factors – like what’s happening in the world. While these figures represented a drop in growth, X is still a focal point for digital conversations.

For all the warnings that X would cease to exist under Elon Musk, a variety of different users are continuing to post – including many world leaders and prominent political figures of all stripes.

It may also have something to do with Mr Musk’s views on threats of regulation – and in the UK specifically, the Online Safety Act, which was passed under the previous government.

When this comes into full effect in 2025 it will require social media firms to remove illegal content, including where it is “racially or religiously aggravated”. Mr Musk has repeatedly been vocal about his concerns that attempts by governments to regulate social media sites – like his own – risk infringing freedom of speech.

Others wonder if he has simply spent too much time on X. Sander van der Linden, a professor of social psychology at the University of Cambridge, has suggested that Mr Musk may be “radicalising himself on his own platform”.

Of course, the reasons for the protests and riots in the UK clearly extend far beyond social media.

It’s also the case that the Twitter of old, the pre-Musk version, was far from perfect.

There were accusations of bias and suggestions its moderation policies curbed freedom of expression for particular types of accounts. It also had trolls aplenty. But on paper, its policies and approach were different – and, simply from analysing my own feed before and after the takeover, it different.

Straight after the takeover, Mr Musk stated the importance of fairness to all sides – including in terms of what then-Twitter allowed to be shared on the site. He has made clear that freedom of expression is a central priority at X – and as a private citizen, like any user, he’s entitled to share his opinion about politics or other topics.

It is a recent development on Mr Musk’s part, though, to decide so clearly to back specific political positions and candidates.

Take, for example, the way he endorsed Donald Trump after the assassination attempt, or the content he shares that is critical of Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris. He’s shared some posts that are very hostile to some liberal views.

Now he has decided to voice opinions on some of the most sensitive issues in British life, too.

What has evolved is a complex dynamic. As owner, Elon Musk oversees decisions made by X that have affected what content is permitted and actively recommended to users. At the same time, his account is thought to be the world’s most followed and itself plays a significant role in shaping the tone of some of X’s most promoted and contentious content.

I’ve repeatedly approached the social media company in relation to the rioting in the UK, including multiple interview requests for Mr Musk. I even posted on X asking him. He has not responded to any of my interview requests.

Mr Musk has highlighted his concerns that the media doesn’t hold power to account any more. And yet most of the time, when I want to ask questions of both him and of X – there is no response from the social media company. X continues to share in its publicly available guidelines that its priority is protecting and defending the user’s voice.

So instead, I have to settle with imagining what I’d say to him if he finally did agree to speak.

I think one of the first things I’d ask would be: “What’s your game plan?”

It’s a question only he can answer.

What connects a dad living in Lahore in Pakistan, an amateur hockey player from Nova Scotia – and a man named Kevin from Houston, Texas?

They’re all linked to Channel3Now – a website whose story giving a false name for the 17-year-old charged over the Southport attack was widely quoted in viral posts on X. Channel3Now also wrongly suggested the attacker was an asylum seeker who arrived in the UK by boat last year.

This, combined with untrue claims the attacker was a Muslim from other sources, has been widely blamed for contributing to riots across the UK – some of which have targeted mosques and Muslim communities.

The BBC has tracked down several people linked to Channel3Now, spoken to their friends and colleagues, who have corroborated that they are real people, and questioned a person who claims to be the “management” at the site.

What I found appears to be a commercial operation attempting to aggregate crime news while making money on social media. I did not find any evidence to substantiate claims that Channel3Now’s misinformation could be linked to the Russian state.

The person claiming to be from Channel3Now’s management told me that the publication of the false name “shouldn’t have happened, but it was an error, not intentional”.

The false article did not have a named byline, and it is unclear exactly who wrote it.

———

A Nova Scotia amateur hockey player called James is the first person I track down linked to Channel3Now. His name appears as a rare byline on the site on a different article, and an image of him pops up on a related LinkedIn page.

A Facebook account linked to James has just four friends, one of whom is named Farhan. His Facebook profile says he’s a journalist for the site.

I message dozens of their followers. A social media account for the school where James played hockey, and one of his friends, confirm to me he is a real person who graduated four years ago. When I get in touch, his friend says James wants to know “what would his involvement be about in the article?”. After I respond, there is no denial James is affiliated with the site – and his friend stops replying.

Former colleagues of Farhan, several based in Pakistan, confirm his identity. On his social media profiles he posts about his Islamic faith and his children. His name is not featured on the false article.

Not long after I message, Farhan blocks me on Instagram, but I finally hear back from Channel3Now’s official email.

The person who gets in touch says he is called Kevin, and that he is based in Houston, Texas. He declines to share his surname and it is unclear if Kevin is actually who he says he is, but he agrees to answer questions over email.

Kevin says he is speaking to me from the site’s “main office” in the US – which fits with both the timings of the social media posts on some of the site’s social media profiles, and the times Kevin replies to my emails.

He signs off initially as “the editor-in-chief” before he tells me he is actually the “verification producer”. He refuses to share the name of the owner of the site who he says is worried “not only about himself but also about everyone working for him”.

Kevin claims there are “more than 30” people in the US, UK, Pakistan and India who work for the site, usually recruited from sites for freelancers – including Farhan and James. He says how Farhan in particular was not involved in the false Southport story, which the site has publicly apologised for, and blamed “our UK-based team”.

Listen to Marianna read her article

In the aftermath of the false claims shared by Channel3Now, it was accused of being linked to the Russian state on the basis of old videos on its YouTube channel in Russian.

Kevin says the site purchased a former Russian-language YouTube channel which focused on car rallies “many years ago” and later changed its name.

There were no videos posted to the account for around six years before it began uploading content related to Pakistan – where Farhan is based and where the site admits to having writers.

“Just because we purchased a YouTube channel from a Russian seller doesn’t mean we have any affiliations,” Kevin says.

“We are an independent digital news media website covering news from around the world.”

It is possible to buy and re-purpose a channel that has already been monetised by YouTube. It can be a quick way to build an audience, enabling the account to start making money right away.

Although I’ve found no evidence to back up these claims of Russian links to Channel3Now, pro-Kremlin Telegram channels did reshare and amplify the site’s false posts. This is a tactic they often use.

Kevin said the site is a commercial operation and “covering as many stories as possible” helps it generate income. The majority of its stories are accurate – seemingly drawing from reliable sources about shootings and car accidents in the US. However, the site has shared further false speculation about the Southport attacker and also the person who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump.

Following the false Southport story and media coverage about Channel3Now, Kevin says its YouTube channel and almost all of its “multiple Facebook pages” have been suspended, but not its X accounts. A Facebook page exclusively re-sharing content from the site called the Daily Felon also remains live.

Kevin says that the blame for social media storm relating to the Southport suspect and the subsequent riots cannot be laid squarely on a “small Twitter account” making “a mistake”.

To some extent, he is right. Channel3Now’s incorrect story did become a source cited by lots of social media accounts which made the false accusations go viral.

Several of these were based in the UK and the US, and have a track record of posting disinformation about subjects such as the pandemic, vaccines and climate change. These profiles have been able to amass sizeable followings, and push their content out to more people, following changes Elon Musk made after buying Twitter.

One profile – belonging to a woman called Bernadette Spofforth – has been accused of making the first post featuring the false name of the Southport attacker. She denied being its source, saying she saw the name online in another post that has since been deleted.

​​Speaking to the BBC on the phone, she said she was “horrified” about the attack but deleted her post as soon as she realised it was false. She said she was “not motivated by making money” on her account.

​​“Why on earth would I make something up like that? I have nothing to gain and everything to lose,” she said. ​​She condemned the recent violence.

Ms Spofforth had previously shared posts raising questions about lockdown and net-zero climate change measures. However, her profile was temporarily removed by Twitter back in 2021 following allegations she was promoting misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine and the pandemic. She disputed the claims and said she believed Covid is real.

​​Since Mr Musk’s takeover, her posts have received more than a million views fairly regularly.

The false claim that Ms Spofforth posted about the Southport attacker was quickly re-shared and picked up by a loose group of conspiracy theory influencers and profiles with a history of sharing anti-immigration and far-right ideas.

Many of them have purchased blue ticks, which since Mr Musk took over Twitter has meant their posts have greater prominence.

Another of Mr Musk’s changes to X has meant promoting these ideas can be profitable, both for conspiracy theory accounts and for accounts with a commercial focus such as Channel3Now.

Some profiles like this have racked up millions of views over the past week posting about the Southport attacks and subsequent riots. X’s “ads revenue sharing” means that blue-tick users can earn a share of revenue from the ads in their replies.

Estimates from users with fewer than half a million followers who have generated income in this way say that accounts can make $10-20 per million views or impressions on X. Some of these accounts sharing disinformation are racking up more than a million impressions almost every post, and sharing posts several times a day.

Other social media companies – aside from X – also allow users to make money from views. But YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook have previously de-monetised or suspended some profiles posting content that break their guidelines on misinformation. Apart from rules against faked AI content, X does not have guidelines on misinformation.

While there have been calls from politicians for social media companies to do more in the wake of the riots, the UK’s recently enacted Online Safety Bill does not currently legislate against disinformation, after concerns that that could limit freedom of expression.

Plus, as I found tracking down the writers for Channel3Now, the people involved in posting false information are often based abroad, making it a lot trickier to take action against them.

Instead, the power to deal with this kind of content right now lies with the social media companies themselves. X has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

When Kyiv launched a cross-border raid into Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine, the question from some military experts was: “Why?”

One of Ukraine’s biggest battlefield issues is manpower. Russia has more soldiers and is inching closer to the eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk.

So, sending hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers into Russia itself is, shall we say, counterintuitive in the eyes of some.

But not all.

“It wasn’t accidental,” said war expert Kostyantyn Mashovets in a Facebook post. “It’s clearly part of one clear plan.”

Mykhaylo Zhyrokhov, a military analyst, agrees. He told the BBC that Russia had been forced to redeploy some troops there from the front line in eastern Ukraine.

“If you look at official reports, there were significantly fewer Russian glide bombs dropped in the Donetsk area,” he said.

“That means the aircraft which carry them are now elsewhere in Russia.”

This incursion is extremely unlikely to be Ukraine looking to occupy Russian territory, but if pulling in Russian forces was a goal, it is quickly being realised.

Recent history could be playing a role too. Russia launched a major cross-border offensive of its own into Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region.

The advance seems to have slowed after the US gave Ukraine permission to use its missiles on targets inside Russia.

Ukrainian fears of a similar attack into the northern Sumy region have been mounting in the subsequent three months.

Given constant Western worries of the war escalating, it’s likely some sort of permission was granted for an operation of this size on Russian soil.

In general, very few senior Ukrainian figures are saying much about this attack.

The president’s office told us: “No comment, yet.”

While similar incursions have happened before, it is the first time regular Ukrainian forces have been used in this way.

Where there is much more chatter, is across the border.

Russian military channels were quick to report the assault involving hundreds of troops and several rocket and drone attacks.

Local officials were also swift in announcing casualties and evacuations. Neighbouring regions expressed a willingness to accept those forced from their homes.

A state of emergency has been declared there as well.

Russia’s Defence Ministry even admitted troops were being redeployed in the direction of Sudzha, a town in the Kursk region.

At the top of the food chain there was Vladimir Putin being publicly briefed by his security chiefs. His Foreign Ministry spokesperson called the attack “barbaric” and “terrorist”.

It was a Russian response which suggested it had been blindsided in a war of recent familiarity.

Until yesterday Russia had steadily been capturing territory while outnumbering Ukrainian forces.

Now it has something else to think about.

The assault is already being presented by the Kremlin as evidence as to why it should continue to wage its war – an invasion it still frames as “defensive”.

“There are more questions than answers from events in the Kursk region,” suggests Military analyst Mykhaylo Zhyrokhov.

Clearly for Ukraine, if it stalls or even prevents Russia from mounting a major attack in its north, it will see this operation as worth it.

“The more pressure is exerted on the aggressor that brought the war to Ukraine,” said President Zelensky in his evening address, “The closer peace will be.”

“Just peace through just force.”

A man takes his daughter to a pop concert, only to discover when he arrives that the whole thing is a sting operation set up by the FBI to try and entrap a dangerous criminal.

Although the concert is real, the venue is swarming with police and special agents, watching the audience like hawks in the hope of finally catching the fugitive they’ve been chasing for months.

It sounds like something from a movie – and that’s exactly what it is. Trap is the latest release from M. Night Shyamalan, a director famous for high-concept films with big twists such as The Sixth Sense.

But the events of the film are actually inspired by a real-life case from four decades ago, known as Operation Flagship.

The 1985 sting saw more than 100 criminals arrested after they were lured to a fake TV station thinking they had won free NFL tickets.

Around 3,000 fugitives were offered complimentary tickets to watch a Washington Redskins game, and were told they’d also have the chance to win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Super Bowl.

But when nearly 120 of them turned up at the headquarters of a fictional TV company to claim their prize, they were arrested. It is an extraordinary story, which provided the film’s stimulus.

“I heard about it when I was a kid and I thought it was totally absurdist, that this actually happened,” Shyamalan tells BBC News.

“It was something that was in my head a lot when it happened… This was real-life criminals, FBI and police. They dressed up as cheerleaders and mascots and were dancing around with them and goofing around with them.”

He notes: “Probably today they couldn’t do anything like this, but back in those days they were literally partying with them.

“They were like ‘come on in the room!’ and then checked their names and made sure it was the right people, and got around them and said ‘you’re all under arrest’.”

The sting took place on 15 December 1985, when Washington Redskins were due to play the Cincinnati Bengals.

The fugitives who had been targeted by the US Marshals service were told they had been randomly selected from a list of Washington DC residents to receive two free tickets.

The game was due to start at 1pm, but the apparent competition winners were invited to show up in the morning to receive their tickets. They would be transported by bus to and from the game that afternoon. Or so they were told.

“We sent out invitations to a little under 3,000 fugitives, to a brunch at the Washington Convention Centre,” recalled Toby Roche in a 2016 documentary about the sting.

Roche was the chief deputy of the US Marshals at the time – but for the purposes of Operation Flagship, he was posing as an event usher.

“My role were to make sure that the fugitives who turned up were in fact fugitives,” he said, explaining that the agents had code words for the level of criminals.

“A ‘confirmed winner’ was someone who was wanted. A ‘double winner’ was a dangerous person; someone who’d had aggravated assault, murder or robbery.”

His colleague Bob Leschorn, the chief deputy of enforcement in the US Marshals, was posing as the CEO of the fictional US cable TV network – Flagship International Sports Television.

“We had 119 extremely lucky individuals, who, by chance, were all wanted on criminal warrants,” Leschorn recalled with a smile.

But instead of heading to the game, he said, “they won a trip to the DC jail”.

The agents used reverse psychology to help coax as many of the criminals to the event as possible.

The winners were told over the phone that if they didn’t redeem their tickets and bring their ID, the prize would be given to someone else.

“And that really [made them say], ‘wait a minute, you’re not going to give my Redskin tickets away, I’ll be there’,” Leschorn explained.

With the stage set, the US Marshals ensured everything surrounding the fake TV station looked visually authentic.

Marshals were dressed in tuxedos and told to smile politely at the criminals they usually chase. Several of the female officers were even enlisted to be cheerleaders.

When the fugitives arrived, the cheerleaders would be physically affectionate with them, putting their arms around them and so on. In reality, they were patting them down to make sure they weren’t carrying weapons.

Not that there was much risk of that, noted Howard Safir, associate director of operations at the US Marshals, who was posing as marketing expert for the day.

“Sting operations are a safe way to arrest fugitives,” he pointed out. “They usually will not come with weapons, their minds are diverted, they’re in a festive mood.”

Once they had arrived and confirmed their identities, the fugitives were taken in groups of about 15 to a hall with a stage.

“We’ve got a big surprise for you,” said the speaker. “Everybody’s under arrest.”

The criminals were surrounded, and escorted out in handcuffs. In total, 101 arrests were made.

“It was party time,” US marshal for the District of Columbia Herbert M. Rutherford told the Associated Press afterwards. “And they fell for it hook, line and sinker.”

Some of the fugitives struggled to comprehend what had happened, even after they’d been caught.

As the buses carrying the fugitives were pulling away, one asked: “Do we still get to go to the game?”

Trap, released in the UK this weekend, is not the story of Operation Flagship – the film is set in the world of music rather than sport – but its premise shares the same DNA.

The singer performing at the concert which provides the film’s backdrop is Lady Raven, played by Shyamalan’s own daughter Saleka.

Although a new story, Shyamalan remembered Operation Flagship as he began formulating Trap, saying he was attracted to “the absurdity of it against the reality of it” .

“[The authorities] used the absurdity against them because they lowered their guard, which I thought was quite brilliant,” he tells the BBC.

“So it just stuck with me, and I guess when Saleka and I were thinking about a movie at a concert, I wondered, why would this person not be able to get out, and how can I keep them there?”

He said Trap is spiritually similar to the real-life case, even if the film is not a direct re-telling.

“It was just the spirit of the idea of being trapped in the absurdity of it,” the director explains. “I thought it would be super funny, because when you see the footage of [Operation Flagship] it’s hilarious.”

Oddly, the film wasn’t screened for critics prior to its US release last week – something which usually is a signal that a studio knows their movie is a dud.

However, some critics were able to write reviews once the film had opened to the public.

Lindsey Bahr of the Associated Press described it as a “popcorn movie” which is “ultimately a pretty fun time at the theatre”.

But, she added, the film is somewhat “underbaked, a ridiculous ride that’s not going to get under your skin or provide for a lot of discussion fodder afterwards”.

The film didn’t impress Variety’s Owen Gleiberman, who said Trap was a “thriller where each twist is more contrived than the last”, while the Guardian’s Benjamin Lee branded the film “a mess”.

The Wrap’s William Bibbiani was more measured, writing: “Trap doesn’t have the depth of Shyamalan’s most important films or the theatricality of his most memorably weird experiments.

“But it’s one of his best thrillers. A tightly wound, devilishly fun, mean little film that dares us to consider the serial killer genre from new angles.”

A US judge has thrown out most of a $10bn (£7.8bn) lawsuit brought by Mexico against US gun manufacturers it says are fuelling rampant weapons trafficking that brings 500,000 guns south across the border every year.

Of the eight companies Mexico sued in 2021, six were dismissed by a judge who said that the country’s claims that US gun manufacturers are responsible for weapons trafficking to violent drug cartels are “gossamer-thin at best”.

The companies have long argued that Mexico cannot prove that violence is the fault of gun manufacturers.

Mexico’s foreign ministry told Reuters it would continue its legal action and considering filing an appeal.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal courthouse in Massachusetts – where several of the companies are based – argued that the “flood” of illegal guns in Mexico “is the foreseeable result of the defendants’ deliberate actions and business practices”.

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While the cases against many of the companies were dismissed, Smith & Wesson Brands and Witmer Public Safety Group remain defendants following the judge’s ruling.

“This decision does not affect the lawsuit against these two companies nor does it absolve the other six companies of responsibility,” Mexico’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

“Mexico is exploring various options, including a possible appeal or resorting to other federal courts in the US,” the statement added.

The BBC has contacted Mexico’s government for comment.

In his decision, US District Judge Dennis Saylor wrote that Mexico did not adequately prove that any firearms sold in Massachusetts caused the country harm.

Mexico has for years argued that the country’s extremely restrictive laws on gun sales make legal purchases difficult, driving criminal organisations to look to the US to purchase thousands of weapons.

There is only one gun shop in Mexico, located in a Mexico City military complex. Buyers there are required to submit to exhaustive background checks that can often take months.

Given the restrictions, Mexican authorities believe that a large portion of southern-bound weapons are bought legally by ‘straw buyers’, who then unlawfully pass them to criminals.

US gun manufacturers, for their part, have long argued Mexico cannot draw a line between the violence and their firms.

Additionally, the companies say that US law protects the companies from liability over the misuse of their products.

More than 30,000 people were murdered in Mexico in 2023, according to Mexican government statistics.

Beijing is cracking down on “aggressive fans” who it says are affecting the performance of Chinese athletes at the Paris Olympics – the latest in its years-long war against celebrity worship.

In recent days, state media reports have called out “inappropriate” behaviour, such as fans booing during events or accusing referees of being unfair.

This “fan culture”, they said, reached a peak on 3 August when paddler Chen Meng defeated teammate Sun Yingsha to win gold in the table tennis women’s singles.

The Chinese internet exploded with support for Ms Sun despite her loss, with some denouncing Ms Chen’s victory, saying she won only because Ms Sun was exhausted from three earlier events.

Chinese social media platforms have collectively removed tens of thousands of posts and banned over 800 accounts for allegedly “spreading negativity and fomenting conflict” about the event.

One of Ms Sun’s fans wrote that she “wishes Chen tests positive for a banned substance, then the gold medal can go to [Sun],” sparking anger online.

A 29-year-old woman has also been arrested for posting defamatory comments about the match.

It’s not clear what she had said but police said on Tuesday that she “maliciously fabricated information and blatantly defamed others, resulting in an adverse impact on society”.

This is the latest in Beijing’s crackdown on what it calls “toxic” celebrity culture.

Previously, China has seen the banning of celebrity rankings, the restructuring of fan clubs, and the regular scrubbing of “harmful” content from fan pages.

In the last few days, the state-run Global Times newspaper published several articles denouncing “fan culture” in sports.

One of its reports said “numerous Chinese people” were now worried about “the visibly aggressive fan culture that threatens to erode the sporting world”.

In addition to inflammatory comments directed at sporting personalities, authorities have also criticised fans who cheer loudly or use flash photography during matches, and those who profit by selling memorabilia signed by athletes.

“The [fan culture] not only affects the training and competition of Chinese athletes, but also seriously affects the reputation of Chinese sports,” state news agency Xinhua said in a video report on Wednesday.

Shanghai Daily published a commentary urging social media platforms to “enforce strict policies against malicious behaviours” and sporting organisations to “take a firm stance against… fan mania”.

Chinese authorities had warned against “fan culture” even before the Paris Olympics.

Late last year, the Chinese Olympic Committee and General Administration of Sport of China told fans off after repeated incidents of them filming and following athletes.

“It seems that these ‘low-level fans’ are driven by their love for idols and impulsively make irrational actions that endanger the normal order of events, public order and good customs, sportsmanship and social morality,” they had said in a joint statement.

Ahead of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the committee warned Chinese Olympians not to get involved in fan clubs, adding that it wants to “resolutely put an end to the spread of the chaos of fan culture to the field of sports”.

The athletes themselves have said they want to be treated with “respect”. Veteran table tennis player Deng Yaping, for instance, had urged fans to “express our preferences without attacking others”.

She added: “We must respect each other and leave space for everyone.”

America was introduced to a fresh political family on Tuesday when Vice-President Kamala Harris appointed Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.

While Gwen Walz, the two-term governor’s wife, may not officially be on the ticket, her background is getting plenty of attention too.

An educator for more than two decades and life-long Minnesotan, Ms Walz was an agenda setter during her husband’s time in office.

She prioritized education and criminal justice reform, initiatives that could see traction in Washington with a Harris-Walz White House.

Ms Walz, 58, met the Minnesota governor when the two were teaching in Nebraska.

They married in 1994 and share two children Hope and Gus.

Mr Walz has previously spoken about the couple’s infertility struggles and how they used IVF to conceive.

While Mr Walz created a social-media forward platform for himself during his time as governor, Ms Walz appears to have taken on a less-public role.

She only created an Instagram account in recent days. She also participated in few media interviews as Minnesota’s First Lady.

When she does speak publicly, however, it is often about her commitment to education, criminal justice reform and how the two intersect.

“Education is transformational. And I believe that in every sense of the word,” Ms Walz said during a 2019 interview with PBS. “And if we’re going to solve problems, we have to look at real ways to solve problems. And education is a real predictor of not going back to prison.”

Her first public event as first lady of Minnesota was a rally for restoring convicted felons’ voting rights.

Ms Walz also chaired a task force on recidivism and toured state prisons.

“It’s a crucial conversation to have,” Ms Walz said in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio in 2019. “I’m convinced that people are looking for ways to address all kinds of different issues within corrections and within criminal justice.”

She is said to advise her husband and she is the first Minnesota governor’s spouse to have an office in the state capitol.

Since her launch into national politics this week, she’s also been on the receiving end of criticism from the right, especially for comments she made during Minneapolis’ 2020 racial justice protests following the death of George Floyd.

In a now viral clip, Ms Walz described the smell of the burning tires and said she kept the window open for as long as she could “because I felt that was such a touchstone of what was happening”.

Republicans are using the clip to cast Ms Walz, and her husband, as too far-left for voters.

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A study of samples taken from inside the bodies of centuries-old coral has revealed the threat climate change now poses to the Great Barrier Reef.

Researchers in Australia say temperatures in and around the vast coral reef over the past decade are the highest recorded in 400 years.

Extreme heat has already caused five mass bleaching events in the past nine years alone.

Writing in the journal Nature, the scientists behind the study say increased temperatures, driven by climate change, now pose an “existential threat” to this natural wonder of the world.

“The science tells us that the Great Barrier Reef is in danger – and we should be guided by the science,” Prof Helen McGregor, from the University of Wollongong, told BBC News.

The new evidence comes from within the coral itself.

Over many years, marine scientists have collected cores – samples drilled out of the skeletons of coral – which provide chemical clues about how the environment around the reef has changed as the coral developed.

Coral – which are animals, not plants – can live for centuries, laying down chemical indicators about their natural environment.

Researchers in Australia re-examined the data from thousands of these cores and cross-referenced them with historical sea temperature records from the UK’s Hadley Centre.

The research showed temperatures around the Great Barrier Reef in the previous decade were the warmest of the past 400 years.

“The recent events in the Great Barrier Reef are extraordinary,” said lead researcher Dr Benjamin Henley, who carried out the study whilst working at Wollongong University.

“Unfortunately, this is terrible news for the reef.”

“There is still a glimmer of hope though,” he added. “If we can come together and restrict global warming, then there’s a glimmer of hope for this reef, and others around the world, to survive in their current state.”

Corals have adapted to survive and grow within a specific temperature range – forming a skeleton that provides a living habitat for other marine life.

Corals exist in a symbiotic partnership with a special type of marine plant – a species of algae – which lives inside the coral, providing it with food and giving it its bright colour.

Bleaching occurs when sea temperatures rise too high and corals expel their algae, subsequently turning white.

“It’s not a pretty sight,” said Dr Henley. “Eventually [other] algae grows on the surface of the white coral, turning it brown.

“While bleached coral can recover, if the heat does not relent, it doesn’t have the chance to,” he explained.

“I’m a little reluctant to say things are doomed,” said Prof McGregor.

“Reefs have survived a lot of change over geological time. So I guess the question comes down to – what kind of reef do we end up with?

“It won’t be like what we have now.”

The Great Barrier Reef is currently a Unesco World Heritage site. Scientists hope that this research could persuade the UN organisation to change its mind and give the reef official “endangered” status.

Prof McGregor said this “would send a huge signal to the world about how grave the problem is”.

“We know what we need to do,” she added. “We have international agreements in place [to limit global temperature rise].

“I think we just need to put the politics aside and get on with it.”

A renowned British crocodile expert has been jailed for 10 years and five months in Australia, after admitting to sexually abusing dozens of dogs, in a case which horrified the nation.

Adam Britton, a leading zoologist who has worked on BBC and National Geographic productions, pleaded guilty to 56 charges relating to bestiality and animal cruelty.

He also admitted to four counts of accessing child abuse material.

The Northern Territory (NT) Supreme Court heard the 53-year-old filmed himself torturing the animals until almost all died, and then shared the videos online under pseudonyms.

His abuse went unnoticed for years, until a clue was found in one of his videos. Britton was arrested in April 2022 after a search of his rural Darwin property, which also uncovered child abuse material on his laptop.

Much of the detail of Britton’s crimes are too graphic to publish, and so “grotesque” Chief Justice Michael Grant warned the courtroom they could cause “nervous shock”.

As the facts of the case were read aloud, some members of the public rushed outside. Others watching from the gallery cried and mouthed insults at Britton. He at times hung his head and reached for tissues.

Calling the offending “devious”, Justice Grant said the “unalloyed pleasure” Britton took in torturing the animals was “sickeningly evident”.

“[Your] depravity falls entirely outside any ordinary human conception,” he said.

Including time already served, Britton could be eligible for parole in September 2028. He is also banned from owning any mammals for the rest of his life.

Mr Britton’s lawyer argued his offending was driven by a rare disorder causing intense, atypical sexual interests.

In court on Thursday, they read out a letter from Britton, who apologised for his “demeaning crimes”.

“I deeply regret the pain and trauma that I caused to innocent animals and consequently to my family, friends and members of the community,” it said.

Adding that his family was not aware or involved in any way, he wrote: “I will seek long term treatment and… I will find a path towards redemption.”

Born in West Yorkshire, Britton grew up in the UK before moving to Australia more than 20 years ago to work with crocodiles.

With a PhD in zoology, he had built a global reputation for his expertise, even hosting Sir David Attenborough while the veteran broadcaster filmed part of the Life in Cold Blood docuseries on his property.

Locals have told media he seemed like a quiet but passionate defender of animals.

But he was harbouring a “sadistic sexual interest” in them, court documents say. Exchanges with “like-minded” people in secret online chatrooms detail how Britton began molesting horses at the age of 13.

“I was sadistic as a child to animals, but I had repressed it. In the last few years I let it out again, and now I can’t stop. I don’t want to. :),” he wrote in one message tendered to the court.

For at least the past decade, Britton had exploited his own pets and manipulated other dog owners into giving him theirs.

“My own dogs are family and I have limits,” he explained in a Telegram chat entered into evidence.

“I only badly mistreat other dogs… I have no emotional bond to them, they are toys pure and simple. And [there are] plenty more where they came from.”

He tortured at least 42 dogs, killing 39 of them, according to court documents seen by the BBC. The files only detail his crimes over the 18 months before his arrest, but still fill more than 90 pages.

Using online marketplace Gumtree Australia, Britton would find people who were often reluctantly giving their pets away due to travel or work commitments. He would build a “rapport” with them to negotiate taking custody of the animals and if they reached out for updates on their old pets, the court heard he would tell them “false narratives” and send them old photos.

In reality, he was abusing the animals in a shipping container on his property that had been fitted out with recording equipment – which he called his “torture room” – before sharing footage of his crimes online using aliases.

Britton would also coach others on how to copy his behaviour and get rid of the evidence.

Asked how to dispose of the dogs’ remains, Britton – who shared his sprawling property on the outskirts of Darwin with eight crocodiles – said “some I feed to other animals”.

He was only caught after uploading a clip in which he tortured at least eight dogs – all except one were puppies – which was passed on to NT police in an anonymous tip-off.

Britton usually went to great lengths to avoid identifying himself or his location in his videos, but in this one a bright orange City of Darwin dog leash could be seen in the background.

Within weeks, in April 2022, police swooped on his property and arrested Britton, who has been remanded in custody ever since.

They seized recording devices, animal remains and a laptop on which they also located 15 files containing child abuse material.

Animal advocates say the case shows the need for stronger animal cruelty penalties.

Speaking outside court, many who had travelled from all over the country for the hearing expressed disappointment at the sentence, but said it offered some solace to the owners of the pets Britton abused.

Addressing the zoologist directly, one activist told Britton he was “right where you should be – locked up.”

“Once respected and esteemed, you’re now a disgrace to the scientific community,” said Natalie Carey. “No one will ever look at you with admiration again.”

Ambassadors from Western countries including the United States and the United Kingdom will not attend a ceremony marking the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki after Israel was snubbed.

The mayor of the south-western Japanese city, Shiro Suzuki, said on Thursday that Israel not being invited to attend was not politically motivated but added there would be no change to the decision.

The remarks come a day after it was revealed that the ambassadors of the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the US and the European Union had sent a letter to Nagasaki in mid-July saying “it would become difficult for us to have high-level participation” in the event if Israel was excluded.

The bomb dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945 is thought to have killed about 74,000 people, both from the explosion itself and later from radiation.

It came three days after the first bomb dropped on Hiroshima and six days before Japan’s surrender in World War II.

Mr Suzuki said security reasons, including potential demonstrations, were behind his decision not to invite Israel to the commemoration ceremony.

But he said he regretted the ambassadors’ decision.

“It is unfortunate that they have communicated to us that their ambassadors are not able to attend,” he said.

A spokesperson for the British embassy in Tokyo confirmed to the BBC that ambassador Julia Longbottom would not attend the ceremony in Nagasaki.

Ambassador Longbottom had said that the decision not to invite Israel created an unfortunate and misleading equivalency with Russia and Belarus – the only other countries not invited to this year’s ceremony.

US Ambassador Rahm Emanuel will also not attend. An embassy statement said the mayor of Nagasaki politicised the event by snubbing Israel.

A spokesperson told the BBC the ambassador would instead go to a peace ceremony at a temple in Tokyo.

Israel’s ambassador to Japan, Gilad Cohen, who was invited to and attended a memorial ceremony in Hiroshima on Tuesday, said Nagasaki’s decision “sends a wrong message to the world”.

In June, Mr Suzuki said Nagasaki had sent a letter to the Israeli embassy calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza.

Israel’s massive military offensive in Gaza has led to the deaths of almost 40,000 Palestinians, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says.

It was triggered by the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken back to Gaza as hostages.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has been sworn in as Bangladesh’s interim leader. He vowed to “uphold, support and protect the constitution” during the ceremony, saying he would perform his duties “sincerely”.

The 84-year-old declared there is “a lot of work to be done” as he arrived in the country earlier on Thursday.

“People are excited,” he told the BBC moments after flying into the capital Dhaka from France.

His plane touched down just days after Sheikh Hasina – the woman who ruled Bangladesh with an iron fist for 15 years – fled across the border to India.

Ms Hasina resigned as prime minister after weeks of student-led protests – which left hundreds dead – escalated and culminated in calls for her to stand down.

The decision to name Prof Yunus as chief adviser of the interim government followed a meeting between President Mohammed Shahabuddin, military leaders and student leaders.

The students had been clear they would not accept a military-led government, but wanted Prof Yunus to lead.

The hope is Prof Yunus, the so-called banker for the poor, will bring democracy back to Bangladesh after years of autocratic rule.

On Thursday, he emphasised the need for “discipline” as Bangladesh begins to rebuild.

“Hard work and get it done,” the smiling professor added as he made his way through the airport. “New opportunities have arrived.”

“Today is a glorious day for us,” he later told reporters, adding it was as if “Bangladesh has got a second independence” as he called for the restoration of law and order.

Bangladesh has been thrown into turmoil in recent weeks. More than 400 people are reported to have died after protests demanding the end of a civil service quota system began in June.

Many of those killed died after the Supreme Court backed student demands and largely scrapped the quota system last month.

In more recent weeks, the protests had become an anti-government movement. Students and their supporters had planned to march on the prime minister’s residence on Monday.

But before the march could get properly moving, the news came that Sheikh Hasina had left Bangladesh and resigned as prime minister. She is currently in Delhi.

Prof Yunus paid tribute to those who died, saying they had “protected the nation” and given it “new life” after Ms Hasina’s rule.

She had begun that rule as a symbol of democracy but, by the time she fled, she was considered an autocrat who had sought to entrench her authority by silencing dissent.

Prisons were filled with people who sought to speak out against her. Prof Yunus – lauded for his pioneering use of micro-loans – was one of those who found themselves in legal trouble during her tenure.

Ms Hasina regarded him as a public enemy – he is currently on bail, appealing against a six-month jail term in what he has called a politically-motivated case.

Speaking on Thursday, he called on the country’s young people to help him rebuild the South Asian country.

“Bangladesh can be a beautiful country, but we destroyed the possibilities,” he said.

“Now we have to build a seedbed again – the new seedbed will be built by them,” he added, gesticulating towards the students who had arrived to greet him.

Heavy fighting in Russia’s Kursk region has entered a third day, with efforts “ongoing” to expel Ukrainian forces from the country, Moscow’s defence ministry has said.

Russia says at least 1,000 Ukrainian troops, supported by tanks and armoured vehicles, crossed the border on Tuesday.

Some 3,000 people have had to evacuate the region, as ongoing military altercations have killed at least four people, Kursk’s deputy Governor Andrei Belostotsky said on Thursday.

Ukraine’s military is yet to directly comment on the reports, but President Volodymyr Zelensky said, without referencing the assault: “Everyone can see that the Ukrainian army knows how to surprise [and] achieve results.”

Mykhailo Podolyak, a long-term aide to President Zelensky wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “War is war, with its own rules, where the aggressor inevitably reaps corresponding outcomes.”

Russia’s Defence Ministry said “breakthrough attempts” by the Ukrainian army’s formations in the Sudzha and Korenevo districts in Kursk region had been thwarted in a combined effort by the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the military.

Mr Belostotsky claimed Kyiv’s forces were beginning to retreat from the region.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov said the “advance” into the Kursk region had been stopped, with Russian forces “continuing to destroy the adversary in areas directly adjacent to the Russian-Ukrainian border”.

While the FSB made claims to a similar effect on Tuesday, when initial reports of a potential Ukrainian incursion surfaced.

In its latest report, the Institute for the Study of War, a well-respected think tank, said geo-located footage from the past two days showed that Ukrainian armoured vehicles had advanced to positions 10km (6.2 miles) into the Kursk region.

Meanwhile, footage verified by the BBC has shown fighter jets flying low overhead in the region in recent days.

Ukraine’s key allies seemed surprised by the offensive – with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying the US was reaching out to Ukraine for more information.

Russia’s military leadership is under severe scrutiny domestically, as some popular and generally well-informed pro-war Telegram channels have said the situation on the ground is not as stable as the Kremlin has suggested.

The influential pro-war Rybar Telegram channel went on to strongly criticise the highest ranks of the Russian military on Wednesday, saying that “for two months the full information was sent to the useless headquarters”, adding that there was enough time “to make an appropriate decision”.

Rybar’s concerns were echoed by several other pro-war bloggers.

Local leaders in regions adjacent to Kursk, both in Russia and in Ukraine, ordered residents to evacuate the area since news of the incursion.

On Wednesday, the head of the Ukrainian region of Sumy, Volodymyr Artyukh, ordered the evacuation of areas bordering Kursk.

While in the Russian region of Belgorod, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Thursday that settlements across his province were attacked by Ukrainian forces over the past 24 hours.

This is not the first incursion into Russia by fighters based in Ukraine. Some groups of anti-Kremlin Russians launched raids last year, which were repelled.

The forces crossed into the Belgorod and Kursk regions again in March, where they engaged in clashes with Russian security forces.

On Wednesday evening, Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko said the Ukrainian army had established control over the Sudzha gas hub, a major gas facility involved in the transit of natural gas from Russia to the EU via Ukraine, which has continued despite the war.

It is the only point of entry for Russian gas into the EU.

But on Thursday gas was reportedly still flowing from Sudzha.

Russia’s National Guard said it had reinforced security around Kursk’s nuclear power station, which lies some 70km north-east of Sudzha.

For the past few months Russia has made incremental gains in eastern Ukraine, as many of Kyiv’s ground forces have faced relentless attacks in the eastern Donbas region.

In a recent interview Ukraine’s head of defence intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said the main offensive by Russian forces “is expected to be over in a month and a half to two months”.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was conceived in the Kremlin as a short, sharp military operation.

The expectation was that it would take a matter of days, a few weeks maximum, for Russia to establish control over its neighbour.

That was nearly two-and-a-half years ago.

The war in Ukraine rages on. It has not gone at all as Moscow had intended.

But here’s the thing. Over the last 29 months, so often we’ve heard senior Russian officials claiming that the operation is going “according to plan.”

President Vladimir Putin last said that in May, despite everything that had happened in the preceding two years: the heavy Russian casualties on the battlefield, the destruction of multiple Russian warships in the Black Sea, drone attacks deep inside Russia (even on the Kremlin itself), the shelling of Russian towns and villages near the Ukrainian border, the mutiny by Wagner mercenary fighters who had marched on Moscow.

Now there is a new addition to the list: this week’s cross-border Ukrainian assault on Russia’s Kursk region.

First, a disclaimer: it’s difficult to know exactly what is happening right now in the Sudzha district of Kursk region. It is unclear how many Ukrainian troops are there, how much territory they have seized and what their final objective may be.

Today’s edition of the Russian broadsheet Nezavisimaya Gazeta declared: “Events on the Kursk front are shrouded in the notorious fog of war.”

But even in fog, some things are clear.

It’s evident that what is unfolding in Kursk region is further evidence that Russia’s war in Ukraine has not gone “according to plan”. Events appear to have taken Russia’s political and military leadership completely by surprise.

Don’t expect Moscow to admit that.

More likely, Russian officials will use the Ukrainian assault to try to rally the Russian public around the government and bolster the official Kremlin narrative that (a) in this conflict Russia is not the aggressor, and (b) Russia is a besieged fortress surrounded by enemies who are plotting to invade and destroy it.

In reality it was Russia that launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

There’s clearly a big difference in language. When Russia poured its troops across the border into Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin called this a “special military operation” and claimed that Russia was “liberating” towns and villages.

Moscow has described Ukrainian troops pushing into Russia as “a terrorist attack” and “a provocation.”

The assault by Ukrainian forces on Kursk region and the fierce fighting there are a sign that hostilities are coming closer to home. But will that turn Russian public opinion against the war?

Not necessarily.

Last year I visited Belgorod, a Russian region which, like Kursk, borders Ukraine. It was being shelled from across the border. Everyone I met told me that nothing like this had happened before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine: before February 2022 it was all peace and quiet in Belgorod region.

But instead of concluding that the “special military operation” had been a mistake, most people I spoke to called for Russia to step up its military action and push deeper into Ukrainian territory.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is calling for exactly that. In a social media post today he wrote:

“We can and we should take more land of the Ukraine that still exists. [We should go to] Odesa, to Kharkiv, to Dnipro, Mykolaiv. To Kyiv and onwards.”

But Dmitry Medvedev doesn’t get to call the shots. Vladimir Putin does. We wait to see how he responds to what have been a dramatic few days in southern Russia.

Austrian security officials say a 19-year-old arrested on Wednesday was planning to kill “a large crowd of people” in a suicide attack at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna.

Officials say the teen – who had previously pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group (IS) – confessed that he “intended to carry out an attack using explosives and knives”.

Swift’s three sold-out shows at the Ernst Happel Stadium have been cancelled. More than 195,000 people had been expected to attend.

Local media have also reported that the 19-year-old, the main suspect out of three, had stolen chemicals from his former workplace.

The Kurier newspaper, citing sources, reported that he used to work at a metal processing company in his home town of Ternitz, and that he had made progress in building a bomb.

The outlet also reported that he had planned to drive a car into the crowd expected to gather outside the stadium.

Security officials at a news conference on Thursday did not comment on where he got the chemicals, but public security chief Franz Ruf told reporters that chemical substances and technical devices found at the main suspect’s house showed “concrete preparatory actions”.

The head of Austria’s Directorate for Protection of the State and Intelligence (DSN) Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, said weapons were seized from the main suspect’s house, and that “his aim was to kill himself and a large crowd of people either today or tomorrow at the concert”.

Mr Ruf added the teen had posted a video online confessing to the plot, quit his job at the end of last month and told people that he had “big plans”.

They also revealed that the main suspect – an Austrian citizen who was born there but who had North Macedonian parents – had recently changed his appearance and “adapted it to Islamic State propaganda”, and had been consuming and sharing Islamist propaganda online.

A second suspect – a 17-year-old Austrian of Turkish or Croatian heritage – was employed at a company which would have “provided services” at the stadium where Swift was to perform.

A 15-year-old suspect has so far refused to talk to the authorities, and was “in the area” of the stadium when he was arrested.

Officials added that they were not looking for any other suspects.

Also at the press briefing was Interior Minister Gerhard Karner who said “a tragedy was averted”, and the attack was foiled with the help of international intelligence as Austrian law does not allow censorship of messenger applications.

“The terrorist threat has intensified throughout Europe and Austria was and is no exception,” he said, adding that major concerts are “often a favourite target of Islamist attackers”.

Coldplay are due to perform seven concerts in Vienna from 21 August as part of their Spheres World Tour.

Mr Haijawi-Pirchner said there was no information suggesting a specific threat to upcoming events in Austria, but security measures remain high.

Swift’s Vienna concerts were part of the European leg of her Eras Tour, which began in Paris in May.

The tour has made stops in a number of countries including Sweden, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Poland.

Swift is set to head to London to perform five shows at Wembley Stadium next week.

UK policing minister Diana Johnson said Scotland Yard would look at intelligence ahead of the Wembley Stadium dates.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has told Sky News that the city will “carry on” and that the police will work with City Hall and councils to ensure the concerts take place safely.

When two American astronauts blasted off on a test mission to the International Space Station on 5 June, they were expecting to be back home in a matter of days.

But things didn’t quite go to plan.

In fact, Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams are still there, floating high above the Earth nearly two months later.

The pair – who are stuck indefinitely – now face the sudden prospect of missing the summer entirely and even spending Christmas and New Year in space.

Mr Wilmore, 61, and Ms Williams, 58, flew a Boeing Starliner spacecraft to the station. It was the first flight of its kind with people on board and was a test designed to see how the new spacecraft performs before it is used more regularly.

Problems, however, emerged as it made its approach. These included leaks in its propulsion system and some of its thrusters shutting down.

So while they made it to the space station safely, they will need an alternative mode of transport to get home if the Starliner is not deemed safe to return to Earth.

At a news briefing on Wednesday, Nasa officials said no firm decisions had been made when it comes to next steps.

“Our prime option is to return Butch and Suni on Starliner,” Steve Stich, manager of Nasa’s Commercial Crew Program, said. “However, we have done the requisite planning to make sure we have other options open.”

One potential option being considered, they said, is to attach the two astronauts to a mission that is scheduled to launch in September, and return them to earth with that mission in February 2025.

That flight to the space station will be made by a SpaceX Crew Dragon craft. The initial plan was for four crew members to be aboard, but two of the seats could be left empty if needed.

That plan would mean the astronauts would spend more than eight months – rather than eight days – aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

If the Crew Dragon is used, the Starliner craft would be returned to Earth without any crew, under computer control.

Nasa officials said it could take a week or more for a final decision to be made.

• What a year in Space does to the body
• Starliner: The US Space industry’s next big thing?

Ken Bowersox, Nasa’s director of space operations, told reporters the chances of an uncrewed return of the Starliner “have increased a little bit based on where things have gone over the last week or two.”

“That’s why we’re looking more closely at that option to make sure that we can handle it,” he said.

Using a SpaceX craft to return the astronauts would be a blow to Boeing, which has for years tried to compete with the company and its more experienced Crew Dragon.

Earlier this week, Nasa used a SpaceX rocket to deliver more food and supplies to the ISS, including extra clothes for the two astronauts.

Last month, in a short press briefing, the pair said they were “absolutely confident” in the return trip and Starliner was “truly impressive.”

This is the third stint aboard the ISS for Ms Williams, a retired Navy helicopter pilot, while Mr Wilmore is a former fighter jet pilot who has been to space twice before.

“We’ve been thoroughly busy up here, integrated right into the crew,” Ms Williams told reporters during a recent briefing call.

“It feels like coming back home. It feels good to float around. It feels good to be in space and work up here with the International Space Station team,” she said. “So yeah, it’s great to be up here.”

Boeing was hoping that the maiden Starliner mission would pave the way for regular use of its capsule for missions back and forth to the station. The Space X Crew Dragon has been approved for Nasa missions since 2020.

• A fiery end? How ISS will end its life in orbit
• How long Space missions mess with our minds

Although the astronauts will spend much more time in space than they initially planned, others have spent much longer periods above the Earth’s surface. Russian Valeri Polyakov spent 437 days in space in aboard the Mir space station in the mid-1990s.

Last year, Frank Rubio returned from the ISS after 371 days, the longest time an American has spent in space.

And Russia’s Oleg Kononenko, also currently aboard the ISS, is the first person to have spent more than 1,000 days in space during the course of their career.

In their briefings and interviews, the two Americans have been upbeat about their situation. “I’m not complaining that we’re here for a couple extra weeks,” Ms Williams said last month.

As things stand, the pair may be there for many more weeks to come.

Police in Barcelona are hunting for the separatist former leader of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, who made a dramatic return to Spain after a seven-year exile despite facing an outstanding arrest warrant.

The Mossos d’Esquadra – Catalan police – set up roadblocks within Barcelona and leading out of the city as part of Operation Jaula – or “cage” – aimed at finding Mr Puigdemont, who was seen leaving a rally this morning in a car. The operation was reportedly ended a few hours later.

For much of the past several years he has lived in Brussels, after police indicted him on charges linked to a failed bid for Catalan independence in 2017.

At the time, Catalonia’s pro-independence leaders including Mr Puigdemont organised a referendum – which was ruled illegal by Spain’s constitutional court – and later declared independence for the region. Madrid imposed direct rule on the region shortly after and Mr Puigdemont fled to Belgium.

On Thursday morning, Mr Puigdemont briefly addressed hundreds of supporters who gathered near the Catalan parliament in Barcelona, shortly ahead of the expected investiture of a new head of the Catalan government.

He said he had returned “to remind you that we are still here” and added: “Holding a referendum is not and will never be a crime.”

Mr Puigdemont then disappeared.

Many were expecting him to turn up inside the parliament building in time for the investiture ceremony at 10:00 (08:00 GMT), but he was nowhere to be seen.

A Catalan police officer was detained on suspicion of helping Mr Puigdemont flee, a spokesperson for the Mossos d’Esquadra said.

The officer allegedly owns a car in which Mr Puigdemont escaped after making his address, Spanish media said.

Roadblocks have now been set up across the city, a spokesperson for Catalonia’s interior department said in a statement.

Spanish TV also showed images from La Jonquera, a municipality bordering France, where police could be seen stopping cars and checking the boots.

Puigdemont ally Aleix Sarri criticised the police operation on X, saying: “Hundreds of policemen encircle Barcelona to arrest President Puigdemont. A hunt paid with public money to please the powers in Madrid. This is not what a democracy does.”

Police reportedly used pepper spray to disperse Puigdemont supporters who gathered near the parliament.

Ignacio Garriga of the far-right Vox party, which strongly opposes independence for Catalonia, said Vox would “do everything necessary to ensure that Puigdemont is arrested”.

Some Spanish commentators are puzzled at the fact that police were unable to arrest Mr Puigdemont despite him announcing he would return to Catalonia earlier this week.

On Wednesday, he posted a video on X saying that he had “started the return trip from exile” and added that his arrest would have been illegal and arbitrary.

There appear to be several motives behind Carles Puigdemont’s return to Spain.

Firstly, he wants to pressure the authorities into applying the country’s new amnesty law – which withdraws legal action against Catalan nationalists – to him, after the supreme court excluded him from its application on technical grounds.

He also aims to disrupt the investiture of Socialist Salvador Illa as the new Catalan president today.

The former Spanish health minister would become the region’s first non-nationalist leader since 2010.

Equally important for Mr Puigdemont is to assert himself and his Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) party as the main pro-independence force.

He is keen to cast his separatist rival, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), as being complicit with Spanish unionism because of its agreement to support Mr Illa’s investiture.

Until a new local government is in place, ERC is still responsible for the Catalan police force, making the former regional president’s return particularly uncomfortable for the party.

A renowned British crocodile expert has been jailed for 10 years and five months in Australia, after admitting to sexually abusing dozens of dogs, in a case which horrified the nation.

Adam Britton, a leading zoologist who has worked on BBC and National Geographic productions, pleaded guilty to 56 charges relating to bestiality and animal cruelty.

He also admitted to four counts of accessing child abuse material.

The Northern Territory (NT) Supreme Court heard the 53-year-old filmed himself torturing the animals until almost all died, and then shared the videos online under pseudonyms.

His abuse went unnoticed for years, until a clue was found in one of his videos. Britton was arrested in April 2022 after a search of his rural Darwin property, which also uncovered child abuse material on his laptop.

Much of the detail of Britton’s crimes are too graphic to publish, and so “grotesque” Chief Justice Michael Grant warned the courtroom they could cause “nervous shock”.

As the facts of the case were read aloud, some members of the public rushed outside. Others watching from the gallery cried and mouthed insults at Britton. He at times hung his head and reached for tissues.

Calling the offending “devious”, Justice Grant said the “unalloyed pleasure” Britton took in torturing the animals was “sickeningly evident”.

“[Your] depravity falls entirely outside any ordinary human conception,” he said.

Including time already served, Britton could be eligible for parole in September 2028. He is also banned from owning any mammals for the rest of his life.

Mr Britton’s lawyer argued his offending was driven by a rare disorder causing intense, atypical sexual interests.

In court on Thursday, they read out a letter from Britton, who apologised for his “demeaning crimes”.

“I deeply regret the pain and trauma that I caused to innocent animals and consequently to my family, friends and members of the community,” it said.

Adding that his family was not aware or involved in any way, he wrote: “I will seek long term treatment and… I will find a path towards redemption.”

Born in West Yorkshire, Britton grew up in the UK before moving to Australia more than 20 years ago to work with crocodiles.

With a PhD in zoology, he had built a global reputation for his expertise, even hosting Sir David Attenborough while the veteran broadcaster filmed part of the Life in Cold Blood docuseries on his property.

Locals have told media he seemed like a quiet but passionate defender of animals.

But he was harbouring a “sadistic sexual interest” in them, court documents say. Exchanges with “like-minded” people in secret online chatrooms detail how Britton began molesting horses at the age of 13.

“I was sadistic as a child to animals, but I had repressed it. In the last few years I let it out again, and now I can’t stop. I don’t want to. :),” he wrote in one message tendered to the court.

For at least the past decade, Britton had exploited his own pets and manipulated other dog owners into giving him theirs.

“My own dogs are family and I have limits,” he explained in a Telegram chat entered into evidence.

“I only badly mistreat other dogs… I have no emotional bond to them, they are toys pure and simple. And [there are] plenty more where they came from.”

He tortured at least 42 dogs, killing 39 of them, according to court documents seen by the BBC. The files only detail his crimes over the 18 months before his arrest, but still fill more than 90 pages.

Using online marketplace Gumtree Australia, Britton would find people who were often reluctantly giving their pets away due to travel or work commitments. He would build a “rapport” with them to negotiate taking custody of the animals and if they reached out for updates on their old pets, the court heard he would tell them “false narratives” and send them old photos.

In reality, he was abusing the animals in a shipping container on his property that had been fitted out with recording equipment – which he called his “torture room” – before sharing footage of his crimes online using aliases.

Britton would also coach others on how to copy his behaviour and get rid of the evidence.

Asked how to dispose of the dogs’ remains, Britton – who shared his sprawling property on the outskirts of Darwin with eight crocodiles – said “some I feed to other animals”.

He was only caught after uploading a clip in which he tortured at least eight dogs – all except one were puppies – which was passed on to NT police in an anonymous tip-off.

Britton usually went to great lengths to avoid identifying himself or his location in his videos, but in this one a bright orange City of Darwin dog leash could be seen in the background.

Within weeks, in April 2022, police swooped on his property and arrested Britton, who has been remanded in custody ever since.

They seized recording devices, animal remains and a laptop on which they also located 15 files containing child abuse material.

Animal advocates say the case shows the need for stronger animal cruelty penalties.

Speaking outside court, many who had travelled from all over the country for the hearing expressed disappointment at the sentence, but said it offered some solace to the owners of the pets Britton abused.

Addressing the zoologist directly, one activist told Britton he was “right where you should be – locked up.”

“Once respected and esteemed, you’re now a disgrace to the scientific community,” said Natalie Carey. “No one will ever look at you with admiration again.”

Shamima Begum will not be allowed to challenge the removal of her British citizenship at the Supreme Court, judges have ruled.

The 24-year-old hoped to overturn the government’s decision to revoke her citizenship on national security grounds after she travelled to Syria as a teenager to join the Islamic State group.

Justices at the UK’s highest court said Ms Begum could not appeal against an earlier Court of Appeal ruling as the grounds of her case “do not raise an arguable point of law”.

It was Ms Begum’s last chance to challenge the revocation of her citizenship within the UK legal system. But her lawyers told the BBC they would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Ms Begum, who left Bethnal Green, east London, with two schoolfriends in 2015, was later found in a Syrian refugee camp.

She married an Islamic State fighter soon after arriving and went on to have three children, none of whom survived.

Ms Begum was stripped of her British citizenship on national security grounds in 2019 by the then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid, leaving her unable to return to the UK.

She remains in a camp controlled by armed guards in northern Syria.

Last year, she lost her appeal against the decision to revoke her citizenship at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).

• Who is Shamima Begum and how can you lose your citizenship?

She then took her case to the Court of Appeal – where three judges unanimously dismissed her bid to regain British citizenship in February.

Then in March, Ms Begum lost an initial bid to challenge the removal of her citizenship at the Supreme Court.

Her remaining option was to ask the Supreme Court directly for permission to have her case heard.

However, on Wednesday three justices at the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the bid.

Lords Reed, Hodge and Lloyd-Jones found that the grounds on which she had based her case did not legally undermine the decision to strip her of her UK citizenship.

These included questioning the legality of her not being able to argue against the decision to strip her of her citizenship before it took place.

In a statement, Ms Begum’s legal team said it “will take every possible legal step” to restore her citizenship, including petitioning the ECHR in Strasbourg to hear her case.

It said that the Supreme Court had “left resolution” to the Strasbourg court.

In their ruling, the justices found it was a matter for the European court to decide whether the process to deprive Ms Begum of British citizenship should have considered whether she was a potential victim of trafficking.

The Supreme Court justices also affirmed an earlier ruling which found those concerns had no material bearing on the decision under UK law.

Her lawyers added: “It is a matter of the gravest concern that British women and children have been arbitrarily imprisoned in a Syrian camp for five years, all detained indefinitely without any prospect of a trial.

“All other countries in the UK’s position have intervened and achieved the return of their citizens and their children.”

Reacting to the ruling, Maya Foa, director of human rights charity Reprieve, said: “Exiling British nationals like Ms Begum is about politics, not the law.

“The prior government’s failed do-nothing approach must be abandoned. Our politicians should take responsibility and repatriate the small number of British families in this position so their cases can be dealt with here in Britain.”

Ms Begum is held in Camp Roj in north-east Syria, which holds nearly 3,000 individuals, 65% of whom are children, according to the UN.

Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director Steve Valdez-Symonds described the ruling as “deeply concerning” as she was “now exiled in dangerous and inhuman conditions” in the detention camp.

He added: “Stripping Shamima Begum’s nationality was profoundly wrong – she is and has always been British.”

The Home Office said it noted the decision of the Supreme Court, but that it “would be inappropriate to comment further at this time”.

The two other girls Ms Begum travelled to Syria with – Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana – are now both thought to be dead.

The fatal stabbing of three young girls at a dance class in the seaside town of Southport, in the north of England, has been followed by the worst unrest the UK has seen in more than a decade.

The violence, in towns and cities across England and in Northern Ireland, has been fuelled by misinformation online, the far-right and anti-immigration sentiment.

Communities have responded with a series of rallies against the riots, with thousands gathering on Wednesday 7 August.

On 29 July, Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were killed in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga event. Eight more children and two adults were injured.

Later that day, police said they had arrested a 17-year-old from a village nearby and that they were not treating the incident as terror-related.

Almost immediately after the attack, social media posts falsely speculated that the suspect was an asylum seeker who arrived in the UK on a boat in 2023, with an incorrect name being widely circulated. There were also unfounded rumours that he was Muslim.

In fact, as the BBC and other media outlets reported, the suspect was born in Wales to Rwandan parents.

Police urged the public not to spread “unconfirmed speculation and false information”.

The following evening, more than a thousand people attended a vigil for the victims in Southport. Later on, violence broke out near a local mosque. People threw bricks, bottles and other missiles at the mosque and police, a police van was set alight and 27 officers were taken to hospital.

The disorder was widely condemned. Local MP Patrick Hurley said “thugs” had travelled to the town to use the deaths of three children “for their own political purposes”, while Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer denounced the “marauding mobs on the streets of Southport”.

There had been discussion of the rally on regional anti-immigration channels on the Telegram messaging app. Police said the violence was believed to have involved supporters of the now disbanded far-right group the English Defence League (EDL).

The day after the Southport riot, violent protests in London, Hartlepool and Manchester broke out, which police linked to Southport. More took place throughout the week – with many targeting mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers.

While there was no single organising force at work, BBC analysis of activity on mainstream social media and in smaller public groups shows a clear pattern of influencers driving a message for people to gather for protests.

Multiple influencers within different circles amplified false claims about the identity of the attacker, reaching a large audience – including ordinary people without any connection to far-right individuals and groups.

On X, EDL founder, far-right activist and convicted criminal Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, posted inflammatory messages to his nearly a million followers while on holiday in Cyprus.

An influencer on X associated with Yaxley-Lennon, who posts under “Lord Simon”, was among the first to publicly call for nationwide protests.

After the Southport attack, riots broke out across England, from Plymouth on the south coast to Sunderland in the North East. There have also been riots in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Crowds attacked mosques and accommodation housing asylum seekers, cars and buildings, including a library, were set on fire, and shops looted.

Violence in south Belfast, where anti-immigration and anti-racism protesters faced off in tense scenes outside the city hall, involved “racist elements”, a judge has said. Police are investigating an assault on a man whose head was reportedly stamped on as a racially motivated hate crime.

In Rotherham on Sunday, terrified staff at the Holiday Inn, which was housing asylum seekers, described how they stacked fridges and other furniture against a door to barricade themselves against a mob which had smashed its way into the building. Nearby residents described fleeing their homes as rioters entered their gardens.

As of Thursday 8 August, the chair of the Police Federation Tiffany Lynch estimated more than 100 police officers had been injured in the disorder, some receiving hospital treatment.

Merseyside Police’s chief constable said some of the officers injured “feared they would not make it home” to their families.

The spate of violence has prompted concern from outside of the UK. Malaysia, Nigeria, Australia and India have all issued travel advisories, urging people to stay vigilant and avoid protests.

It is a “nuanced picture” with a degree of local coordination, but also many instances of “locals reacting to what they’re seeing on social media, what they’re seeing outside in their streets and just joining in”, a police source told PA news agency.

BBC Home Affairs Editor Mark Easton was in Sunderland on Friday night, where he said far-right rioters attacked police, set fire to an advice centre next door to a police station, threw stones at a mosque and looted shops.

But as well as masked thugs, he also saw families cheering them on – mums and dads with pushchairs and children draped in the St George’s flag.

While some have been intent on violence, there were initially also people with concerns about immigration wanting to exert their right to peaceful protest.

One such person, who joined an anti-immigration protest in Rotherham on Sunday, told the BBC violent scenes at a hotel housing asylum seekers were “absolutely barbaric… this is not what we’re here for”.

Others may be lashing out in a general sense of frustration, according to a volunteer at Abdullah Quilliam Mosque in Liverpool.

In several cities, violent groups have clashed with counter-protesters. In Bristol, anti-racism protesters said they locked arms to stop rival demonstrators from storming a building housing asylum seekers.

There was unrest in Birmingham when a group – comprising of mainly young Asian men – gathered to oppose a rumoured far-right march that did not materialise.

More than 400 arrests had been made by Tuesday 6 August, police say, with numbers expected to rise. They include children as young as 11.

Sir Keir has condemned what he called “far-right thuggery”. He has promised charges and convictions, “whatever the apparent cause or motivation”, and said those participating in violence, including those “whipping up this action online”, would regret it.

The government said a “standing army” of specialist officers will tackle the disorder, and police forces would share intelligence on violent groups.

It said it was also working with social media companies to ensure misinformation and disinformation is removed.

And it has said it will make more than 500 new prison places available to ensure those taking part in the violence could be jailed.

Prosecutors are considering terrorism offences for some suspects, alongside the extradition of influencers allegedly playing a role in the disorder from abroad, the director of public prosecutions told the BBC.

Communities braced for a night of disorder on Wednesday 7 August, after it emerged a list purporting to contain the names and addresses of immigration lawyers was being spread online.

However, in most places, the planned anti-immigration protests failed to materialise.

Instead, large numbers of people took to the streets to join peaceful anti-racism protests – a response Mark Barton, the former chief constable of Durham Police, praised as “inspirational”.

Following early outbreaks of disorder, communities responded with clean-up operations and shows of solidarity with those affected in full force.

In Southport, dozens of local residents – still in shock from Monday’s killing of the girls – turned up with brushes and shovels to help after the violence.

Tradesmen also offered to rebuild walls and replace windows for free.

Fundraisers have been launched for some of those affected – one, set up to show appreciation for a mosque in Hartlepool, saw its initial target of £200 surpassed in 15 minutes.

Faith leaders in Merseyside have called for people to “remain calm and peaceful” in the wake of the Southport knife attack, and remember there is “far more that unites than divides us”.

A fourth Banksy artwork revealed in London in as many days appears to have been stolen.

On Thursday, the Bristol-based street artist posted an image on Instagram of the silhouette of a wolf howling at the moon on a satellite dish in Rye Lane, Peckham, south London.

The Banksy press team told the BBC they “believed” it had been stolen.

The Metropolitan Police said it had been called to reports of a “stolen satellite dish containing artwork” but no arrests had been made.

A witness, Tom Kellow, was on his lunch break when he saw the satellite dish getting removed.

He said: “They had a ladder. There was one guy on the roof and the other two were watching the ladder.

“They saw me filming and it got a bit tetchy. One gave me a kick in the side and another tried to throw my phone on the roof. Luckily it hit a tree and came back down again.

“I told a police officer in the area about it.

“It’s a great shame we can’t have nice things and it’s a shame it couldn’t have lasted more than an hour.”

The artwork was the fourth Banksy to be revealed in London since Monday. The street artist also claimed credit for the three other black silhouette compositions, which appeared around the capital as part of an animal-themed series.

According to Google maps, the satellite dish in Rye Lane was not believed to have been there before the artwork appeared.

Banksy unveiled his third piece on Wednesday, which depicts three monkeys seemingly swinging on a railway bridge in Brick Lane, east London.

On Tuesday, the anonymous street artist posted a photo of two elephant silhouettes, with their trunks stretched towards each other, created on the side of a house in Edith Terrace in Chelsea.

He posted an artwork of a goat perched on top of a wall near Kew Bridge in Richmond on Monday.

The BBC understands the art series is set to conclude at the end of this week.