Ukrainian forces staged an overnight ambush on a Russian convoy 25 miles inside the international border in Russia’s Kursk province, as the Kremlin declared a federal emergency and said it was transferring extra forces to try to snuff out a four-day incursion that has badly damaged its credibility.

A video circulated by Russian military bloggers showed a destroyed convoy, with bodies just visible inside some trucks, on the E38 east-west highway at Oktyabrskoe, a location far deeper inside Russia than any previously confirmed fighting since Ukraine’s forces crossed the border on Tuesday.

Commentators said the attack, reminiscent of Ukrainian attacks on Russian troops besieging Kyiv in the first weeks of the war, demonstrated an effective hit-and-run strategy, but the incursion appeared likely to draw an escalating response from the Kremlin, and its overall outcome remains profoundly uncertain.

Russia’s defence ministry said at lunchtime that it was transferring military reserves to the Kursk region, according to the Interfax news agency, including Grad rockets, artillery and tanks. A video released by Zvezda, official Russian military media, showed a convoy of lorries carrying armoured vehicles down a highway.

Alexei Smirnov, the acting governor of Kursk oblast, said Moscow had declared a state of federal emergency in the morning and he urged residents to “stay calm and keep up your fighting spirit, support each other, do not give in to panic and despondency”. So far 3,000 Russian civilians have been evacuated away from the fighting.

Meanwhile, 10 Ukrainians were reported killed and 35 injured after a Russian missile struck a supermarket during the day in the Ukrainian town of Kostiantynivka, about 8 miles from the eastern frontline in Donetsk. “Russian terrorists hit an ordinary supermarket and a post office. There are people under the rubble,” the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said.

Ukraine was able to burst through a lightly defended Kursk border on Tuesday morning with several hundred troops, according to Russia. Ukraine’s forces have engaged in fast-moving manoeuvre warfare, a type of combat that has rarely been seen during the war in Ukraine, which has been largely dominated by fortified trenches and heavy mining, preventing breakthroughs.

The fast-moving fighting and limited sources of information mean it is hard to be sure where the frontlines are in the sector. Unlike during last year’s failed summer counteroffensive, Ukraine’s military has not released triumphant videos of the capture of small villages that give clues to the enemy.

Russia’s semi-independent military bloggers, the principal source of information about the incursion, say that Ukraine has captured the west of Sudzha, 6 miles from the border, and pushed up three roads to the north-east, north and north-west of the town, including where a railway and likely supply route runs to the Russian city of Belgorod in the east.

Rybar, a Russian military blogger, said Ukraine’s tactics were to use its armoured vehicles to head towards Russian positions and use a third of them to tie down the defenders while the rest were “bypassing it, entering nearby settlements and setting up ambushes”. As a result Kyiv’s control of the territory in which it was operating was limited, the blogger and commentator said.

Ukraine’s leaders have largely avoided commenting on the attack, the first time their country’s regular armed forces have broken through the international border, though on Thursday night Zelenskiy alluded to developments.

“Russia brought the war to our land and should feel what it has done,” he said in his nightly address. But Ukraine’s intentions remain unclear as the battle develops.

Hanna Shelest, a senior fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis, said that Ukraine had regained some of the initiative with the surprise attack and that it had “a psychological effect in that it has weakened the image of Vladimir Putin as a strongman president who protects his own people”.

Kyiv’s likely military hope, Shelest added, was likely to be that “Russian reserves would be moved to make Ukraine’s situation in the east easier”, though she acknowledged there had not been any confirmed movement of troops from the Donbas, where Russia’s larger army has been making slow but steady gains for weeks.

John Foreman, a former UK defence attache to Moscow and Kyiv, said he believed the Kursk operation was “not without strategic risk” because it could also divert scarcer Ukrainian resources from already lengthy frontlines. “We don’t know the Ukrainian units involved, their strength, logistics, or combat and aviation support. Zooming out territorial gains are so far modest,” he added.

Attacks inside Russia had been considered politically fraught for Ukraine. Its western allies, led by the US, have refused to allow highly valued western weapons to be used to strike into Russia’s internationally recognised borders for fear of wider escalation. However, this week the White House has been relatively supportive, which Shelest said would be a relief to Ukraine’s leaders.

In April, the US publicly criticised Ukraine for targeting Russian oil refineries, fearing the impact on energy prices and inflation. But on Thursday, Sabrina Singh, the press secretary for the Pentagon, said Ukraine’s incursion into Russia was “consistent with our policy”, though it also remained the case that “we don’t support long-range attacks” into Russia. Singh refused to define what was meant by long-range.

Carles Puigdemont is no longer in Spain and will never give himself up, his lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, said after the fugitive former Catalan president’s dramatic flying visit to Barcelona on Thursday.

Lluís Llach, a Catalan singer and fervent nationalist, said that Puigdemont was “safe and sound and above all, free” while Jordi Turull, the secretary-general of Puigdemont’s Together for Catalonia party, said he had returned home to Waterloo in Belgium, adding that before his public appearance on Thursday Puigdemont had arrived in Barcelona on Tuesday evening.

Turull claimed Puigdemont had intended to hand himself over to the police once inside the parliament building but was put off by the “increasingly aggressive” police presence. Eventually, according to Turull, he decided not to turn himself in to spare the Catalan police the embarrassment of being photographed arresting him.

However, video evidence suggests that Puigdemont made no effort to reach the parliament and after his brief speech went directly to the waiting car in which he made his escape.

Puigdemont has been living in self-imposed exile in Belgium after fleeing Spain to avoid arrest for masterminding an illegal independence referendum in Catalonia in 2017 when he was president of the semi-autonomous Spanish region.

Nine members of his government received jail sentences of up to 13 years for their part in the independence push. All were pardoned three years later in 2021.

A divisive amnesty law for those involved in the symbolic independence referendum in November 2014 and the illegal unilateral poll that followed three years later was passed by the Spanish parliament in May after Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, struck a deal with Catalan separatist MPs to help him return to power.

However, Spain’s supreme court upheld arrest warrants for Puigdemont and others who were charged with misuse of public funds, ruling that the amnesty law did not apply to them. Puigdemont says the vote was not illegal and that the charges linked to it therefore have no basis.

Pablo Llarena, the supreme court judge who has been attempting to arrest Puigdemont ever since he fled the country nearly seven years ago, has demanded an explanation from the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan police force, about how Puigdemont managed to evade arrest in the presence of several hundred police officers.

Two Mossos were arrested on Thursday and face charges of aiding the escape of Puigdemont.

Eduard Sallent, the commissioner of the Mossos d’Esquadra, said: “The officers who helped Puigdemont to escape don’t deserve to wear the uniform.”

He denied that there had been any kind of “deal” between the Mossos and Puigdemont, saying: “The plan was to arrest him in Ciutadella park [where the parliament is], which we thought the most suitable location. Agents tried to get to him but he was surrounded by a mass of people. We pursued the car in which he fled.”

Joan Ignasi Elena, the acting Catalan interior minister responsible for the Mossos, gave a press conference on Friday morning in which he called on politicians to exclude the police force from what he described as a political debate.

He criticised Puigdemont for “inappropriate behaviour” in trying to disrupt the investiture of the new Catalan president – the event Puigdemont said he went to Barcelona to mark. Elena said he was launching an internal investigation into the failure to arrest Puigdemont and the existence of possible collaborators.

Puigdemont’s rapid appearance and disappearance succeeded in stealing the limelight from the pro-union, Catalan Socialist party MP Salvador Illa, who was sworn in as president on Thursday.

Although Puigdemont told his supporters the fight for Catalan independence was not over, his return and swift departure is being viewed as something similar to a farewell concert.

Félix Bolaños, the Spanish justice minister, described Puigdemont’s visit as “an incident that offered nothing to Catalan society, designed to make us forget the essential fact that yesterday we put behind us a lost decade in Catalonia, a decade of sterile confrontation, a decade in which no one was the winner, a collective failure”.

In May’s regional election, Catalans voted overwhelmingly for Illa, a socialist with no nationalist agenda. Yesterday he referred to Spain as a “plurinational” state, adding that “Catalonia needs to open its doors, both inside and outside, and deal without prejudice with unresolved political conflicts”.

“Catalonia has to look ahead, there is no time to waste and we have to count on everyone,” he said.

After 12 years of governance that had essentially been a single-issue campaign for independence, the new government is expected to focus on social issues, in particular housing and education.

Despite being one of Spain’s wealthiest regions, Catalonia has some of the worst educational results in the country. Meanwhile, it is estimated that over the past 10 years the cost of housing in Barcelona has risen by 51% while salaries have increased by 3.4%. On average, tenants in the city spend 43% of their salary on rent.

Under a series of separatist governments, these issues have scarcely been addressed, with most political energy being directed at what became known as el procés, the drive for independence.

Laia Estrada, the spokesperson for the leftwing nationalist Popular Unity Candidacy party, said during Thursday’s investiture: “This marks definitively the end of the procés at an institutional level.”

Illa was health minister in Sánchez’s previous government and presided over the Covid pandemic. Sánchez was quick to congratulate him on becoming president. In a message in Catalan posted on X, he said: “We have worked together in the most adverse circumstances. I know how much you love Catalonia. I know how level-headed you are, your common sense and capacity for work. Just what Catalonia needs. You will be a great president. Catalonia wins, Spain advances. Congratulations, Salvador Illa.”

While the national government has declined to comment on Puigdemont’s visit, preferring to focus on Illa’s investiture, the opposition is trying to make political capital out of it.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the opposition People’s party, called on Thursday for the resignation of the interior and defence ministers over the failure to arrest Puigdemont.

“Faced with such a farce, the government can’t go on vacation laughing in the faces of the Spanish people,” he tweeted.

Gold for Toby “the Terminator” Roberts. What were you doing at 19? Roberts was fulfilling a goal set at 12, to stand on an Olympic climbing podium after a level of grappling, twisting and bending that could make onlookers feel quite dizzy. Roberts took the men’s boulder and lead after seeing off the pre-event favourite, Japan’s Sorato Anraku, at Le Bourget climbing centre. “Oh my God,” whispered Roberts to himself, slumping to his knees as the scale of his achievement hit home.

“Me and my dad created a plan to get to this stage,” Roberts said. “It’s been a journey, a lot of competitions, ups and downs; to finally get to this stage in front of this crowd and win a gold medal is just a dream come true.

“I’ve always just liked to climb stuff. When I was younger, I was obviously climbing trees and climbing out of my little cot when I was a little baby. I always had a natural urge to climb. When I got introduced to an after-school club, I got instantly hooked and kept coming back for more.” And more, and more, and more. Now Roberts has scaled the steepest hill of them all.

The transferable skills of a sport climber – the discipline was only introduced to the Olympics pre-Tokyo – is an interesting subject to ponder. This is a domain that requires strength, balance and problem-solving. Roberts would be a hugely effective cat burglar or stunt man in future James Bond movies. He has not yet contemplated the future, and rightly; the Terminator stood in obvious disbelief after taking delivery of his medal. “To find out you’ve won Olympic gold, there’s definitely going to be a lot of shock there,” he admitted. “Going into the competition I tried to remove all expectations and to realise that I’d won the gold was just a rush of adrenaline and emotion and happiness.”

The subject of his nickname was understandably raised. Roberts was given it by British teammates on account of his competitive attitude. The man himself is not entirely thrilled by the title, which feels unfortunate. So what would he rather be called? “Toby. I couldn’t really give myself a nickname.” The Terminator is a straight shooter.

Roberts sat third after the boulder round, with Anraku at that point the man to catch. The American Colin Duffy was in the silver medal position. In a moment of fitting sporting theatre, Roberts and Anraku were the last two to take to the 15m high lead. Competitors have no knowledge of the course until shortly before they are due to tackle it, meaning they appear with binoculars in hand to plot out a preferred route.

Roberts scored an excellent 92.1 to take his overall tally to 155.2. The Japanese athlete knew what he had to do and was seemingly unerringly on his way to overtaking the Briton’s mark, but then came off the wall and missed out by almost 10 points after adding 76.1 to his 69.3 boulder. Jakob Schubert took bronze for Austria. Team GB’s other competitor, Hamish McArthur, was fifth.

“An incredible athlete, as you can see,” said McArthur of Roberts. “One of the best at handling pressure that I know. He is more driven than me to win. I’m just being honest about that, he really is. This is the most important thing in the world for him, and he’s come out with that expectation on himself, and everyone else’s expectation on him.”

Roberts is clearly as driven as he is articulate. His success will lead, he and McArthur hope, to increased funding for climbers. If the giddy crowd in the north-east of Paris is anything to go by, this is a sport that can capture imaginations.

Roberts’ father, Tristian, doubles up as his coach. During lockdown he built a climbing wall in the family back garden to allow his son to continue with his chosen pursuit. Tristian, a software developer by day, rebuffs any sense of sacrifice to allow his son to follow his dream.

“That isn’t a word we use,” he said. “He is not and we are not as a family sacrificing anything. When he is out doing what he loves, he wouldn’t do anything else. For me and my wife watching him doing what he loves, that is not sacrifice, it is just an absolute privilege. To get to experience things like this is incredible.

“As soon as he pulls on the wall there is nothing to do from a coaching perspective. Parent kicks in. It was just really hard to watch, I have no idea what my heart reached just from sitting still. It was an emotional rollercoaster. It is hard to watch when you are helpless and you know it means so much to him.”

Toby is young and engaging enough to draw eyeballs to his sport. He is a regular content creator via YouTube. A sector that feels niche in some ways should actually be very simple to access. “Hopefully this is amazing for British climbing,” Tristian added. “There are climbing gyms popping up all over the place. He walked into one of them for the first time when he was eight. Eleven years later he has a gold medal. If this leads people towards trying it, particularly in Great Britain, that would be incredible.”

Toby is planning a party. He is just not entirely sure when, given he wants to return to Le Bourget on Saturday morning to support Team GB’s female climbers. As for 2028 and Los Angeles? Inevitably, he will be back.

The executive director of the ­closing ceremony at the Olympic Games has admitted that he had to revise the script “for the umpteenth time” after a backlash against the opening event on the Seine.

Thierry Reboul reiterated his insistence that there had been no attempt to parody the Last Supper in the first spectacle but that it had referenced a 17th-century Dutch painting of the Greek Olympian gods.

He conceded, however, that the angry response to the ceremony, including death threats targeted at Reboul, the executive director of both ceremonies, and the artistic director Thomas Jolly, had made him more careful about potential ­misinterpretations of Sunday’s ceremony at the Stade de France.

Asked about death threats, Reboul said he tried not to talk about it, saying: “You have to live with it and file a complaint, show that you won’t let yourself be pushed around or intimidated.”

“But they forced us to have to reread the entire show for the ­umpteenth time to be sure that there is no possible misinterpretation, that we are not made to say what we do not want to say,” he said.

The Paris 2024 organising ­committee initially apologised to Catholics and other Christian groups over a scene in the opening event that depicted drag queens, a transgender model and a semi-naked singer sitting in a fruit bowl.

French bishops had ­regretted the “excesses and ­provocation” of the tableau, which they said amounted to “a mockery of ­Christianity” while Donald Trump described it as a “disgrace”.

It was only later that Jolly clarified the inspiration. “I think it was pretty clear. There’s Dionysus who arrives at the table … why is he there? Because he’s the god of feasting, of wine, and the father of Sequana, the goddess of the River Seine,” he said.

Rumours have swirled about who will perform at the closing ceremony following stunning ­performances by Céline Dion and Lady Gaga two weeks ago. A stunt segment by Tom Cruise is expected while ­appearances by ­Taylor Swift, who is on tour in Europe, or Beyoncé have been mooted.

Reboul admitted that the section in the closing ceremony given over to introducing the next Games in Los Angeles in 2028 had been extended beyond the normal timeframe.

He said: “It’s usually a 12-minute sequence to launch future Games, this one will be a little longer. Los Angeles prepared it entirely, over there. But we’re co-producing it with them.”

Reboul, who has been overseeing rehearsals at the Stade de France between 1am and 5am, to avoid clashing with the athletics events at the national stadium, said he had been delighted by the “pride, love, passion” expressed from many quarters about the opening ceremony.

He said: “We can dare to say that we’re proud to be French. Many ­people admit that they had a very defeatist approach to these Games, lots of people thought that the whole world was going to make fun of us on the evening of the ceremony. And it’s an overflowing love.”

Speaking to Le Parisien, Reboul did not offer any clues as to the script of the closing show except to say that it would offer a “moment of tolerance, sharing and communion, without a bad pun”.

“But, here, we are in a stadium,” he said. “It is very much Thomas’s ­universe, which is a bit like a theatre … it will be magnificent. But what we did on the Seine, we can only do it once.

“If all goes well, we will have a blast. But I do not know of any ­edition of the Olympic Games where the ­closing ceremony changed the perception of the opening ceremony. It is this one that triggers the entire perception of the Games.”

Kamala Harris continues to gain strength in the US presidential election, as polls nationally and in battleground states show her building leads or catching Donald Trump.

On Friday morning, FiveThirtyEight, a leading polling analysis site, puts Harris, the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee for president, up by 2.1 points over her Republican rival in its national average.

In averages for swing states, where control of the White House rests, Harris led in Michigan by two points, Pennsylvania by 1.1 point and Wisconsin by 1.8 points. Trump led in Arizona by less than half a point and in Georgia by half a point.

In battleground states without enough polls to calculate averages, Trump was ahead by about three points in North Carolina and the candidates were about level in Nevada – where recent CBS and Bloomberg polls have given Harris two-point leads.

The US vice-president, 59, has changed the election race since mid-July, when Joe Biden, 81, finally heeded calls from his own party to step aside for a younger candidate to take on Trump, who is 78. He endorsed Harris to take over the top of the Democratic ticket for this November, while he serves out his single term.

On Thursday night, Amy Walter, of the non-partisan Cook Political Report, told PBS that before Harris entered the race, Biden “was behind by a significant number, not just at the national popular vote, but in those … battleground states. You can see almost six points in a state like Georgia and Nevada.

“Now, just in the time that Harris has been in the race, you have seen those numbers move pretty significantly toward Harris, four- or five-point shifts in those battleground states, which is mirroring what we’re seeing in the national poll as well.

“It hasn’t turned those states, though, from ones that favored Trump to ones that now favor Harris. It just means now that the race is no longer as lopsided in Trump’s favor as it was, say, in late July … which is why we’re calling this race a toss-up.”

The same day, the Cook Political Report changed its ratings for three Sun belt swing states – Arizona, Georgia and Nevada – from “leans Republican” to “toss-up”.

Another analysis site, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, based at the University of Virginia, changed Georgia from leans Republican to toss-up. Looking north, the site changed Minnesota and New Hampshire, states where Trump made gains while Biden was top of the Democratic ticket, from leans Democratic to likely Democratic.

Harris’s choice for vice-president, Tim Walz, is governor of Minnesota. Any Walz effect on polling has not yet been felt but some observers expressed surprise that Harris passed over Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, a battleground state.

Others argued back. For Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Joel K Goldstein said that though Shapiro and Mark Kelly, the Arizona senator who was also closely considered, were “both from competitive states that were … important pieces of the 306 electoral votes Democrats won in 2020”, in choosing Walz, “Harris demonstrated yet again that vice-presidential selection turns on matters other than the over-hyped criterion of home-state advantage.

“Walz also had the most experience (17 and a half years) in traditional vice-presidential feeder positions (senator, governor, member of the House of Representatives, holder of high federal executive office) of her options, which contrasts with the very limited experience (one and a half years) of his Republican counterpart, Ohio senator JD Vance.”

Among widely noted individual polls, Harris led for a second week in the Economist/YouGov survey, maintaining a two-point advantage. Reuters/Ipsos found Harris up five points, 42%-37%, up two on the last such survey, taken just after Biden withdrew. Ipsos said it also found in a separate poll Harris leading Trump 42%-40% in the seven battleground states, though it “did not break out results for individual states”.

A national poll from Marquette University in Wisconsin showed Harris up six points, with 53% support among likely voters to 47% for Trump. Harris maintained that lead when other candidates were included. Robert F Kennedy Jr, the leading independent, took 6% support. In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, Kennedy’s support had fallen six points to 4% since July.

The Marquette poll contained further good news for Harris, pointing to her energizing effect as the campaign heads for the home stretch: an 11-point rise in respondents saying they were very enthusiastic about voting in November.

“Enthusiasm has increased substantially among Democrats, with a small increase among Republicans,” the Marquette pollster Charles Franklin wrote. “Republicans had a consistent enthusiasm advantage over Democrats in previous polls, but this has been mostly erased now.”

It was not all good news for Harris and Democrats. In a poll released on Thursday, CNBC put Trump up two points and firmly ahead on who voters thought would make them financially better off.

Micah Roberts of Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican pollster who worked on the survey with a Democratic counterpart, said the election was “less now a referendum on Trump than it is a head-to-head competition between the two candidates”.

Harris, Roberts said, was “still carrying a lot of water for the [Biden] administration. She has to answer for that and define herself independently … That’s a lot of baggage to carry when you’ve got a compressed time frame against a mature campaign on Trump’s side.”

Kamala Harris continues to gain strength in the US presidential election, as polls nationally and in battleground states show her building leads or catching Donald Trump.

On Friday morning, FiveThirtyEight, a leading polling analysis site, puts Harris, the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee for president, up by 2.1 points over her Republican rival in its national average.

In averages for swing states, where control of the White House rests, Harris led in Michigan by two points, Pennsylvania by 1.1 point and Wisconsin by 1.8 points. Trump led in Arizona by less than half a point and in Georgia by half a point.

In battleground states without enough polls to calculate averages, Trump was ahead by about three points in North Carolina and the candidates were about level in Nevada – where recent CBS and Bloomberg polls have given Harris two-point leads.

The US vice-president, 59, has changed the election race since mid-July, when Joe Biden, 81, finally heeded calls from his own party to step aside for a younger candidate to take on Trump, who is 78. He endorsed Harris to take over the top of the Democratic ticket for this November, while he serves out his single term.

On Thursday night, Amy Walter, of the non-partisan Cook Political Report, told PBS that before Harris entered the race, Biden “was behind by a significant number, not just at the national popular vote, but in those … battleground states. You can see almost six points in a state like Georgia and Nevada.

“Now, just in the time that Harris has been in the race, you have seen those numbers move pretty significantly toward Harris, four- or five-point shifts in those battleground states, which is mirroring what we’re seeing in the national poll as well.

“It hasn’t turned those states, though, from ones that favored Trump to ones that now favor Harris. It just means now that the race is no longer as lopsided in Trump’s favor as it was, say, in late July … which is why we’re calling this race a toss-up.”

The same day, the Cook Political Report changed its ratings for three Sun belt swing states – Arizona, Georgia and Nevada – from “leans Republican” to “toss-up”.

Another analysis site, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, based at the University of Virginia, changed Georgia from leans Republican to toss-up. Looking north, the site changed Minnesota and New Hampshire, states where Trump made gains while Biden was top of the Democratic ticket, from leans Democratic to likely Democratic.

Harris’s choice for vice-president, Tim Walz, is governor of Minnesota. Any Walz effect on polling has not yet been felt but some observers expressed surprise that Harris passed over Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, a battleground state.

Others argued back. For Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Joel K Goldstein said that though Shapiro and Mark Kelly, the Arizona senator who was also closely considered, were “both from competitive states that were … important pieces of the 306 electoral votes Democrats won in 2020”, in choosing Walz, “Harris demonstrated yet again that vice-presidential selection turns on matters other than the over-hyped criterion of home-state advantage.

“Walz also had the most experience (17 and a half years) in traditional vice-presidential feeder positions (senator, governor, member of the House of Representatives, holder of high federal executive office) of her options, which contrasts with the very limited experience (one and a half years) of his Republican counterpart, Ohio senator JD Vance.”

Among widely noted individual polls, Harris led for a second week in the Economist/YouGov survey, maintaining a two-point advantage. Reuters/Ipsos found Harris up five points, 42%-37%, up two on the last such survey, taken just after Biden withdrew. Ipsos said it also found in a separate poll Harris leading Trump 42%-40% in the seven battleground states, though it “did not break out results for individual states”.

A national poll from Marquette University in Wisconsin showed Harris up six points, with 53% support among likely voters to 47% for Trump. Harris maintained that lead when other candidates were included. Robert F Kennedy Jr, the leading independent, took 6% support. In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, Kennedy’s support had fallen six points to 4% since July.

The Marquette poll contained further good news for Harris, pointing to her energizing effect as the campaign heads for the home stretch: an 11-point rise in respondents saying they were very enthusiastic about voting in November.

“Enthusiasm has increased substantially among Democrats, with a small increase among Republicans,” the Marquette pollster Charles Franklin wrote. “Republicans had a consistent enthusiasm advantage over Democrats in previous polls, but this has been mostly erased now.”

It was not all good news for Harris and Democrats. In a poll released on Thursday, CNBC put Trump up two points and firmly ahead on who voters thought would make them financially better off.

Micah Roberts of Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican pollster who worked on the survey with a Democratic counterpart, said the election was “less now a referendum on Trump than it is a head-to-head competition between the two candidates”.

Harris, Roberts said, was “still carrying a lot of water for the [Biden] administration. She has to answer for that and define herself independently … That’s a lot of baggage to carry when you’ve got a compressed time frame against a mature campaign on Trump’s side.”

Donald Trump’s campaign recognizes that it could lose in November if the election is decided on “vibes” and “energy”, according to people close to the former president, as Kamala Harris continues to ride waves of momentum with her newly announced running mate Tim Walz.

The concern has also started to open fractures inside Trumpworld, with some Maga allies criticizing Trump’s political advisers for running a campaign that may be too structurally deficient to stand up a ground game in swing states.

The Trump campaign has sketched out a strategy to hit back and is expected to try to cast the Harris campaign the most progressive US ticket of all time, as they aim to get the political messaging back on their records in office and away from coverage about the extraordinary enthusiasm Harris has generated with voters.

The Trump campaign intends to continue trying to make Harris responsible in the eyes of voters for the influx of migrants, and her role as the “border czar” allowing migrants to spread across the country in part to alleviate pressure on border states.

That ties into their other strategy of pulling a “Willie Horton” attack from the old Republican playbook, suggesting on social media and in television ads that Harris was directly responsible for any crimes some migrants committed. Horton – a convicted murderer who committed more crimes while on prison furlough – was used in a racist attack strategy by George Bush during his 1988 presidential campaign.

With Walz, the strategy for now has been to say he ushered in progressive policies as Minnesota governor, focusing on how he supported transgender medical care for children, approved sweeping climate change legislation and enshrined abortion rights into law.

The campaign has also been eager to cast Walz as falsifying his military record – he has alluded vaguely to serving in Iraq although he left the military before his unit was deployed – an attack style that Trump’s current co-campaign chief Chris LaCivita once used against the decorated Vietnam veteran John Kerry in the “Swift Boat” episode.

The effort to focus on Harris and Walz’s governing records provide a window on to the Trump campaign knowing it needs to avoid a vibes-based election at all costs, the people said. The Trump campaign knows running on national mood will not work against Harris’s stunning momentum since she entered the race in the way it did with Biden.

For weeks before Biden ultimately withdrew, the principal fear inside Trump world was that Biden dropping out would give a successor massive momentum. And it was for that reason that Trump himself refrained from piling on Biden, even as top Democrats pressured him to quit the race.

The momentum premonition has turned out to be true and highly problematic for the Trump campaign as they struggle to get into the news cycle. It is the first time that Trump has largely lost control of the media narrative – and with it, his ability to trash the Harris ticket – since he was indicted in 2023.

But it remains unclear whether the Trump attack lines will work, at least over the next few weeks with seemingly no end in sight for Harris’s extended honeymoon period – an important factor because the longer the honeymoon period lasts, the less time Trump has to negatively define Harris.

The Trump campaign could find August to be a washout, one of the people observed. Walz could still dominate media coverage next week, and then Harris is expected to receive an outpouring of support at the Democratic national convention in Chicago the week after.

The week after the convention is also potentially cut short from a news cycle standpoint, as the country heads into the weekend for the Labor Day holiday.

On top of that, the attacks themselves have been less tailored than what they were with Biden and, in many ways, easily rebuttable by the Harris team.

If challenged on migrant crime, for instance, Harris is expected to pivot to saying she is an ex-prosecutor running against a convicted felon, bringing unwanted attention to Trump’s recent conviction in New York for falsifying business records to influence the 2016 election.

And if challenged on the Iraq situation, Walz could make a more painful point about Trump not serving in Vietnam on account of his bone spurs.

More broadly speaking, the other attack lines from Trump against Harris have not appeared to have the same effect as his lines had done with Biden. Trump spent some time testing out the “Cacklin’ Kamala” nickname to show her as unserious on account of her laugh, but he recently started trying “Kamabla” – a sign he was not sold on his initial option though it is not clear what the insult means.

A draft law in Iraq that would allow the marriage of girls as young as nine has provoked protests across the country, with women’s rights activists saying it would “legalise child rape”.

The Shia religious groups that dominate the political system in Iraq have been pushing to erode women’s rights in the country for more than a decade.

Unlike neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Iraq does not have a system of male guardianship requiring women to have the permission of a husband, father or male guardian to make crucial life choices such as marriage.

However, a new proposal, which passed its first reading in the Iraqi parliament this week, would give religious authorities the power to decide on family affairs, including marriage, divorce and the care of children

“This is a catastrophe for women,” said Raya Faiq, who is the coordinator for a coalition of groups which are opposing the law change. The group includes some Iraqi MPs.

“My husband and my family oppose child marriage. But imagine if my daughter gets married and my daughter’s husband wants to marry off my granddaughter as a child. The new law would allow him to do so. I would not be allowed to object. This law legalises child rape.”

During protests organised by the coalition this week in the capital, Baghdad, and in several other cities in Iraq, supporters of the new law confronted opponents and accused them of “moral decadence” and “following western agendas”.

Although Iraq has outlawed marriage under the age of 18 since the 1950s, one survey by the UN children’s agency, Unicef, found that 28% of girls in Iraq had married before they reached the age of 18.

Since 2021, the Iraqi political system has been dominated by the Coordination Framework, a political coalition of Iran-aligned factions. They have passed several sharia-oriented laws, including one to adopt religious holidays and another criminalising gay and transgender people in Iraq.

“Following the mass youth protests which took place in Iraq in 2019, these political players saw that the role of women had begun to strengthen in society,” said Nadia Mahmood, co-founder of the Iraq-based Aman Women’s Alliance. “They felt that feminist, gender and women’s organisations, plus civil society and activist movements, posed a threat to their power and status … [and] began to restrict and suppress them.”

A bloc of 25 female MPs in parliament have been trying to stop the draft law being put to a second vote, but said they face strong opposition.

“Unfortunately, male MPs who support this law speak in a masculine way, asking what’s wrong with marrying a minor? Their thinking is narrow minded. They don’t take into consideration that they are the legislators that determine people’s fate … but rather follow their masculine thinking to authorise all this,” said Alia Nassif, an Iraqi MP.

Protesters said they feared their children would face a future even harsher than their own if the law changes were adopted. “I have one daughter, I don’t want her to be forced like me to marry as a child,” said Azhar Jassim, who had to leave school to be married aged 16.

• Produced in collaboration with Jummar, an independent Iraqi media platform

A third suspect has been arrested in connection with a foiled terror attack on Taylor Swift’s now-cancelled concerts in Vienna, the Austrian interior minister has said.

The 18-year-old Iraqi man is understood to have been an associate of the main 19-year-old suspect, identified as Beran A, an Austrian with North Macedonian roots.

Gerhard Karner, the interior minister, announced the most recent arrest at a press conference in the Austrian capital on Friday.

Authorities say they believe the plot was inspired by the Islamic State group and al-Qaida. Bomb-making materials including chemical substances and technical devices that indicated “concrete preparatory acts” in the “advanced stages” were found during a raid of the main suspect’s home in Ternitz, south of Vienna, investigators said.

According to police, one of the suspects has confessed to planning to “kill as many people as possible outside the concert venue”.

About 20,000 to 35,000 non-ticket holders were expected to gather outside the Ernst Happel stadium for each of the three concerts, according to authorities. Up to 65,000 were due to attend inside.

The three sold-out concerts, part of Swift’s blockbuster Eras tour, were cancelled on Wednesday after details emerged of the plot, which was due to be executed on Thursday or Friday, authorities said.

The decision left tens of thousands of fans, many of whom had travelled to Austria from around the world, devastated.

Impromptu gatherings of fans, known as Swifties, across the city singing Swift’s songs and swapping homemade bracelets have provided consolation for many. Fans have been promised a refund of the ticket price but not the hotel or travel costs connected to their trips, which in many cases have run into thousands of euros.

Authorities defended the decision to cancel the concerts, despite the arrests of the terror suspects. Karl Nehammer, Austria’s chancellor, said the arrests had taken place too close to the scheduled concerts to allow them to go ahead.

Nehammer addressed the disappointed fans directly on Thursday. “I understand very well that those who wanted to experience the concert live are very sad,” he said. “Mums and dads are caring for their daughters and sons, who had been full of enthusiasm and excitement about this concert. But it’s also important that in such serious moments like now, safety inevitably has to come first.”

The Guardian spoke to fans who expressed their understanding of the decision.

Swift is due to perform at Wembley in London over five consecutive nights next week, with the last on 20 August, bringing the European leg of her tour to a close.

Many fans due to attend the concerts in Vienna are now scrambling to get tickets for London. The face-value price of those tickets has reportedly soared by almost 2,000% on the resale market. Appeals have gone out within the Swift fan community urging those with spare tickets to pass them on to those who have been disappointed.

London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has said the concerts will go ahead despite the safety concerns of many fans. “We’re going to carry on,” he said on Thursday.

Khan said authorities had adapted their surveillance of shows in London based in part on what they had learned from the 2017 attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, in which 22 people were killed and many injured.

A bomb carried in a rucksack by a suicide bomber detonated at the close of the concert at the Manchester Arena as thousands of mainly young fans were departing.

Less than two weeks ago three girls were killed and 10 people injured as they attended a Swift-themed dance and yoga workshop in the UK town of Southport. Swift said at the time she was “completely in shock” over the attack.

There has so far been no response from the singer over the Austria terror plot.

The main suspect told authorities he had begun planning the attack last month, uploading to the internet an oath of allegiance to the current head of IS two days before the planned attack. Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, the head of Austria’s directorate of state security and intelligence, said the 19-year-old had “clearly been radicalised in the direction of the Islamic State and considers it right to kill infidels”.

He had intended to “carry out an attack in the area outside the stadium, killing as many people as possible” by driving a car into the crowds before using knives, machetes and the homemade explosive devices, Haijawi-Pirchner said.

He had recently given up his job at a steelworks factory, telling colleagues he “still had big plans”.

Authorities said he had not resisted when anti-terrorist police came to arrest him at the family home on Wednesday. His parents were on holiday, according to Austrian media.

The second suspect, a 17-year-old Austrian of Turkish-Croatian heritage, has so far refused to talk. But authorities said they had found materials relating to IS and al-Qaida at his home. The teenager had been employed by a facility management company that was providing services of an unspecified nature at the concerts venue. He had recently broken up with his girlfriend, Haijawi-Pirchner said.

The first two suspects are being held at a penal institution in the industrial town of Wiener Neustadt, 30 miles (50km) south of Vienna, with state prosecutors having applied for the teenagers to be held in custody.

Another suspect, a 15-year-old Austrian boy of Turkish origin, is being questioned by police. The extent to which the suspects were part of a network, and if so how big it was, has not been made public.

It is understood the tipoff for the attack came from US intelligence services who informed their Austrian counterparts.

Poorer physical health across multiple organ systems has been significantly associated with depression because of the role the brain plays linking physical and mental health, new research has shown.

The study published in Nature Mental Health on Friday has identified for the first time the biological pathways through which poor organ health may lead to poor brain health, which may in turn lead to poor mental health.

The research led by the University of Melbourne, in collaboration with the University College London and the University of Cambridge, studied a subset of 18,083 people in the UK Biobank cohort.

Among these, 7,749 people had no clinically diagnosed major medical and mental conditions, while 10,334 had a lifetime diagnosis of one of the four common mental disorders including schizophrenia (67), bipolar disorder (592), depression (9,817) and generalised anxiety disorder (2,041).

They were aged between 40–70 years (with a mean age of 53.7 ) at the time of recruitment in 2006–2010 where researchers also separately assessed the health of their seven organ systems: the lungs, muscles and bones, kidneys, liver, heart, and the metabolic and immune systems. As well as physical assessments, the participants also undertook questionnaires for environmental and lifestyle factors.

For each of the seven organ systems, the researchers found that poorer organ health was significantly associated with higher depressive symptoms.

Similarly, poor organ health scores, except kidney and lung scores, were significantly associated with higher anxiety symptoms.

Poorer health scores of all organs, except the kidneys, were significantly associated with higher neuroticism (participants with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder).

“The musculoskeletal system consistently showed the strongest associations with the three mental health measures, followed by the immune, metabolic and hepatic [liver] systems,” according to the research.

The researchers found a consistent relationship for each reduction in musculoskeletal health, a consistent worsening of mental health symptoms.

Physical–mental health associations were modest for heart and lung systems and the weakest for the kidney system, they found.

The researchers then investigated whether the association between organ and mental health is mediated by the brain by gathering brain imaging data through participants undergoing an MRI between 4–14 years later.

For each person, a score was calculated for the volume of each brain gray matter (GM) region and the brain’s white matter tract – the fiber pathways that connect different components of the neural system. The participants then undertook an online assessment for mental health outcomes.

The researchers found “multiple significant pathways through which poor organ health may lead to poor brain health.” Across the three mental health measures, they found the volume of brain gray matter had the largest impact on depressive symptom severity, while the influence was weakest on anxiety.

They found the extent to which brain structure mediates physical–mental health varies across organ systems. “In general, the brain showed a strong mediating effect on organs that had strong direct effects on mental health outcomes; namely, the musculoskeletal and immune systems.”

The lead author, Dr Ye Ella Tian, a research fellow in the University of Melbourne’s department of psychiatry, said “by integrating clinical data, brain imaging and a wide array of organ-specific biomarkers in a large population-based cohort, we were able to establish for the first time multiple pathways involving the brain as a mediating factor and through which poor physical health of body organ systems may lead to poor mental health.”

The authors also assessed 14 lifestyle factors commonly associated with physical and mental health, including smoking, alcohol use, physical inactivity, poor nutrition and sleep, finding most were significantly associated with all three mental health measures.

The authors noted several limitations of the study. They acknowledged brain imaging and mental health assessments not available at the first study wave of the UK Biobank, when physical health was assessed.

Because of the sequence of participant assessment, they were unable to assess pathways where poor mental health may lead to poor physical health via influencing brain structure, or other combinations. They noted the relationship between physical and mental health is likely bi-directional.

They also acknowledged the UK Biobank cohort was predominantly white British participants and further work is needed to assess the generalisability of findings across the adult lifespan and in a diversity of ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Dr. Matthew Ahmadi, a research fellow at the University of Sydney’s faculty of medicine and health who was not involved in the research, said “the authors thorough integration of several lifestyle and health factors, brain imaging, organ-specific biomarkers and analytical modelling allowed them to identify potentially key pathways that the brain, physical health, and organ function may directly and indirectly impact mental health through biological pathways”.

Poorer physical health across multiple organ systems has been significantly associated with depression because of the role the brain plays linking physical and mental health, new research has shown.

The study published in Nature Mental Health on Friday has identified for the first time the biological pathways through which poor organ health may lead to poor brain health, which may in turn lead to poor mental health.

The research led by the University of Melbourne, in collaboration with the University College London and the University of Cambridge, studied a subset of 18,083 people in the UK Biobank cohort.

Among these, 7,749 people had no clinically diagnosed major medical and mental conditions, while 10,334 had a lifetime diagnosis of one of the four common mental disorders including schizophrenia (67), bipolar disorder (592), depression (9,817) and generalised anxiety disorder (2,041).

They were aged between 40–70 years (with a mean age of 53.7 ) at the time of recruitment in 2006–2010 where researchers also separately assessed the health of their seven organ systems: the lungs, muscles and bones, kidneys, liver, heart, and the metabolic and immune systems. As well as physical assessments, the participants also undertook questionnaires for environmental and lifestyle factors.

For each of the seven organ systems, the researchers found that poorer organ health was significantly associated with higher depressive symptoms.

Similarly, poor organ health scores, except kidney and lung scores, were significantly associated with higher anxiety symptoms.

Poorer health scores of all organs, except the kidneys, were significantly associated with higher neuroticism (participants with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder).

“The musculoskeletal system consistently showed the strongest associations with the three mental health measures, followed by the immune, metabolic and hepatic [liver] systems,” according to the research.

The researchers found a consistent relationship for each reduction in musculoskeletal health, a consistent worsening of mental health symptoms.

Physical–mental health associations were modest for heart and lung systems and the weakest for the kidney system, they found.

The researchers then investigated whether the association between organ and mental health is mediated by the brain by gathering brain imaging data through participants undergoing an MRI between 4–14 years later.

For each person, a score was calculated for the volume of each brain gray matter (GM) region and the brain’s white matter tract – the fiber pathways that connect different components of the neural system. The participants then undertook an online assessment for mental health outcomes.

The researchers found “multiple significant pathways through which poor organ health may lead to poor brain health.” Across the three mental health measures, they found the volume of brain gray matter had the largest impact on depressive symptom severity, while the influence was weakest on anxiety.

They found the extent to which brain structure mediates physical–mental health varies across organ systems. “In general, the brain showed a strong mediating effect on organs that had strong direct effects on mental health outcomes; namely, the musculoskeletal and immune systems.”

The lead author, Dr Ye Ella Tian, a research fellow in the University of Melbourne’s department of psychiatry, said “by integrating clinical data, brain imaging and a wide array of organ-specific biomarkers in a large population-based cohort, we were able to establish for the first time multiple pathways involving the brain as a mediating factor and through which poor physical health of body organ systems may lead to poor mental health.”

The authors also assessed 14 lifestyle factors commonly associated with physical and mental health, including smoking, alcohol use, physical inactivity, poor nutrition and sleep, finding most were significantly associated with all three mental health measures.

The authors noted several limitations of the study. They acknowledged brain imaging and mental health assessments not available at the first study wave of the UK Biobank, when physical health was assessed.

Because of the sequence of participant assessment, they were unable to assess pathways where poor mental health may lead to poor physical health via influencing brain structure, or other combinations. They noted the relationship between physical and mental health is likely bi-directional.

They also acknowledged the UK Biobank cohort was predominantly white British participants and further work is needed to assess the generalisability of findings across the adult lifespan and in a diversity of ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Dr. Matthew Ahmadi, a research fellow at the University of Sydney’s faculty of medicine and health who was not involved in the research, said “the authors thorough integration of several lifestyle and health factors, brain imaging, organ-specific biomarkers and analytical modelling allowed them to identify potentially key pathways that the brain, physical health, and organ function may directly and indirectly impact mental health through biological pathways”.

In a speech earlier this year, Kevin Roberts, the architect of Project 2025, a vast plan for a second Trump administration, compared abortion to slavery, lynchings, the Holocaust, antisemitic violence and terror attacks.

“Every slave auction, every lynching, every concentration camp, every abortion mill, every pogrom, every terrorist bombing from the Middle East to Kermit Gosnell, from Herod to Hitler to Hamas, has been justified on the same inhuman pretense that the victims aren’t really people,” Roberts said.

The remarks were reported by Media Matters for America, a progressive watchdog.

Gosnell, an abortion doctor in Philadelphia, was sentenced to life in prison in 2013, for the murder of three babies.

Roberts is the president of the Heritage Foundation, a hard-right thinktank. He spoke about abortion in Washington in January, at the National Pro-Life Summit, hosted by Students for Life in America, a Project 2025 advisory board member.

Project 2025 is a 900-plus-page policy plan for rightwing reform at every level of federal government. The Heritage Foundation has coordinated such plans since 1980 but Democrats and progressive groups have successfully raised alarm over Project 2025, regarding reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, environmental protections and other concerns.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the Democratic nominees for president and vice-president, have made Project 2025 a key part of their campaign, their attacks echoed by candidates for Congress and state posts.

Trump, his running mate, JD Vance, and key advisers have sought to back away. Earlier this week, a Trump spokesperson told the Washington Post, which reported links between Trump and Roberts including shared flights, Project 2025 “has never and will never be an accurate reflection of President Trump’s policies”.

Efforts to limit damage continue. Last month the Project 2025 director, Paul Dans, stepped down, reportedly under pressure from Trump’s campaign. Earlier this week, as Democrats in Congress demanded publication of Project 2025 plans for the first 180 days of a second Trump administration, which remain under wraps, a book by Roberts and introduced by Vance was delayed until after election day.

On Thursday, Roberts told a podcast it was “good” to see such moves, adding: “I mean, they’re trying to win an election. Also, legally it’s important for people to know that Project 2025 is independent of any candidate … we’ve put this together for any candidate to lean on.”

But his January remarks about abortion added fuel to the fire. Then, Roberts said: “The butcher’s bill of history is chillingly clear. Once a society deems certain individuals not fully human, it soon treats them as if they weren’t human at all. And it never stops with one group.

“… Is it any surprise that the same party of death celebrating violence in the womb also justifies, and even cheers, the surgical mutilation of children, the euthanizing of the depressed, the persecution of parents and churchgoers, even a genocidal war to exterminate the Jewish people?

“Make no mistake: This idea of human inequality – that some people count and some people don’t – doesn’t come from the media or the government or the elite or the left or even Planned Parenthood. It comes straight from hell.”

Earlier this week, Harris’s campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, said: “Project 2025 is on the ballot because Donald Trump is on the ballot. This is his agenda, written by his allies, for Donald Trump to inflict on our country.

“Hiding the 920-page blueprint from the American people doesn’t make it less real – in fact, it should make voters more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding.”

Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has cancelled a visit to central Asia this weekend after experts warned that the risk of a “megaquake” occurring off the country’s Pacific coast had increased following Thursday’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake in the south-west.

Kishida, who is battling low approval ratings and faces challenges to his leadership in a ruling party presidential election next month, announced his decision at a press conference on Friday.

He had been due to hold a summit with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in the Kazakh capital Astana on Friday evening and to meet the Mongolian president in Ulaanbaatar on Monday, according to the Kyodo news agency.

The Japan Meteorological Agency on Thursday issued its first-ever warning of the risk of a huge earthquake along the Pacific coast after a quake on the southernmost main island of Kyushu triggered a tsunami warning. No deaths or major damage have been reported.

The agency’s warning that the risk of a huge earthquake occurring along the Nankai Trough was higher than usual does not mean that a quake will definitely occur in the coming days. Public broadcaster NHK said Kishida’s overseas trip had been cancelled so that he could prepare for any eventuality.

The meteorological agency’s megaquake advisory warned that “if a major earthquake were to occur in the future, strong shaking and large tsunamis would be generated”.

It added: “The likelihood of a new major earthquake is higher than normal, but this is not an indication that a major earthquake will definitely occur during a specific period of time.”

The advisory concerns the Nankai Trough “subduction zone” between two tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean, where massive earthquakes have hit in the past.

The 800-kilometre (500-mile) undersea trough runs from Shizuoka, west of Tokyo, to the southern tip of Kyushu and has been the site of destructive earthquakes of magnitude 8 or 9 every 100 to 200 years.

These so-called “megathrust quakes”, which often occur in pairs, have unleashed dangerous tsunamis along the southern coast of Japan, one of the world’s most seismically active countries.

In 1707, all segments of the Nankai Trough ruptured at once, unleashing an earthquake that remains the nation’s second-most powerful on record after the March 2011 earthquake along the north-east coast.

That quake triggered a tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and led to a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Although it is impossible to predict the precise timing of earthquakes – apart from automated warnings that a quake could occur within seconds – government experts believe there is a 70% to 80% chance of an megaquake measuring magnitude 8 or 9 happening around the trough in the next 30 years.

In the worst-case scenario, the disaster would kill 300,000 people, with some experts estimating a financial hit as high as $13tn.

“The history of great earthquakes at Nankai is convincingly scary,” geologist Kyle Bradley and Judith A Hubbard wrote in their Earthquake Insights newsletter, but added that there was no need for the public to panic.

There was only a “small probability” that Thursday’s quake was a foreshock, Bradley and Hubbard wrote, adding: “One of the challenges is that even when the risk of a second earthquake is elevated, it is still always low.”

The BBC has asked Huw Edwards to return £200,000 that he was paid after his arrest in November last year, in the wake of the disgraced presenter admitting making indecent images of children.

The BBC chair, Samir Shah, said Edwards is a “villain” who “betrayed the trust of staff and our audiences in the most egregious possible way” while living a “double life”.

In an email to staff, Shah suggested the newsreader had deceived the BBC by failing to acknowledge his guilt at the time of his arrest: “Mr Edwards knew what he had done but he still took licence fee money to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds.”

As a result, Shah said Edwards should repay the money to the BBC – while insisting the real victims are “those children for whose degradation Huw Edwards provided a market for”.

The BBC does not have an easy legal route to claw back the £200,000, so it is appealing to Edwards to return the funds on the basis that he was not “upfront” about his guilt when asked about his arrest.

The presenter had been signed off work on full pay since last June after the Sun disclosed his financial payments to a young man for sexually explicit images, along with other allegations about inappropriate messages sent to younger BBC employees.

In November, Edwards was arrested on an entirely unrelated matter after his number was found by South Wales police in a phone belonging to a convicted paedophile. This ultimately led to him pleading guilty to making images of young children.

A small number of BBC executives, including the director general, Tim Davie, and the BBC News boss, Deborah Turness, were informed of Edwards’s arrest last autumn, but with no charges brought and no indication as to how he would plead, they did not sack him immediately – a decision they may now regret. The newsreader eventually resigned from the BBC in April after being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds while on medical leave.

Edwards was eventually charged with having 41 indecent images of children, which had been sent to him by another man on WhatsApp, and last month pleaded guilty to all offences.

Staff in the BBC newsroom have been furious at Edwards for continuing to collect his salary while facing such serious charges, especially at a time when other employees have been going through redundancy procedures and faced below-inflation pay rises. He was one of the BBC’s highest-paid stars at the time of his departure from the organisation, having just signed a new contract on an increased salary of £435,000.

The BBC board strongly backed Davie’s handling of the incident and shifted the blame to Edwards. They said Davie and his team did what they could, given contractural obligations to the newsreader and what was known by the BBC at that time.

They said: “Today, the board has authorised the executive to seek the return of salary paid to Mr Edwards from the time he was arrested in November last year. Mr Edwards pleaded guilty to an appalling crime. Had he been upfront when asked by the BBC about his arrest, we would never have continued to pay him public money. He has clearly undermined trust in the BBC and brought us into disrepute.”

They also announced that the board had commissioned an independent review that would “make recommendations on practical steps that could strengthen a workplace culture in line with BBC values”.

The BBC is bracing itself for further questions about Davie’s handling of the incident when parliament returns in September, with the director general expected to face questions from the new Conservative-led Commons culture select committee.

The culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, said she would not intervene in the corporation’s operations but she had spoken to the BBC chair to discuss the Edwards case. She said: “BBC staff must be able to feel safe in the workplace and be confident that if non-editorial complaints are raised they will be acted upon and dealt with fairly and decisively.”

Surging visitor numbers, soaring housing prices and the rise of selfie-seeking tourists have helped to create situations that are “totally out of balance”, a Unesco official has said, adding that a failure to address these issues could see the Spanish wave of protests against mass tourism extend across Europe.

In recent weeks tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in Spain’s most popular destinations, calling for curbs on mass tourism and a rethink of a business model that they say has pushed up housing prices and driven local people out of cities.

From Málaga to Mallorca and Gran Canaria to Granada, organisers have stressed that the protests are not against tourism, per se, but rather a call for a more balanced approach.

It’s a sentiment echoed by Peter DeBrine, Unesco’s senior project officer for sustainable tourism. “What we’re seeing is that we’re breaching a threshold of tolerance in these destinations,” he said. “It’s really trying to rebalance the situation. It’s totally out of balance now.”

He pointed to a myriad of factors to explain why many in Spain – long one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations – were now leading the backlash against the industry. Chief among them was the housing crisis, he said, describing it as the “straw that breaks the camel’s back”.

Tourism has exacerbated existing concerns over the affordability of housing, as the spread of short-term accommodation squeezes local residents out of the market. “I think that added a lot of anxiety and frustration for people who are living in these destinations,” said DeBrine.

Workers in places such as Ibiza have found themselves with little choice but to live in vans, caravans and tents, while in Málaga, a “sticker rebellion” has seen residents plaster stickers – reading “A family used to live here” or “Go home” – outside tourist lets across the city.

As Spain goes from one record-breaking year to another, the rocketing number of visitors was another factor that had contributed to the protests, said DeBrine. “I think in certain destinations, certainly there is also the way that tourists behave,” he said. “I think that also adds to it – you know, the tourists that aren’t respecting those destinations where they’re travelling.”

Destinations across Spain have long sought to push back against what local people describe as antisocial behaviour: introducing dress codes, cracking down on alcohol sales and – as happened recently in one resort town – moving to ban inflatable penis costumes and sex dolls.

Unesco has long promoted travel, pointing to its singular ability to foster an appreciation of cultural heritage across the globe. But in a time of social media, this ideal had seemingly become a tougher sell, said DeBrine.

“I mean, we have also evolved into what I call a selfie-motivated tourism,” he said. “You know, they just want to take a photo of something without really any understanding of what it is and what it means to our past and future.”

Frustration with the growing hordes of selfie-seekers was on display in Mallorca in June, as hundreds staged a protest in a picturesque cove to complain about the overcrowding and environmental degradation wrought by the many Instagrammers and influencers flocking to the site to capture the perfect picture.

Weeks later, however, the protests in Spain took a bitter turn after a handful of protesters bearing water guns squirted water at tourists. Others carried signs reading “Tourists go home” and “You are not welcome”.

DeBrine described the actions as “extreme and not necessary”, but saw them as being born of frustration: “And they probably won’t go away until there’s some sort of response.”

What was needed was a paradigm shift, he said, whereby decision-makers started to ask how things could be made better for residents. “It’s a bit of a cliche, but I always say better places to live are better places to visit.”

It was a shift already visible in many places, he said, pointing to Denmark’s push to encourage climate-friendly, sustainable behaviour and Venice’s entry fee. In Barcelona, the mayor recently vowed to curb apartment rentals to tourists by 2028, while Mallorca and Dubrovnik have taken action to limit cruise ship arrivals.

Not all of these solutions would necessarily work, said DeBrine, pointing to earlier efforts to disperse tourists within hotspot destinations as an example. The strategy led to unintended consequences as some local people began complaining about noise and strains on local infrastructure, while others saw themselves pushed out of areas as housing was increasingly converted into short-term lets. “All of a sudden you have people everywhere in a destination and that is also kind of causing a problem.”

But these shortcomings were preferable to the alternative, where local authorities refuse to acknowledge the issue, risking the spreading of protests against tourism beyond Spain, said DeBrine.

“We have a small window here to start to make some changes and to try different things,” he said. “The goal is to become more sustainable, so how do we get there?”