Doctors in India have begun a national strike, escalating the protest against the rape and murder of a female colleague in the West Bengal city of Kolkata.

The Indian Medical Association (IMA), the country’s largest grouping of doctors, said all non-essential hospital services would be shut down across the country on Saturday.

The IMA described last week’s killing as a “crime of barbaric scale due to the lack of safe spaces for women” and asked for the country’s support in its “struggle for justice”.

Protests against the attack and calling for the better protection of women have intensified in recent days after a mob vandalised the hospital where it happened.

In a statement, the IMA said emergency and casualty services would continue to run and that the strike would last for 24 hours.

The association’s president, R. V. Asokan, told the BBC doctors have been suffering and protesting against violence for years, but that this incident was “qualitatively different”.

If such a crime can happen in a medical college in a major city, it shows “everywhere doctors are unsafe”, he said.

Doctors at some government hospitals announced earlier this week that they were indefinitely halting elective procedures.

The IMA also issued a list of demands including the strengthening of the law to better protect medical staff against violence, increasing the level of security at hospitals and the creation of safe spaces for rest.

It called for a “meticulous and professional investigation” into the killing and the prosecution of those involved in vandalising, as well as compensation for the woman’s family.

The rape of the 31-year-old female trainee doctor has shocked the country.

Her half-naked body bearing extensive injuries was discovered in a seminar hall at R G Kar Medical College last week after she was reported to have gone there to rest during her shift.

A volunteer who worked at the hospital has been arrested in connection with the crime.

The case has been transferred from local police to India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) following criticism at the lack of progress.

More incidents of rape have made headlines in India since the woman’s death and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that “monstrous behaviour against women should be severely and quickly punished”.

The woman’s rape and killing has sparked a political blame game in West Bengal, with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accusing the governing Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) of orchestrating the attack.

The TMC has refuted the allegation and has blamed “political outsiders” for stoking the violence.

Tens of thousands of women across West Bengal participated in the Reclaim the Night march on Wednesday night to demand “independence to live in freedom and without fear”.

Though the protests were largely peaceful, clashes erupted between the police and a small group of unidentified men who barged into the RG Kar Hospital – the site of the crime – and ransacked its emergency ward.

At least 25 people have been arrested in connection with the incident so far.

Protests have also been held in many other Indian cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune.

“It feels like hope is being reignited,” one demonstrator, Sumita Datta, told the AFP news agency as thousands of people marched through the streets of Kolkata on Friday.

“All wars end with negotiations. It’s not the soldiers in the trenches who decide when.”

Arni joined the Ukrainian army in 2022 to fight for his country’s survival. When we bump into him 30 months later, he describes a new motivation. “Peace.”

“No-one likes war, we want to finish it,” he says while leaning against his camouflaged pick-up truck.

For the troops we encounter close to Russia’s border, there’s a desire to end Russia’s invasion on acceptable terms.

That is not to say survival isn’t a core driver – it is – but they seem to be striving for a finish line.

“For Ukraine, our people, we’ll stand until the end,” adds Arni.

Until 6 August, Ukraine’s sole objective was one of liberation. The complete repelling of Russian forces to its borders from before Russia first invaded in 2014.

Albeit at a grinding pace, the reverse has been happening for the past year-and-a-half with Moscow eroding Ukrainian territory.

Then came the “all in” poker play which surprised everyone apart from the battle-hardened Ukrainian soldiers who carried it out: a counter-offensive into Russia’s Kursk region.

“It was undeniably successful and daring,” observes Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Co-operation Centre, a think tank.

Now, Kyiv can’t reference its offensive often enough, with countless pictures of troops giving out aid as they tear down Russian flags.

“It also changes the narrative,” says Alina Frolova, security expert and former deputy defence minister of Ukraine. “A situation where we’re losing territory step by step is not a good one.

“Ukraine’s strategic position has changed.”

Despite parallels with Russia’s initial invasion, Kyiv claims its goal is not to occupy.

So what is the aim? Well, there’s more than one.

“This attack was partly carried out so the city of Sumy was better protected,” explains Serhii Kuzan, who thinks it is often forgotten that the border is still a front line.

Since the start of this summer, President Volodymyr Zelensky says there were more than 2,000 strikes on the Sumy region from the Kursk region alone, including 250 glide bombs.

For months it was feared Russian troops were preparing for a cross-border attack of their own, and by pushing them back, Serhii believes defending Ukraine in general will be easier.

“The [now captured] Russian city of Sudzha is on a commanding height. The Russians are already in a less advantageous position because we control the approach routes.”

While Russia has had to react to Ukraine on the battlefield, it has also had its supply lines targeted. Key roads have been seized and a strategically important bridge destroyed.

Which leads us to:

“The main purpose of this offensive into Kursk is to divert Russia’s attention from its occupied territories in Ukraine,” says Ivan Stupak, who worked for Ukraine’s security service (SBU) between 2004-2015.

The good news for Ukraine is that is what appears to be happening. The bad news is that Russian advances, notably towards the town of Pokrovsk, are not slowing.

“The Russian army has been redeploying some troops from different directions – the Kherson, Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, for example,” Ivan says. He believes around 10,000 personnel are being diverted, mostly from other parts of Russia.

It is how President Zelensky describes Ukraine’s collection of captured Russian soldiers.

Historically, when Ukraine has momentum, it captures more and consequentially negotiates the release of their own more easily.

The Kursk offensive has been no exception. Kyiv says hundreds of Russian troops were taken prisoner. Several could be seen surrendering in drone footage and being taken back to Ukraine with tape blindfolds.

“Moscow is actually offering to start negotiations to exchange prisoners of war,” says Serhii Kuzan.

“It is no longer us, enlisting the support of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to ask Russia to hand over our prisoners of war.”

This is a huge part of it for Kyiv.

On a civilian level, you had the horror and anger felt in the Kursk region in response to the blistering Ukrainian assault on their homes.

There were mass evacuations, pleas for help and criticisms of some authorities for not preventing the attack.

On a political level, you had Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly processing events in Moscow while being briefed by his security chiefs.

And of course there is the military level.

“The influence of this Ukrainian incursion could be quite substantial,” concludes Alina Frolova. “That’s why using highly professional troops was specifically the right decision.”

If Ukraine does not plan to keep hold of its captured Russian territory in the long term, but can hang on long enough, it hopes to leverage it for the release of its own land.

But it’s a big “if”.

When fighting slows, that has always suited Russia with its superior size. Misdirection and surprise has often worked for Ukraine.

“In a symmetric war, we have no chances with Russia,” points out Alina Frovola. “We need to make asymmetrical actions”.

Slowing advances in the Kursk region may leave Kyiv with difficult decisions.

But there are benefits for as long as there is movement, Serhii Kuzan argues.

“An advance rate of 1-3km a day is normal for swapping forward units with reserves,” he says. “In Ukraine’s Donbas region, the average advance rate for the Russians is 400m.

“Our pace in the Kursk region is five times faster than a 100,000-strong army!”

But the problem for Kyiv, is that Russians are still going forward in Ukraine.

However, don’t expect Ukraine to withdraw from its Russian attack anytime soon.

It is committed now.

Russia’s president initially labelled the offensive as a “terrorist attack” and “provocation”, but in the days since he has barely referenced it publicly.

That’s despite it fitting into his narrative that Russia’s invasion is a defensive war to protect his people.

Perhaps he doesn’t want the alarm felt by many in the Kursk region to spread, or for it to appear like his military doesn’t have control of the situation.

Also, as with the Kursk submarine disaster and failed coup of last year, Vladimir Putin doesn’t always act quickly to regain the initiative.

Ukraine will be hoping he’s not this time because he can’t.

Performers working in the games industry have spoken of their distress at being asked to work on explicit content without notice, including a scene featuring a sexual assault.

Sex scenes are common in modern games – and are often made by filming human actors who are then digitised into game characters.

But performers have told the BBC a culture of secrecy around projects – where scripts are often not shared until the last moment – means they frequently do not know in advance that scenes may involve intimate acts.

They describe feeling “shaken” and “upset” after acting them out.

Performing arts union Equity is demanding action from the industry – it has published guides on minimum pay, and working conditions in games, including on intimate or explicit scenes.

Jessica Jefferies is a professional casting director, who works mainly in video games and enjoys the medium.

Prior to that she was a motion capture performer – part of a small group who worked regularly for studios used by game developers.

Dressed in a skin-tight body suit, covered in markers, motion capture performers act-out the movements of characters in games on a large unfurnished set, where their motions are recorded digitally.

She said performers were often left in the dark about the nature of the game, or the scene, by developers.

“We’d get an email or a call from a studio saying we need you on these days for a shoot,” she said.

“That was all the information we’d get.”

Ms Jefferies told the BBC she was once asked to act out a scene with a male performer involving a sexual assault with no prior warning.

“I turned up and was told what I would be filming would be a graphic rape scene,” she said.

“This act could be watched for as long or as little time as the player wanted through a window, and then a player would be able to shoot this character in the head.

“It was just purely gratuitous in my opinion.”

She refused to act out the “disgusting” scene – which was made worse as she was the only female on set.

“There’s no nudity involved, but its still an act and there’s an intimacy in that act and also a violence in this situation,” she said.

“So yes there may be a layer of Lycra between us, but you are still there and still having to truly immerse yourself in this scene.”

In the end her concerns were listened to and the scene was not recorded.

But it reinforces her belief that performers should know in advance about explicit scenes so they don’t have to “kick up a fuss” on set or feel pressure to do something which makes them feel uncomfortable.

Ms Jefferies was consulted by Equity in the development of their guidance which requires that when recording explicit or intimate scenes:

• A summary of the story, scene breakdown and scripts should be distributed to all cast members in advance.
• performers should be able to request a closed set where access is kept to a minimum.
• a competent intimacy coordinator should be engaged.

She argues giving actors more information will help them deliver better performances and argues “there is an appetite for change”.

Ms Jefferies stresses the guidelines are not trying to put boundaries on storytelling. In the ten years since that incident there have also been major improvements, she says – and “these guidelines are just to bring it even more in line with the best practices in the film and TV industry”.

She says the studios she now works with are generally very open to being educated on good practices, and agree that treating people well leads to better performances.

One voice actor and Equity member who supports the guidelines, speaking on condition of anonymity, also told the BBC of problems she had encountered.

She “absolutely loves the industry” but argues the limited information shared with actors before a performance needs to change.

“We have to sign NDAs [non-disclosure agreements], we’re told almost nothing,” she said.

In one recording for a major game she first learned it was explicit only when she turned up for work.

“This was actually a full-on sex scene,” she said.

“I had to [vocally] match the scene and through the glass in the booth was the entire team, all male, watching me.

“It was excruciating… at that stage I had been in the games industry a while, and I had never felt so shaken”.

She compared the experience to unexpectedly being required to perform for a premium rate phone-sex line.

“What upset me so much about the situation is I was put on the spot, nobody thought to ask me if I was ok with it, and nobody checked to see if I was ok afterwards,” she said.

And as a freelancer, she feared being labelled as a troublemaker by refusing.

“Nobody has to justify why they’re not hiring you,” she said.

Like Ms Jefferies, she wants games to move closer to standards in film and TV.

Rhiannon Bevan of game news site The Gamer has covered the steps last year’s gaming blockbuster Baldur’s Gate 3 took in dealing with explicit scenes as an example of a modern game “getting it right”.

She says games are increasingly taking explicit scenes seriously “and not just using them for titillation”.

But it came with the risk that performers may not be comfortable with the work.

Baldur’s Gate 3 addressed this by employing intimacy co-ordinators – dedicated members of staff tasked with ensuring the well-being of performers in explicit scenes.

Its developer used one intimacy co-ordinator to look after performers voicing intimate scenes, while another looked after those who were also miming actions to be digitised into the game.

As well as intimate scenes, the Equity guidelines also cover the overuse of NDAs, safety during motion and performance capture, avoiding harmful vocal stress for artists and the protections around the use of artificial intelligence.

AI use is one of the key issues behind a continuing strike by games performers in the US.

UKIE, the trade body for the games industry, did not respond directly to the issue of the treatment of performers working on explicit material, but said in relation to Equity’s guidelines that its focus “remains on fostering a supportive environment for all stakeholders in the UK video game sector, ensuring it remains the best place to create, play, and sell video games”.

Ukrainian troops are “strengthening” positions in captured territory in Russia and expanding further, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Ukrainian soldiers are two weeks into their incursion in Russia’s Kursk region – their deepest since Moscow launched its full scale invasion more than two years ago.

Troops are continuing to advance further into Kursk, the force said in its daily report.

Moscow has called the incursion a major provocation and vowed to retaliate with a “worthy response”.

In a statement on messaging app Telegram, President Zelensky said: “Thank you to all the soldiers and commanders who are taking Russian military prisoners and bringing the release of our soldiers and civilians held by Russia closer.

“General Syrskyi also reported on strengthening our forces’ positions in the Kursk region and expanding the stabilised territory.”

Russia said its forces had repelled the Ukrainians near three settlements in the Kursk region and were searching for “mobile enemy groups” trying to pierce deeper into the country.

Kyiv claims to have taken control of more than 80 settlements in the incursion.

His latest statement comes after Ukraine destroyed a strategically important bridge over the river Seym this week.

The bridge had been used by the Kremlin to supply its troops and its destruction could hamper those efforts.

The Russian foreign ministry said the bridge was “completely destroyed” and volunteers assisting the evacuated civilian population were killed.

However, as Ukraine moves further into western Russian territory, Russian forces are equally making gains in Ukraine’s east and have claimed a string of towns in recent weeks.

Russia attacked at least four Ukrainian regions on Saturday, according to Ukrainian officials, including the north-eastern region of Kharkiv.

Mr Zelensky said on Saturday there had been “dozens of Russian assaults” on Ukrainian positions near the cities of Toretsk and Pokrovsk.

Pokrovsk is a vital logistics hub that sits on a main road for supplies to Ukrainian troops along the eastern front.

“Our soldiers and units are doing everything to destroy the occupier and repel the attacks,” the Ukrainian president said, stressing the situation was “under control”.

Hamas has described suggestions of progress on an Israel-Gaza ceasefire deal as an illusion, after US President Joe Biden said he was feeling “optimistic”.

Following two days of US-backed talks in Qatar, President Biden said on Friday “we are closer than we have ever been”.

However, a senior Hamas official told the BBC there had been no progress and mediators were “selling illusions”.

Israel said it “appreciates the efforts of the US and the mediators to dissuade Hamas from its refusal to a hostage release deal”.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

A ceasefire deal agreed in November saw Hamas release 105 of the hostages in return for a week-long ceasefire and the freeing of some 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Israel says 111 hostages are still being held, 39 of whom are presumed dead.

In a recent joint statement, the US, Qatar and Egypt stated that they had presented a proposal for a ceasefire and hostage release deal that “narrows the gaps” between Israel and Hamas.

Israel has said any ceasefire deal would require the release of the remaining hostages. Some have already been released, while others are thought to have died in Gaza.

Relatives of hostages still in Gaza are calling the current negotiations as the “last chance” to get some of them out alive.

After 10 months of war and thousands of casualties, there is overwhelming pressure for a breakthrough.

A wider regional conflict, in the event of talks between Israel and Hamas collapsing completely, is a distinct possibility and is something all of those involved are fearful of.

The mediators said that the past two days of ceasefire discussions had been “serious, constructive and conducted in a positive atmosphere”.

Technical teams are expected to continue working over the coming days on the details of how to implement the proposed terms before senior government officials meet again in Cairo, hoping to reach an agreement on the terms set out in Doha.

While the mediators’ statement is clearly a positive development, there is still a long way to go before a ceasefire is agreed.

This is not the first time the Mr Biden has said he thought a deal was close – and not everyone shares his cautious optimism.

Neither Hamas nor the Israeli government have been quite so upbeat in their responses.

Israel says its position and core principles have remained unchanged and were “well-known”. It accused Hamas of refusing to agree to a deal for the release of the hostages.

Above all else, Israelis want to see the remaining hostages released but many are sceptical that is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s primary goal. He has insisted that a “total victory” over Hamas is his government’s priority.

Meanwhile, Hamas’s new leader, Yaya Sinwar, continues to show few signs of compromise.

Asked about President Biden’s statement, the senior Hamas official told the BBC “what we have received from the mediators is very disappointing. There has been no progress”.

Hamas is understood to have dropped its demand for a permanent ceasefire in favour of Mr Biden’s proposal for a six-week pause in which an end to the war could be brokered.

Mr Biden’s ceasefire proposal also included the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza, the staggered release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, and the return of dead hostages’ remains.

The “bridging proposal” put forward by US, Egyptian and Qatari negotiators will be the subject of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s negotiations in the region and should form the basis for the next talks in Cairo at which all parties, including Hamas, are expected to attend.

That proposal reportedly “closes the remaining gaps” between the two sides’ positions which could allow for “a rapid implementation of the agreement”.

It might sound straightforward, but there are big obstacles to overcome and there is still absolutely no trust between senior Israeli or Hamas figures.

They’re being dragged to the table – perhaps against their wishes – by others fearful of what could happen in the event of failure.

Hamas and its allies are convinced the US administration is trying to buy more time.

If Iran attacks Israel, it will appear as if it is Hamas which undermined the negotiations.

Hamas does not hide its desire for Iran and Hezbollah to attack Israel and for the escalation to turn into a regional war.

They believe a strong blow to Israel will weaken Mr Netanyahu and push him to accept a deal.

For his part, Mr Biden warned “no-one in the region should take actions to undermine this process”.

Meanwhile, Israel’s military operation in Gaza continues, with an air strike in the early hours of Saturday morning killing 15 people in the al-Zawaida neighbourhood of central Gaza, according to the Palestinian civil defence authority, a rescue service.

Spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP news agency nine children and three women were among the dead.

Israel has not commented directly. The Israel Defense Forces said on Saturday morning it had “eliminated a number of terrorists” in central Gaza, including one that had fired at Israeli forces operating in the area.

The Israeli military has issued new evacuation orders for several blocks in northern Khan Younis and Deir Balah – further shrinking the humanitarian zone in which thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge from the fighting.

Israel said the blocks had become dangerous for civilians “due to significant acts of terrorism” and the firing of rockets and mortars towards Israel.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said: “Once again, fear spreads as families have nowhere to go.”

Pressing the need for a ceasefire deal is the circulation of the polio virus – which can spread through faecal matter – is now circulating inside the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in Gaza.

“Let’s be clear: The ultimate vaccine for polio is peace and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” UN Secretary General António Guterres said.

When 21-year-old Indiana University philosophy student Craig Sautter drove to Chicago for the 1968 Democratic National Convention, he had an “inkling” that he would be in for a “wild day”.

There had been a series of riots after the back-to-back assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy just months before, and he could tell that simmering tensions were ready to boil over when thousands of protesters, police, politicians and delegates gathered in Chicago in August 1968 to pick who would be the next Democratic candidate for president.

Yet the young anti-Vietnam War activist was still shocked by what he saw: National Guardsmen with bayonets, protesters ripped from cars or beaten with police batons, and thick clouds of tear gas wafting through crowds of thousands.

“We were mostly middle-class kids, or business people who were there in suits, protesting against the war,” Mr Sautter recalled. “We never thought that the police would attack an unarmed group of people who were just singing and shouting… we were in disbelief.”

Ultimately, more than 600 protesters were arrested and over 100 treated for injuries, alongside 119 police officers.

Scenes of the violent clashes in the streets and parks of Chicago soon flashed on TV screens across the country, and the world, leaving an unforgettable image of America in chaos.

“People were chanting that the whole world was watching,” added Mr Sautter, now a professor at Chicago’s DePaul University who researches presidential conventions.

The return of the DNC to Chicago in 2024 has led many to look back at 1968 and draw parallels. Like back then, there will be anti-war protests – this time against the Biden administration’s support for Israel during the war in Gaza.

And like back then, there has been a surprising change of guard amongst Democratic leadership. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek re-election months before the convention, while this time, President Biden pulled out of the race with merely weeks to go.

But experts and veterans of the 1960s protest movement believe the differences far outweigh the similarities.

Some of those involved in planning the anti-Gaza war protests at the upcoming DNC say they draw inspiration from the work of the earlier activists nearly 60 years ago.

“This is the Vietnam War of our era,” Hatem Abudayyah, a spokesman for the Coalition to March on the DNC, told the BBC. “The attacks on our movement, our students and our organisations are similar to the attacks on the movement that was trying to stop 1968… I absolutely see those parallels.”

The coalition includes over 200 organisations involved in the protests, and its spokespeople have said that “tens of thousands” of participants are expected.

The size of the protests has prompted Chicago’s police department to warn that it won’t tolerate “violent actors” or incidents of vandalism or criminality.

Yet Mr Abudayyah does not think that violence is an inevitable outcome, saying that there has been “no evidence of any violence” over 10 months of protests organised by the coalition or its member groups since the conflict in the Middle East began.

Others have pushed back on the comparisons, saying that any similarities are few and far between.

“Other than the fact that they’re in Chicago, there are none,” long-time Democratic National Committee member and DNC delegate Elaine Kamarck told the BBC. “This is not even close.”

One of the key differences, according to Ms Kamarck, was the “very, very thuggish tactics” of the Chicago police, who a federally-mandated commission later accused of a “police riot” at the DNC.

Just months before, then-Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley had also issued “shoot to kill” orders in the wake of riots after Martin Luther King’s death.

“All hell was breaking loose,” said Ms Kamarck, who was 18 at the time. “There’s no such thing going on now.”

Ms Kamarck’s assessment was echoed by Marsha Barrett, a professor of US political history at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign.

“Daley had very strong control over police, and an antagonistic relationship with protesters,” she said. “The city had set up a situation where there was likely to be a major conflict.”

“We don’t have that now,” she added.

Chicago police have been in regular touch with DNC protest groups and have vowed to protect their rights to free speech, provided that the protests remain lawful.

“The understanding of police activity at that time was that the would use whatever force was needed to overcome resistance,” said Mr Sautter.

“Now the police are better trained,” he added. “They’re not going to provoke anything unless some kind of violence breaks out.”

Among those who witnessed the violence first-hand was Abe Peck, then editor of the Chicago Seed, an underground newspaper linked to the Youth International Movement, or Yippies, that planned events around the 1968 convention.

“We were in our office, which was in a dry cleaner’s, and all of a sudden our window fragmented,” remembers Mr Peck, who was later credited with creating the “whole world is watching” chant. “Two shots were fired through it. Fortunately nobody was hit.”

When they ran outside to investigate, Mr Peck saw only one vehicle: a Chicago police cruiser.

The incident was one of several which marked his experiences of the DNC, which also included the police “stomping out” religious ministers tied to the counterculture movement.

That violence, Mr Peck told the BBC, stands in stark contrast to today.

Social media and the immediate spread of news could create a public relations disaster if police were seen to be too aggressive.

“Back then, there was a real delay in getting news out. Now, it’s essentially instantaneous,” Mr Peck said. “That’s a big difference.”

Don Rose, who in 1968 was a spokesman for the National Mobilization Committee to End the War, one of the main protest groups, told the BBC that an even more significant difference was the Vietnam War itself.

That war, unlike the Gaza war, saw tens of thousands of Americans drafted, many of whom were killed or wounded overseas.

“The country was far more divided on the Vietnam War at that time. The protests expanded greatly because of the draft,” said Mr Rose, now 93.

“We were protesting at a convention that would nominate someone who could end the war with the stroke of a pen,” he added.

The Democratic Party at the time was also deeply divided over the war, and when delegates arrived at the DNC of 1968, they had no idea who would be leaving with the nomination.

When then-vice president Hubert Humphrey was finally chosen as nominee over anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy, some in the audience even shouted “No!”.

“The convention was totally divided, and at war with itself,” explained Mr Stautter. “For [Kamala] Harris and Walz, it’s totally unified.”

Mr Peck, for his part, said that more recent versions of the DNC can no longer be called “nominating conventions”.

“These are just confirmation conventions,” he said. “They confirm what the people in states did at the primary levels. That’s really different.”

Ultimately, Hubert Humphrey went on to lose the 1968 election to Republican Richard Nixon.

Looking back, Mr Stautter – who will be watching the convention on TV this year – believes that the protests of 1968 had an impact on the US that could never be replicated in 2024.

“People who watched were totally radicalised by it, and many, many more people became involved in trying to stop the war,” he said.

“A whole generation, whether they were there or not, were marked by it.”

Millions of screaming fans. A global phenomenon. A multi-billion pound business. No, it’s not Taylor Swift (this time). We’re talking K-pop.

And with four of 2023’s top 10 best-selling acts coming out of South Korea, the Brits want a piece of the action.

Step forward newly created boy band, Dear Alice, who applied to take part in the latest BBC One talent show, Made in Korea: The K-pop Experience.

Meet Blaise, Dexter, James, Olly and Reese. You might be hearing a bit more about them from now on.

None of them knew each other before they individually auditioned and were put together as a band by the showrunners.

The fresh-faced quintet were then flown out to South Korea’s capital, Seoul, for 100 days of rigorous K-pop training with stardom in their sights.

Most K-pop training takes years rather than months. Not for the faint-hearted, the boys’ experience involved long hours of vocal coaching and learning intricate choreography with a bit of Korean sight-seeing thrown in for good measure (and good TV – the South Korean tourist board will be thrilled).

• Where did K-pop come from?

The six-part series is a collaboration between the BBC, K-pop powerhouse agency SM Entertainment and Moon&Back Media, run by TV veterans Dawn Airey, Nigel Hall and Russ Lindsay, whose back catalogue includes shows such as The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Saturday Night Takeaway.

K-pop expert Hee Jun Yoon, the creative force behind some of the biggest K-pop bands of the last 20 years, critiques the band’s performance at the end of each week and it’s safe to say she pulls no punches. Even the head of BBC unscripted content, Kate Phillips, says Hee Jun “makes Simon Cowell look like Mary Poppins”.

Former X Factor head judge Cowell is, of course, launching his own search for a boy band in an upcoming Netflix series which is still in production.

Without giving too much away from Made in Korea’s first episode, Hee Jun gives the band a huge wake-up call in week one with some unflinching criticism. “The level of choreo is so basic, it’s nursery level.” Ouch. Her facial expressions alone could go viral.

The boys won’t be drawn on whether any of them wanted to quit the show at any point. “You’ll have to wait and see,” says Olly Quinn, 20, from Sunderland, a recent graduate in dance and musical theatre. (Clearly, the media training has also been exacting).

They also won’t reveal whether they’ve signed a record deal yet, only saying they’re still “rehearsing hard” and commenting that all the effort and brutal feedback was worth it.

Londoner Dexter Greenwood, 22, who also trained in musical theatre, says: “It was hard work, really challenging but the end justifies the means. Everyone at SM was so supportive but I think we were different to what they expected!”

Reese Carter, 20, from Wiltshire and a former cruise ship performer, adds: “At first it hit hard but we had a great welfare team in place… and it was all done with love.

“They’re honest because they want to push us to be that much better. I enjoy the feedback. They’re on our side. We had welfare, a life coach, we had people living with us constantly, you could walk downstairs and speak to someone,” he adds.

Olly concurs: “It’s the brutal honestly. We needed it.”

There’s certainly a vast difference between the band’s performances in episode one and a later video clip journalists were shown at a preview.

Coco Yeonsoo Do is a K-pop dancer and choreographer, and was a former member of KAACHI, considered the UK’s first K-pop girl group.

“It’s really hard to make a K-pop group reach BTS or Blackpink level,” she tells the BBC, but training is what sets successful groups apart.

“It’s very intense and competitive,” says Coco.

One key difference between UK and US pop groups and K-pop ones is how produced the latter are, she adds.

“It’s obvious, but K-pop groups work more like a group, and emphasise the group identity, rather than individuality,” she adds.

Following allegations over very strict and punishing training regimes by wannabe K-pop stars over the past few years, Korean press reported the introduction of regulations to ban some unfair practices in contracts between K-pop trainees and entertainment companies.

Clearly welfare has been a priority for the series producers of The K-pop Experience.

Helen Wood is a professor of Media and Cultural Studies at Aston University, and is working on a research project on duty of care in TV.

In 2019, there was a Parliamentary inquiry and Ofcom consultation on the broadcasting code, following a handful of reality stars’ deaths by suicide.

In 2020, the media watchdog announced new rules to protect those taking part in TV shows.

“Now there’s more pressure on production to make sure that they’re taking due care of the welfare, dignity and wellbeing of participants that go through production,” she says.

“That’s not to say that things weren’t in place before 2021, but there’s now much more regulation.”

Another key difference brought in through the new Ofcom code is a requirement to show audiences that a duty of care to participants is being enacted, she adds.

This means drawing back the curtain to show audiences some of the backstage production processes to ensure they understand and feel confident that contestants are adequately cared for.

A spokesperson for Made in Korea told the BBC: “The welfare of the band members has been at the centre of their training process,” adding that there was a “strong support team in place” and that the band’s welfare “remains the highest priority”.

Reese says they also relied on each other for support.

“We’ve [the band] grown closer and closer over the last couple of months. Much as it was great to have welfare there, there was a lot of times when we didn’t need to go to them because we’re strong enough as a group.”

Blaise Noon, 19, from London, is the baby of the band but appears to be taking it all in his stride. He is a Brit School graduate and comes across as the most confident.

He says they are really “lucky” to have had the advantage as a British band to be immersed in the Korean training regime: “There’s a lot of really good things we can take away to create this hybrid fusion.”

Interestingly, most of them have never had any desire to be in a boy band until now.

James Sharp, 23, from Huddersfield, is one half of the Sharp twins, whose TikTok account has amassed 5.5 million followers.

He says he thought boy bands were “cringey”, Blaise laughs as he recalls feeling “too cool” for them although Dexter was always a fan. And Olly has had a K-pop education from his auntie who runs K-pop fan pages.

All agree, though, that this was too big an opportunity to pass up.

But how did they come up with the band name?

After Olly’s suggestion of British Bulldogs was quickly scotched (can’t think why), they stumbled upon a restaurant in Seoul called Dear Alice.

They all liked it and it stuck.

“The ‘dear’ is like a letter to the fans” and Alice stands for ‘a love I can’t explain,” says Blaine.

More to the point, the restaurant “sold the best beef wellington in the world” according to the lads.

Not exactly your classic Korean dish but Dear Alice will be hoping a similar culture fusion will be the secret to their success.

An Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon has killed 10 people, Lebanese officials say, in one of the deadliest attacks in the current violence along the Lebanon-Israel border.

The building hit, in the city of Nabatieh, was housing Syrian refugees, the Lebanese Health Minister, Firass Abiad, told the BBC. Israel said it had targeted a Hezbollah weapons depot, which was denied by the owner of the facility.

In response Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia and political Lebanese group, fired a barrage of rockets, targeting a kibbutz in northern Israel and another on an Israeli military post.

There were no casualties as a result of the first attack, while two Israeli soldiers were injured in the second, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded near daily fire across the border since the 7 October attack on Israel by Palestinian militants prompted an Israeli invasion of Gaza with the aim of eliminating Hamas.

Tensions have escalated further in recent weeks after Israel killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, in Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has vowed to respond to the assassination.

It comes as international mediators have urged Israel and Hamas to agree a ceasefire deal in upcoming talks, amid fears the war in Gaza could spiral into a regional conflict.

Iran has dismissed calls from Western leaders to refrain from retaliating against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in its capital, Tehran, last month.

But there are indications that Iran may have decided to delay its response amid the efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Mr Abiad, however, said Israel’s actions suggested it had no interest in a deal.

He also said that a woman and her two children were among the dead in Nabatieh, and that a further five people were in a critical condition.

Hossain Tohmaz, the owner of one of the buildings hit, said it was a “100% civilian facility”, where people worked and lived.

“This is a hangar used for manufacturing iron, and that is a warehouse where we park trucks for loading goods like solar panels. The workers live and sleep on the top floor,” he said.

A few hours later, Hezbollah said it had fired Katyusha rockets at Ayelet HaShahar, a kibbutz north of the Sea of Galilee.

The IDF said it had it had detected 55 launches from Lebanon, some of which had fallen in “open areas”.

“Multiple fires were ignited in the area and Israel Fire and Rescue Services are currently operating at the scene to extinguish them,” it wrote in an update on Telegram.

A short while later, Hezbollah said it had attacked an Israeli military position in Marj.

The IDF said one soldier had been severely injured and another lightly injured as a result of a projectile launched from Lebanon that had fallen on Misgav Am, which sits next to the Israel-Lebanon border.

“The soldiers were evacuated to a hospital for medical treatment and their families have been notified,” it added.

The strike is among the deadliest attacks in Lebanon in the current hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

A few hours later, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing Katyusha rockets Ayelet HaShahar, a kibbutz north of the Sea of Galilee.

The IDF said it had it had detected 55 launches from Lebanon, some of which had fallen in “open areas”.

“Multiple fires were ignited in the area and Israel Fire and Rescue Services are currently operating at the scene to extinguish them,” it wrote in an update on Telegram.

A short while later, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for attacking an Israeli military position in Marj with “two suicide bombers”.

The IDF said one soldier had been severely injured and another lightly injured as a result of a projectile launched from Lebanon that had fallen on Misgav Am, which sits next to the Israel-Lebanon border.

“The soldiers were evacuated to a hospital for medical treatment and their families have been notified,” it added.

When 10-year-old Tegan went for a summer holiday beach stroll with her mum, she had no idea they would actually be walking in the footsteps of dinosaurs.

The schoolgirl spotted five enormous footprints that dinosaur experts believe are the mark of a camelotia that was there more than 200 million years ago.

Palaeontologists think the footprints, which are up to 75cm (30in) apart, were made by a huge herbivore from the late triassic period, and now there are efforts to get them verified.

Tegan and mum Claire have been told by the National Museum Wales palaeontology curator that she is “fairly certain they are genuine dinosaur prints”.

“We’ve got five footprints and we’re talking about half-to-three-quarters of a metre between each one,” Cindy Howells told the BBC’s The Dinohunters programme.

“These footprints are so big, it would have to be a type of dinosaur called a sauropodomorpha.”

Tegan’s monster discovery was on the south Wales coast near where her mum used to live.

“It was so cool and exciting,” said Tegan, who had travelled from Pontardawe near Swansea to the Vale of Glamorgan looking for fossils.

“We were just out looking to see what we could find, we didn’t think we’d find anything.

“We found these were big holes that looked like dinosaur footprints, so mum took some pictures, emailed the museum and it was from a long-necked dinosaur.”

Claire emailed Cindy a few days after the find in the red siltstone at Lavernock Point between Cardiff and Barry on a stretch of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast known to be a prehistoric hotspot.

Cindy, the go-to dinosaur expert of 40 years in this part of the UK, said what convinced her they were genuine was the consistent stride pattern.

“If they were random holes, we’d be wary but because we have a left foot, a right foot and then a left and another right… there’s a consistent distance between them,” she said.

“It”s quite a significant find – the buzz you get when someone contacts us with a definite dinosaur find, it’s amazing.”

Claire was chuffed their hunch was right and has invigorated her junior dino hunter daughter.

“It’s hard to comprehend you’re walking on the same beach that hundreds of millions of years ago some massive prehistoric animal was here,” she said.

“You can spent a lifetime looking for dinosaur treasures so for it to happen for Tegan at this age is great.”

The latest prehistoric find on this stretch of coast is a print from the sauropod family of dinosaurs – including the brachiosaurus and diplodocus, distinctive by their very long necks, long tails, big body and small head.

Cindy believes the footprint is from a camelotia, that lived across parts of Europe.

Little is known about them – compared what experts know about stegosaurus, triceratops and the mighty T-rex – but it is thought they walked on their front feet and their hind limbs, were herbivorous and from the late triassic period.

“We think these prints were made by a reasonably large, herbivorous dinosaur, added Cindy.

“While we haven’t any bones here, bones of similiar dinosaurs were found on the otherside of the Bristol Channel.

“A camelotia would have stood about 3m (10ft) tall, 4-5m (13-16ft) long and is an early sauropodomorph with a relatively long neck, long tail and walked on two legs but could walk on all four when grazing for food.”

Cindy is pretty certain “Tegan’s footprints” are linked to the first dinosaur prints found in Wales in 1879 in nearby Porthcawl.

Bones were then unearthed in Cowbridge in the Vale of Glamorgan before more footprints were found at The Bendricks near Barry and Sully – now a site of special scientific and paleontological interest.

A full dinosaur skeleton was unearthed in 2014 on the same beach near Penarth where Tegan found her footprints – although that was a 201-million-year-old dracoraptor and a meat-eating cousin of the T-rex.

Four-year-old Lily found a well-preserved dinosaur footprint at The Bendricks three years ago and now Tegan has spotted some more just down the coast.

“It’s amazing as up until recently, we had so few dinosaurs finds in Wales we didn’t think we had much in the way of dinosaurs here,” said Cindy.

“Now we’re getting a footprint or bone find every five to six years and we now know we’ve a continuous sequence of dinosaurs living in Wales over 15 million years or so – it’s amazing.

The south Wales group of the Geologists’ Association, of which Cindy is vice-president, believes it is “the best site in Britain for dinosaur tracks, external of the triassic period”.

Cindy has said Wales, whose geolological history dates back 700 million years, was a hot desert subject to flash floods when the dinosaur that formed the footprints found by Tegan roamed.

She was keen to quickly analyse the prints as she knew it as a well-known spot for prehistoric finds.

“The rocks around this area are triassic rocks, formed in the deserts and we know we’ve got dinosaur footprints in them,” added Cindy.

“Some 220 million years ago, Wales looked like what the Middle East does now so very hot, dry with deserts, and the sea was hundreds of miles away.

“But sea level started to change and continents breaking apart, it was getting damper, the sea was flooding the deserts and the environment was more favourable for dinosaurs.

“Then 200 million years ago, Wales was like the Mediterranean is now, with shallow, warm tropical seas and little islands.”

Cindy has now written a report for other palaeontologists on her view they are from a dinosaur, to verify for the find.

“It’s brilliant to say to people we have dinosaur footprints on our coast in south Wales,” she added. “You’ve just got to be in the right place at the right time.

“In museums, we don’t have time to go out and do that exploration ourlseves so we rely on people like Tegan doing it for us. We can’t do our job without it.”

The Geologists’ Association has told amateur dino hunters that footprints can be “difficult to see” as many are covered at high tide.

“It is best to go after high tide when the tracks may retain small puddles of water,” the group advises.

“It is also easier to spot the footprints when the sun is low in the sky as longer shadows will help throw the footprints into relief.”

• You can watch The Dinohunters as part of the Our Lives series on BBCiPlayer.

Grammy award-winning producer and songwriter The-Dream is seeking to have large parts of a sexual assault lawsuit filed against him thrown out.

The 47-year-old, born Terius Gesteelde-Diamant, was accused of rape and sexual battery in June by a former protégé, Chanaaz Mangroe, who performed as Channii Monroe.

In response, Mr Gesteelde-Diamant, who has written songs for Beyoncé, Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Mariah Carey, denied the allegations.

On Friday, his legal representatives filed to have the case thrown out, calling the claims “a textbook example of a ‘shotgun pleading’.”

The term ‘shotgun pleading’ is used to describe a complaint which sets out multiple allegations without providing the other side with fair notice of the claims.

In court documents seen by BBC News, the lawyers asked for multiple amendments to Ms Mangroe’s complaint, insisting certain paragraphs are “immaterial” and “scandalous”.

They are seeking to dismiss the rape claim, arguing rape is not a separate civil cause of action under California law.

They also argued the sex trafficking claim fails to allege required elements like a “commercial sex act”.

His legal representatives also asked for his label Contra Paris, LLC to be removed from the suit, as it is based in Delaware and therefore lacks personal jurisdiction in California.

“The complaint is a textbook example of a ‘shotgun pleading’ and must be dismissed in its entirety for failing to attribute specific factual allegations to each defendant,” said Desirée F. Moore, an attorney representing Mr Gesteelde-Diamant.

She added that Mangroe’s complaint “contains dozens of allegations that are utterly irrelevant to her sexual battery and sex trafficking claims and are, instead, designed solely to smear Diamant’s name and reputation.”

According to the lawsuit filed in June, Ms Mangroe says Mr Gesteelde-Diamant repeatedly forced her to have sex, throttled her and on one occasion filmed an intimate encounter and then threatened to show it to other people.

According to the 60-page lawsuit, Ms Mangroe is seeking damages for “lost wages” and for “mental pain and anguish and severe emotional distress”.

Ms Mangroe, originally from the Netherlands and who worked in the US hoping to break through as a singer and songwriter, said in the lawsuit she first met Mr Gesteelde-Diamant in January 2015.

The 33-year-old alleges he “subjected” her to “violent sexual encounters” that left her bruised; forced her into drinking “excessive amounts of alcohol”; strangled her to the point she “almost lost consciousness”; forced her into sexual acts in a movie theatre and raped her in a renovated sprinter van.

She also says he “told her that he would make her the next Beyoncé and Rihanna”.

Within days of that initial meeting, Ms Mangroe claims Mr Gesteelde-Diamant had begun pressuring her for sex, telling her it was “part of the process”, the lawsuit claims.

The 33-year-old says he locked her in a dark room and “would only stop aggressively having sex with her once she said that she loved him”.

Ms Mangroe alleges in the lawsuit that unwanted sexual encounters continued, while Mr Gesteelde-Diamant made her promises such as suggesting he could arrange for her to be the opening act of Beyoncé’s next tour, and Grammys.

Mr Gesteelde-Diamant has won eight Grammy Awards and was nominated for the newly created category of Songwriter of the Year at the 65th Grammy Awards in February 2023.

In a statement supplied by a representative of Mr Gesteelde-Diamant to the New York Times in June, he said the claims are “untrue and defamatory”.

“I oppose all forms of harassment and have always strived to help people realize their career goals,” the statement said.

“As someone committed to making a positive impact on my fellow artists and the world at large, I am deeply offended and saddened by these accusations.”

BBC News has approached Ms Mangroe for a response.

Having lived for exactly half his life under a bridge in Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos, Liya’u Sa’adu sees himself as the “guardian” for the many other homeless people who have joined him there.

More than 60 men now live in the tightly knit outdoor community – with the busy and noisy Obalende Bridge over them – as renting even a shack has proved unaffordable for them.

Mr Sa’adu advises the newcomers – often young people from far-away towns and villages – on how to be streetwise in fast-paced Lagos, where it is easy to fall into crime and drugs.

“I am 60 and there are young people who came here a few months ago or a few years ago. I see it as my responsibility to guide them,” he tells the BBC.

“It is so easy to lose track here in Lagos, especially for young people because there is no family to watch their steps.”

Like most of those who live under the bridge, he speaks Hausa, the most widely spoken language in the north of Nigeria.

He arrived here from the small town of Zurmi in north-western Zamfara state in 1994 – but all those he made friends with then have either died or have moved back to their hometowns or villages.

Tukur Garba, who began living under the bridge five years ago, says Mr Sa’adu’s advice has been invaluable and he commands huge respect from those who arrive to try their luck in Nigeria’s economic hub.

The 31-year-old hails down from the far northern state of Katsina, about 1,000km (621 miles) away.

“He is like our elder brother because he has been here for so long. We do need words of wisdom from him because it is easy to get in trouble in Lagos,” he says.

The area has now been dubbed “Karkashin Gada”, which in the Hausa language means “Under the Bridge”.

“The people who come here know someone who is already staying here or have a contact who told them about Karkashin Gada,” Mr Sa’adu says.

“When I came here, there were less than 10 people.”

Adamu Sahara, who has lived in an apartment close to Karkashin Gada for more than 30 years, says that homelessness is increasing in Lagos.

“Insecurity [including an insurgency by jihadist groups] and the failing economy has made a lot of people to flee northern Nigeria,” Mr Sahara says.

“Nigerian leaders have to be aware of what is happening so they can fix the problem because no human being is supposed to sleep under a bridge.”

Karkashin Gada’s longest resident has no plans to return to Zamfara as economic opportunities there remain bleak with kidnapping and banditry on the rise.

This has forced many people to abandon their businesses and farms as they risk being taken hostage by gangs demanding ransom payments.

To make life as comfortable as possible, Mr Sa’adu has acquired a mattress, some bedding, a wooden cabinet and a mosquito net.

He has put the mattress on top of the cabinet, and that is where he sleeps.

Mr Sa’adu is among the better-off as some of the other men who live there have no furniture, and share sleeping mats which they roll out on the floor.

Thankfully the risk of theft is minimal as some “residents” of Karkashin Gada are usually around, either working or enjoying their time off.

They all use a nearby public bath and toilet at a cost of 100 naira ($0.06; £0.05) a visit.

Cooking – or lighting fires, even in winter – rarely happens in Karkashin Gada as most of its inhabitants buy food from vendors who sell dishes popular with northerners.

“This is one of the places in Lagos where you see a large number of people from northern Nigeria so I sell fura [millet flour mixed with fermented milk] here and I am happy to say a lot of people do buy,” food vendor Aisha Hadi tells the BBC.

During his three decades in Lagos, Mr Sa’adu has progressed from being a shoe-shiner to being a scrap-metal seller – picking up metal from the streets and workshops for a business that sells it on for recycling.

It earns him an average of 5,000 naira ($3; £2) a day, above the extreme poverty threshold of $1.90 a day but barely enough for him to survive.

“Don’t forget I have to also send money to my family back in Zamfara every week, so it is a continuous struggle,” Mr Sa’adu says.

It is unclear how many people sleep on Lagos’ streets, but non-governmental organisations say they are up to half-a-million.

In the last few months, the Karkashin Gada community has come under heavy pressure from the Lagos state environmental task force.

Its officers carry out occasional raids as they say people are living there illegally.

Those arrested risk fines of up to 20,000 naira ($12; £9), a week’s income for many of the people living under the bridge.

“They come at around 1am or 2am, to arrest people sleeping here. Where do they want us to go?” Mr Garba says, adding that by morning most “residents” will have returned.

He urges the government to show compassion, and “to look into the issue of housing so that poor people like us can get good places to live”.

But in Nigeria, the government does not provide shelter for homeless people. Nor is there any plan to do so.

Instead, the current focus in Lagos is on helping people on low salaries – such as cleaners, drivers and messengers in offices – to buy homes.

For people like Mr Sa’adu, any type of housing in Lagos is unaffordable – renting a shack in an informal settlement costs around 100,000 naira ($48; £62) a year, while in a working-class area, a small apartment costs around 350,000 naira ($220; £170) annually.

Worse still, many landlords demand a year’s rent at the time of occupation, with no plans by the government to regulate the market despite the fact that the cost-of-living crisis is making housing unaffordable for even some young professionals.

Against this backdrop, the likes of Mr Sa’adu have resigned themselves to continue living under Obalende Bridge.

“Considering what I do, it’s difficult to save enough to get a decent place to stay,” he says as he lies on his mattress with the noise of vehicles driving just above his head.

“I am already used to the sound of cars. It doesn’t affect my sleep at all especially after a tired day,” he adds.

• Landlords in Nigeria can demand $20,000 rent upfront
• Why single Nigerian women battle to rent homes
• The Nigerian professor who makes more money welding
• Is Nigeria on the right track after a year of Tinubu?
• Should I stay or should I go? The dilemma for young Nigerians

“All you can fly” – unlimited flights for an annual subscription fee. What’s not to like? A fair amount, for some passengers, it turns out.

Wizz Air’s new scheme under that title has divided opinion. Some have praised the €499 (£426) scheme’s “insanely great” value on trips as far as the Maldives, and the budget airline says it has been “overwhelmed” by the positive response.

But others hit out at the airline’s service and recalled their own experience of delays, while questioning the scheme’s terms and conditions.

Wizz says its new membership, effective from September, will allow frequent flyers to “save money, visit friends and family more regularly and spontaneously visit off-the-beaten-track destinations”.

It says it sold out in most markets within 24 hours, but some customers have been pointing out what they describe as a “catch”. Those who sign up can only book flights up to three days before departure and must pay a fee of about €10 per flight.

Flights do not include “trolley bags” to stow in overhead compartments or checked baggage. And crucially, the scheme is limited to just 10,000 people. It’s also dependent on whether there are any seats left.

Wizz, which flies to 53 countries, carried 62 million passengers in the year to the end of March.

Its scheme is similar to those being offered by Frontier Airlines in the US and Malaysia-based AirAsia.

Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, advises passengers to look behind the enticing headline price to work out if this really is a good deal for them.

Once booking fees, seat selection and luggage costs are added on, travellers will see costs climb, he says – particularly as multiple short-notice journeys will be required to break even on the original cost of the subscription.

“It is also ironic to see an airline which claims to be Europe’s ‘greenest’ encouraging consumers to take unlimited flights,” he adds.

The Hungarian airline has faced a number of hurdles in the last year, which it might be hoping to overcome with the new scheme.

In June, the airline was named the worst for UK flight delays for the third year in a row, based on analysis of official data by the PA news agency.

And in January, it had to pay an extra £1.2m to customers in compensation, after the industry regulator intervened over the way it had handled flight disruption.

Wizz Air points out that it has been working on improvements, such as investing an extra £90m in its operations and customer service last year. And it says 1.8% of its UK flights were delayed for more than three hours in the first half of this year – a 50% reduction on last year.

Talie Delemere, 34, is excited about the scheme and has already signed up. She lives near Luton airport and likes being able to travel whenever she likes.

“I travel a lot anyway, between eight and 12 times a year and I mostly travel with hand luggage,” she tells the BBC.

“Wizz Air are a mixed bag but I don’t find them any better or worse service-wise than any other low cost carriers and their aircraft are far nicer and more comfortable than Ryanair’s.”

But others are not convinced.

“You can subscribe to this scheme but you might never take off,” says James Glenton, 36, from York, who is still hoping for compensation for a cancelled Wizz Air flight a year on.

In July 2023, Wizz cancelled Mr Glenton’s flight from Leeds Bradford Airport to Wroclaw in Poland and rebooked him on one from London Luton the next day, he says.

That meant he lost two days of his holiday, the parking he’d booked at Leeds Bradford, money spent on his hotel, and the petrol costs getting to Luton and back, he says.

According to Mr Glenton, Wizz has blamed air traffic control restrictions for the cancellation so won’t refund him. But he claims the airport denies this and has told him it was the airline that cancelled the flight directly.

“I am not hopeful about a refund, I won’t get anything from them,” he says. “I am angry, I would never fly with Wizz Air again.”

Mark Shatliff, 39, from Reading, also says he won’t be signing up to the scheme.

His Wizz Air flight from Istanbul to London was delayed by six hours last July and was so late when he landed that he had to pay an additional £120 for a taxi home, he says.

Wizz initially refused to refund him but relented when he took the matter to a dispute resolution company.

“I think people who subscribe to this scheme won’t get the value out of it,” he tells the BBC.

“What you end up paying if things go wrong is so much more – it isn’t worth it.”

While Wizz said it could not comment on individual cases, it offered to look into James’ and Mark’s reports.

Travel expert Simon Calder thinks the scheme could be a good deal for some fliers but not others.

He believes the subscription offer is aimed at travellers such as Eastern Europeans in the UK who go home regularly to see family. Wizz already offers other discount schemes for travellers, he adds.

“People will do their sums and I’ve done mine, it won’t really work for me,” he tells the BBC.

Some have raised concerns that the scheme could encourage frivolous flying that harms the environment, but Mr Calder thinks the impact will be minimal. He also thinks criticism of the airline’s performance is overblown.

Mr Calder says: “I fly on lots of airlines, if I want to be on time I generally go with Ryanair. In general I find Wizz and EasyJet pretty much the same.

While he says that Wizz’s recovery “when things go wrong has historically not been great”, they are still a “perfectly reasonable choice” for the thousands of passengers who may opt for its “all you can fly” option.

Paetongtarn Shinawatra brings a fresh, young face, and yet another member of the powerful Shinawatra clan, to the country’s top job.

She is the daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra, the deposed former PM who returned to Thailand last August after 15 years in exile.

The 37-year-old is also the youngest prime minister in Thailand’s history, and only the second woman – the first was her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra.

Known in Thailand by her nickname Ung Ing, Ms Paetongtarn has become a very familiar figure here since leading her party, Pheu Thai, in the general election last year. She proved a popular campaigner, speaking at rallies up to the last month of pregnancy with her second child.

However her family, in particular her mother Potjaman, who is still a powerful figure in Pheu Thai, did not want her to become prime minister, fearing she would be vulnerable to the kinds of legal interventions which forced both Ms Yingluck and Mr Thaksin into exile.

But the unexpected court ruling that brought down the premiership of Srettha Thavisin earlier this week forced the family’s hand. Aside from Mr Srettha, Pheu Thai had just two other registered PM candidates eligible to replace him; Ms Paetongtarn was one, the other an elderly former prosecutor who the party’s MPs believed did not have the energy or charisma to lead them into the next election, expected in three years time.

Ms Paetongtarn’s main experience has been working in the Shinawatra-owned Rende hotel group. She was not expected to go into politics, and only joined the Pheu Thai party in 2021.

In taking on the job of prime minister, she is entering a political minefield.

She describes herself as a compassionate capitalist, a social liberal who fully supports Thailand’s new equal marriage law.

But the phrase most people will remember her using is “daddy’s girl”. No matter what she does in government, she will always be presumed to be acting under the instruction of her father. And Mr Thaksin remains a very divisive figure.

His return from exile a year ago was the outcome of a grand bargain with powerful conservative forces. They include the military, which deposed two Shinawatra governments in coups, and groups close to the monarchy, which have opposed Mr Thaksin for more than two decades.

The stunning success of the reformist Move Forward party in last year’s election, pushing Pheu Thai and the Shinawatra clan into second place for the first time, forced conservatives, whose parties fared even worse, to recalibrate.

With Move Forward pushing for reform of the lese majetse law and the powers of the military, Pheu Thai, whose free-spending populism is now being copied by many other parties, was no longer the main threat.

So Pheu Thai was allowed to cobble together a coalition of 11 parties, many of them long-term enemies of Mr Thaksin, to keep Move Forward out.

But the mistrust of Mr Thaksin never went away.

The unstated condition of his return, and the royal pardon given to him by King Vajiralongkorn, was that he would keep a low profile and, as he had promised from exile, spend his time with his grandchildren.

Officially Mr Thaksin is not even a member of Pheu Thai. But even in exile Mr Thaksin constantly interfered, often to the detriment of his party. He is still presumed to be the Pheu Thai’s main financial backer. And since being released on parole earlier this year he has been both visible and vocal at party events.

Some have accused Mr Thaksin of pushing for Mr Srettha’s cabinet appointment of a lawyer who was convicted in 2008 of trying to bribe a supreme court judge with a shopping bag full of cash.

Back then the judge had been about to rule on a criminal case against Mr Thaksin.

On Wednesday the constitutional court, known for repeatedly ruling against the Shinawatra clan, found that appointment was unethical and sufficient grounds for dismissing Mr Srettha. The ruling is being interpreted in Thailand as a warning to Mr Thaksin to rein in his ambitions.

He was also charged earlier this year with lese majeste, over comments he made nine years ago in exile – a case with potentially serious consequences which may hang over him for years.

All of this makes Ms Paetongtarn’s job even more difficult. Pheu Thai’s past success was built on its reputation for driving the economy, and improving the living standards of poorer Thais.

But Thailand’s economy is now being held back by long-term structural challenges – and they are unresponsive to the populist measures tried by previous Shinawatra-led governments.

The party’s signature policy in the last election – a one-time payment of 10,000 baht ($284; £221) via a digital wallet to most of the population – has run into opposition from the central bank and others over its cost to the public purse.

The party has little else in its policy arsenal to lift its political fortunes over the next three years. It will also face constant and effective opposition from the reformist Move Forward Party, now reconstituted as the People’s Party, after being dissolved by the constitutional court last week.

And Pheu Thai finds itself in a coalition where for the first time it’s share of seats is less than half. Its conservative political partners also have little incentive to see a Pheu Thai-led administration achieve enough success to start rebuilding its once-formidable support base among voters.

All four of the last Shinawatra-led governments were ousted before the end of their elected terms by constitutional court rulings or military coups.

Ms Paetongtarn will be hoping to break that dismal record, but given the unending turmoil in Thai politics the odds do not look good.

Among the details that emerged on Thursday about the death of actor Matthew Perry was that the Friends star had been undergoing ketamine infusion therapy.

The coroner concluded that the treatment – which is offered both in the US and the UK – was not responsible for Perry’s death due to ketamine, which prosecutors allege was supplied to him illicitly.

Five people including two doctors, Perry’s assistant and an alleged drug dealer have been charged for providing the drug outside of his treatment regimen.

Perry, 54, had been open about his history of substance misuse, and prosecutors say the accused profited from his addictive tendencies.

Ketamine is an anaesthetic that can be used to treat depression, anxiety and pain in a medical setting.

However, it also has dissociative effects – meaning it can distort perceptions of sight, sound and time, as well as producing calming and relaxing effects. This means it is also used illicitly.

According to addiction advice service Talk to Frank, Ketamine can increase a person’s heart rate and blood pressure, and can leave users confused and agitated – which may cause them to hurt themselves without realising.

Chronic ketamine use has been linked to liver damage, as well as causing bladder problems such as incontinence.

Ketamine is used to treat depression in cases where traditional anti-depressants have not been effective.

“At a biological level, it probably turns off the area of the brain that is involved in disappointment,” says Prof Rupert McShane, a University of Oxford psychiatrist who runs an NHS ketamine treatment clinic. “That area is probably involved in depression.”

Dr Rajalingam Yadhu, a consultant at the Royal Free Hospital in London who also runs Save Minds, a ketamine infusion therapy clinic, told the BBC that the patients he treats have long-term depression and have usually tried a minimum of seven different medications without seeing an improvement.

“These are people who have actually tried everything in life, [are] extremely suicidal – and given the chance, would kill themselves.”

The treatment has also been used by high-profile individuals. As well as Perry, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has said he has been given ketamine to treat depression.

In an interview with CNN in March, the X and Tesla owner said the drug was “helpful for getting one out of the negative frame of mind”.

Ketamine infusion therapy works by giving the drug intravenously in smaller doses than those used for anaesthesia.

“For depression, you use a lower dose than you use for chronic pain, a really lower dose than patients receive as anaesthetics,” says Dr Mario Juruena, a psychiatrist at King’s College London who specialises in treatment-resistant mental disorders.

Ketamine acts faster than traditional anti-depressants – but its effects also wear off quicker.

“It has a short half-life, so the time that the patients have the effect is quite short at some points,” Dr Juruena told the BBC, stressing the importance of monitoring patients’ mental state for relapse back into depression.

Dr Yadhu says that, unlike other mainstream anti-depressants, ketamine has been found to affect nerves that use the chemical glutamate to interact. Glutamate is the most abundant neurotransmitter in the nervous system.

Some studies suggest ketamine may also help reverse synaptic pruning – the removal of neurons – which occurs naturally, but may also be associated with chronic stress and depression.

“When you get depressed, the connections in the brain seem to retract,” Prof McShane told the BBC. “So it’s almost as if in depression, some of the neurons are like a tree in winter – and then with the ketamine, it turns them more into a tree in spring.”

He adds that the drug probably reduces suicidal thoughts and the “cycle of rumination” that feeds depression.

Experts are researching why it might help some patients, but not others.

Dr Juruena told the BBC that more than 60% of patients responded well to ketamine treatment – but said this was usually while taking other anti-depressants or alongside psychotherapy.

Clinicians caution that people could still experience negative side-effects from taking ketamine, even when overseen by a medical professional – though Dr Juruena says this happens less often because of the lower dosage.

Dr Yadhu says that while many of his patients’ experiences were positive, some were unpleasant and could bring back bad memories.

Prof McShane notes: “Whilst ketamine can be very effective for people for whom nothing else has worked, one of the problems is you need to keep taking it – and we’re simply not used to that being a good idea.”

Dr Yadhu says he does not treat people showing addictive tendencies with ketamine – though some doctors are exploring it as a treatment for drug and alcohol addiction.

Receiving ketamine in an “infusion” – ie through an IV drip – is not the only way of treating people with ketamine, however.

Dr Juruena says it can also be given through an injection, a nasal spray or as a capsule.

Experts say the dosage of ketamine given in infusion treatment has to be of a precise and small amount to have anti-depressant effects.

But a post-mortem examination found Perry’s blood contained a high concentration of ketamine and that he had died of the “acute effects” of the drug.

The medical examiner also found his last ketamine infusion therapy session had taken place more than a week before his death – by which time the drug would have worn off.

They said the levels of ketamine in Perry’s body when he died were also of a far higher dosage.

Prosecutors alleged that Perry’s assistant had given him at least 27 shots of ketamine in the four days before his death.

Dubbed the “Ketamine Queen” by US prosecutors, alleged drug dealer Jasveen Sangha is one of five people who US officials say supplied ketamine to Friends star Matthew Perry, exploiting his drug addiction for profit, and leading to his overdose death.

Ms Sangha now faces nine charges, including conspiracy to distribute ketamine and distribution of ketamine resulting in death.

The American-British dual-national, who wore a Nirvana sweatshirt for her court appearance, pleaded not guilty to the charges on Thursday.

Her bail request was denied by US officials and she will remain in custody until her trial in October.

The indictment alleges that Ms Sangha’s distribution of ketamine on 24 October 2023 caused Perry’s death.

Ketamine is a dissociative anaesthetic that has some hallucinogenic effects, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). It can distort perception of sight and sound and makes the user feel disconnected and not in control.

It is used as an injectable anaesthetic for humans and animals because it makes patients feel detached from their pain and environment.

The substance is supposed to be administered only by a physician, investigators say, and patients who have taken the drug should be monitored by a professional because of its possible harmful effects.

Ms Sangha is alleged to have supplied ketamine from her “stash house” since at least 2019.

Her North Hollywood home was a “drug-selling emporium”, Martin Estrada, the US attorney for California’s Central District, told a news conference on Thursday.

More than 80 vials of ketamine were allegedly found there in a search, along with thousands of pills that included methamphetamine, cocaine and Xanax.

The home, called the “Sangha Stash House” in the indictment, was where she is alleged to have packaged and distributed drugs.

She “only deal[s] with high end and celebs,” the indictment quoted her co-accused Erik Fleming as saying of Ms Sangha.

At the same time, she lived a jetsetter life which she shared widely on social media.

Ms Sangha is said to have mixed with celebrities socially as well, with one of her friends telling the Daily Mail she attended the Golden Globes and the Oscars.

Shortly after Perry’s overdose she posted pictures depicting her extravagant lifestyle, including parties and a trip to Japan and Mexico.

And the day before arrests were announced, her social media activity suggests she went to a hairdresser and dyed her hair purple.

The Instagram account where these posts were shared was confirmed as belonging to her by a spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office Central District of California.

Prosecutors claim Ms Sangha came to supply ketamine to Perry after fellow defendant Dr Salvador Plasencia initially learned that the actor was interested in the drug. Dr Plasencia sourced it from Dr Mark Chavez, another defendant in the case who had previously operated a ketamine clinic.

They allege Dr Plasencia also taught Perry’s live-in assistant, co-accused Kenneth Iwamasa, how to inject Perry with ketamine.

Beginning in October 2023, Ms Sangha began supplying Mr Iwamasa with ketamine and prosecutors say she knew the ketamine she distributed could be deadly.

“These defendants cared more about profiting off of Mr Perry than caring for his well-being,” said Mr Estrada.

He also alleged that Ms Sangha was a “major source of supply for ketamine to others as well as Perry”.

If convicted of all charges in Perry’s case, Sangha would face a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison and a statutory maximum sentence of life imprisonment, the justice department says.

US authorities say they also uncovered Ms Sangha’s alleged connection to another overdose death, this time in 2019.

Court documents suggest she knew about the dangers of ketamine after selling it to a customer named Cody McLaury, who died of an overdose after buying the drug.

She was reported to have been contacted by one of his family members, who texted her saying: “The ketamine you sold my brother killed him. It’s listed as the cause of death.”

Days later Ms Sangha is said to have searched on Google: “Can ketamine be listed as a cause of death?”, according to investigators.

Authorities say Ms Sangha will face charges in that case.

Millions of screaming fans. A global phenomenon. A multi-billion pound business. No, it’s not Taylor Swift (this time). We’re talking K-pop.

And with four of 2023’s top 10 best-selling acts coming out of South Korea, the Brits want a piece of the action.

Step forward newly created boy band, Dear Alice, who applied to take part in the latest BBC One talent show, Made in Korea: The K-pop Experience.

Meet Blaise, Dexter, James, Olly and Reese. You might be hearing a bit more about them from now on.

None of them knew each other before they individually auditioned and were put together as a band by the showrunners.

The fresh-faced quintet were then flown out to South Korea’s capital, Seoul, for 100 days of rigorous K-pop training with stardom in their sights.

Most K-pop training takes years rather than months. Not for the faint-hearted, the boys’ experience involved long hours of vocal coaching and learning intricate choreography with a bit of Korean sight-seeing thrown in for good measure (and good TV – the South Korean tourist board will be thrilled).

• Where did K-pop come from?

The six-part series is a collaboration between the BBC, K-pop powerhouse agency SM Entertainment and Moon&Back Media, run by TV veterans Dawn Airey, Nigel Hall and Russ Lindsay, whose back catalogue includes shows such as The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Saturday Night Takeaway.

K-pop expert Hee Jun Yoon, the creative force behind some of the biggest K-pop bands of the last 20 years, critiques the band’s performance at the end of each week and it’s safe to say she pulls no punches. Even the head of BBC unscripted content, Kate Phillips, says Hee Jun “makes Simon Cowell look like Mary Poppins”.

Former X Factor head judge Cowell is, of course, launching his own search for a boy band in an upcoming Netflix series which is still in production.

Without giving too much away from Made in Korea’s first episode, Hee Jun gives the band a huge wake-up call in week one with some unflinching criticism. “The level of choreo is so basic, it’s nursery level.” Ouch. Her facial expressions alone could go viral.

The boys won’t be drawn on whether any of them wanted to quit the show at any point. “You’ll have to wait and see,” says Olly Quinn, 20, from Sunderland, a recent graduate in dance and musical theatre. (Clearly, the media training has also been exacting).

They also won’t reveal whether they’ve signed a record deal yet, only saying they’re still “rehearsing hard” and commenting that all the effort and brutal feedback was worth it.

Londoner Dexter Greenwood, 22, who also trained in musical theatre, says: “It was hard work, really challenging but the end justifies the means. Everyone at SM was so supportive but I think we were different to what they expected!”

Reese Carter, 20, from Wiltshire and a former cruise ship performer, adds: “At first it hit hard but we had a great welfare team in place… and it was all done with love.

“They’re honest because they want to push us to be that much better. I enjoy the feedback. They’re on our side. We had welfare, a life coach, we had people living with us constantly, you could walk downstairs and speak to someone,” he adds.

Olly concurs: “It’s the brutal honestly. We needed it.”

There’s certainly a vast difference between the band’s performances in episode one and a later video clip journalists were shown at a preview.

Coco Yeonsoo Do is a K-pop dancer and choreographer, and was a former member of KAACHI, considered the UK’s first K-pop girl group.

“It’s really hard to make a K-pop group reach BTS or Blackpink level,” she tells the BBC, but training is what sets successful groups apart.

“It’s very intense and competitive,” says Coco.

One key difference between UK and US pop groups and K-pop ones is how produced the latter are, she adds.

“It’s obvious, but K-pop groups work more like a group, and emphasise the group identity, rather than individuality,” she adds.

Following allegations over very strict and punishing training regimes by wannabe K-pop stars over the past few years, Korean press reported the introduction of regulations to ban some unfair practices in contracts between K-pop trainees and entertainment companies.

Clearly welfare has been a priority for the series producers of The K-pop Experience.

Helen Wood is a professor of Media and Cultural Studies at Aston University, and is working on a research project on duty of care in TV.

In 2019, there was a Parliamentary inquiry and Ofcom consultation on the broadcasting code, following a handful of reality stars’ deaths by suicide.

In 2020, the media watchdog announced new rules to protect those taking part in TV shows.

“Now there’s more pressure on production to make sure that they’re taking due care of the welfare, dignity and wellbeing of participants that go through production,” she says.

“That’s not to say that things weren’t in place before 2021, but there’s now much more regulation.”

Another key difference brought in through the new Ofcom code is a requirement to show audiences that a duty of care to participants is being enacted, she adds.

This means drawing back the curtain to show audiences some of the backstage production processes to ensure they understand and feel confident that contestants are adequately cared for.

A spokesperson for Made in Korea told the BBC: “The welfare of the band members has been at the centre of their training process,” adding that there was a “strong support team in place” and that the band’s welfare “remains the highest priority”.

Reese says they also relied on each other for support.

“We’ve [the band] grown closer and closer over the last couple of months. Much as it was great to have welfare there, there was a lot of times when we didn’t need to go to them because we’re strong enough as a group.”

Blaise Noon, 19, from London, is the baby of the band but appears to be taking it all in his stride. He is a Brit School graduate and comes across as the most confident.

He says they are really “lucky” to have had the advantage as a British band to be immersed in the Korean training regime: “There’s a lot of really good things we can take away to create this hybrid fusion.”

Interestingly, most of them have never had any desire to be in a boy band until now.

James Sharp, 23, from Huddersfield, is one half of the Sharp twins, whose TikTok account has amassed 5.5 million followers.

He says he thought boy bands were “cringey”, Blaise laughs as he recalls feeling “too cool” for them although Dexter was always a fan. And Olly has had a K-pop education from his auntie who runs K-pop fan pages.

All agree, though, that this was too big an opportunity to pass up.

But how did they come up with the band name?

After Olly’s suggestion of British Bulldogs was quickly scotched (can’t think why), they stumbled upon a restaurant in Seoul called Dear Alice.

They all liked it and it stuck.

“The ‘dear’ is like a letter to the fans” and Alice stands for ‘a love I can’t explain,” says Blaine.

More to the point, the restaurant “sold the best beef wellington in the world” according to the lads.

Not exactly your classic Korean dish but Dear Alice will be hoping a similar culture fusion will be the secret to their success.

Days before the Democratic National Convention, Vice-President Kamala Harris is riding high on a wave of favourable polls and energetic rallies. But beyond the good vibes, where does the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee stand on key issues?

Although she has yet to release a comprehensive platform, her time as a California senator and prosecutor, her 2020 bid for the presidency and role in the White House as vice-president give hints as to where Ms Harris stands on a number of policies.

Over the years, some of her positions have shifted and some have said that she has struggled to define herself.

To get a better understanding of what her policy agenda now might look like, BBC News reviewed Ms Harris’ recent speeches and public statements as a 2024 candidate, her record as vice-president and her political history as a 2020 presidential candidate, California senator and prosecutor.

Ms Harris’s campaign told the BBC that the candidate’s most recent statements best reflect her intentions if elected president.

“Vice President Harris will build on the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic agenda that beat Big Pharma, created nearly 16 million jobs, and delivered on the first bipartisan gun safety legislation in three decades,” Harris campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said in a statement.

Here are Ms Harris’ positions on 10 key issues.

As a senator, Ms Harris championed a number of progressive policies, including paid family leave, affordable housing and free tuition for low-and-middle income families.

As vice-president, she has been Mr Biden’s partner in passing major economic legislation – regularly labelled “Bidenomics” – which included major investments in infrastructure and green energy.

But with inflation and high interest rates continuing to bedevil American wallets, polls have shown that the economy continues to be top of mind for many voters.

On Friday, Ms Harris released her economic plan, including mortgage assistance for first-time homebuyers, a tax credit for parents of newborns and bans on price gouging at the grocery store to help target inflation.

And like her opponent, former US President Donald Trump, she has come out against taxing tips.

“As president, I will be laser focused on creating opportunities for the middle class that advance their economic security, stability and dignity. Together, we will build what I call an opportunity economy,” she said Friday.

Ms Harris’s position on the border has changed from when she first ran for office. In 2020, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, she held fairly progressive positions – such as promising to close down immigration detention centres.

In 2021, Mr Biden asked Ms Harris to oversee the diplomatic effort around immigration issues on the US southern border to reduce numbers arriving there.

Many Republicans have characterised her as a “border tsar”, but she was tasked specifically with working with Central American countries on the “root causes” of why people there were fleeing to the US.

As part of that effort, she announced in 2023 that she had helped raise about $3bn – largely from private companies – to invest in communities in the region, hoping to provide opportunities that would make immigrating to the US less attractive.

Earlier this year, she aided the effort to pass a hardline bipartisan border security deal that would have included hundreds of millions of dollars for border wall construction.

But Trump helped kill the deal, accusing Biden’s border policies of causing “death, destruction, and chaos in every American community”.

Her campaign said that, if she were elected president, she remains committed to “bipartisan solutions to strengthen border security”.

Ms Harris has long supported women’s right to an abortion.

She played a key role in the Biden campaign’s effort to make abortion rights central to the 2024 election, and she has long advocated for legislation that would enshrine reproductive rights nationwide.

That position has not changed.

“When Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president of the United States, I will sign it into law,” she said at a rally for her 2024 campaign in Atlanta, Georgia.

She was the first vice-president to visit an abortion clinic, and she toured the country after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022 to speak about the growing number of abortion bans in the US – often framing the issue as one about personal freedom.

Powerful pro-choice advocacy groups, such as Emilys List and Reproductive Freedom for All, have officially endorsed Ms Harris since she started her presidential run.

While much of her early career focused on the state of California, since going to Washington as a senator in 2017, Ms Harris has become more involved on the global stage.

As senator, she traveled to Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan and Israel.

As vice-president, she has met 150 world leaders and visited 21 countries.

She attended the Munich Security Conference in the past year, and she delivered remarks in support of western security alliance Nato that denounced isolationism.

She has also vowed to support Ukraine in its war against Russia “for as long as it takes”. Ms Harris represented the US in June at the “peace conference” convened by Ukraine in Switzerland where she reaffirmed Washington’s support.

Within 48 hours of her candidacy becoming public, 350 leading US foreign policy and national security experts – largely Democrats – released a letter endorsing her as the “best qualified person” to lead the country in international affairs.

Ms Harris has been a longtime advocate for a two-state solution.

As vice-president, she was more open to criticising Israel during the Israel-Gaza war than Mr Biden.

She was one of the first members of the administration to call for an “immediate cease-fire”, raised concerns over the “humanitarian catastrophe for Palestinians” and charged Israel with ending the conflict.

She held what she called “frank and constructive” talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Washington in July.

As the presumptive Democratic candidate, she said she told Mr Netanyahu that she had “serious concerns” about casualties in Gaza and that the way Israel defended itself mattered.

“It is time for this war to end,” she said after face-to-face talks at the White House.

She has not supported an arms embargo on Israel, however, as some on the US left have called for.

Her national security adviser, Phil Gordon, said on X that she “has been clear: she will always ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups”.

In 2017, while a senator, Ms Harris supported a number of progressive tax programmes, co-sponsoring a bill with Bernie Sanders to expand social security for the elderly by increasing the tax rate on investments.

As a presidential candidate in 2019, she supported a corporate tax rate of 35%, up from 21%.

This was more aggressive than President Biden’s proposal, which she also supported, of an increase to 28%.

A campaign official told the BBC that the vice-president would continue to back President Biden’s proposal of not raising taxes on Americans earning less than $400,000 (£310,000).

As California’s attorney general, Ms Harris and her office often used anti-trust laws to keep insurers, hospitals and drug companies from raising customer costs.

When she became a US senator and later a 2020 candidate for president, she held more progressive views than Mr Biden, supporting expanding medicare and publically-funded health-care programmes.

Her campaign told the BBC that, as president, she would not push for a single-payer system.

While she was vice-president, the White House reduced prescription drug costs, capped insulin prices at $35, allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices and capped out-of-pocket expenses for Medicare drug coverage.

Ms Harris started her legal career prosecuting child abusers and sex traffickers before being elected district attorney of San Francisco, then California’s attorney general.

Her offices increased conviction rates, particularly of violent criminals, though that history led to criticism from the progressive left, which at times labelled her “a cop”.

Meanwhile, the right has accused her of being soft on crime, although her record is contradictory. As a prosecutor, she declined to seek the death penalty against someone who killed a cop, but as California’s attorney general, she fought for the state’s right to keep using it.

Ms Harris has also used her past as a prosecutor to serve as a major contrast with her opponent, who was convicted on 34 charges in a hush-money scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election.

Ms Harris has long advocated for tough laws to protect the environment.

As a prosecutor, Ms Harris defended California’s climate laws and sued oil companies for environmental damage. She also called for climate change policies via a “Green New Deal” during her 2020 presidential campaign – some of which has come to fruition under the current administration.

During a CNN presidential debate in 2019, she said that “there is no question I’m in favour of banning fracking”, which is a technique for recovering gas and oil from shale rock. She has reversed her position since throwing her hat into the 2024 presidential race.

As vice-president, she helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which has funnelled hundreds of billions of dollars to renewable energy and electric vehicle tax credit and rebate programs.

Last year, she noted in a speech that it constituted “the largest climate investment in our nation’s history” and emphasised the need to protect against extreme weather.

Ms Harris has a history of backing gun safety regulations throughout her political career, and she successfully defended California’s gun laws when they faced legal challenges as the state’s attorney general.

As vice-president, she has overseen the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, and earlier this year announced the creation of resource centres to support the implementation of red-flag laws – aimed at keeping firearms from those who may harm themselves and others.

She also encouraged states to tap into $750m in federal funds that the Biden-Harris administration made available for crisis intervention programs.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• ANALYSIS: Three ways Trump will try to end Harris honeymoon
• EXPLAINER: Where the election could be won and lost
• FACT-CHECK: Trump falsely claims Harris crowd was faked
• VOTERS: What Democrats make of Tim Walz as VP

A police sniper potentially saved lives by shooting the rifle of Donald Trump’s would-be assassin and knocking him down, an investigation says.

According to a report by Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins, the sniper’s bullet damaged Thomas Matthew Crooks’s gun and disrupted his aim after he took his first shots in Butler, Pennsylvania. Moments later, a Secret Service sniper killed him.

The report comes as the Secret Service temporarily reassigns some bodyguards from President Joe Biden to Trump, according to US media.

Trump will also be given bulletproof glass protection to allow him to resume outdoor rallies.

The former president did not have the protection during his 13 July rally in Butler when a bullet nearly hit him squarely in the head.

Mr Higgins’ report said a Butler SWAT operator was the first to fire at Trump’s assassin – from 100 yards away.

The congressman said the sniper “ran towards the threat, running to a clear shot position directly into the line of fire”.

Then, in a single shot, he fired at the gunman and hit part of his rifle, the report said.

This knocked the gunman off his position temporarily, but, “after just a few seconds”, he “popped back up” before he was fatally shot by a Secret Service sharpshooter.

Crooks killed one crowd member and critically injured two others in the attack.

Security levels around the former president have increased since then.

The transfer of Secret Service agents is due to threats against Trump, 78, and made possible by the reduced travel schedule of Mr Biden after he dropped out of the election race, according to a report in The New York Times.

The reassigned officers were responsible for either travelling with Mr Biden, or going in advance of him to set up security measures at an event, a source told the newspaper.

Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the Secret Service, resigned on 23 July following a hearing at the US House of Representatives about the assassination attempt.

Politicians on the House Oversight Committee criticised the lack of information in her answers to their questions regarding security planning and how officers responded to reports of the gunman’s suspicious behaviour prior to the shooting.

Gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot and killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper team after he fired eight bullets in Mr Trump’s direction from a rooftop just outside the rally’s security perimeter.

The FBI is currently investigating the protection failure and political leaders in the US Congress have also started inquiries.

How the Secret Service failed Donald Trump

Americast gets the inside track on presidential security at the highest levels from Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at the Department for Homeland Security, who served during the Trump presidency.

Listen now on BBC Sounds

A selection of striking news photographs taken around the world this week.

Police have identified two murder suspects thought to have been involved in the death of a miner whose remains were discovered more than 50 years after he went missing.

Alfred Swinscoe’s remains were found in a field on farmland in Nottinghamshire last April, after the father of six was last seen drinking at a pub on 27 January 1967.

Work on Mr Swinscoe’s bones has found he sustained a “significant” stab injury and blunt force trauma, and police say he died with a broken hand.

Now officers have identified two suspects, both of whom are no longer alive.

Nottinghamshire Police launched a murder inquiry following the discovery of the remains, later confirmed as belonging to the 54-year-old.

They were found off Coxmoor Road in Sutton-in-Ashfield, on 26 April, when digging work was being carried out on farmland.

Officers believe Mr Swinscoe – who was last seen at the former Pinxton Miners Arms in Derbyshire – was murdered and then buried in a grave between 4ft (1.2m) and 6ft (1.8m) deep.

Police said since the remains were found, scientists had carried out “extensive” work on Mr Swinscoe’s bones to determine a cause of death.

It is thought Mr Swinscoe could have sustained his broken hand while fighting his attacker or attackers off.

One of the suspects had a history of violence, police added.

Some of the injuries the suspect had inflicted on another man he was convicted of assaulting in April 1966, were similar to those found on Mr Swinscoe.

As some of the bones were missing, experts believe it was “highly likely” Mr Swinscoe was killed at a different location, and then moved to where his remains were found “at a much later date”.

Mr Swinscoe’s grandson, Russell Lowbridge, told the BBC he recognised the former miner’s sock that was found with the remains.

“Finding out he was murdered was a shock. It took some sinking in,” Mr Lowbridge said. “It’s all a bit disturbing and upsetting.

“Anybody that knew anything, they’ve kept it a secret. It would be wonderful if [people] did come forward – it would help put our minds at rest.

“It will always haunt us; we’ll always be left wondering. We have got some closure, but not full closure. There are still questions to be answered.”

Since the age of 14, Mr Swinscoe had worked at Langton Colliery as a “cutter”, known for operating a machine that cut large chunks of coal out of the coal face for others to then break down.

He had the nickname “Sparrow”, and was also known as “Champion Pigeon Man of Pinxton”, due to his love of pigeon racing.

Four of his six children are still alive and he has a number of grandchildren.

It is believed Mr Swinscoe was drinking with his two sons and friends on the night of his disappearance.

He was last seen giving money to son Gary to buy a round, and then left to use the outside toilet.

Mr Lowbridge previously told the BBC that the disappearance had “tormented” Gary, who died in 2012 “never knowing what happened to his dad”.

Detectives believe a vehicle would have been used in the killing, as it was “some distance” between the pub and where Mr Swinscoe was buried.

They added it “would have been rare” to own a car in the village of Pinxton in 1967.

Assistant Chief Constable Rob Griffin said many of the people who were with Mr Swinscoe at the time he went missing were no longer alive, adding “we may never get the full picture” of what happened.

“That certainly hasn’t stifled our determination to investigate this crime and leave no stone unturned to find his killer or killers,” he said.

“We will continue to investigate this crime and continue to look at all new and existing avenues available to us.”

Mr Swincoe’s cause of death will be determined by a pathologist ahead of an inquest.

Police are continuing to appeal for information, with Mr Swinscoe’s final movements recreated as part of a BBC Crimewatch appeal in October.

The family held a small funeral for Mr Swinscoe in Sutton-in-Ashfield in January.

The service – arranged by A Wass Funeral Directors – was officiated by Stephen Blakeley, a celebrity celebrant who was known for playing PC Younger in the television series Heartbeat.

“He did a nice talk about grandad for us and it was lovely,” Mr Lowbridge said.

“It’s good to have him back home buried properly with his family and we feel content that he’s not lost any more.”

Hong Kong is celebrating the birth of twin giant pandas by its beloved Ying Ying, who is a first-time mum.

The birth is a “true rarity” as their mother is the oldest giant panda on record to give birth for the first time.

Ying Ying delivered the cubs on Thursday, one day before her 19th birthday. If she were a human, she would be the equivalent of a 57-year-old.

A photo of the twins – a male and a female – has received over a thousand congratulatory comments on Facebook.

The cubs are currently “very fragile and need time to stabilise” under 24-hour intensive care, according to their caretakers.

“We are all looking forward to meet the giant panda cubs. Please wait a few months patiently to make their debut and officially meet everyone!” Ocean Park Hong Kong said.

Of Ying Ying’s twins, the female cub appears to be more fragile because her body temperature is lower and her cries are weaker compared to her brother, the park operator said.

She weighs just 122g.

Ying Ying was “understandably nervous” during birth and spent most of the time lying and twisting on the ground, Ocean Park said.

Giant pandas are notoriously reluctant to mate. Ying Ying and the twins’ father, Le Le, have been housed at Ocean Park since 2007, when they were gifted to Hong Kong by Beijing. They mated successfully in March.

China’s long-term conservation effort has reversed the population decline of giant pandas. They are now considered a vulnerable species and no longer endangered.

Aside from serving as theme park attractions, pandas have also figured in China’s diplomatic efforts.

Kamala Harris has called for millions of new-build homes and first-time buyer help, tax breaks for families and a ban on grocery “price-gouging” in her first speech focused on economic policy.

The Democratic presidential nominee’s plans build on ideas from the Biden administration and aim at addressing voter concerns after a surge in prices since 2021.

Many of the proposals would require action from Congress, where similar ideas have stalled in the past.

Donald Trump said the vice-president had already had more than three years with the administration to deliver her promises, which his campaign called “dangerously liberal”.

“Where has she been and why hasn’t she done it?” he asked.

Ms Harris hit back in a speech on Friday in North Carolina, stating: “I think that if you want to know who someone cares about, look at who they fight for.

“Donald Trump fights for billionaires and large corporations. I will fight to give money back to working and middle class Americans.”

The campaign’s proposals include a “first-ever” tax credit for builders of homes sold to first-time buyers, as well as up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance for “eligible” first time buyers, a move that her campaign estimated could reach four million households over four years.

She has also called for capping the monthly price of diabetes-drug insulin at $35 for everyone, finding ways to cancel medical debt, and giving families a $6,000 tax credit the year they have a new child.

She is supporting a federal law banning firms from charging excessive prices on groceries and urged action on a bill in Congress that would bar property owners from using services that “coordinate” rents.

Democrats and their allies are hoping Ms Harris will prove a more forceful and trusted messenger than President Joe Biden on economic pain.

Robert Weissman, the co-president of the consumer watchdog Public Citizen, characterised Ms Harris’s plans as a “pro-consumer, anti-corporate abuse agenda”.

“The [Biden] administration did talk about it but they did not promote proposed measures anywhere near as aggressive as Harris is doing,” he said.

But pollster Micah Roberts, a partner at Public Opinion Strategies, said inflation was likely to remain a challenge for Democrats, noting that voters have a long history of trusting Trump – and Republicans – more on economic issues.

“Trump’s been holding the advantage on this stuff for like a year plus,” said Mr Roberts, the Republican half of a bipartisan team that recently conducted a survey on economic issues for CNBC, which found that Trump still held a big lead over Ms Harris on the topic.

Without a huge change, he said it would be “hard for me to believe” that the margin had suddenly closed.

Though analysts say some of Harris’s proposals, such as the ban on price-gouging, are likely to be popular, they have also sparked criticism from some economists.

Bans on price-gouging already exist in many states, applied during emergencies such as hurricanes.

But economists say the term is difficult to define and widening such rules could end up backfiring, by discouraging firms from making more at times of short supply.

Michael Salinger, a professor of markets, public policy and law at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, said a similar ban was discussed when he served as the lead economist at the Federal Trade Commission during the administration of George W Bush.

“I thought then that it was a bad idea and I think now that it’s a bad idea,” he said. “To impose controls on competitive markets will lead to shortages – that’s always been our experience.”

He said the Harris campaign’s other plans would also face questions, given their cost.

For example, the proposal to increase the tax credit for children to as much as $3,600, which Congress did temporarily during the pandemic and opted against extending, would cost more than $1tn, according to some estimates.

With populism ascendant in both parties, that cost has not dissuaded Trump’s choice for vice president, JD Vance, from backing an even bigger tax credit expansion.

Prof Salinger said Trump’s other economic plans would be unlikely to tackle inflation concerns.

Economists predict that increased drilling would have limited impact given the global nature of energy markets and have warned that Trump’s pledge to impose a tax of 10% or more on imports would drive up prices.

As it stands, price increases have been subsiding, as the shocks from pandemic-era supply chain issues and the war in Ukraine fade.

Inflation, which tracks the pace of price increases, was 2.9% in July, the smallest annual increase since March 2021, the Labor Department said this week.

That is getting closer to the 2% pace considered normal, though prices are up roughly 20% since January 2021.

“The problem that people object to is that even if inflation is down, the prices are still higher and that’s true but they’re higher because of the natural working of market forces,” Prof Salinger said.

“Trying to stand in the way of the working of market forces is a lot like trying to stop the tides,” he added. “You just can’t do it.”

“All wars end with negotiations. It’s not the soldiers in the trenches who decide when.”

Arni joined the Ukrainian army in 2022 to fight for his country’s survival. When we bump into him 30 months later, he describes a new motivation. “Peace.”

“No-one likes war, we want to finish it,” he says while leaning against his camouflaged pick-up truck.

For the troops we encounter close to Russia’s border, there’s a desire to end Russia’s invasion on acceptable terms.

That is not to say survival isn’t a core driver – it is – but they seem to be striving for a finish line.

“For Ukraine, our people, we’ll stand until the end,” adds Arni.

Until 6 August, Ukraine’s sole objective was one of liberation. The complete repelling of Russian forces to its borders from before Russia first invaded in 2014.

Albeit at a grinding pace, the reverse has been happening for the past year-and-a-half with Moscow eroding Ukrainian territory.

Then came the “all in” poker play which surprised everyone apart from the battle-hardened Ukrainian soldiers who carried it out: a counter-offensive into Russia’s Kursk region.

“It was undeniably successful and daring,” observes Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Co-operation Centre, a think tank.

Now, Kyiv can’t reference its offensive often enough, with countless pictures of troops giving out aid as they tear down Russian flags.

“It also changes the narrative,” says Alina Frolova, security expert and former deputy defence minister of Ukraine. “A situation where we’re losing territory step by step is not a good one.

“Ukraine’s strategic position has changed.”

Despite parallels with Russia’s initial invasion, Kyiv claims its goal is not to occupy.

So what is the aim? Well, there’s more than one.

“This attack was partly carried out so the city of Sumy was better protected,” explains Serhii Kuzan, who thinks it is often forgotten that the border is still a front line.

Since the start of this summer, President Volodymyr Zelensky says there were more than 2,000 strikes on the Sumy region from the Kursk region alone, including 250 glide bombs.

For months it was feared Russian troops were preparing for a cross-border attack of their own, and by pushing them back, Serhii believes defending Ukraine in general will be easier.

“The [now captured] Russian city of Sudzha is on a commanding height. The Russians are already in a less advantageous position because we control the approach routes.”

While Russia has had to react to Ukraine on the battlefield, it has also had its supply lines targeted. Key roads have been seized and a strategically important bridge destroyed.

Which leads us to:

“The main purpose of this offensive into Kursk is to divert Russia’s attention from its occupied territories in Ukraine,” says Ivan Stupak, who worked for Ukraine’s security service (SBU) between 2004-2015.

The good news for Ukraine is that is what appears to be happening. The bad news is that Russian advances, notably towards the town of Pokrovsk, are not slowing.

“The Russian army has been redeploying some troops from different directions – the Kherson, Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, for example,” Ivan says. He believes around 10,000 personnel are being diverted, mostly from other parts of Russia.

It is how President Zelensky describes Ukraine’s collection of captured Russian soldiers.

Historically, when Ukraine has momentum, it captures more and consequentially negotiates the release of their own more easily.

The Kursk offensive has been no exception. Kyiv says hundreds of Russian troops were taken prisoner. Several could be seen surrendering in drone footage and being taken back to Ukraine with tape blindfolds.

“Moscow is actually offering to start negotiations to exchange prisoners of war,” says Serhii Kuzan.

“It is no longer us, enlisting the support of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to ask Russia to hand over our prisoners of war.”

This is a huge part of it for Kyiv.

On a civilian level, you had the horror and anger felt in the Kursk region in response to the blistering Ukrainian assault on their homes.

There were mass evacuations, pleas for help and criticisms of some authorities for not preventing the attack.

On a political level, you had Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly processing events in Moscow while being briefed by his security chiefs.

And of course there is the military level.

“The influence of this Ukrainian incursion could be quite substantial,” concludes Alina Frolova. “That’s why using highly professional troops was specifically the right decision.”

If Ukraine does not plan to keep hold of its captured Russian territory in the long term, but can hang on long enough, it hopes to leverage it for the release of its own land.

But it’s a big “if”.

When fighting slows, that has always suited Russia with its superior size. Misdirection and surprise has often worked for Ukraine.

“In a symmetric war, we have no chances with Russia,” points out Alina Frovola. “We need to make asymmetrical actions”.

Slowing advances in the Kursk region may leave Kyiv with difficult decisions.

But there are benefits for as long as there is movement, Serhii Kuzan argues.

“An advance rate of 1-3km a day is normal for swapping forward units with reserves,” he says. “In Ukraine’s Donbas region, the average advance rate for the Russians is 400m.

“Our pace in the Kursk region is five times faster than a 100,000-strong army!”

But the problem for Kyiv, is that Russians are still going forward in Ukraine.

However, don’t expect Ukraine to withdraw from its Russian attack anytime soon.

It is committed now.

Russia’s president initially labelled the offensive as a “terrorist attack” and “provocation”, but in the days since he has barely referenced it publicly.

That’s despite it fitting into his narrative that Russia’s invasion is a defensive war to protect his people.

Perhaps he doesn’t want the alarm felt by many in the Kursk region to spread, or for it to appear like his military doesn’t have control of the situation.

Also, as with the Kursk submarine disaster and failed coup of last year, Vladimir Putin doesn’t always act quickly to regain the initiative.

Ukraine will be hoping he’s not this time because he can’t.

Performers working in the games industry have spoken of their distress at being asked to work on explicit content without notice, including a scene featuring a sexual assault.

Sex scenes are common in modern games – and are often made by filming human actors who are then digitised into game characters.

But performers have told the BBC a culture of secrecy around projects – where scripts are often not shared until the last moment – means they frequently do not know in advance that scenes may involve intimate acts.

They describe feeling “shaken” and “upset” after acting them out.

Performing arts union Equity is demanding action from the industry – it has published guides on minimum pay, and working conditions in games, including on intimate or explicit scenes.

Jessica Jefferies is a professional casting director, who works mainly in video games and enjoys the medium.

Prior to that she was a motion capture performer – part of a small group who worked regularly for studios used by game developers.

Dressed in a skin-tight body suit, covered in markers, motion capture performers act-out the movements of characters in games on a large unfurnished set, where their motions are recorded digitally.

She said performers were often left in the dark about the nature of the game, or the scene, by developers.

“We’d get an email or a call from a studio saying we need you on these days for a shoot,” she said.

“That was all the information we’d get.”

Ms Jefferies told the BBC she was once asked to act out a scene with a male performer involving a sexual assault with no prior warning.

“I turned up and was told what I would be filming would be a graphic rape scene,” she said.

“This act could be watched for as long or as little time as the player wanted through a window, and then a player would be able to shoot this character in the head.

“It was just purely gratuitous in my opinion.”

She refused to act out the “disgusting” scene – which was made worse as she was the only female on set.

“There’s no nudity involved, but its still an act and there’s an intimacy in that act and also a violence in this situation,” she said.

“So yes there may be a layer of Lycra between us, but you are still there and still having to truly immerse yourself in this scene.”

In the end her concerns were listened to and the scene was not recorded.

But it reinforces her belief that performers should know in advance about explicit scenes so they don’t have to “kick up a fuss” on set or feel pressure to do something which makes them feel uncomfortable.

Ms Jefferies was consulted by Equity in the development of their guidance which requires that when recording explicit or intimate scenes:

• A summary of the story, scene breakdown and scripts should be distributed to all cast members in advance.
• performers should be able to request a closed set where access is kept to a minimum.
• a competent intimacy coordinator should be engaged.

She argues giving actors more information will help them deliver better performances and argues “there is an appetite for change”.

Ms Jefferies stresses the guidelines are not trying to put boundaries on storytelling. In the ten years since that incident there have also been major improvements, she says – and “these guidelines are just to bring it even more in line with the best practices in the film and TV industry”.

She says the studios she now works with are generally very open to being educated on good practices, and agree that treating people well leads to better performances.

One voice actor and Equity member who supports the guidelines, speaking on condition of anonymity, also told the BBC of problems she had encountered.

She “absolutely loves the industry” but argues the limited information shared with actors before a performance needs to change.

“We have to sign NDAs [non-disclosure agreements], we’re told almost nothing,” she said.

In one recording for a major game she first learned it was explicit only when she turned up for work.

“This was actually a full-on sex scene,” she said.

“I had to [vocally] match the scene and through the glass in the booth was the entire team, all male, watching me.

“It was excruciating… at that stage I had been in the games industry a while, and I had never felt so shaken”.

She compared the experience to unexpectedly being required to perform for a premium rate phone-sex line.

“What upset me so much about the situation is I was put on the spot, nobody thought to ask me if I was ok with it, and nobody checked to see if I was ok afterwards,” she said.

And as a freelancer, she feared being labelled as a troublemaker by refusing.

“Nobody has to justify why they’re not hiring you,” she said.

Like Ms Jefferies, she wants games to move closer to standards in film and TV.

Rhiannon Bevan of game news site The Gamer has covered the steps last year’s gaming blockbuster Baldur’s Gate 3 took in dealing with explicit scenes as an example of a modern game “getting it right”.

She says games are increasingly taking explicit scenes seriously “and not just using them for titillation”.

But it came with the risk that performers may not be comfortable with the work.

Baldur’s Gate 3 addressed this by employing intimacy co-ordinators – dedicated members of staff tasked with ensuring the well-being of performers in explicit scenes.

Its developer used one intimacy co-ordinator to look after performers voicing intimate scenes, while another looked after those who were also miming actions to be digitised into the game.

As well as intimate scenes, the Equity guidelines also cover the overuse of NDAs, safety during motion and performance capture, avoiding harmful vocal stress for artists and the protections around the use of artificial intelligence.

AI use is one of the key issues behind a continuing strike by games performers in the US.

UKIE, the trade body for the games industry, did not respond directly to the issue of the treatment of performers working on explicit material, but said in relation to Equity’s guidelines that its focus “remains on fostering a supportive environment for all stakeholders in the UK video game sector, ensuring it remains the best place to create, play, and sell video games”.

Doctors in India have begun a national strike, escalating the protest against the rape and murder of a female colleague in the West Bengal city of Kolkata.

The Indian Medical Association (IMA), the country’s largest grouping of doctors, said all non-essential hospital services would be shut down across the country on Saturday.

The IMA described last week’s killing as a “crime of barbaric scale due to the lack of safe spaces for women” and asked for the country’s support in its “struggle for justice”.

Protests against the attack and calling for the better protection of women have intensified in recent days after a mob vandalised the hospital where it happened.

In a statement, the IMA said emergency and casualty services would continue to run and that the strike would last for 24 hours.

The association’s president, R. V. Asokan, told the BBC doctors have been suffering and protesting against violence for years, but that this incident was “qualitatively different”.

If such a crime can happen in a medical college in a major city, it shows “everywhere doctors are unsafe”, he said.

Doctors at some government hospitals announced earlier this week that they were indefinitely halting elective procedures.

The IMA also issued a list of demands including the strengthening of the law to better protect medical staff against violence, increasing the level of security at hospitals and the creation of safe spaces for rest.

It called for a “meticulous and professional investigation” into the killing and the prosecution of those involved in vandalising, as well as compensation for the woman’s family.

The rape of the 31-year-old female trainee doctor has shocked the country.

Her half-naked body bearing extensive injuries was discovered in a seminar hall at R G Kar Medical College last week after she was reported to have gone there to rest during her shift.

A volunteer who worked at the hospital has been arrested in connection with the crime.

The case has been transferred from local police to India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) following criticism at the lack of progress.

More incidents of rape have made headlines in India since the woman’s death and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that “monstrous behaviour against women should be severely and quickly punished”.

The woman’s rape and killing has sparked a political blame game in West Bengal, with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accusing the governing Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) of orchestrating the attack.

The TMC has refuted the allegation and has blamed “political outsiders” for stoking the violence.

Tens of thousands of women across West Bengal participated in the Reclaim the Night march on Wednesday night to demand “independence to live in freedom and without fear”.

Though the protests were largely peaceful, clashes erupted between the police and a small group of unidentified men who barged into the RG Kar Hospital – the site of the crime – and ransacked its emergency ward.

At least 25 people have been arrested in connection with the incident so far.

Protests have also been held in many other Indian cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune.

“It feels like hope is being reignited,” one demonstrator, Sumita Datta, told the AFP news agency as thousands of people marched through the streets of Kolkata on Friday.

After almost a year off the platform, Donald Trump returned to X this week and asked his 89 million followers: “Are you better off now than you were when I was president?”

It was a clear echo of the famous quote from Ronald Reagan during his victorious 1980 presidential campaign, when he asked: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

This messaging isn’t surprising. It seems like an obvious strategy for Trump to focus on the economy.

That’s because polls consistently suggest it’s the issue American voters care about the most. One such poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov in recent days listed “inflation/prices” and “jobs and the economy” among voters’ top concerns.

Perhaps more importantly, polls also indicate voters are deeply unhappy with the current state of affairs.

That seems like a perfect situation for any presidential challenger.

But in an election that’s been transformed by Kamala Harris taking over from Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate, Trump seems to be struggling to land his simple message on the economy.

It is less than a month since he was on stage at the Republican National Convention looking unbeatable, having survived an assassination attempt and riding high in the opinion polls.

Now, he has lost that lead and seems to have lost his way. Meanwhile, in the opposition corner, Ms Harris is riding a wave of excitement and enthusiasm that he is finding difficult to counter.

The easiest way to burst her bubble would be to remind voters how unhappy they are about high prices and blame her for the inflation that has pushed up the cost of living during the time she has been beside President Biden in the White House.

One of the reasons Trump is failing to land that message is the Harris campaign’s strategy of putting proposals to try to lower the cost of living at the heart of her pitch.

In a speech in North Carolina on Friday, Ms Harris promised to expand child tax credits, help people to purchase their first homes, and to encourage the building of more affordable housing.

She also said she hoped to tackle the persistently high price of food and groceries by banning “price gouging” or excessive corporate profiteering.

“By any measure, our economy is the strongest in the world,” she said. “Many Americans don’t yet feel that progress in their daily lives.”

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ought to be able to boast about some very good economic indicators. There is strong growth, record levels of job creation, and this week the inflation rate fell below 3% for the first time during Mr Biden’s presidency.

But because prices are still high, voters don’t feel any better off. Voters don’t care about the rate of inflation – they care about the level of prices.

“A central banker wants inflation to get back to target. A shopper wants his or her old price back,” Jared Bernstein, the chair of President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, said in a July speech.

When it comes to the economy, “the vibes are off”.

“Vibes matter,” Mr Bernstein said.

So will the bad economic vibes hurt the Harris campaign?

That is what I asked voters over lunch at a crab shack on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

Jeff Tester, who works in a nearby marina, said high prices are really hurting him.

“I get paid by the hour. I get up to go to work every day. I think you have to do that to get the American dream,” he said. “But I just know it’s getting harder.”

And he is very clear about who he sees as responsible. “I blame the Democrats. I believe their policies are hurting the working man,” he said.

Every diner I met complained about inflation, but not everyone held Mr Biden or Ms Harris responsible.

Dan Nardo, a retired boat broker, said he believed the pandemic, oil prices, foreign wars and supply chain issues have more to do with price rises than the US president.

His friend Randy Turk, a retired lawyer, told me that he felt a new administration is likely to follow a similar path to try to reduce inflation, regardless of who wins.

“It’s not like a different president can really make that much of a difference,” he said.

Ms Harris struggled for prominence and media coverage during most of her time as vice-president. Previously that was seen as a weakness. But if it means she can emerge untainted by “Bidenomics”, it could be one of her greatest strengths.

Ruth Igielnik, polling editor at the New York Times, says the latest data she has collected suggests “voters very much tied their negative feelings about the economy to Joe Biden”.

Talking to me on the BBC’s Americast podcast, she explained that in her polling Trump is still favoured on the economy, but where he once had an 18-point lead over Mr Biden he now leads Ms Harris by only about 8 points.

“That makes me think voters aren’t necessarily attaching their feelings about the economy to her,” she said.

A separate poll this week conducted for the Financial Times and the University of Michigan Ross School of Business indicated Ms Harris holds a narrow lead over Trump on who Americans trust to handle the economy.

No wonder Republicans are publicly begging Trump to focus on the issues, the economy in particular, and stop launching personal attacks against Ms Harris.

In a speech this week, Trump told supporters he was going to talk about the economy but struggled to stay on topic.

“They say it’s the most important subject,” he said, “they” referring to his advisers and strategists who believe this is his strongest line of attack.

“I’m not sure it is. But they say it’s the most important,” he added, before going on to list immigration, crime and the way Ms Harris laughs as top issues. You could practically hear his campaign managers pulling their hair out.

“Voters don’t care about personalities or who is drawing larger crowd sizes,” said Matt Terrill, former chief of staff for Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign.

“Independent, undecided, swing voters in key states care about the economy and inflation so just focus on those core issues,” he said.

“Stay focused on talking about how you are going to make the lives of Americans better over the next four years.”

It was back in 1992 that the Democrat Jim Carville coined the slogan “It’s the economy, stupid” while he was working on Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.

It’s advice that every campaign since has clung to. But Trump, this time around, seems to be finding it uncommonly difficult to stick with.

It ought to be a winner for him. After all, according to the Financial Times poll, in answer to his question “Are you better off now than you were when I was president?” only 19% of voters say they are.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote

• ANALYSIS: Three ways Trump will try to end Harris honeymoon

• EXPLAINER: Where the election could be won and lost

• FACT-CHECK: Trump falsely claims Harris crowd was faked

• VOTERS: What Democrats make of Tim Walz as VP

“All you can fly” – unlimited flights for an annual subscription fee. What’s not to like? A fair amount, for some passengers, it turns out.

Wizz Air’s new scheme under that title has divided opinion. Some have praised the €499 (£426) scheme’s “insanely great” value on trips as far as the Maldives, and the budget airline says it has been “overwhelmed” by the positive response.

But others hit out at the airline’s service and recalled their own experience of delays, while questioning the scheme’s terms and conditions.

Wizz says its new membership, effective from September, will allow frequent flyers to “save money, visit friends and family more regularly and spontaneously visit off-the-beaten-track destinations”.

It says it sold out in most markets within 24 hours, but some customers have been pointing out what they describe as a “catch”. Those who sign up can only book flights up to three days before departure and must pay a fee of about €10 per flight.

Flights do not include “trolley bags” to stow in overhead compartments or checked baggage. And crucially, the scheme is limited to just 10,000 people. It’s also dependent on whether there are any seats left.

Wizz, which flies to 53 countries, carried 62 million passengers in the year to the end of March.

Its scheme is similar to those being offered by Frontier Airlines in the US and Malaysia-based AirAsia.

Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, advises passengers to look behind the enticing headline price to work out if this really is a good deal for them.

Once booking fees, seat selection and luggage costs are added on, travellers will see costs climb, he says – particularly as multiple short-notice journeys will be required to break even on the original cost of the subscription.

“It is also ironic to see an airline which claims to be Europe’s ‘greenest’ encouraging consumers to take unlimited flights,” he adds.

The Hungarian airline has faced a number of hurdles in the last year, which it might be hoping to overcome with the new scheme.

In June, the airline was named the worst for UK flight delays for the third year in a row, based on analysis of official data by the PA news agency.

And in January, it had to pay an extra £1.2m to customers in compensation, after the industry regulator intervened over the way it had handled flight disruption.

Wizz Air points out that it has been working on improvements, such as investing an extra £90m in its operations and customer service last year. And it says 1.8% of its UK flights were delayed for more than three hours in the first half of this year – a 50% reduction on last year.

Talie Delemere, 34, is excited about the scheme and has already signed up. She lives near Luton airport and likes being able to travel whenever she likes.

“I travel a lot anyway, between eight and 12 times a year and I mostly travel with hand luggage,” she tells the BBC.

“Wizz Air are a mixed bag but I don’t find them any better or worse service-wise than any other low cost carriers and their aircraft are far nicer and more comfortable than Ryanair’s.”

But others are not convinced.

“You can subscribe to this scheme but you might never take off,” says James Glenton, 36, from York, who is still hoping for compensation for a cancelled Wizz Air flight a year on.

In July 2023, Wizz cancelled Mr Glenton’s flight from Leeds Bradford Airport to Wroclaw in Poland and rebooked him on one from London Luton the next day, he says.

That meant he lost two days of his holiday, the parking he’d booked at Leeds Bradford, money spent on his hotel, and the petrol costs getting to Luton and back, he says.

According to Mr Glenton, Wizz has blamed air traffic control restrictions for the cancellation so won’t refund him. But he claims the airport denies this and has told him it was the airline that cancelled the flight directly.

“I am not hopeful about a refund, I won’t get anything from them,” he says. “I am angry, I would never fly with Wizz Air again.”

Mark Shatliff, 39, from Reading, also says he won’t be signing up to the scheme.

His Wizz Air flight from Istanbul to London was delayed by six hours last July and was so late when he landed that he had to pay an additional £120 for a taxi home, he says.

Wizz initially refused to refund him but relented when he took the matter to a dispute resolution company.

“I think people who subscribe to this scheme won’t get the value out of it,” he tells the BBC.

“What you end up paying if things go wrong is so much more – it isn’t worth it.”

While Wizz said it could not comment on individual cases, it offered to look into James’ and Mark’s reports.

Travel expert Simon Calder thinks the scheme could be a good deal for some fliers but not others.

He believes the subscription offer is aimed at travellers such as Eastern Europeans in the UK who go home regularly to see family. Wizz already offers other discount schemes for travellers, he adds.

“People will do their sums and I’ve done mine, it won’t really work for me,” he tells the BBC.

Some have raised concerns that the scheme could encourage frivolous flying that harms the environment, but Mr Calder thinks the impact will be minimal. He also thinks criticism of the airline’s performance is overblown.

Mr Calder says: “I fly on lots of airlines, if I want to be on time I generally go with Ryanair. In general I find Wizz and EasyJet pretty much the same.

While he says that Wizz’s recovery “when things go wrong has historically not been great”, they are still a “perfectly reasonable choice” for the thousands of passengers who may opt for its “all you can fly” option.

When 21-year-old Indiana University philosophy student Craig Sautter drove to Chicago for the 1968 Democratic National Convention, he had an “inkling” that he would be in for a “wild day”.

There had been a series of riots after the back-to-back assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy just months before, and he could tell that simmering tensions were ready to boil over when thousands of protesters, police, politicians and delegates gathered in Chicago in August 1968 to pick who would be the next Democratic candidate for president.

Yet the young anti-Vietnam War activist was still shocked by what he saw: National Guardsmen with bayonets, protesters ripped from cars or beaten with police batons, and thick clouds of tear gas wafting through crowds of thousands.

“We were mostly middle-class kids, or business people who were there in suits, protesting against the war,” Mr Sautter recalled. “We never thought that the police would attack an unarmed group of people who were just singing and shouting… we were in disbelief.”

Ultimately, more than 600 protesters were arrested and over 100 treated for injuries, alongside 119 police officers.

Scenes of the violent clashes in the streets and parks of Chicago soon flashed on TV screens across the country, and the world, leaving an unforgettable image of America in chaos.

“People were chanting that the whole world was watching,” added Mr Sautter, now a professor at Chicago’s DePaul University who researches presidential conventions.

The return of the DNC to Chicago in 2024 has led many to look back at 1968 and draw parallels. Like back then, there will be anti-war protests – this time against the Biden administration’s support for Israel during the war in Gaza.

And like back then, there has been a surprising change of guard amongst Democratic leadership. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek re-election months before the convention, while this time, President Biden pulled out of the race with merely weeks to go.

But experts and veterans of the 1960s protest movement believe the differences far outweigh the similarities.

Some of those involved in planning the anti-Gaza war protests at the upcoming DNC say they draw inspiration from the work of the earlier activists nearly 60 years ago.

“This is the Vietnam War of our era,” Hatem Abudayyah, a spokesman for the Coalition to March on the DNC, told the BBC. “The attacks on our movement, our students and our organisations are similar to the attacks on the movement that was trying to stop 1968… I absolutely see those parallels.”

The coalition includes over 200 organisations involved in the protests, and its spokespeople have said that “tens of thousands” of participants are expected.

The size of the protests has prompted Chicago’s police department to warn that it won’t tolerate “violent actors” or incidents of vandalism or criminality.

Yet Mr Abudayyah does not think that violence is an inevitable outcome, saying that there has been “no evidence of any violence” over 10 months of protests organised by the coalition or its member groups since the conflict in the Middle East began.

Others have pushed back on the comparisons, saying that any similarities are few and far between.

“Other than the fact that they’re in Chicago, there are none,” long-time Democratic National Committee member and DNC delegate Elaine Kamarck told the BBC. “This is not even close.”

One of the key differences, according to Ms Kamarck, was the “very, very thuggish tactics” of the Chicago police, who a federally-mandated commission later accused of a “police riot” at the DNC.

Just months before, then-Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley had also issued “shoot to kill” orders in the wake of riots after Martin Luther King’s death.

“All hell was breaking loose,” said Ms Kamarck, who was 18 at the time. “There’s no such thing going on now.”

Ms Kamarck’s assessment was echoed by Marsha Barrett, a professor of US political history at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign.

“Daley had very strong control over police, and an antagonistic relationship with protesters,” she said. “The city had set up a situation where there was likely to be a major conflict.”

“We don’t have that now,” she added.

Chicago police have been in regular touch with DNC protest groups and have vowed to protect their rights to free speech, provided that the protests remain lawful.

“The understanding of police activity at that time was that the would use whatever force was needed to overcome resistance,” said Mr Sautter.

“Now the police are better trained,” he added. “They’re not going to provoke anything unless some kind of violence breaks out.”

Among those who witnessed the violence first-hand was Abe Peck, then editor of the Chicago Seed, an underground newspaper linked to the Youth International Movement, or Yippies, that planned events around the 1968 convention.

“We were in our office, which was in a dry cleaner’s, and all of a sudden our window fragmented,” remembers Mr Peck, who was later credited with creating the “whole world is watching” chant. “Two shots were fired through it. Fortunately nobody was hit.”

When they ran outside to investigate, Mr Peck saw only one vehicle: a Chicago police cruiser.

The incident was one of several which marked his experiences of the DNC, which also included the police “stomping out” religious ministers tied to the counterculture movement.

That violence, Mr Peck told the BBC, stands in stark contrast to today.

Social media and the immediate spread of news could create a public relations disaster if police were seen to be too aggressive.

“Back then, there was a real delay in getting news out. Now, it’s essentially instantaneous,” Mr Peck said. “That’s a big difference.”

Don Rose, who in 1968 was a spokesman for the National Mobilization Committee to End the War, one of the main protest groups, told the BBC that an even more significant difference was the Vietnam War itself.

That war, unlike the Gaza war, saw tens of thousands of Americans drafted, many of whom were killed or wounded overseas.

“The country was far more divided on the Vietnam War at that time. The protests expanded greatly because of the draft,” said Mr Rose, now 93.

“We were protesting at a convention that would nominate someone who could end the war with the stroke of a pen,” he added.

The Democratic Party at the time was also deeply divided over the war, and when delegates arrived at the DNC of 1968, they had no idea who would be leaving with the nomination.

When then-vice president Hubert Humphrey was finally chosen as nominee over anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy, some in the audience even shouted “No!”.

“The convention was totally divided, and at war with itself,” explained Mr Stautter. “For [Kamala] Harris and Walz, it’s totally unified.”

Mr Peck, for his part, said that more recent versions of the DNC can no longer be called “nominating conventions”.

“These are just confirmation conventions,” he said. “They confirm what the people in states did at the primary levels. That’s really different.”

Ultimately, Hubert Humphrey went on to lose the 1968 election to Republican Richard Nixon.

Looking back, Mr Stautter – who will be watching the convention on TV this year – believes that the protests of 1968 had an impact on the US that could never be replicated in 2024.

“People who watched were totally radicalised by it, and many, many more people became involved in trying to stop the war,” he said.

“A whole generation, whether they were there or not, were marked by it.”

When 10-year-old Tegan went for a summer holiday beach stroll with her mum, she had no idea they would actually be walking in the footsteps of dinosaurs.

The schoolgirl spotted five enormous footprints that dinosaur experts believe are the mark of a camelotia that was there more than 200 million years ago.

Palaeontologists think the footprints, which are up to 75cm (30in) apart, were made by a huge herbivore from the late triassic period, and now there are efforts to get them verified.

Tegan and mum Claire have been told by the National Museum Wales palaeontology curator that she is “fairly certain they are genuine dinosaur prints”.

“We’ve got five footprints and we’re talking about half-to-three-quarters of a metre between each one,” Cindy Howells told the BBC’s The Dinohunters programme.

“These footprints are so big, it would have to be a type of dinosaur called a sauropodomorpha.”

Tegan’s monster discovery was on the south Wales coast near where her mum used to live.

“It was so cool and exciting,” said Tegan, who had travelled from Pontardawe near Swansea to the Vale of Glamorgan looking for fossils.

“We were just out looking to see what we could find, we didn’t think we’d find anything.

“We found these were big holes that looked like dinosaur footprints, so mum took some pictures, emailed the museum and it was from a long-necked dinosaur.”

Claire emailed Cindy a few days after the find in the red siltstone at Lavernock Point between Cardiff and Barry on a stretch of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast known to be a prehistoric hotspot.

Cindy, the go-to dinosaur expert of 40 years in this part of the UK, said what convinced her they were genuine was the consistent stride pattern.

“If they were random holes, we’d be wary but because we have a left foot, a right foot and then a left and another right… there’s a consistent distance between them,” she said.

“It”s quite a significant find – the buzz you get when someone contacts us with a definite dinosaur find, it’s amazing.”

Claire was chuffed their hunch was right and has invigorated her junior dino hunter daughter.

“It’s hard to comprehend you’re walking on the same beach that hundreds of millions of years ago some massive prehistoric animal was here,” she said.

“You can spent a lifetime looking for dinosaur treasures so for it to happen for Tegan at this age is great.”

The latest prehistoric find on this stretch of coast is a print from the sauropod family of dinosaurs – including the brachiosaurus and diplodocus, distinctive by their very long necks, long tails, big body and small head.

Cindy believes the footprint is from a camelotia, that lived across parts of Europe.

Little is known about them – compared what experts know about stegosaurus, triceratops and the mighty T-rex – but it is thought they walked on their front feet and their hind limbs, were herbivorous and from the late triassic period.

“We think these prints were made by a reasonably large, herbivorous dinosaur, added Cindy.

“While we haven’t any bones here, bones of similiar dinosaurs were found on the otherside of the Bristol Channel.

“A camelotia would have stood about 3m (10ft) tall, 4-5m (13-16ft) long and is an early sauropodomorph with a relatively long neck, long tail and walked on two legs but could walk on all four when grazing for food.”

Cindy is pretty certain “Tegan’s footprints” are linked to the first dinosaur prints found in Wales in 1879 in nearby Porthcawl.

Bones were then unearthed in Cowbridge in the Vale of Glamorgan before more footprints were found at The Bendricks near Barry and Sully – now a site of special scientific and paleontological interest.

A full dinosaur skeleton was unearthed in 2014 on the same beach near Penarth where Tegan found her footprints – although that was a 201-million-year-old dracoraptor and a meat-eating cousin of the T-rex.

Four-year-old Lily found a well-preserved dinosaur footprint at The Bendricks three years ago and now Tegan has spotted some more just down the coast.

“It’s amazing as up until recently, we had so few dinosaurs finds in Wales we didn’t think we had much in the way of dinosaurs here,” said Cindy.

“Now we’re getting a footprint or bone find every five to six years and we now know we’ve a continuous sequence of dinosaurs living in Wales over 15 million years or so – it’s amazing.

The south Wales group of the Geologists’ Association, of which Cindy is vice-president, believes it is “the best site in Britain for dinosaur tracks, external of the triassic period”.

Cindy has said Wales, whose geolological history dates back 700 million years, was a hot desert subject to flash floods when the dinosaur that formed the footprints found by Tegan roamed.

She was keen to quickly analyse the prints as she knew it as a well-known spot for prehistoric finds.

“The rocks around this area are triassic rocks, formed in the deserts and we know we’ve got dinosaur footprints in them,” added Cindy.

“Some 220 million years ago, Wales looked like what the Middle East does now so very hot, dry with deserts, and the sea was hundreds of miles away.

“But sea level started to change and continents breaking apart, it was getting damper, the sea was flooding the deserts and the environment was more favourable for dinosaurs.

“Then 200 million years ago, Wales was like the Mediterranean is now, with shallow, warm tropical seas and little islands.”

Cindy has now written a report for other palaeontologists on her view they are from a dinosaur, to verify for the find.

“It’s brilliant to say to people we have dinosaur footprints on our coast in south Wales,” she added. “You’ve just got to be in the right place at the right time.

“In museums, we don’t have time to go out and do that exploration ourlseves so we rely on people like Tegan doing it for us. We can’t do our job without it.”

The Geologists’ Association has told amateur dino hunters that footprints can be “difficult to see” as many are covered at high tide.

“It is best to go after high tide when the tracks may retain small puddles of water,” the group advises.

“It is also easier to spot the footprints when the sun is low in the sky as longer shadows will help throw the footprints into relief.”

• You can watch The Dinohunters as part of the Our Lives series on BBCiPlayer.

Tens of thousands of women in West Bengal state marched through the streets on Wednesday night in protest against the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at a state-run hospital in Kolkata last week.

The Reclaim the Night march was the culmination of nearly a week of frenzied protests ignited by the brutal killing of the 31-year-old at the RG Kar Medical College last Friday.

After a gruelling 36-hour shift, she had fallen asleep in a seminar room due to the lack of a designated rest area.

The next morning, her colleagues discovered her half-naked body on the podium, bearing extensive injuries. A hospital volunteer worker has been arrested in connection with the crime.

Responding to calls on social media, women from all walks of life marched across Kolkata city and throughout the state on a rainy Wednesday night.

Though protests were largely peaceful, they were marred by clashes between the police and a small group of unidentified men who barged into the RG Kar Hospital, the site of the doctor’s murder, and ransacked the emergency department.

Police fired tear gas to disperse the unruly crowd. Some police vehicles were also damaged.

Smaller protests were also held in many other Indian cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune.

In Kolkata, women marched resolutely, holding placards of protest, their faces illuminated by the glow of mobile phones, candlelight and flaming torches. Some carried India’s flags. They were joined by men, both young and elderly.

During the marches and at many gatherings near a university, theatre hall and bus terminus, they stood united, holding hands as the humid air echoed with loud and powerful chants of “we want justice”. Protesters blew conch shells – the sound is considered auspicious.

At the stroke of midnight, as India completed 77 years of Independence, the soundscape of protest changed.

The air filled with a spontaneous chorus of the national anthem. Then it began raining, but the protesters walked in the rain, or holding umbrellas over their head.

“We have never seen anything like this before in the city, such a huge gathering of women marching at night,” a reporter belonging to a news network said.

It was a night of barely concealed rage and frustration.

A woman, who joined the march well after midnight with her 13-year-old daughter said: “Let her see whether a mass protest can set things right. Let her become aware of her rights”.

“Women have no respect!” said another. “Our worth is less than cows and goats.”

“When do we get our independence? How long do we have to wait to work without fear? Another 50 years?” asked a student.

Sanchari Mukherjee, editor of a digital magazine, said she marched with thousands of others from a bus terminus in Jadavpur, undeterred by the rain.

She met “people of all ages, from all classes, the well-to-do, the middle class and the poor”.

“I saw an elderly couple, the husband helping the woman to walk,” she said.

“One family brought their little girl along, perhaps so the memory of this event would be etched in her mind – how her parents stood up against injustice, and how she, too, can protest one day.”

Ms Mukherjee said the entire city seemed awake as the marchers passed by illuminated homes, with people peering out of windows and crowding verandahs to watch.

“They may not have participated but they were with us in spirit,” she said.

“‘We want justice’ had become the anthem of the march, and it didn’t feel like just a slogan,” Ms Mukherjee said.

“It felt like every young woman was deeply hurt and determined, frustrated that they still face these issues in 2024.”

Ms Mukherjee added that she had to walk a few miles to join the march because the streets were gridlocked late at night.

“I was instantly swept up in a sea of people heading to the protest site. There was no excitement, just a stoic determination to create an event which would become a symbol for the times to come.”

The protests have been fuelled by anger over local authorities’ handling of the young trainee doctor’s rape and murder.

Police later arrested a hospital volunteer worker in connection with what they said was a case of rape and murder.

But there have been accusations of cover-up and negligence. The case has since been transferred from local police to the federal Central Bureau of Investigation.

Despite scant resources, Kolkata’s Reclaim the Night march appeared to have been meticulously organised. In an advisory, organisers welcomed women and people from marginalised sexual and gender identities to the march.

“Men are welcome as allies and observers,” the advisory added.

They also emphasised that politicians were not welcome and requested that no party flags be brought to the protest.

It was not the first time that a Reclaim the Night march has been staged in India.

Inspired by similar marches elsewhere in the world by women to assert their rights to walk in public areas without fear, a march was held in 1978 in Bombay (now Mumbai) in protest against the rape of a woman on the street.

Blank Noise, a community-based art project and activist collective, has organised several midnight walks in Delhi to encourage women to assert their right to walk freely at night.

But in terms of scale, the Kolkata march, echoed by smaller ones across other cities, stands as the largest yet.

“We seized the night. We’ve never seen anything like this in the city. This is unprecedented. I hope it wakes up the authorities,” said Chaitali Sen, a protester.

Hamas has described suggestions of progress on an Israel-Gaza ceasefire deal as an illusion, after US President Joe Biden said he was feeling “optimistic”.

Following two days of US-backed talks in Qatar, President Biden said on Friday “we are closer than we have ever been”.

However, a senior Hamas official told the BBC there had been no progress and mediators were “selling illusions”.

Israel said it “appreciates the efforts of the US and the mediators to dissuade Hamas from its refusal to a hostage release deal”.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

A ceasefire deal agreed in November saw Hamas release 105 of the hostages in return for a week-long ceasefire and the freeing of some 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Israel says 111 hostages are still being held, 39 of whom are presumed dead.

In a recent joint statement, the US, Qatar and Egypt stated that they had presented a proposal for a ceasefire and hostage release deal that “narrows the gaps” between Israel and Hamas.

Israel has said any ceasefire deal would require the release of the remaining hostages. Some have already been released, while others are thought to have died in Gaza.

Relatives of hostages still in Gaza are calling the current negotiations as the “last chance” to get some of them out alive.

After 10 months of war and thousands of casualties, there is overwhelming pressure for a breakthrough.

A wider regional conflict, in the event of talks between Israel and Hamas collapsing completely, is a distinct possibility and is something all of those involved are fearful of.

The mediators said that the past two days of ceasefire discussions had been “serious, constructive and conducted in a positive atmosphere”.

Technical teams are expected to continue working over the coming days on the details of how to implement the proposed terms before senior government officials meet again in Cairo, hoping to reach an agreement on the terms set out in Doha.

While the mediators’ statement is clearly a positive development, there is still a long way to go before a ceasefire is agreed.

This is not the first time the Mr Biden has said he thought a deal was close – and not everyone shares his cautious optimism.

Neither Hamas nor the Israeli government have been quite so upbeat in their responses.

Israel says its position and core principles have remained unchanged and were “well-known”. It accused Hamas of refusing to agree to a deal for the release of the hostages.

Above all else, Israelis want to see the remaining hostages released but many are sceptical that is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s primary goal. He has insisted that a “total victory” over Hamas is his government’s priority.

Meanwhile, Hamas’s new leader, Yaya Sinwar, continues to show few signs of compromise.

Asked about President Biden’s statement, the senior Hamas official told the BBC “what we have received from the mediators is very disappointing. There has been no progress”.

Hamas is understood to have dropped its demand for a permanent ceasefire in favour of Mr Biden’s proposal for a six-week pause in which an end to the war could be brokered.

Mr Biden’s ceasefire proposal also included the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza, the staggered release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, and the return of dead hostages’ remains.

The “bridging proposal” put forward by US, Egyptian and Qatari negotiators will be the subject of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s negotiations in the region and should form the basis for the next talks in Cairo at which all parties, including Hamas, are expected to attend.

That proposal reportedly “closes the remaining gaps” between the two sides’ positions which could allow for “a rapid implementation of the agreement”.

It might sound straightforward, but there are big obstacles to overcome and there is still absolutely no trust between senior Israeli or Hamas figures.

They’re being dragged to the table – perhaps against their wishes – by others fearful of what could happen in the event of failure.

Hamas and its allies are convinced the US administration is trying to buy more time.

If Iran attacks Israel, it will appear as if it is Hamas which undermined the negotiations.

Hamas does not hide its desire for Iran and Hezbollah to attack Israel and for the escalation to turn into a regional war.

They believe a strong blow to Israel will weaken Mr Netanyahu and push him to accept a deal.

For his part, Mr Biden warned “no-one in the region should take actions to undermine this process”.

Meanwhile, Israel’s military operation in Gaza continues, with an air strike in the early hours of Saturday morning killing 15 people in the al-Zawaida neighbourhood of central Gaza, according to the Palestinian civil defence authority, a rescue service.

Spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP news agency nine children and three women were among the dead.

Israel has not commented directly. The Israel Defense Forces said on Saturday morning it had “eliminated a number of terrorists” in central Gaza, including one that had fired at Israeli forces operating in the area.

The Israeli military has issued new evacuation orders for several blocks in northern Khan Younis and Deir Balah – further shrinking the humanitarian zone in which thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge from the fighting.

Israel said the blocks had become dangerous for civilians “due to significant acts of terrorism” and the firing of rockets and mortars towards Israel.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said: “Once again, fear spreads as families have nowhere to go.”

Pressing the need for a ceasefire deal is the circulation of the polio virus – which can spread through faecal matter – is now circulating inside the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in Gaza.

“Let’s be clear: The ultimate vaccine for polio is peace and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” UN Secretary General António Guterres said.

Early on Friday morning, a 31-year-old female trainee doctor retired to sleep in a seminar hall after a gruelling day at one of India’s oldest hospitals.

It was the last time she was seen alive.

The next morning, her colleagues discovered her half-naked body on the podium, bearing extensive injuries. Police later arrested a hospital volunteer worker in connection with what they say is a case of rape and murder at Kolkata’s 138-year-old RG Kar Medical College.

Tens of thousands of women in Kolkata and across West Bengal state are expected to participate in a ‘Reclaim the Night’ march at midnight on Wednesday, demanding the “independence to live in freedom and without fear”. The march takes place just before India’s Independence Day on Thursday. Outraged doctors have struck work both in the city and across India, demanding a strict federal law to protect them.

The tragic incident has again cast a spotlight on the violence against doctors and nurses in the country. Reports of doctors, regardless of gender, being assaulted by patients and their relatives have gained widespread attention. Women – who make up nearly 30% of India’s doctors and 80% of the nursing staff – are more vulnerable than their male colleagues.

The crime in the Kolkata hospital last week exposed the alarming security risks faced by the medical staff in many of India’s state-run health facilities.

At RG Kar Hospital, which sees over 3,500 patients daily, the overworked trainee doctors – some working up to 36 hours straight – had no designated rest rooms, forcing them to seek rest in a third-floor seminar room.

Reports indicate that the arrested suspect, a volunteer worker with a troubled past, had unrestricted access to the ward and was captured on CCTV. Police allege that no background checks were conducted on the volunteer.

“The hospital has always been our first home; we only go home to rest. We never imagined it could be this unsafe. Now, after this incident, we’re terrified,” says Madhuparna Nandi, a junior doctor at Kolkata’s 76-year-old National Medical College.

Dr Nandi’s own journey highlights how female doctors in India’s government hospitals have become resigned to working in conditions that compromise their security.

At her hospital, where she is a resident in gynaecology and obstetrics, there are no designated rest rooms and separate toilets for female doctors.

“I use the patients’ or the nurses’ toilets if they allow me. When I work late, I sometimes sleep in an empty patient bed in the ward or in a cramped waiting room with a bed and basin,” Dr Nandi told me.

She says she feels insecure even in the room where she rests after 24-hour shifts that start with outpatient duty and continue through ward rounds and maternity rooms.

One night in 2021, during the peak of the Covid pandemic, some men barged into her room and woke her by touching her, demanding, “Get up, get up. See our patient.”

“I was completely shaken by the incident. But we never imagined it would come to a point where a doctor could be raped and murdered in the hospital,” Dr Nandi says.

What happened on Friday was not an isolated incident. The most shocking case remains that of Aruna Shanbaug, a nurse at a prominent Mumbai hospital, who was left in a persistent vegetative state after being raped and strangled by a ward attendant in 1973. She died in 2015, after 42 years of severe brain damage and paralysis. More recently, in Kerala, Vandana Das, a 23-year-old medical intern, was fatally stabbed with surgical scissors by a drunken patient last year.

In overcrowded government hospitals with unrestricted access, doctors often face mob fury from patients’ relatives after a death or over demands for immediate treatment. Kamna Kakkar, an anaesthetist, remembers a harrowing incident during a night shift in an intensive care unit (ICU) during the pandemic in 2021 at her hospital in Haryana in northern India.

“I was the lone doctor in the ICU when three men, flaunting a politician’s name, forced their way in, demanding a much in-demand controlled drug. I gave in to protect myself, knowing the safety of my patients was at stake,” Dr Kakkar told me.

Namrata Mitra, a Kolkata-based pathologist who studied at the RG Kar Medical College, says her doctor father would often accompany her to work because she felt unsafe.

“During my on-call duty, I took my father with me. Everyone laughed, but I had to sleep in a room tucked away in a long, dark corridor with a locked iron gate that only the nurse could open if a patient arrived,” Dr Mitra wrote in a Facebook post over the weekend.

“I’m not ashamed to admit I was scared. What if someone from the ward – an attendant, or even a patient – tried something? I took advantage of the fact that my father was a doctor, but not everyone has that privilege.”

When she was working in a public health centre in a district in West Bengal, Dr Mitra spent nights in a dilapidated one-storey building that served as the doctor’s hostel.

“From dusk, a group of boys would gather around the house, making lewd comments as we went in and out for emergencies. They would ask us to check their blood pressure as an excuse to touch us and they would peek through the broken bathroom windows,” she wrote.

Years later, during an emergency shift at a government hospital, “a group of drunk men passed by me, creating a ruckus, and one of them even groped me”, Dr Mitra said. “When I tried to complain, I found the police officers dozing off with their guns in hand.”

Things have worsened over the years, says Saraswati Datta Bodhak, a pharmacologist at a government hospital in West Bengal’s Bankura district. “Both my daughters are young doctors and they tell me that hospital campuses in the state are overrun by anti-social elements, drunks and touts,” she says. Dr Bodhak recalls seeing a man with a gun roaming around a top government hospital in Kolkata during a visit.

India lacks a stringent federal law to protect healthcare workers. Although 25 states have some laws to prevent violence against them, convictions are “almost non-existent”, RV Asokan, president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), an organisation of doctors, told me. A 2015 survey by IMA found that 75% of doctors in India have faced some form of violence at work. “Security in hospitals is almost absent,” he says. “One reason is that nobody thinks of hospitals as conflict zones.”

Some states like Haryana have deployed private bouncers to strengthen security at government hospitals. In 2022, the federal government asked the states to deploy trained security forces for sensitive hospitals, install CCTV cameras, set up quick reaction teams, restrict entry to “undesirable individuals” and file complaints against offenders. Nothing much has happened, clearly.

Even the protesting doctors don’t seem to be very hopeful. “Nothing will change… The expectation will be that doctors should work round the clock and endure abuse as a norm,” says Dr Mitra. It is a disheartening thought.