At least six people have been killed after Russia launched a massive attack across Ukraine, seriously damaging some power and water supplies.

Explosions rang out in several cities including Kyiv on Monday morning, as more than half of the country’s regions came under attack from missiles and drones.

Authorities in Zaporizhzhia, Lutsk, Kharkiv, Zhytomyr and Dnipropetrovsk regions reported people had died in the huge air raid.

Russia confirmed it had targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure – one of its long-term tactics – and said all its targets were hit.

The barrage of drone and missile attacks began across the country overnight on Monday and continued well into the morning.

People were urged to stay in shelters as the entire country was put under air raid alert.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had fired more than 100 missiles and about 100 drones.

“This was one of the largest strikes,” he said, adding there was a lot of damage to energy facilities.

While the main target of this attack was energy infrastructure, it was also an attempt by Moscow to strike at Ukraine’s reserves of another key resource: morale.

Ukrainians have been electrified by the recent successful incursion of their troops deep into Russian territory in the Kursk region.

With Monday’s strikes, Russia was intending to bring ordinary people in Ukraine back down to earth with a bump – reminding them, and politicians in Western capitals, that the Kremlin still has the upper hand in this war.

The message from Moscow was make no mistake, Russia can still inflict misery on the Ukrainian population whenever it chooses.

Some 15 regions of Ukraine were targeted by Russia in the strikes, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said – using weapons including drones, cruise missiles and supersonic missiles.

“There are wounded and dead,” Mr Shmyhal said on the Telegram social media app.

Dozens of people were injured, and those who died included:

• Two men – one aged 69 and another aged 47 – were killed in separate attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk region, local governor Sergiy Lysak said. Others were injured including a 14-year-old girl, he added
• A man was killed when his house was hit in Zaporizhzhia, said the area’s governor
• The mayor of Lutsk said one person had been killed when an “infrastructure facility” was hit. Five others were wounded and most parts of the city had no running water, he added
• In Izyum in Kharkiv region, a man was killed in a missile strike, the regional head said
• And in Zhytomyr region in western Ukraine, a woman died after homes and infrastructure buildings were hit by missiles, the governor said.

• Follow live: Explosions across Ukraine as Russia launches attack

The attacks caused serious damage to infrastructure, with power outages reported in many cities – including Kyiv – and water supplies disrupted.

Emergency blackouts were imposed, energy company DTEK warned, adding that its engineers were working to return electricity supplies across the country.

Russia has been targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since early on in its full-scale invasion, which began in February 2022.

In recent months it has renewed its campaign of attacks on the power grid, causing frequent blackouts across the country.

In June, President Zelensky said Russia had destroyed half of his country’s electricity-generating capacity since it began pummelling its energy facilities in late March.

Ukraine is buying energy from the European Union. However, this is not enough and so most days, the country has a planned nationwide blackout to protect critical needs such as hospitals and military sites.

Russia’s defence ministry said it attacked electricity and gas facilities, as well as sites storing Western weapons.

“All designated targets were hit, resulting in power outages and disrupted rail transport of weapons and ammunition to the front line,” it said.

It has been a year of bad news on the battlefield for Kyiv, with Russia gaining ground steadily in the eastern Donbas region.

There have been problems with mobilisation and reports that Ukraine is running out of men.

But following Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Kursk, the videos of soldiers hoisting the Ukrainian flag over Russian villages they had seized gave a badly-needed boost to Ukrainian morale.

And it showed the West that Kyiv is still capable of carrying out complex, daring and – most importantly – successful offensives.

On Monday, Mr Zelensky called on Western allies including Britain, America and France to change their rules and let Ukraine use their weapons to strike deeper inside Russia.

Ukraine is allowed to use some Western weapons to hit targets inside Russia – but not long-range weapons.

And he said “we could do much more to protect lives” if European air forces worked with Ukraine’s air defence.

Also on Monday, Ukraine tried to attack an oil refinery in Yaroslavl, a city north-east of Moscow, according to the regional governor. No casualties or damage have been reported.

And Russia’s defence ministry said it had destroyed nine drones over its Saratov region, which is 560 miles (900km) from the Ukrainian border.

Since Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire and founder of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested on landing in Paris on Saturday evening, there has been more speculation than substance about his fate.

The headline in a Russian newspaper summed up the story: “The arrest (or detention) of ‘Russia’s Zuckerberg’, Pavel Durov, is one of the most important, but mysterious global news stories,” declared Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

True.

Except that “mysterious” is a bit of an understatement.

Why did French police detain him? What charges will he face? Has it anything at all to do with his recent visit to Azerbaijan, where he met (or didn’t meet) Russian President Vladimir Putin?

For two days, reporters have quoted “sources close to the investigation” about the offences Pavel Durov may be charged with (allegedly, from complicity in drug-trafficking to fraud). Telegram put out a statement saying Mr Durov had “nothing to hide”.

On Monday, a French police spokesman told the Reuters news agency that Mr Durov was being investigated by the national cyber-crime unit and national fraud office over alleged crimes committed on the Telegram platform.

Without going into detail, President Emmanuel Macron posted on social media that he had seen “false information” regarding France following Mr Durov’s arrest, and added: “This is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to decide.”

In Moscow, the Kremlin is being cautious.

“We still don’t know what exactly Durov has been accused of,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday, in his first comments on Pavel Durov’s detention.

“We haven’t heard any official statements. Before I can say anything at all about this, we need some clarity.”

Clarity is not something of which everyone in Russia feels the need.

On Monday, state TV’s flagship political talk show had plenty to say on the matter.

“All these accusations against Durov sound absurd,” one political analyst in the studio declared. “Accusing him of all the crimes that are committed on his platform is like accusing [France’s] President Macron of all the crimes that happen in France. It’s the same logic.”

Russian newspapers, too, went big on the story. Several dailies expressed concern that Pavel Durov’s arrest could have serious consequences for Russia.

“This blow to Telegram threatens to be a blow to Russia,” wrote Nezavisimaya Gazeta. “With Pavel Durov’s arrest, Western intelligence services could obtain the messenger’s encryption keys.”

“Telegram might become a tool of Nato, if Pavel Durov is forced to obey the French intelligence services,” declared Moskovsky Komsomolets, adding: “Telegram chats contain a huge amount of vitally important, strategic information.”

In April 2018, the Russian authorities began blocking access to Telegram, only to lift the ban in 2020. Today, not only do Russian officials use the messenger, but so does the Russian military, including soldiers fighting in the so-called “Special Military Operation” (Russia’s war in Ukraine).

“If Telegram crashes,” Moskovsky Komsomolets asked today, “how is [our army] going to fight?”

In the West, Pavel Durov’s detention has sparked a debate about free speech.

In Russia, too, presidential human rights ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova claimed that “the real reason for arresting Pavel Durov was to shut down Telegram, a platform where you can discover the truth about what’s happening in the world. Everyone who strives for free speech protests this.”

Ms Moskalkova made no mention of the Signal messaging app, to which the Russian authorities blocked access earlier this month, or YouTube, access to which has been severely limited now in Russia. Facebook and Instagram have already been blocked here.

And what of those rumours of a Putin-Durov meeting in Baku earlier in August. Was there one?

“No,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied when I asked.

However this mysterious story ends, Moscow will use it to strengthen one of its official narratives: that Russian citizens should beware of the West.

As the popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda put it: “For the West, there is no such thing any more as ‘good Russians’.”

Authorities in Pakistan have dropped a case against a man who was arrested last week in relation to disinformation thought to have fuelled the recent UK riots.

Police said they could not find evidence that Farhan Asif was the originator of the news and so were not continuing with the case.

Leaving a Lahore court on Monday, Mr Asif declined to answer the BBC’s questions.

Unrest broke out in England and Northern Ireland earlier this month, after disinformation spread about the name and identity of the alleged perpetrator of a stabbing attack in Southport in which three young girls died.

A BBC investigation had linked Mr Asif to a website called Channel3Now, which posted an article that included a false name for the alleged attacker, and wrongly suggested he was an asylum seeker who arrived in the UK by boat last year.

The article was shared widely on social media and quickly went viral.

In Monday’s court session, police said that Mr Asif was a freelancer at a private channel and that they found he had shared news by a different social media account in the UK.

After UK police had refuted the false information he had shared, Mr Asif deleted the posts and issued an apology on Channel3now for sharing the news, police said.

The judge asked Mr Asif a rhetorical question about whether he now realised he should be careful about the information he shares online.

BBC Verify previously tracked down several people linked to Channel3Now and questioned someone who claimed to be “management” at the site.

That person told the BBC that the publication of the false name “shouldn’t have happened, but it was an error, not intentional”.

False information about the attacker spread online after three young girls were killed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29 July.

Violent disorder then broke out in Southport before spreading to towns and cities across England and Northern Ireland, fuelled by misinformation, the far-right and anti-immigration sentiment.

In the past three weeks, more than 500 people have been charged in relation to the disorder and at least 170 sentenced, many being sent to jail.

A “right to disconnect” rule has come into effect in Australia, offering relief to people who feel forced to take calls or read messages from employers after they finish their day’s work.

The new law allows employees to ignore communications after hours if they choose to, without fear of being punished by their bosses.

A survey published last year estimated that Australians worked on average 281 hours of unpaid overtime annually.

More than 20 countries, mainly in Europe and Latin America, have similar rules.

The law does not ban employers from contacting workers after hours.

Instead, it gives staff the right not to reply unless their refusal is deemed unreasonable.

Under the rules, employers and employees should try to resolve disputes among themselves. If that is unsuccessful in finding a resolution Australia’s Fair Work Commission (FWC) can step in.

The FWC can then order the employer to stop contacting the employee after hours.

If it finds an employee’s refusal to respond is unreasonable it can order them to reply.

Failure to comply with FWC orders can result in fines of up to A$19,000 ($12,897; £9,762) for an employee or up to A$94,000 for a company.

Organisations representing workers have welcomed the move.

It “will empower workers to refuse unreasonable out-of-hours work contact and enabling greater work-life balance”, The Australian Council of Trade Unions said.

A workplace expert told BBC News that the new rules would also help employers.

“Any organisation that has staff who have better rest and who have better work-life-balance are going to have staff who are less likely to have sick days, less likely to leave the organisation”, said John Hopkins from Swinburne University of Technology.

“Anything that benefits the employee, has benefits for the employer as well.”

However, there was a mixed reaction to the new law from employees.

“I think it’s actually really important that we have laws like this,” advertising industry worker, Rachel Abdelnour, told Reuters.

“We spend so much of our time connected to our phones, connected to our emails all day, and I think that it’s really hard to switch off as it is.”

Others, however, do not feel the new rules will make much of a difference to them.

“I think it’s an excellent idea. I hope it catches on. I doubt it’ll catch on in our industry, to tell the truth though,” David Brennan, a worker in the financial industry, told the news agency.

“We’re well paid, we’re expected to deliver, and we feel we have to deliver 24 hours a day.”

Gunmen have killed at least 22 people in south-west Pakistan after forcing them out of their vehicles and checking their identity, officials say.

The attack happened overnight on a highway in Balochistan province, where security forces are battling sectarian, ethnic and separatist violence.

The armed men checked identity documents, reportedly singling out those from Punjab to be shot, before setting the vehicles alight, officials alleged.

The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a militant group, has said it was behind the attacks in Musa Khel district.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said that security forces had killed 12 militants in operations after the attacks, but did not give further details.

Over the past 24 hours, the BLA has launched a series of attacks on multiple government installations – including police stations and security forces’ camps across province.

In Kalat, 11 were killed – five of them security personnel – and six bodies were recovered in another district in Balochistan.

According to Najibullah Kakar, a senior local official, around 30 to 40 militants were involved in Musa Khel.

“They stopped 22 vehicles,” he told AFP news agency. “Vehicles traveling to and from Punjab were inspected, and individuals from Punjab were identified and shot.”

The BLA has said it was targeting military personnel travelling in civilian clothes, according to news agency Reuters.

Before the attack, the BLA warned the Baloch public to stay away from the highway, adding that their “fight is against the occupying Pakistani military”.

“We have taken full control of all major highways across Balochistan, blocking them completely,” it added.

Mohsin Naqvi, the interior minister, said the attacks were “a well-thought out plan to create anarchy in Pakistan”.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed “deep grief and condemnation over the terrorist attack” in a statement issued by his office.

Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province but, although it has more resources than other provinces, it is the least developed.

The BLA and other Baloch separatists have intensified attacks on Punjabis and Sinhdis from elsewhere in Pakistan working in the region. They have also targeted foreign energy firms they accuse of exploiting the region without sharing profits.

In a similar incident in April this year, nine passengers were offloaded from a bus in Balochistan and shot dead after their IDs were checked.

Several Western countries, including the UK and US, have designated the BLA as a global terrorist organisation.

China’s most decorated swimmer has made a winning return to the pool after serving a controversial four-year drugs ban.

Sun Yang won gold in the men’s 400m freestyle at China’s National Summer Swimming Championships in Hefei on Sunday – and then broke down while speaking to reporters.

He had been previously vilified by many in China as a drugs cheat, but his return was praised across state media.

His win on Sunday comes shortly after a highly publicised anti-doping row at the Paris Olympics this summer, in which China said its athletes were being unfairly targeted.

In a tearful poolside interview with reporters, the 32-year-old thanked those close to him for helping him get back to competing.

“This is really because of the reliance and support from my family — that’s what’s kept me going until today,” he told the South China Morning Post.

Sun was suspended by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) in 2020 for refusing to provide samples for testers who had visited his home.

In 2012, Sun became China’s first male swimmer to win an Olympic gold when he came first in the 400m and 1,500m freestyle races in London. Four years, he followed this up with another gold in the 200m freestyle at the Rio Olympics.

But his career came crashing down when anti-doping officials visited his home in 2018 for an out-of-competition test.

Sun and his team said the testers lacked the proper accreditation and refused to co-operate with them.

According to the testing team, a member of Sun’s entourage smashed a vial of his blood with a hammer to prevent them from departing with the sample.

Sun – who had already been suspended for three months in 2014 for using the banned substance Trimetazidine (TMZ) – denied any wrongdoing and he was initially cleared by swimming’s governing body Fina.

Two years later, however, CAS overturned the decision and ruled that Sun had refused to cooperate with the sample testers. He was given an eight-year ban, which was later reduced to four years and three months on appeal.

As he had never technically tested positive for any banned substances, Sun was allowed to keep all of his medals.

His victory on Sunday was widely hailed in Chinese state media outlets, whose posts on social channels were flooded with positive comments.

“Brother Sun, don’t cry. The past four years haven’t been easy. You’re amazing,” said one user on Weibo.

Another said: “Congratulations to Sun Yang. Four years and three months of determination and perseverance have all been worth it and have led to this moment. Looking forward to Los Angeles.”

Chinese swimmers have been in the spotlight since the Paris Olympics after a slew of doping allegations, followed by contentious US claims that the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) was covering it up.

Those who headed to Paris were drug-tested twice as much as some other nations, which, in turn, has fuelled accusations of a conspiracy to disrupt their performance.

At the time, the state-run Global Times blamed Western powers for “abusing doping tests to disrupt [the] Chinese swimming team”, while breaststroke champion Qin Haiyang accused opposing teams of using underhand “tricks” to disrupt Chinese competitors.

In his long-awaited return, Sun represented his home province of Zhejiang – but it is unclear whether he will be allowed to represent China on the international stage.

According to the country’s anti-doping regulations, athletes who have been banned for more than one year are not eligible to be selected for the national team.

Sun insists he will “go all out” to compete for a spot in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles – although his performance will need to drastically improve.

His race on Sunday featured no competitors who swam in the Paris Olympics and his time was nearly nine seconds slower than his previous best, which he clocked in London in 2012.

“I could have done better. Four years away from competition and without intensive training, I do feel rusty in controlling the tempo, and I need more competitions,” he told state-run outlet China Daily.

“But it’s a good start for my comeback, and I’m happy with this result,” he added.

A lonely and potentially sexually frustrated dolphin has been blamed for a spike in attacks on swimmers in a Japanese seaside town.

The bottlenose dolphin is believed to be behind 18 attacks near the town of Mihama so far this year, with one primary school-aged child’s finger needing at least 20 stitches.

At least six people were injured in attacks last year, leaving one swimmer with broken ribs. Another person was injured in a 2022 attack.

It has led officials to warn that not only can the mammals “bite you with their sharp teeth and cause you to bleed”, but they can also “drag you into the sea, which could be life-threatening”.

Despite their reputation as friendly animals, dolphin attacks can be fatal. In 1994, a dolphin in Brazil attacked two male swimmers who tried to ride it, killing one and injuring the other. The dolphin, nicknamed Tião, was believed to have injured at least 22 people before that.

Tadamichi Morisaka, a cetology professor at Japan’s Mie University, said the dorsal fin of a dolphin spotted biting a man’s fingers at a beach in Tsuruga – a port city next to Mihama – matched that of a 2.5m long dolphin observed off the coast of Fukui province last year.

The dorsal fin is like a dolphin’s fingerprint, as each has distinctive notches, ridges and pigmentation.

“It is reasonable to assume that it is the same individual, as the wounds on the tail fin are similar to those of the dolphins seen off the coast last year, and it is rare for dolphins, which normally move in groups, to be alone for such a long time,” Prof Morisaka told NHK.

He added that male bottlenose dolphins communicate by “play-biting each other”. “They are not trying to injure people, but are using the dolphins’ way of communication with people,” he said.

Others have suggested various theories on why the same creature may be behind these attacks – including a desire for sex.

“Bottlenose dolphins are highly social animals and this sociality can be expressed in very physical ways,” said Dr Simon Allen, a biologist and principal investigator with the Shark Bay Dolphin Research project.

“Just as in humans and other social animals, hormonal fluctuations, sexual frustration or the desire to dominate might drive the dolphin to injuring the people it interacts with. Since they are such powerful animals, this can lead to serious injury in humans.”

Dr Allen added that the dolphin may have been “ostracised from its own community and be seeking alternative companionship”.

Dr Matthias Hoffmann-Kuhnt, a marine mammal expert at the National University of Singapore, said the dolphin could also be acting in its own defence.

“Most of the time, in my experience, this is more a defensive behaviour when humans get to close to these dolphins and do not know how to conduct themselves,” he said, referring to reports of people trying to ride the animals or sticking their fingers into the dolphins’ blowholes.

“Thus it is no wonder that the animals then turn aggressive or at least protective against humans in the water,” he said.

It could also be that the dolphin previously had a bad encounter with a human being and now projects that relationship onto other humans it encounters, Dr Hoffmann-Kuhnt said.

“They have good memory, similar to elephant who will remember who mistreated them before,” he said.

For almost a month, many here in Lebanon have been on tenterhooks, waiting for Hezbollah to retaliate against Israel. The region was waiting also, wondering if this would be the spark for a wider war.

Everyone knew the powerful Iranian-backed group would seek revenge for Israel’s assassination on 30 July of a top military commander, Fuad Shukr. The Israelis managed to hunt him down deep in Hezbollah’s heartland of South Beirut. That was both a strategic loss and a public humiliation.

Just hours later, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, in what bore all the hallmarks of another Israeli operation. But Iran continues to signal that its retaliation could be a long-term project.

At 05:15 on Sunday, Hezbollah made its move, launching more than 300 Katyusha rockets and “a large number of drones” across the border into Israel. This was revenge served cold. It was carefully calibrated, and it was less than some had expected.

Hezbollah said it targeted 11 military bases and barracks, and claimed its attack was a success. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said most of the rockets missed their mark.

Either way, Hezbollah did not train its sights on major cities in Israel, or on critical infrastructure. And it did not bring out its big guns. The group – which is classed as a terrorist organisation by the UK and the US – is believed to have more arms than many nations.

Israel had got in first, at 04:30, flooding the sky with fighter jets targeting Hezbollah firing positions. The IDF said this “pre-emptive strike” destroyed thousands of rocket launchers.

It was the biggest flare-up here since the Gaza war began last October, after Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel in a single day.

Since then, Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel across their shared border, showing support for its ally Hamas, and proclaiming solidarity with the people of Gaza.

So where are we now, one day on? Surprisingly, perhaps, the Middle East may be a little safer.

Both sides have delivered a message, but stopped short of all-out war. And Hezbollah has signalled it’s ready to close the Fuad Shukr chapter – for the moment.

“We reserve our right to continue the response at a later point, but for now, the people can be at ease and carry on with their lives,” said Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah.

After a tense month, that was a welcome message for many here.

He was addressing his supporters on TV from an undisclosed location – he might be at the top of Israel’s assassination list.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Sunday’s strikes against Hezbollah were “not the end of the story”.

But diplomats told the Reuters news agency that both sides had exchanged messages saying they didn’t want a further escalation.

Here in southern Lebanon, there is already a return to the usual low-level conflict.

Israel has just attempted another assassination, leaving a burning car on the scorching streets of Sidon, a port city. Local sources say the target was a Hamas leader, who managed to jump out in time.

Along the coast in the city of Tyre, Israeli jets are swooping low, breaking the sound barrier – but the beach below is more crowded.

“Everything feels calm today,” said a young man in his 20s who did not want to be named.

“Everything returned to normal. The streets have been quiet, but people have come back out. Today, people can breathe.”

Hezbollah said it delayed its retaliation to give time for talks on a ceasefire in Gaza. But the latest round of talks in Egypt has ended with no apparent progress.

And while the war in Gaza drags on, in all its horror, it is fuelling instability across the Middle East.

Climbing into his backyard jacuzzi that overlooked the Santa Monica Mountains, Matthew Perry uttered the seven words that would ultimately lead to his death: “Shoot me up with a big one.”

The big one, court documents would later reveal, was a dose of ketamine, a prescription anaesthetic and a hallucinogen that has become popular for its off-label uses to treat depression and anxiety. It was the actor’s third injection of the day.

Hours after that fatal dose, the “Friends” actor was found face down in the jacuzzi. Medics pronounced him dead at the scene with a coroner finding ketamine was his primary cause of death.

The details about Perry’s last day alive on 28 October 2023 were revealed in court documents following a police probe that ultimately led to five people being charged in relation to his death.

The documents offer an in-depth look by the law enforcement agencies into his drug addiction, which he struggled with for decades, and a glimpse into Hollywood’s ketamine drug network. Doctors and experts told the BBC the growth in ketamine’s popularity in recent years has caused the market to explode, with the expansion of ketamine clinics and online services offering easy prescription access to the drug, as well as a burgeoning illicit drug market.

“It’s super easy [to get], – be it underground or prescription,” Dr David Mahjoubi, who serves as president of the American Board of Ketamine Physicians, told the BBC. “I have celebrities that are getting a prescription from me. It’s super easy, not hard at all.”

Federal authorities said their investigation into Perry’s death uncovered a “broad underground criminal network” of drug suppliers who distributed large quantities of ketamine across Los Angeles.

Federal court documents detail Perry’s last months alive and the transition from his treatments at a ketamine clinic for depression and anxiety, where a physician administered the drug and monitored for side effects, to an addiction that led him to “unscrupulous doctors” and a network of street dealers.

Perry had been open about his addiction problems, which stem back decades – even to his time playing Chandler Bing on “Friends”. If a drug entered his life, he seemed to become addicted.

But in his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, he said he’d finally got sober, and one woman told investigators at the coroner’s office that she believed he’d been sober for 19 months.

Somewhere in that time, he started receiving ketamine infusion therapy. Experts say Perry’s history of addiction helped lead him to quickly become hooked on the drug.

The federal investigation found that over a nearly two-month span before his death, Perry purchased dozens of vials of ketamine for thousands of dollars.

Over the three days before his death, his assistant injected him at least six times a day with ketamine shots.

Five people were arrested in the probe – three of whom already pleaded guilty in the conspiracy. In total, the group faces 23 counts in Perry’s death.

• Kenneth Iwamasa: Perry’s live-in personal assistant pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death. He admitted to helping Perry find ketamine and repeatedly injecting him with the drug, including the dose that killed him.
• Dr Salvador Plasencia: A physician accused of supplying Perry with large quantities of ketamine, injecting him on multiple occasions – including in a public parking lot – and teaching his assistant how to inject him with doses. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him arising out of Perry’s death.
• Dr Mark Chavez: A physician who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine. He admitted to selling ketamine to Dr Plasencia, including drugs he had diverted from a ketamine clinic.
• Jasveen Sangha, described by law enforcement as the “The Ketamine Queen“: An alleged street dealer who court documents say was known to work with celebrities and high-end clients. She is accused of supplying the drugs that ultimately killed Perry. Authorities raided her home and discovered what they called a “drug-selling emporium” with dozens of ketamine vials and thousands of pills. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges against her, including conspiracy to distribute ketamine and distribution of ketamine resulting in death.
• Eric Fleming: A middleman who authorities say got drugs from Ms Sangha and distributed them to Perry and his assistant. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death.

Numerous doctors and experts who spoke to the BBC for this story spoke about the toxic relationship between celebrity and medicine.

“The VIP treatment is usually not the best treatment,” Dr Gerard Sanacora, director of Yale University’s Depression Research Program, told the BBC.

“Doctors are humans, too, and despite taking the Hippocratic oath, not everyone abides by it,” he added, acknowledging doctors can “lose perspective when you have a VIP client” and there’s promises of invites to big parties or donations to research programs or charities.

Dr Mahjoubi, who operates two ketamine clinics in California – including one in Los Angeles – told the BBC that when celebrities are your patients, normal boundaries can be hard to maintain.

He said he was treating one unnamed celebrity who he offered his cell phone number to in case of emergencies.

The patient was “constantly trying to asking me favours – ‘hey, refill my prescription’- and it’s like Sunday evening.”

“I told him, ‘Look please email me anything medically related’ and blocked him,” Dr Mahjoubi said.

He also said he’s seen how ketamine has become a “go-to” party drug for celebrities, who think it is safer than something like cocaine, which can be laced with deadly drugs like fentanyl.

Another Los Angeles area doctor, who operates several pain management centres – another condition ketamine is marketed to – called the spread of ketamine treatments the new “wild west”.

He spoke to the BBC on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss ketamine’s popularity, detailing the nuanced relationships he’s witnessed between doctors and some celebrities.

Everyone wants to be a “doctor to the stars here”, the doctor explained. Some will go so far as offering free treatments or closing down their clinic or office for private access, all with the hope the celebrity patient will post about their treatment on social media.

“There are celebrities who are passed around from doctor-to-doctor and they are fought over,” the doctor added, calling it both “a weird relationship” and troubling business model.

A lot of these stars are “used to being told ‘yes’,” he said.

“If you don’t, they’ll just go to someone else who will give them what they want.”

Being surrounded by “yes men” can have life-changing ramifications, said Garrett Braukman, the executive director of the Alta Centers, a rehabilitation and detox treatment centre in Hollywood. About 20 to 30% of patients work in the film industry.

He said he’s seen an uptick in ketamine addiction, but it’s not outpacing commonly abused substances like alcohol, cocaine and opioids.

“People often get into the arts because of things they’ve experienced – a lot of time that’s trauma,” Mr Braukman said. When you add in Los Angeles’ fairly “normalized” drug culture and celebrity access, “it’s the perfect recipe for addiction,” he said.

A simple Google search for “ketamine prescription” reveals a handful of advertisements for online companies touting the benefits of “psychedelic therapy” to treat illnesses from depression and anxiety to Lyme disease and chronic pain, some offering a subscription for just $100 a month to get the drug.

One problem: The drug isn’t approved to treat those conditions.

The US Food and Drug Administration – the regulatory agency responsible for approving drugs and ensuring they’re safe, work and labelled properly – has only approved ketamine for general anaesthesia used under the care of a physician.

In 2019, the FDA approved a nasal-spray drug that is made from ketamine and okayed its use to treat depression, so long as the drug is coupled with additional therapy and administered under the direct supervision of a doctor. The doctor must also monitor the patient for two hours after the dose has been taken for potential side effects, which include hallucination, feeling disconnected from reality and increased blood pressure.

But these online clinics have exploited a grey area in the regulations to market off-label ketamine prescriptions directly to consumers, experts say.

While FDA advertising regulations restrict pharmaceutical companies that “manufacture, distribute, or pack”, they do not restrict new start-ups, like online “wellness” clinics.

“It’s a very tricky thing – it’s a loophole almost,” Dr Sanacora told the BBC.

Two weeks before Perry’s death, the FDA warned consumers about ketamine’s off-label use, noting “the lack of monitoring for adverse events, such as sedation and dissociation, by an onsite health care provider may put patients at risk”.

Doctors and experts say the market seemed to boom during the pandemic, when online telehealth services, clinics and at-home care proliferated.

The pain management doctor, who had spoken to the BBC on condition of anonymity, said some of these companies are structured in ways that “don’t want people to get better” but rather, to keep them on prescription subscriptions that keep money pouring in.

“It’s gotten out of hand,” he said.

Dr Sanacora, who has studied and researched how ketamine can be used to treat depression, said there is a lot of evidence of the drug’s efficacy. Drug trials are currently underway testing the merits of ketamine treatment for treatment-resistant depression.

But much is still not known about why it works, and it does come with risks, such as seizures and death.

Dr Sanacora said it’s unclear whether overdoses have increased, because the federal government does not track ketamine-related deaths, which it does for cocaine, heroin and opioid overdoes. Sometimes the drug is not even tested for during autopsies.

“There’s a lot we really don’t know,” he said.

The DEA’s chief Anne Milgram said the agency is targeting doctors who are over prescribing these drugs or prescribing it when it is not necessary.

Speaking with CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner, she compared ketamine and its use in the Perry case with the start of the opioid epidemic in the US.

“This, unfortunately, is a tragic arc that we have seen thinking back to the beginning of the opioid epidemic, where many Americans became addicted to controlled substances in doctors’ offices and through medical practitioners that then turned into street addiction as well.”

The waters on parts of Gaza’s Mediterranean coastline have started turning brown as health experts warn of the spread of open sewage and diseases across the territory.

Satellite images, analysed by BBC Arabic, show what appears to be a large discharge of sewage spill off the coast of Deir al-Balah.

A local official told BBC Arabic displaced people in nearby camps are sending their sewage straight to sea.

“It is because of the increase in the number of displaced people and many are connecting their own pipes to the rainwater drainage system,” said Abu Yazan Ismael Sarsour, head of the Deir al-Balah emergency committee.

Wim Zwijnenburg, an environmental expert from the Pax for Peace organisation, confirmed that wastewater appeared to be heading into the sea from nearby crowded camps, after examining the satellite pictures.

The sewage discharge in the images, captured on 2 August, covered an area of over 2 sq km (0.8 sq miles). Satellite images show the discharge first started appearing in June and that it grew steadily over the next two months.

It is not clear if the coastal pollution is still growing as more recent satellite image are not available.

Intensive Israeli bombardment has led to the collapse of Gaza’s waste water management infrastructure, a UN environmental report concluded in June.

The Israeli defence ministry body overseeing policy for the Palestinian territories, Cogat, told BBC Arabic a dedicated humanitarian taskforce had taken action to improve the sewage system in Gaza.

In recent months, Cogat co-ordinated the restoration of water wells and desalination facilities, as well as the extension of water pipes in Gaza, according to its statement.

The BBC is not able to independently verify specific improvements to Gaza’s sewage infrastructure. Israel, alongside Egypt, does not allow independent journalists into Gaza except on controlled and brief visits with the Israeli military.

Health experts, though, are sounding the alarm about the spread of waterborne diseases, after a 10-month-old baby was partially paralysed after contracting polio – the first registered case in Gaza for 25 years.

UN and World Health Organization (WHO) officials also called for two one-week ceasefires so they can vaccinate 600,000 children in Gaza.

But observers say the delivery of vaccines would probably hit the same barriers affecting the flow of other humanitarian aid, making distribution slow and extremely difficult. The destruction of Gaza’s health care system will also make any vaccination programme an enormous challenge.

In a response to BBC Arabic, Cogat insisted there were no restrictions on medical aid.

In a later social media statement, Cogat said “an additional 60,000 polio vaccines will be delivered to vaccinate over one million children” in the coming weeks.

The charity Oxfam told BBC Arabic a quarter of Gaza’s population had already become ill because of waterborne diseases.

“We are seeing a catastrophic health crisis unfolding in front of our eyes,” said Lama Abdul Samad, a water and sanitation expert at Oxfam.

“Polio is a waterborne disease and it is directly linked to the sanitation situation.”

“The sanitation infrastructure has been damaged severely to the point that it is flooding the streets and the neighbourhoods, and people are basically living adjacent to puddles of sewage,” she added.

New photos and satellite images analysed by BBC Arabic illustrate how the problem of untreated sewage in Gaza has been getting steadily worse.

The Sheikh Radwan Lagoon in northern Gaza, which was once a source of clean rainwater, appears to be overflowing with dirty water.

The lagoon has clearly been contaminated by raw sewage, Ms Abdul Samad said after assessing the pictures.

Several Palestinians living nearby have complained to BBC Arabic’s Gaza Lifeline emergency radio service of the overflowing waste water, stench and rodents coming out of the lagoon.

“Raw sewage is running into our property because of the overflowing Sheikh Radwan Lagoon,” Ibrahim Ramzi said.

Meanwhile, Ghada al-Haddad, an aid worker in central Gaza, sent BBC Arabic a video from a makeshift camp where sewage had built up into a pond next to displaced people. She described the smell as “overpowering” and “unendurable”.

Polio is just one part the heath crisis facing Gaza.

Earlier this month, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, reported 40,000 cases of Hepatitis A – which can also be transmitted through ingestion of contaminated water – in Gaza since the start of the war compared to only 85 in the same period beforehand.

Public health experts are also warning of a potential cholera epidemic.

Aid agencies say doctors in Gaza are also struggling to treat a huge caseload of dysentery, pneumonia, and severe skin diseases because of the collapse of the health sector.

“The reason behind the spread of these bacterial diseases is the complete lack of a sanitation system,” paediatric consultant Dr Ahmed al-Farra explained.

He said the problems included the “mixing of clean ground water and sewage, the severe overpopulation, the extreme heat, the lack of ventilation, the overpopulated tents, [and] the oversharing of toilets”.

The UN estimates the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been internally displaced since last autumn.

Many people are living in shelters with just one toilet for 600 people, a World Health Organization official told reporters in July.

On 7 October, Hamas launched unprecedented assault on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages.

Since the attack, the Israeli military operation in Gaza has killed more than 40,200 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Irregular migration into Germany “must go down” after a Syrian man who came to Germany as an asylum seeker was charged with killing three people in an attack in the western town of Solingen last week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said.

“This was terrorism, terrorism against us all,” Mr Scholz said during a visit to Solingen on Monday.

Mr Scholz also said his government would have to do “everything we can to ensure that those who cannot and should not stay here in Germany are repatriated and deported” and that deportations would be sped up if necessary.

He also promised to tighten laws on weapons ownership “very quickly”.

The political ramifications of the tragedy started reverberating across Germany as soon as officials confirmed the suspect in Friday’s deadly stabbings was a Syrian refugee.

The alleged attacker – named as 26-year-old Issa Al H. – is suspected of links to the terror organisation Islamic State.

An already heated debate about migration has become even more ferocious.

A day after the attacks, conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz demanded an end to taking in refugees from Syria and Afghanistan and called for controls on all of Germany’s borders. 



Alice Weidel, leader of the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD), has gone a step further and wants a complete stop to all migration.

Experts say such suggestions are not feasible and incompatible with German and European Union law.

Mr Scholz’s governing centre-left SPD party says Germany remains committed to its legal and humanitarian commitments to help those fleeing persecution.

But his government has also pledged to deport migrants who have committed serious crimes and people whose application for asylum has been rejected.

The suspect in the Solingen attack came to Germany in 2022 as a Syrian refugee. Usually Syrians have a good chance of being granted asylum in Germany.

But his application was rejected and he was ordered to be deported to Bulgaria, because he had already registered for asylum there. Officials say when they tried to deport him, they could not locate him and he remained in Germany.

Now a row has broken out about who was responsible for that failing.

Germany does not generally deport people back to unsafe countries or war-zones such as Syria, or Afghanistan – which would involve negotiating with the Taliban government. But there are calls to change that.

For years Germany has been embroiled in a controversial debate about migration. Local councils say their budgets are stretched. There are also calls to speed up the application process and allow refugees to work sooner which some say would help them integrate into German society.

Given the large numbers of refugees Germany takes in, the country generally copes well, and this year refugee numbers appear to have been dropping.

However, Germany typically takes in hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers every year.

In 2023 just over 350,000 people applied for asylum. In addition, around 1.2 million Ukrainians have arrived in Germany since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Compared to other countries which take in fewer refugees, terror attacks connected to asylum seekers in Germany are rare.

The last major incident was in 2016, when 12 people were killed when an Islamist extremist drove a lorry into a Christmas market in Berlin.

But this latest attack may have a huge political impact.

On Sunday, two large eastern German states – Saxony and Thuringia – will hold key regional elections.

The AfD, which is hoping to do well and may even win the most votes, is already using the attack as part of its campaign.

Within hours of the stabbing, the AfD – referring to the party’s regional leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke – posted a video on social media captioned with the words “Höcke or Solingen”.

Children in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo are worst-affected by the current outbreak of mpox, which has been declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization. The country accounts for nearly all of this year’s recorded cases and more than 450 deaths.

“It began like a small, inflamed spot. The mother squeezed it and watery discharge came out. Then another developed, and after a short period, they were all over the body,” says Alain Matabaro, describing how mpox developed in his six-year-old son Amani.

He started recovering after four days of treatment at a clinic in Munigi, close to the major eastern Congolese city of Goma.

Some 75% of the cases being seen by medics there are under the age of 10, according to Dr Pierre-Olivier Ngadjole who works for the charity Medair.

Young people seem to be particularly badly affected by the mpox outbreak because of their less developed immune systems.

Dr Ngadjole also blames overcrowding at a nearby camp set up for people forced from their homes by conflict in the region. One way mpox is spread is through very close contact and children “are always playing together. They don’t really care about social distance,” he tells the BBC.

“You can also see in the households, they even spend the night in the same bed. You can find three, four, five children. The transmission is present on a daily basis.”

Since June, the clinic in Munigi, which provides free treatment including antibiotics to treat skin infections, paracetamol and safe drinking water, has dealt with 310 mpox cases. It is now seeing between five and 10 new admissions each day.

No-one has died from the disease there and Dr Ngadjole believes it is because people are seeking help early.

“I think it’s very important to provide free health services especially in this context… [It] means people don’t face any financial barrier, they come early to the health facility.”

• ‘Mpox made my throat so painful I couldn’t sleep’
• How worried should we be about mpox?
• What is mpox and how is it spread?

It is a different story 80km (50 miles) south-west of Munigi, on the other side of Lake Kivu, at a hospital in Kavumu.

Eight-hundred patients have been seen there since June and eight have died – all under the age of five.

Two-year-old Ansima Kanigo caught mpox from one of her four siblings, who have all had the disease.

Her mother, Nzigire Kanigo, 35, had no idea what it was at first.

“This is the first time I’ve seen it. When my child got sick, the other parents told me it might be measles, but we started treating measles and failed, so we decided to come here.

“God bless the doctor who has brought the drugs… Three [children] are cured – they are at home. I only have two who I am admitted with now in this hospital. I thank God.”

The medical director at the hospital, Dr Robert Musole, says the outbreak should not be underestimated by the authorities.

“The situation is really serious, and we’re so overwhelmed, because we have a small capacity, but we’re in great demand.

“The first challenge we face in this response is the accommodation of patients. The second challenge is the availability of medicines, which we don’t have.”

Across eastern DR Congo, there are several camps for the millions who have fled their homes as various rebel groups operate in the area.

People are often crammed into makeshift structures and living in poor conditions without good sanitation – the perfect place for mpox to run rampant.

Health workers have been visiting places like Mudja camp near Mount Nyiragongo, to educate people on what to do when they spot symptoms, such as limiting contact with others.

“This disease has brought us a lot of fear that we shall all get sick,” says Josephine Sirangunza, who lives in the camp with her five children.

She says the government needs to give out some basic equipment to help stop the disease spreading.

“When we see someone getting sick, we worry about how to protect ourselves.”

It is a sentiment shared by Bosco Sebuke, 52, who has 10 children.

“We have been sensitised [about mpox], but we are full of fear because we are crowded in our shelters. We sleep in very poor conditions, we share bedding, so prevention is difficult and because of that, we are afraid,” he says.

The outbreak in eastern DR Congo is of a new strain of mpox called Clade 1b and it has now spread to neighbouring countries.

Last week, the Congolese government said it hoped that vaccines would start to arrive from the US and Japan soon. Until then, the country does not have any vaccines despite being at the epicentre of the virus.

Mr Matabaro, the father of Amani who is now recovering from mpox, says he is hopeful with news that vaccines could be on their way.

But the distribution will be extremely limited and, as Dr Ngadjole says, vaccination is just one aspect of reducing the spread of the virus.

“The [easiest] action to put in place is to improve the hygiene. When we improve the hygiene at household level, when we improve the hygiene at community level, it’s very easy to decrease the risk of transmission.”

Ms Sirangunza echoes the doctor’s thoughts: “Tell our leaders to send us medicine, soap, and other protective measures so that we don’t get infected.”

Along with all Ukrainians celebrating their Independence Day, 19-year-old student Yuliia Vyshnivska had been warned of an increased threat of Russian strikes.

But it had not stopped her and hundreds of others making their way up to an exposed rooftop for an open-air musical display of defiance in the heart of Kyiv.

“I heard on the radio the Americans were warning that the Russians will bomb you today, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, they want to kill us’,” she said, as the setting sun illuminated the patterns of her traditional outfit, the vyshyvanka.

“But we’re used to it and know we live in this dangerous situation, so we are not scared.”

As a dozen orchestral musicians, clad in black, pumped out high-octane takes on classic Ukrainian tunes, I mentioned one thing that is different from their last two Independence Days at war: Ukraine has now entered and taken Russian territory.

“When we saw this news from Kursk, from Russian region, it was an amazing event. It’s like a miracle for us. We are so happy with it,” Ms Vyshnivska said.

She said the fate that Russians on the border were now suffering, displaced and in danger, was a natural consequence of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine two and a half years ago.

“From that moment on we started hating them and now… we want to kill them. And it’s awful. I understand that it’s not okay for humans to say this, but we hate them, and we can’t think in any other way because they want to kill us.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky, who attended a number of Independence Day events in the capital, gave a pre-recorded address from the Sumy region – just across the border from the newly gained Russian territory.

“Russia waged war on us. It violated not only sovereign borders, but also the limits of cruelty and common sense,” he told his people.

“It was endlessly seeking one thing: to destroy us. And what the enemy brought to our land has now returned to its home.”

Nearly three weeks into the Kursk incursion, Ukraine has consolidated much of the Russian land it seized rapidly in the surprise operation.

An estimated 10,000 elite Ukrainian troops burst across the border on 6 August, taking more ground in a matter of days than Russia had won in Ukraine so far this year.

Since the operation began, the BBC has kept in touch with one of the Ukrainian fighters now in Russia.

In his latest messages to us, Serhiy – a pseudonym – revealed that the situation was tougher now.

“Russia has gotten stronger. We see this in the number of strikes by drones, artillery, and aviation. Their sabotage and reconnaissance groups began to operate too,” he wrote.

All meant the Ukrainians were taking more casualties, he said.

“At the beginning of the operation, we were on the rise. We had minimal losses. Now, because of the Russians’ firepower, we are losing a lot of guys. Moreover, the Russians here are fighting for their land, just as we are fighting for ours.”

Serhiy says his earlier elation is giving way to some scepticism.

“Many of us do not understand the meaning of this operation. It’s one thing to fight for Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia. It’s a different matter for the Kursk region, which we don’t need.”

President Zelensky had said the Kursk operation aimed to capture Russian soldiers – which led to a prisoner swap and the release of 115 Ukrainians on Saturday – among other goals he could not disclose.

He had also said the operation was a preventative strike to deter Russian attacks towards Sumy.

Despite the sense of justice and retribution the Kursk incursion has brought, it remains a risky strategy for Kyiv.

The rapid gains must be considered alongside losses in the east of Ukraine, where Russia continues to make ground in a grinding battle.

Moscow’s troops are drawing nearer to the city of Pokrovsk, which was home to around 60,000 before the fighting.

It is one of the biggest cities in the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control and is an important hub for the defending forces.

“It’s a really difficult situation,” 23-year-old Nazar Voytenkov, a former TV journalist who is now a volunteer with the 33rd Mechanised Brigade defending Pokrovsk, told us on a crackly phone line.

I asked if he was aware of Russians troops being diverted to defend their own soil.

“No, no, I don’t feel that. I think Russians have a big resource of troops in the Kursk region and elsewhere in Russia, and they’re using them in this operation that the Ukrainian forces started.”

I asked if it had relieved any pressure on Ukrainian troops in the area – a key hope of Kyiv’s.

“I don’t feel like it’s become easier. We still have enemies in all directions and just last week, they tried again to approach,” he explained.

“They used approximately 10 armoured vehicles and infantry to capture our positions, but we made a nice defence. We won this battle, and now we wait for their next fight. So no, they’re still here.”

This weekend’s celebrations were undoubtedly invigorated by the recent success on Russian soil, but Ukraine’s path to next year’s Independence Day is no clearer and remains lined with danger and uncertainty.

“This is just a monotonous, monotonous genocide,” Oleksandr Mykhed, one of Ukraine’s leading authors, declared quietly.

We met him in a cavernous exhibition building that used to house a museum to Lenin. He had just finished a lecture on his new book, which examines how the country’s great classical writers would consider the latest Russian invasion.

You would be hard pressed to find a better location to symbolise Ukraine’s evolution since becoming independent in 1991 and its determination not to be dragged back into Moscow’s orbit.

Of the Russians, Mr Mykhed said: “They want each and every missile strike to be called ‘another missile strike’. They want the whole world to get used to it and to make it routine, to make it ordinary. So that it would be the ‘ordinary genocide’.”

I asked him what hope Ukrainians could cling to as they endured the coming 12 months until their next Independence Day.

“This is time for a clear understanding of what the true patriotism is. And we know what it is like,” he said.

His argument was that despite the mental and physical scars and deep collective grief, everyone had a duty to be strong and ensure Ukraine’s survival.

“You might be tired for sure, everything might be depressed, but still – you have to save your country,” the Ukrainian author said.

“There is no room for error,” says Isak Rockström. “Where we are now, the only help we could get would be from the few Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers that are patrolling the whole Canadian Arctic.”

For the past two months, Isak, 26, and his brother Alex, 25, have been battling the freezing elements of the Arctic Circle together.

They have sailed through the treacherous, sometimes alien landscape of the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, gathering fresh data about climate change in the region.

They have faced brushes with icebergs and severe gales around Iceland.

One “tricky situation”, as Isak stoically puts it, came the day before they spoke to the BBC. While navigating a fjord, they were caught by 52mph (84kph) winds coming off the nearby mountains, dragging them towards the shore.

“The wind was so strong that with the engine on, we weren’t going anywhere,” he recalls.

Off Devon Island, the largest uninhabited island in the world, they risked running aground due to the area being poorly charted.

They had to quickly turn the other sails so the wind worked in their favour, and “take some things apart and do some jerry-rigging” to get the main sail down, Alex says.

But Isak says “the most challenging ocean crossing of my life” was the long stint around Greenland, through thick fog and ice up the Davis Strait.

He says it felt like they were “trudging on and on… through either gales or fog”.

“Then one day the fog slightly lightened up and there was this little tunnel through the cloud cover in the distance – and we finally actually saw Greenland. And it was just a nice confirmation that we weren’t going crazy.”

Only a handful of crews successfully navigate this passage every year, and these brothers are among the youngest to ever attempt it.

The BBC is interviewing them part-way through the trip, as they approach one of its most challenging sections – one they are both fearing and anticipating.

Since beginning in Norway in June, the crew of the Abel Tasman have already sailed around Iceland and Greenland, before entering the unaccommodating waters that run between northernmost Canada and the Arctic.

They hope to reach the finishing line in Nome, Alaska by early October.

Skipper Isak is a year older than Canadian Jeff MacInnis was when he completed it in 1988, aged 25. MacInnis is thought to be the youngest person to have successfully sailed the passage.

But they are seasoned sailors – having sailed from Stockholm in Sweden to the western coast of Mexico in 2019.

As captain and first mate, they say piloting their 75-foot schooner has only strengthened their brotherly bond, with their small expedition team serving as an adoptive family.

“I don’t think we’re going to get any closer than we are now,” says Isak.

Alex adds: “I think we really know exactly how the other one works, and we don’t step on each other’s toes.”

Alex says that despite the peril of the journey, he has wanted to traverse the Northwest Passage for a long time. He has been intrigued by maps of the region and tales of previous expeditions, and is aware that it is likely to change due to climate change.

He recalls sailing one night, off the coast of Greenland, that he says will stay with him for the rest of his life.

“We were in the midnight sun, slowly slaloming through huge icebergs, and the light was just incredible when it shone over the icebergs… That was just really beautiful.”

Isak took more convincing before making the trip. What persuaded him was that “it’s one of the few expeditions left that really takes on the character of an expedition”, mixing danger and isolation, he says.

Keith Tuffley, the expedition’s overall leader – who quit his job at Citibank to be on the trip and owns the Abel Tasman – has become somewhat of a surrogate father to the Rockströms.

The Rockströms’ real father, Johan, is the Swedish climate scientist who has helped to develop the concept of climate tipping points, when particular large-scale environmental changes are thought to become self-perpetuating and irreversible beyond a certain threshold.

Part of the aim of the expedition is to highlight how climate change is increasing the risks of reaching these tipping points, particularly some systems in the Arctic Circle.

Multiple studies have suggested that parts of the Greenland ice sheet would become much more vulnerable to runaway melting if global warming reached 1.5-2C above pre-industrial levels. However, the precise positions of such tipping points are very uncertain, and a full-scale collapse would likely take many thousands of years.

The Rockströms have lived on the Abel Tasman while studying climate physics at the University of Bergen, balancing their studies with expeditions.

While much of the data they are gathering will have to be sent back to laboratories for analysis, Alex says the raw figures from seawater measurements they have already taken suggest the waters around Greenland are colder and less salty than before – a sign of ice sheet melting.

Prof David Thornalley, an ocean and climate scientist at University College London, explains that, over time, the influx of freshwater flowing off the Greenland ice sheet is likely to weaken the main current that runs the length of the Atlantic and has a major influence on the climate.

The melting of the ice sheet also raises global sea levels, increasing the risks of coastal flooding.

As well as potentially affecting the balance of the marine ecosystem, Prof Thornalley says melting ice might also produce a feedback process, “whereby the meltwater causes the ocean circulation changes, which leads to warmer waters reaching glaciers that flow into the ocean, thus causing faster melting and retreat of the glacier”.

Alex hopes the data they gather along the Northwest Passage will be significant.

“I think it’s very easy to underestimate the value of the data that can be collected from a sailing yacht like this… The big ships, the big icebreakers, are so limited in where they can go.”

The crew of the Abel Tasman still have a long and challenging way to go.

“Where we are now is one of those points along the trip that, from day one, we’re kind of fearing and very hopefully anticipating, because it’s… the start of the really challenging part,” says Isak.

Tuffley, the expedition’s leader, says that while melting Arctic ice was making it easier for a boat to move through the Northwest Passage, the icebergs this process was creating were making the journey more “unpredictable”.

At times, their surroundings appear completely alien.

“It looks like Mars,” says Keith of where they are anchored, in Devon Island.

“It is desolate, it’s rugged. It’s got this red, iron ore type of tinge to it.”

Aside from a handful of walruses and polar bears, the crew are entirely alone.

An anthropomorphic monkey and a campaign against “feminist propaganda” set the video gaming community alight this week, following the release of the most successful Chinese title of all time.

Many players were furious after the company behind Black Myth: Wukong sent them a list of topics to avoid while livestreaming the game, including “feminist propaganda, fetishisation, and other content that instigates negative discourse”.

Still, within 24 hours of its release on Tuesday, it became the second most-played game ever on streaming platform Steam, garnering more than 2.1 million concurrent players and selling more than 4.5 million copies.

The game, based on the classic 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, is being seen as a rare example of popular media broadcasting Chinese stories on an international stage.

Black Myth: Wukong is a single-player action game where players take on the role of “the Destined One”- an anthropomorphic monkey with supernatural powers.

The Destined One is based on the character of Sun Wukong, or the Monkey King, a key character in Journey to the West.

That novel, considered one of the greats of Chinese literature, draws heavily from Chinese mythology as well as Confucianism, Taoist and Buddhist folklore.

It has inspired hundreds of international films, TV shows and cartoons, including the popular Japanese anime series Dragon Ball Z and the 2008 Chinese-American fantasy film The Forbidden Kingdom.

First announced via a hugely popular teaser trailer in August 2020, Black Myth launched on Tuesday after four years of anticipation.

It is the Chinese video game industry’s first AAA release – a title typically given to big-budget games from major companies.

High-end graphics, sophisticated game design and hot-blooded hype have all contributed to its success – as well as the size of China’s gaming community, which is the largest in the world.

“It’s not just a Chinese game targeting the Chinese market or the Chinese-speaking world,” Haiqing Yu, a professor at Australia’s RMIT University, whose research specialises in the sociopolitical and economic impact of China’s digital media, told the BBC.

“Players all over the world [are playing] a game that has a Chinese cultural factor.”

This has become a huge source of national pride in the country.

The Department of Culture and Tourism in Shanxi Province, an area that includes many locations and set pieces featured in the game, released a video on Tuesday that showcased the real-world attractions, triggering a surge in tourism dubbed “Wukong Travel”.

Videos posted on TikTok in the wake of Black Myth’s release show tourists flooding temples and shrines featured in the game, in what one X user characterised as a “successful example of cultural rediscovery”.

Niko Partners, a company that researches and analyses video games markets and consumers in Asia, similarly pointed out that Black Myth “helps showcase Chinese mythology, traditions, culture and real-life locations in China to the world”.

Ahead of Black Myth’s release, some content creators and streamers revealed that a company affiliated with its developer had sent them a list of topics to avoid talking about while livestreaming the game: including “feminist propaganda, fetishisation, and other content that instigates negative discourse”.

While it is not clear what was precisely meant by “feminist propaganda”, a widely circulated report by video game publication IGN in November alleged a history of sexist and inappropriate behaviour from employees of Game Science, the studio behind Black Myth.

Other topics designated as “Don’ts” in the document, which has been widely shared on social media and YouTube, included politics, Covid-19, and China’s video game industry policies.

The directive, which was sent out by co-publisher Hero Games, has stoked controversy outside China.

Multiple content creators refused to review the game, claiming its developers were trying to censor discussion and stifle freedom of speech.

Others chose to directly defy the warnings.

One creator with the username Moonmoon launched a Twitch stream of Black Myth titled “Covid-19 Isolation Taiwan (Is a Real Country) Feminism Propaganda”. Another streamer, Rui Zhong, discussed China’s one-child policy on camera while playing the game.

On Thursday, Chinese social media platform Weibo banned 138 users who were deemed to be violating its guidelines when discussing Black Myth.

According to an article on the state-run Global Times news site, a number of the banned Weibo users were “deviating from discussing the game itself but instead using it as a platform for spreading ‘gender opposition,’ ‘personal attacks’, and other irrational comments”.

While the controversy has attracted a lot of attention in international media and online, it has not really dented or detracted from Black Myth’s overwhelmingly positive reception.

The game made $53m in presales alone, with another 4.5 million copies sold within 24 hours of its release. Within the same timeframe it broke the record for the most-played single-player title ever released on Steam.

On platforms like Weibo, Reddit and YouTube, and elsewhere, reams of comments are celebrating the game’s success. Many suggest that the fallout from the controversies surrounding the game’s release has been overblown.

Ms Yu agreed, describing Black Myth as an “industry and overall market success”.

“When it comes to Chinese digital media and communication platforms, of course people cannot avoid talking about censorship,” she said. “Black Myth is… an example of how to tell the Chinese story well, and how to expand Chinese cultural influence globally. I don’t see any censorship there.”

She also pointed out that apparent attempts to steer or censor what reviewers said were unlikely to have come from Chinese officials themselves. More likely, Ms Yu suggested, is that the list of “Dos” and “Don’ts” came from a company that was trying to keep itself out of trouble.

“The company issues their notification so if anybody from the central government comes to have a chat with the company, the company can say, ‘look, I already told them. I can’t stop people from saying what they want to say.’

“They have basically, to use the colloquial term, covered their own ass,” she concluded. “I view it as a politically correct gesture to the Chinese censors, rather than a real directive coming from the top down.”

Pavel Durov, the CEO of messaging app Telegram, has been arrested in France.

According to officials, the arrest was under a warrant for offences related to the app and the investigation is reportedly about insufficient moderation, with Mr Durov accused of failing to take steps to curb criminal uses of Telegram.

Telegram said in a statement that “it is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for abuse of that platform”.

Mr Durov, 39, is a multi-billionaire who is originally from Russia.

He founded the popular Russian social media company VKontakte.

In 2014, Mr Durov left Russia after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on the platform.

A year earlier, he had founded Telegram and now runs the firm from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where he now lives.

He holds citizenship of the UAE and France, but Russia has said it still regards him as a citizen.

Telegram said Mr Durov travels in Europe frequently.

In an interview with the conservative US media personality Tucker Carlson in April, Mr Durov said he would refuse certain requests from authorities to remove content from his platform.

He said: “Where we thought it would be crossing the line – it wouldn’t be aligning with our values of freedom of speech and protecting people’s private correspondence – we would ignore.”

Telegram is one of the world’s biggest social media and messaging platforms along with Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and WeChat.

In July, Mr Durov claimed that Telegram reached 950 million monthly active users. It is popular in Russia and Ukraine, while pro-democracy groups in Iran and Hong Kong also use it.

Telegram does offer encryption, which means the messages can only be read on the device that sends them and the device that receives them, but this is not the default setting for the user.

The big difference between Telegram and similar services like WhatsApp is the size of groups you can be in on Telegram.

WhatsApp limits group sizes to 1,000 users whereas up to 200,000 can be in a group on Telegram.

The platform has faced criticism that disinformation can spread in these huge groups.

Critics have argued the platform has seen the sharing of conspiracist, neo-Nazi, paedophilic, or terror-related content.

Officials in France have reportedly said its investigation into Mr Durov is about the app’s failure to co-operate with law enforcement over drug trafficking, child sexual abuse and fraud.

In the UK, the app was scrutinised for hosting far-right channels that were instrumental in organising this month’s violent disorder in English cities and cybersecurity experts say its moderation of extremist and illegal content is significantly weaker than other social media companies and messenger apps.

Following Mr Durov’s arrest, Telegram said its moderation “is within industry standards and constantly improving”.

It said it abides by European Union laws, including the Digital Services Act, which aims to ensure a safe and accountable online environment.

“Almost a billion users globally use Telegram as means of communication and as a source of vital information,” the app’s statement read.

“We’re awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation. Telegram is with you all.”

Details are still to emerge from the French authorities as to what Mr Durov has actually been arrested for in relation to Telegram.

However, it is pretty unprecedented for the owner of a social media or messaging platform to be arrested because of content on that platform.

Elon Musk posted #FreePavel on X along with a clip of the Telegram founder talking to Carlson about changes the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire had made after purchasing the site formerly known as Twitter.

Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower who now lives in Russia after revealing extensive internet and phone surveillance by US intelligence, said on X that Mr Durov’s arrest “is an assault on the basic human rights of speech and association”.

He added: “I am surprised and deeply saddened that [French President Emmanuel] Macron has descended to the level of taking hostages as a means for gaining access to private communications. It lowers not only France, but the world.”

Hi, you’ve reached the voicemail of Yasmin Rufo. Please don’t leave a message as I won’t listen to it or call you back.

Unfortunately that isn’t my answerphone message but do I, along with most Gen Z and millennials, wish it was? Absolutely.

A recent survey found a quarter of people aged 18 to 34 never answer the phone – respondents say they ignore the ringing, respond via text or search the number online if they don’t recognise it.

The Uswitch survey of 2,000 people also found that nearly 70% of 18-34s prefer a text to a phone call.

For older generations, talking on the phone is normal – my parents spent their teenage years fighting with their siblings over the landline in the corridor only to then have their entire family listen in to their conversations.

In contrast, my teenage years were spent texting.

From the moment I received my pink flip Nokia on my 13th birthday, I was obsessed with texting.

I would spend every evening after school formulating 160-character texts to my friends, removing every unnecessary space and vowel until the message resembled jumbled up consonants even GCHQ would struggle to decipher.

After all, when it costs 10p a text there was no way I was going to spill over to 161 characters.

In 2009, phone calls on my mobile would have cost a fortune.

“We didn’t give you this phone so you could gossip with your friends all evening,” my parents would remind me as they looked through my monthly phone bill.

And so a generation of texters were born: mobile phone calls were for emergencies and the landline was used infrequently to speak to your grandparents.

Dr Elena Touroni, a consultant psychologist, explains that because young people didn’t develop the habit of speaking on the phone, “it now feels weird as it’s not the norm”.

This can make young people fear the worst when their phone starts ringing (or silently lighting up because no-one under the age of 35 has a loud ringtone).

More than half of the young people who responded in the Uswitch survey admitted that they thought an unexpected call means bad news.

Psychotherapist Eloise Skinner explains that anxiety around calls comes from “an association with something bad – a sense of foreboding or dread”.

“As our lives get busier and working schedules more unpredictable, we have less time to call a friend simply to catch up. Phone calls, then, become reserved for the important news in our lives, which can often be complicated and difficult.”

“It’s exactly that,” says 26-year-old Jack Longley, adding that he also never responds to unknown numbers as “it’s either scammers or cold callers”.

“It’s easier to just ignore the calls instead of sifting through to find out which ones are legitimate.”

But not speaking on the phone doesn’t mean young people aren’t in touch with their friends – our group chats ping throughout the day with a mixture of banal messages, memes, gossip and, more recently, voice notes.

Many of these conversations now take place on social media, particularly on Instagram and Snapchat where it’s easier to send images and memes alongside texts.

While we all agree that phone calling is a big no-no, the use of voice notes has split the younger generations.

In the Uswitch survey, 37% of 18-34s say voice notes are their preference of communication. In comparison, only 1% of 35 to 54-year-olds prefer voice messages over a call.

“A voice note is just like talking on the phone but better,” says Susie Jones, a 19-year-old student. “You get the benefits of hearing your friend’s voice but comes with no pressures so it’s a more polite way of communicating”.

But for me, listening to a five-minute voice note from a friend updating me about their life is painful – they get side-tracked, every second word is “like” or “uhm” and the whole story could have been told in a couple of text messages.

Both texts and voice notes allow young people to participate in conversations at their own pace and allows them to give more thoughtful and considered responses.

But to what extent does phone call phobia in your personal life start affecting your work life?

Henry Nelson-Case is a 31-year-old lawyer and content creator whose series of “overwhelmed millennial” videos are painfully relatable – sketches include the angst of sending a company-wide email, politely refusing to work overtime and of course, one about an employee doing anything to avoid a phone call.

He says “it’s the anxiety associated with real-time conversations, potential awkwardness, not having the answers and the pressure to respond immediately,” that makes him hate talking on the phone.

“Phone calls are more exposing and require a higher level of intimacy whereas messaging is detached and allows you to connect without feeling vulnerable or exposed,” explains Dr Touroni.

Dunja Relic, a 27-year-old lawyer, says she steers clear of workplace calls because “they can be time consuming and set you back on your tasks”.

Skinner describes this as the ‘this could have been an email’ sentiment.

“There’s a growing sense of protection over our time and calling someone requires the recipient to pause their day and dedicate attention to the conversation – a difficult thing for multitaskers to do.”

James Holton, a 64-year-old business owner, says his younger employees rarely respond to phone calls and “either have a default message that says they’re busy or they put my number on diverted calls, so the call never goes through”.

“They always have an excuse up their sleeves, with the most common being that my phone is silent, so I never saw it and forgot to call you later.”

He says he has definitely had to adapt after he noticed “a visible communication gap” and “if employees are more comfortable with texts, then it’s my responsibility to respect that choice”.

But, with a preference for non-verbal communication and a tendency to work from home, are we losing the ability for unscheduled and informal conversations?

Skinner says if the current trend continues then “we might lose a sense of closeness or connection”.

“When we communicate verbally we feel more aligned, emotionally, professionally or personally,” she continues. “This connection can lead to a greater sense of fulfilment, especially in the workplace.”

Ciara Brodie, a 25-year-old supermarket area manager, bucks the trend and says she “loves and appreciates when my seniors at work call me”.

“It’s more thoughtful than a text because it requires a certain amount of effort, so you really know that your manager values your input.”

She especially likes talking to colleagues over the phone on days she works from home as “it can be solitary, so it’s nice to stay connected”.

While some people may say this new communication trend is further proof of us being “generation snowflake”, it’s actually far from that.

Instead, it’s about adapting. No doubt 25 years ago people were resistant from switching from fax to email, but the change has made communication far more efficient.

Perhaps now it’s time to recognise the power of text and just as we ditched the fax machine in the 1990s, we can leave the dreaded phone calls behind in 2024.

If he is still alive, José Duval Mata is trapped in a living nightmare.

For more than two years, the 26-year-old tractor driver has been in prison in El Salvador, accused of “gang association”, even though the country’s legal system has twice ordered his immediate release.

Despite two judges’ clearly worded decisions in his favour, Mr Mata still languishes inside one of the toughest prisons in the world: El Salvador’s notorious Cecot, a super-max facility for the “confinement of terrorists”.

The BBC has repeatedly brought the case to the attention of the Salvadorean government – including directly to the public prosecutor’s office, the security ministry, the vice-president, and President Nayib Bukele himself earlier this year.

Despite several assurances the authorities would investigate, no action has been taken to date.

It is a tale of Kafkaesque proportions.

In April 2022, Mr Mata was on his way home in the dusty rural community of La Noria when he was stopped by troops who had entered his village as part of President Bukele’s nationwide crackdown on the country’s powerful street gangs.

With a raft of constitutional rights suspended under an emergency decree called the State of Exception, police and troops can detain anyone suspected of gang affiliation without due legal process.

Around 70,000 people have been arrested in two years including some 3,000 children, many with no discernible link to gang activity, says the New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch.

Despite Mr Mata’s protestations that he had never been in or worked for a gang, the troops detained him for “illicit association” – a catch-all term used under the State of Exception to round people up.

His mother, Marcela Alvarado, hasn’t seen or heard from her son since that day.

“The police told me I needed to bring evidence to prove his innocence, so I gathered up his high school diploma, the deeds to his land, his repayment receipts on his bank loan, a declaration from his employer as to his good character,” she explains, showing the BBC the documents, which experts say almost no Salvadorean gang member would possess.

Her efforts were in vain.

José Duval was tried alongside more than 350 other inmates in a mass trial which lasted just minutes. He was sentenced to an initial six months, which has since been extended indefinitely.

Marcela still cries at the memory. But things were about to get far worse.

José Duval was briefly freed after a judge ordered his immediate release in September 2022.

However, he was then rearrested at the doors of the prison – on the same charges – as he waited for his family to come and pick him up.

Rearrests of prisoners at the prison gates “are arbitrary actions… illegal detentions and cases of double jeopardy,” says Noah Bullock, the executive director of El Salvador’s leading human rights NGO, Cristosal.

Nevertheless, he says, the practice has been widespread under the State of Exception.

In June 2023, a second judge confirmed the earlier decision to free Mr Mata. Yet, more than a year later, he remains behind bars and Marcela’s increasingly desperate requests for information have fallen on deaf ears.

José Duval’s family has now lodged his case with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

A source inside the Salvadorean public prosecutor’s office has told the BBC they could see “no legal justification or any clear explanation” for the young man’s continued detention.

Throughout the ordeal, Marcela faithfully took a food parcel each week to the Izalco prison where her son was housed – a plastic bag filled with “cornflakes, oatmeal, bread and cookies”, she said, to help sustain José Duval beyond his meagre prison rations.

When she delivered a food bag in June of last year, guards told her that he had been transferred from the penitentiary some weeks earlier.

Her worst fears had been realised.

José Duval was now inside the Cecot – the Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism – a maximum-security jail which is the cornerstone of Mr Bukele’s anti-gang policy.

Mr Bukele’s supporters hail the facility as evidence of his iron fist on gang crime.

Its critics consider it a black hole of human rights and one of the harshest prisons in the world.

President Bukele has often said the inmates will not see “a ray of sunshine” and receive the most basic rations of cold rice and tortillas.

Images of shaven-headed and heavily tattooed inmates being transferred into the facility were widely published by the Bukele government.

Mr Bukele has repeatedly defended the State of Exception and the Cecot for changing the face of security in El Salvador.

Numerous “no-go” areas and gang-controlled neighbourhoods are indeed back under the control of the security forces, and entire communities say they no longer live in fear.

As such, the crackdown is hugely popular. Millions in El Salvador are eternally grateful to their young, media-savvy leader for tackling the gang problem with swift and ruthless force.

In February, President Nayib Bukele was re-elected in a landslide, securing around 90% of the vote.

At a news conference, I asked him if in his second term he would focus on freeing those who had been unjustly detained.

President Bukele launched into a long answer attacking his critics, particularly those from abroad, arguing that there had been high-profile miscarriages of justice in the United Kingdom.

His security forces had only made, he said, “a couple of mistakes” and some 7,000 people had already been released.

The crackdown had restored calm to El Salvador’s streets and that was the most important thing, he insisted.

I told him specifics about José Duval Mata’s case and, following the news conference, his team asked me for copies of the judges’ release orders. A few days later, a member of his inner circle requested the information a second time, this time in digital format, which I again provided to them.

Over the following weeks, the BBC repeatedly chased up the Bukele administration and I have spoken directly to the vice-president, Félix Ulloa, on several occasions about the case.

Over a year ago, he told the BBC that Mr Mata was just days away from being set free.

Mr Ulloa said he hoped that, once out of prison, the media would portray José Duval Mata as an “emblematic case of due process”.

In fact, at that point, he was being transferred to the Cecot without his family’s knowledge.

Earlier this year, after months of requests, the BBC did gain access to the Cecot but we were not permitted to speak to the inmates or ask officials about specific cases.

Meanwhile, Marcela has had no proof of life or formal confirmation of her son’s welfare in over two years. Unsurprisingly, it has often crossed her mind that José Duval might have died in prison.

“I used to think about it non-stop”, she tells me from her tiny patch of land in La Noria. “I was obsessed with the idea, I felt completely desperate. All I would do is cry.”

Now, she says, she’s just clinging to the hope that her son is still alive and will eventually be released.

“I’m placing my trust in God. It’s all I can do.”

A lonely and potentially sexually frustrated dolphin has been blamed for a spike in attacks on swimmers in a Japanese seaside town.

The bottlenose dolphin is believed to be behind 18 attacks near the town of Mihama so far this year, with one primary school-aged child’s finger needing at least 20 stitches.

At least six people were injured in attacks last year, leaving one swimmer with broken ribs. Another person was injured in a 2022 attack.

It has led officials to warn that not only can the mammals “bite you with their sharp teeth and cause you to bleed”, but they can also “drag you into the sea, which could be life-threatening”.

Despite their reputation as friendly animals, dolphin attacks can be fatal. In 1994, a dolphin in Brazil attacked two male swimmers who tried to ride it, killing one and injuring the other. The dolphin, nicknamed Tião, was believed to have injured at least 22 people before that.

Tadamichi Morisaka, a cetology professor at Japan’s Mie University, said the dorsal fin of a dolphin spotted biting a man’s fingers at a beach in Tsuruga – a port city next to Mihama – matched that of a 2.5m long dolphin observed off the coast of Fukui province last year.

The dorsal fin is like a dolphin’s fingerprint, as each has distinctive notches, ridges and pigmentation.

“It is reasonable to assume that it is the same individual, as the wounds on the tail fin are similar to those of the dolphins seen off the coast last year, and it is rare for dolphins, which normally move in groups, to be alone for such a long time,” Prof Morisaka told NHK.

He added that male bottlenose dolphins communicate by “play-biting each other”. “They are not trying to injure people, but are using the dolphins’ way of communication with people,” he said.

Others have suggested various theories on why the same creature may be behind these attacks – including a desire for sex.

“Bottlenose dolphins are highly social animals and this sociality can be expressed in very physical ways,” said Dr Simon Allen, a biologist and principal investigator with the Shark Bay Dolphin Research project.

“Just as in humans and other social animals, hormonal fluctuations, sexual frustration or the desire to dominate might drive the dolphin to injuring the people it interacts with. Since they are such powerful animals, this can lead to serious injury in humans.”

Dr Allen added that the dolphin may have been “ostracised from its own community and be seeking alternative companionship”.

Dr Matthias Hoffmann-Kuhnt, a marine mammal expert at the National University of Singapore, said the dolphin could also be acting in its own defence.

“Most of the time, in my experience, this is more a defensive behaviour when humans get to close to these dolphins and do not know how to conduct themselves,” he said, referring to reports of people trying to ride the animals or sticking their fingers into the dolphins’ blowholes.

“Thus it is no wonder that the animals then turn aggressive or at least protective against humans in the water,” he said.

It could also be that the dolphin previously had a bad encounter with a human being and now projects that relationship onto other humans it encounters, Dr Hoffmann-Kuhnt said.

“They have good memory, similar to elephant who will remember who mistreated them before,” he said.

US rapper Macklemore has cancelled his upcoming October show in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, over the country’s alleged role in the deadly conflict in Sudan.

He said people had for months been asking him to call off the concert in solidarity with the Sudanese people “and to boycott doing business in the UAE for the role they are playing in the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis in the region”.

The rapper cited the UAE’s reported support for the Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been battling the Sudanese army.

“Until the UAE stops arming and funding the RSF I will not perform there,” he said in a post on Instagram.

Neither the Dubai city nor the UAE government have commented on Macklemore’s statement.

• Dam bursts in war-torn Sudan killing 60
• Famine hits Sudan as peace talks fall short yet again
• Sudan war: A simple guide to what is happening

In June, the UAE denied accusations it was fuelling the conflict as “disinformation”, saying its focus was on alleviating the humanitarian crisis in the country.

Sudan’s ambassador to the UN, Harith Idriss al-Harith Mohamed, had said that the UAE’s financial and military support to the RSF was the “main reason behind this protracted war”.

But the UAE said this was a “ludicrous allegation” coming from the Sudan representative, “representing the armed forces, one of the warring parties”.

Since the fighting began in April last year, thousands of people have been killed and 10 million forced to flee their homes.

The war has sparked the world’s worst hunger levels on record, according to the UN-accredited Integrated food security Phase Classification (IPC).

Both sides have been blamed for atrocities but the RSF has been accused of carrying out a genocide against the non-Arabic population in parts of the western region of Darfur which it largely controls. It has denied the accusation, blaming local militias.

A number of talks aimed at ending the 16-month war have so far failed, with the rival factions still fighting for control of the country, worsening the humanitarian crisis.

Macklemore said in his statement on Saturday that he took the decision because “the current situation in Sudan is urgent, horrific and it’s going largely unnoticed globally”.

It was also inspired by the Israeli-Hamas war happening in Gaza, he says, noting that the plight of the Palestinian people “has woken the world up”.

The Grammy-winning artist’s latest song, Hind’s Hall, pays tribute to a girl who was killed in Gaza.

He has in the past released music addressing social issues, including drug addiction, consumerism and gay rights.

He says he is not judging other stars who perform in the UAE, which often hosts major international artists and sporting events.

“But I do ask the question to my peers scheduled to play in Dubai: If we used our platforms to mobilise collective liberation, what could we accomplish?” he added.

• A photographer’s 11-day trek to flee war-torn Sudan
• Sudan massacre in Gezira state blamed on RSF
• World ignoring risk of Sudan genocide – UN expert
• ‘I saw bodies dumped in Darfur mass grave’
• A front-row seat to my country falling apart

A British national who was working in eastern Ukraine as part of a Reuters news team was killed in a missile strike on a hotel on Saturday, the agency has confirmed.

Safety advisor Ryan Evans was one of six Reuters employees staying at the Hotel Sapphire in the city of Kramatorsk – which is under Ukrainian control but near the front line – when it was hit.

Ukrainian authorities said the hotel was struck by a Russian missile. Russia has not commented.

In a statement, a Reuters spokesperson said the agency had been “devastated” to learn of Mr Evans’s death.

“We are urgently seeking more information about the attack, including by working with the authorities in Kramatorsk, and we are supporting our colleagues and their families,” it said.

“We send our deepest condolences and thoughts to Ryan’s family and loved ones. Ryan has helped so many of our journalists cover events around the world; we will miss him terribly.”

It added that two other members of the team had been hospitalised by the strike and that one of them was being treated for serious injuries.

• Follow live: Explosions across Ukraine as Russia launches attack

The National Police of Ukraine said earlier that the body of a 40-year-old British man was recovered from the rubble of a hotel at 18:35 local time (16:35 BST) on Sunday after a 19-hour search.

Writing on Telegram, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky sent his “condolences to [the] family and friends” of the man killed.

“This is the daily Russian terror that continues,” he said.

Earlier, Reuters released footage showing parts of the hotel completely destroyed by the strike, with firefighters attempting to pick through the rubble.

The Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s Office wrote in a statement that the hotel had likely been hit with a short-range Iskander-M missile.

Kramatorsk is only about 20km (12 miles) from Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, and has come under regular attacks, with civilians killed, including celebrated Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina.

The Russian military has been making slow but steady advances in the east in recent months, with Ukraine’s recent offensive into Russia seen as an attempt to draw troops away from the eastern front line.

China’s most decorated swimmer has made a winning return to the pool after serving a controversial four-year drugs ban.

Sun Yang won gold in the men’s 400m freestyle at China’s National Summer Swimming Championships in Hefei on Sunday – and then broke down while speaking to reporters.

He had been previously vilified by many in China as a drugs cheat, but his return was praised across state media.

His win on Sunday comes shortly after a highly publicised anti-doping row at the Paris Olympics this summer, in which China said its athletes were being unfairly targeted.

In a tearful poolside interview with reporters, the 32-year-old thanked those close to him for helping him get back to competing.

“This is really because of the reliance and support from my family — that’s what’s kept me going until today,” he told the South China Morning Post.

Sun was suspended by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) in 2020 for refusing to provide samples for testers who had visited his home.

In 2012, Sun became China’s first male swimmer to win an Olympic gold when he came first in the 400m and 1,500m freestyle races in London. Four years, he followed this up with another gold in the 200m freestyle at the Rio Olympics.

But his career came crashing down when anti-doping officials visited his home in 2018 for an out-of-competition test.

Sun and his team said the testers lacked the proper accreditation and refused to co-operate with them.

According to the testing team, a member of Sun’s entourage smashed a vial of his blood with a hammer to prevent them from departing with the sample.

Sun – who had already been suspended for three months in 2014 for using the banned substance Trimetazidine (TMZ) – denied any wrongdoing and he was initially cleared by swimming’s governing body Fina.

Two years later, however, CAS overturned the decision and ruled that Sun had refused to cooperate with the sample testers. He was given an eight-year ban, which was later reduced to four years and three months on appeal.

As he had never technically tested positive for any banned substances, Sun was allowed to keep all of his medals.

His victory on Sunday was widely hailed in Chinese state media outlets, whose posts on social channels were flooded with positive comments.

“Brother Sun, don’t cry. The past four years haven’t been easy. You’re amazing,” said one user on Weibo.

Another said: “Congratulations to Sun Yang. Four years and three months of determination and perseverance have all been worth it and have led to this moment. Looking forward to Los Angeles.”

Chinese swimmers have been in the spotlight since the Paris Olympics after a slew of doping allegations, followed by contentious US claims that the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) was covering it up.

Those who headed to Paris were drug-tested twice as much as some other nations, which, in turn, has fuelled accusations of a conspiracy to disrupt their performance.

At the time, the state-run Global Times blamed Western powers for “abusing doping tests to disrupt [the] Chinese swimming team”, while breaststroke champion Qin Haiyang accused opposing teams of using underhand “tricks” to disrupt Chinese competitors.

In his long-awaited return, Sun represented his home province of Zhejiang – but it is unclear whether he will be allowed to represent China on the international stage.

According to the country’s anti-doping regulations, athletes who have been banned for more than one year are not eligible to be selected for the national team.

Sun insists he will “go all out” to compete for a spot in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles – although his performance will need to drastically improve.

His race on Sunday featured no competitors who swam in the Paris Olympics and his time was nearly nine seconds slower than his previous best, which he clocked in London in 2012.

“I could have done better. Four years away from competition and without intensive training, I do feel rusty in controlling the tempo, and I need more competitions,” he told state-run outlet China Daily.

“But it’s a good start for my comeback, and I’m happy with this result,” he added.

A standoff has erupted in the Philippines as thousands of police officers descended on a sprawling religious compound in search of an influential pastor who has been accused of child sex trafficking amongst other crimes.

Police say they will not leave until they have found Apollo Quiboloy, who calls himself the “appointed Son of God”.

He is believed to be hiding inside his 30 hectare (75 acres) complex, which houses some 40 buildings, including a cathedral, a school and even a hangar.

Authorities have been on the hunt for Mr Quiboloy for months. He had earlier said he would “not be caught alive”.

Police raided the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) compound late on Saturday, with reports saying they later used tear gas against Mr Quiboloy’s followers who had become “unruly and violent”, Davao police spokesperson Major Catherina dela Rey told news outlet Rappler.

Hundreds of Mr Quiboloy’s followers have blocked parts of a major highway in an attempt to disrupt traffic to the compound.

They maintain his innocence, saying allegations against him are fabricated.

One supporter of the group died from a heart attack during the police raid.

Police believe Mr Quiboloy is hiding in an underground bunker based on equipment that is believed to be able to detect people behind walls based on their heartbeat, said Maj dela Rey.

Mr Quiboloy’s KOJC claims to have seven million followers and he has grown his ministry through television, radio and social media.

He is also politically influential and serves as spiritual adviser to former President Rodrigo Duterte, whose family rules Davao city politics.

Since Mr Duterte stepped down in 2022, authorities have been pursuing charges against Mr Quiboloy.

He is accused of trafficking his followers to the US to solicit donations for bogus charities. He also allegedly required his female followers, some underage, to have sex with him as a religious duty.

He has said that the “devil” was behind his legal woes. He has also said that he does not want the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to “meddle” in his case.

Mr Quiboloy said in April that he was “preserving” himself by hiding from authorities.

“I am not hiding from the charges because I am guilty. That’s not true. I am just protecting myself,” he said.

Mr Quiboloy is the leader of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, a Christian sect that claims to have seven million members.

He claims to have heard God whisper to him “I will use you” while attending an event by American pastor Billy Graham in South Korea in 1973. This led him to set up the KOJC in the Philippines’ Davao in 1985.

Mr Quiboloy preaches from a glass table that is set against giant photographs of his lush hilltop estate called the “Garden of Eden Restored”.

When he is not in Davao, he has been seen travelling on his private jet.

His rise to national prominence has mirrored that of Mr Duterte. Both started in Davao, where the former president served as mayor.

When Mr Duterte was elected president in 2016, Mr Quiboloy’s profile rose even higher. But that started to diminish when Mr Duterte left office in 2022.

Outside of his alliance with Mr Duterte, Mr Quiboloy has also gained considerable clout by endorsing politicians during elections.

Mr Quiboloy was a supporter of one of Duterte’s predecessors, Gloria Arroyo.

When he endorsed Arroyo’s choice of successor in the 2010 elections, Mr Quiboloy claimed to have seen the candidate’s name in a vision that included then US President Barack Obama.

In the Philippines, leaders of religious organisations and sects become politically powerful when they direct their followers to vote as a bloc, analysts say.

Electoral contests can get so cutthroat that some candidates believe the endorsement of leaders like Mr Quiboloy could make or break their campaign.

“Politics in the Philippines is very much a moral exercise. Therefore, voters look to their religious leaders for guidance,” political scientist Cleve Arguelles told BBC News.

In 2021, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Mr Quiboloy with sex trafficking of children, fraud and coercion and bulk cash smuggling.

The FBI said he trafficked girls and women from the Philippines to the US, where they are forced to solicit money for a bogus charity.

He also required his female personal assistants, who are called “pastorals”, to have sex with him, the FBI said.

In January 2022, the FBI released a wanted poster seeking information on Mr Quiboloy’s whereabouts.

Last March, the Philippines DOJ filed human trafficking and sexual harassment charges against Mr Quiboloy, for allegedly abusing a teenage woman in 2011.

Courts in both the US and Philippine have issued warrants for his arrest.

Mr Quiboloy has denied the charges against him and has accused US authorities of pre-judging his case.

Qantas will refund or downgrade hundreds of passengers who were sold first-class flights at a huge discount last week because of a coding error.

“Unfortunately, this is a case where the fare was actually too good to be true,” a spokesperson for the Australian airline said.

On Thursday, when the erroneous offer was put up on its site, around 300 people quickly booked return flights between Australia and the US, paying 85% less than the usual first class fare.

Qantas said it will switch passengers who bought the bargain tickets into business class – one step down from first class – “at no additional cost”.

Customers paid less than a fraction of the usual price with the discounted fares available on the site for around eight hours.

That meant they would have paid a few thousand Australian dollars for tickets that are meant to cost more than AUD20,000 (£10,000), entitling them to whiskey and champagne, an à la carte food menu, plus a memory foam mattress and a “pillow menu” when they want to sleep.

However, the airline’s terms and conditions state when customers book that if there is an error or mistake that is reasonably obvious in the fare price, the airline is entitled to cancel the booking and offer a full refund.

“As a gesture of goodwill, we’re rebooking customers in business class at no additional cost. Customers also have the option of a full refund,” Qantas said in a statement.

A passenger travelling business class would still be paying 65% less than usual for their ticket, the airline said.

It’s not the first time an airline has mistakenly offered discount prices – in 2019, Cathay Pacific accidentally sold $16,000 business-class seats for $675. In the end, it did honour the tickets for those lucky passengers.

But airlines don’t always honour tickets sold mistakenly for cheap: in 2018, British Airways cancelled tickets between Dubai and Tel Aviv which were sold for £1 instead of £200.

The Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaigns are sparring over whether to mute one of the microphones when it is the other person’s turn to speak during the pair’s scheduled debate next month.

The Harris campaign said in a statement to the BBC’s US partner CBS News that it wanted both candidates’ microphones to be live throughout the full broadcast.

The Trump campaign reportedly wants the ABC debate, scheduled for 10 September, to be governed by the same rules agreed when Joe Biden was the Democratic candidate. That would mean the microphones being muted.

The apparent impasse comes as the former president questioned the impartiality of the network and signalled he might even skip the debate.

The deadlock in negotiations between the two campaigns was first reported by Politico.

Before President Joe Biden stepped down as the Democratic party nominee, his campaign agreed with Trump’s campaign to participate in two debates – one previously held in June on CNN and one to air on ABC News this September.

The Biden campaign negotiated the rules for the debate and agreed that the microphone would be muted when a candidate wasn’t speaking.

The Trump campaign agreed to the rule, which was enforced during the June CNN debate.

But now, with just 15 days until the ABC News debate is scheduled to air, the Harris campaign wants the microphones to be “hot” – meaning it will never be turned off for the duration of the debate.

“We have told ABC and other networks seeking to host a possible October debate that we believe both candidates’ mics should be live throughout the full broadcast,” Harris campaign senior communications adviser Brian Fallon said in a statement.

“The vice president is ready to deal with Trump’s constant lies and interruptions in real time. Trump should stop hiding behind the mute button,” he added.

This allows the two candidates to interrupt and speak over each other on the debate stage.

Trump’s campaign accused Ms Harris of finding a way to get out of the debate with Trump.

“Enough with the games. We accepted the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate,” senior Trump adviser Jason Miller told Politico. “The Harris camp, after having already agreed to the CNN rules, asked for a seated debate, with notes, and opening statements. We said no changes to the agreed upon rules.”

A Harris campaign official who was asked about the Trump campaign’s claims said they are “100% false”, according to CBS News.

On Trump’s Truth Social platform on Sunday, he questioned whether the ABC News journalists moderating the debate will give the questions to the Harris campaign ahead of time.

“Why would I do the debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” he wrote.

This is not the first time the former president has suggested he would back out of the debate. Earlier this month, Trump said he would only debate Ms Harris if the debate was hosted by Fox News. He reversed course several days later.

As the election nears, the Harris campaign has raised $540 million since Biden stepped down, the Associated Press reports. Harris saw record-breaking fundraising numbers in the aftermath of Mr Biden dropping out of the race.

The Trump campaign, on the other hand, raised $138.7 million in July and has $327 million cash on hand.

• 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
• KAMALA HARRIS: The many identities of the first female vice-president

At least six people have been killed after Russia launched a massive attack across Ukraine, seriously damaging some power and water supplies.

Explosions rang out in several cities including Kyiv on Monday morning, as more than half of the country’s regions came under attack from missiles and drones.

Authorities in Zaporizhzhia, Lutsk, Kharkiv, Zhytomyr and Dnipropetrovsk regions reported people had died in the huge air raid.

Russia confirmed it had targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure – one of its long-term tactics – and said all its targets were hit.

The barrage of drone and missile attacks began across the country overnight on Monday and continued well into the morning.

People were urged to stay in shelters as the entire country was put under air raid alert.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had fired more than 100 missiles and about 100 drones.

“This was one of the largest strikes,” he said, adding there was a lot of damage to energy facilities.

While the main target of this attack was energy infrastructure, it was also an attempt by Moscow to strike at Ukraine’s reserves of another key resource: morale.

Ukrainians have been electrified by the recent successful incursion of their troops deep into Russian territory in the Kursk region.

With Monday’s strikes, Russia was intending to bring ordinary people in Ukraine back down to earth with a bump – reminding them, and politicians in Western capitals, that the Kremlin still has the upper hand in this war.

The message from Moscow was make no mistake, Russia can still inflict misery on the Ukrainian population whenever it chooses.

Some 15 regions of Ukraine were targeted by Russia in the strikes, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said – using weapons including drones, cruise missiles and supersonic missiles.

“There are wounded and dead,” Mr Shmyhal said on the Telegram social media app.

Dozens of people were injured, and those who died included:

• Two men – one aged 69 and another aged 47 – were killed in separate attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk region, local governor Sergiy Lysak said. Others were injured including a 14-year-old girl, he added
• A man was killed when his house was hit in Zaporizhzhia, said the area’s governor
• The mayor of Lutsk said one person had been killed when an “infrastructure facility” was hit. Five others were wounded and most parts of the city had no running water, he added
• In Izyum in Kharkiv region, a man was killed in a missile strike, the regional head said
• And in Zhytomyr region in western Ukraine, a woman died after homes and infrastructure buildings were hit by missiles, the governor said.

• Follow live: Explosions across Ukraine as Russia launches attack

The attacks caused serious damage to infrastructure, with power outages reported in many cities – including Kyiv – and water supplies disrupted.

Emergency blackouts were imposed, energy company DTEK warned, adding that its engineers were working to return electricity supplies across the country.

Russia has been targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since early on in its full-scale invasion, which began in February 2022.

In recent months it has renewed its campaign of attacks on the power grid, causing frequent blackouts across the country.

In June, President Zelensky said Russia had destroyed half of his country’s electricity-generating capacity since it began pummelling its energy facilities in late March.

Ukraine is buying energy from the European Union. However, this is not enough and so most days, the country has a planned nationwide blackout to protect critical needs such as hospitals and military sites.

Russia’s defence ministry said it attacked electricity and gas facilities, as well as sites storing Western weapons.

“All designated targets were hit, resulting in power outages and disrupted rail transport of weapons and ammunition to the front line,” it said.

It has been a year of bad news on the battlefield for Kyiv, with Russia gaining ground steadily in the eastern Donbas region.

There have been problems with mobilisation and reports that Ukraine is running out of men.

But following Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Kursk, the videos of soldiers hoisting the Ukrainian flag over Russian villages they had seized gave a badly-needed boost to Ukrainian morale.

And it showed the West that Kyiv is still capable of carrying out complex, daring and – most importantly – successful offensives.

On Monday, Mr Zelensky called on Western allies including Britain, America and France to change their rules and let Ukraine use their weapons to strike deeper inside Russia.

Ukraine is allowed to use some Western weapons to hit targets inside Russia – but not long-range weapons.

And he said “we could do much more to protect lives” if European air forces worked with Ukraine’s air defence.

Also on Monday, Ukraine tried to attack an oil refinery in Yaroslavl, a city north-east of Moscow, according to the regional governor. No casualties or damage have been reported.

And Russia’s defence ministry said it had destroyed nine drones over its Saratov region, which is 560 miles (900km) from the Ukrainian border.

Gunmen have killed at least 22 people in south-west Pakistan after forcing them out of their vehicles and checking their identity, officials say.

The attack happened overnight on a highway in Balochistan province, where security forces are battling sectarian, ethnic and separatist violence.

The armed men checked identity documents, reportedly singling out those from Punjab to be shot, before setting the vehicles alight, officials alleged.

The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a militant group, has said it was behind the attacks in Musa Khel district.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said that security forces had killed 12 militants in operations after the attacks, but did not give further details.

Over the past 24 hours, the BLA has launched a series of attacks on multiple government installations – including police stations and security forces’ camps across province.

In Kalat, 11 were killed – five of them security personnel – and six bodies were recovered in another district in Balochistan.

According to Najibullah Kakar, a senior local official, around 30 to 40 militants were involved in Musa Khel.

“They stopped 22 vehicles,” he told AFP news agency. “Vehicles traveling to and from Punjab were inspected, and individuals from Punjab were identified and shot.”

The BLA has said it was targeting military personnel travelling in civilian clothes, according to news agency Reuters.

Before the attack, the BLA warned the Baloch public to stay away from the highway, adding that their “fight is against the occupying Pakistani military”.

“We have taken full control of all major highways across Balochistan, blocking them completely,” it added.

Mohsin Naqvi, the interior minister, said the attacks were “a well-thought out plan to create anarchy in Pakistan”.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed “deep grief and condemnation over the terrorist attack” in a statement issued by his office.

Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province but, although it has more resources than other provinces, it is the least developed.

The BLA and other Baloch separatists have intensified attacks on Punjabis and Sinhdis from elsewhere in Pakistan working in the region. They have also targeted foreign energy firms they accuse of exploiting the region without sharing profits.

In a similar incident in April this year, nine passengers were offloaded from a bus in Balochistan and shot dead after their IDs were checked.

Several Western countries, including the UK and US, have designated the BLA as a global terrorist organisation.

For almost a month, many here in Lebanon have been on tenterhooks, waiting for Hezbollah to retaliate against Israel. The region was waiting also, wondering if this would be the spark for a wider war.

Everyone knew the powerful Iranian-backed group would seek revenge for Israel’s assassination on 30 July of a top military commander, Fuad Shukr. The Israelis managed to hunt him down deep in Hezbollah’s heartland of South Beirut. That was both a strategic loss and a public humiliation.

Just hours later, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, in what bore all the hallmarks of another Israeli operation. But Iran continues to signal that its retaliation could be a long-term project.

At 05:15 on Sunday, Hezbollah made its move, launching more than 300 Katyusha rockets and “a large number of drones” across the border into Israel. This was revenge served cold. It was carefully calibrated, and it was less than some had expected.

Hezbollah said it targeted 11 military bases and barracks, and claimed its attack was a success. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said most of the rockets missed their mark.

Either way, Hezbollah did not train its sights on major cities in Israel, or on critical infrastructure. And it did not bring out its big guns. The group – which is classed as a terrorist organisation by the UK and the US – is believed to have more arms than many nations.

Israel had got in first, at 04:30, flooding the sky with fighter jets targeting Hezbollah firing positions. The IDF said this “pre-emptive strike” destroyed thousands of rocket launchers.

It was the biggest flare-up here since the Gaza war began last October, after Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel in a single day.

Since then, Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel across their shared border, showing support for its ally Hamas, and proclaiming solidarity with the people of Gaza.

So where are we now, one day on? Surprisingly, perhaps, the Middle East may be a little safer.

Both sides have delivered a message, but stopped short of all-out war. And Hezbollah has signalled it’s ready to close the Fuad Shukr chapter – for the moment.

“We reserve our right to continue the response at a later point, but for now, the people can be at ease and carry on with their lives,” said Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah.

After a tense month, that was a welcome message for many here.

He was addressing his supporters on TV from an undisclosed location – he might be at the top of Israel’s assassination list.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Sunday’s strikes against Hezbollah were “not the end of the story”.

But diplomats told the Reuters news agency that both sides had exchanged messages saying they didn’t want a further escalation.

Here in southern Lebanon, there is already a return to the usual low-level conflict.

Israel has just attempted another assassination, leaving a burning car on the scorching streets of Sidon, a port city. Local sources say the target was a Hamas leader, who managed to jump out in time.

Along the coast in the city of Tyre, Israeli jets are swooping low, breaking the sound barrier – but the beach below is more crowded.

“Everything feels calm today,” said a young man in his 20s who did not want to be named.

“Everything returned to normal. The streets have been quiet, but people have come back out. Today, people can breathe.”

Hezbollah said it delayed its retaliation to give time for talks on a ceasefire in Gaza. But the latest round of talks in Egypt has ended with no apparent progress.

And while the war in Gaza drags on, in all its horror, it is fuelling instability across the Middle East.

A “right to disconnect” rule has come into effect in Australia, offering relief to people who feel forced to take calls or read messages from employers after they finish their day’s work.

The new law allows employees to ignore communications after hours if they choose to, without fear of being punished by their bosses.

A survey published last year estimated that Australians worked on average 281 hours of unpaid overtime annually.

More than 20 countries, mainly in Europe and Latin America, have similar rules.

The law does not ban employers from contacting workers after hours.

Instead, it gives staff the right not to reply unless their refusal is deemed unreasonable.

Under the rules, employers and employees should try to resolve disputes among themselves. If that is unsuccessful in finding a resolution Australia’s Fair Work Commission (FWC) can step in.

The FWC can then order the employer to stop contacting the employee after hours.

If it finds an employee’s refusal to respond is unreasonable it can order them to reply.

Failure to comply with FWC orders can result in fines of up to A$19,000 ($12,897; £9,762) for an employee or up to A$94,000 for a company.

Organisations representing workers have welcomed the move.

It “will empower workers to refuse unreasonable out-of-hours work contact and enabling greater work-life balance”, The Australian Council of Trade Unions said.

A workplace expert told BBC News that the new rules would also help employers.

“Any organisation that has staff who have better rest and who have better work-life-balance are going to have staff who are less likely to have sick days, less likely to leave the organisation”, said John Hopkins from Swinburne University of Technology.

“Anything that benefits the employee, has benefits for the employer as well.”

However, there was a mixed reaction to the new law from employees.

“I think it’s actually really important that we have laws like this,” advertising industry worker, Rachel Abdelnour, told Reuters.

“We spend so much of our time connected to our phones, connected to our emails all day, and I think that it’s really hard to switch off as it is.”

Others, however, do not feel the new rules will make much of a difference to them.

“I think it’s an excellent idea. I hope it catches on. I doubt it’ll catch on in our industry, to tell the truth though,” David Brennan, a worker in the financial industry, told the news agency.

“We’re well paid, we’re expected to deliver, and we feel we have to deliver 24 hours a day.”

An anthropomorphic monkey and a campaign against “feminist propaganda” set the video gaming community alight this week, following the release of the most successful Chinese title of all time.

Many players were furious after the company behind Black Myth: Wukong sent them a list of topics to avoid while livestreaming the game, including “feminist propaganda, fetishisation, and other content that instigates negative discourse”.

Still, within 24 hours of its release on Tuesday, it became the second most-played game ever on streaming platform Steam, garnering more than 2.1 million concurrent players and selling more than 4.5 million copies.

The game, based on the classic 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, is being seen as a rare example of popular media broadcasting Chinese stories on an international stage.

Black Myth: Wukong is a single-player action game where players take on the role of “the Destined One”- an anthropomorphic monkey with supernatural powers.

The Destined One is based on the character of Sun Wukong, or the Monkey King, a key character in Journey to the West.

That novel, considered one of the greats of Chinese literature, draws heavily from Chinese mythology as well as Confucianism, Taoist and Buddhist folklore.

It has inspired hundreds of international films, TV shows and cartoons, including the popular Japanese anime series Dragon Ball Z and the 2008 Chinese-American fantasy film The Forbidden Kingdom.

First announced via a hugely popular teaser trailer in August 2020, Black Myth launched on Tuesday after four years of anticipation.

It is the Chinese video game industry’s first AAA release – a title typically given to big-budget games from major companies.

High-end graphics, sophisticated game design and hot-blooded hype have all contributed to its success – as well as the size of China’s gaming community, which is the largest in the world.

“It’s not just a Chinese game targeting the Chinese market or the Chinese-speaking world,” Haiqing Yu, a professor at Australia’s RMIT University, whose research specialises in the sociopolitical and economic impact of China’s digital media, told the BBC.

“Players all over the world [are playing] a game that has a Chinese cultural factor.”

This has become a huge source of national pride in the country.

The Department of Culture and Tourism in Shanxi Province, an area that includes many locations and set pieces featured in the game, released a video on Tuesday that showcased the real-world attractions, triggering a surge in tourism dubbed “Wukong Travel”.

Videos posted on TikTok in the wake of Black Myth’s release show tourists flooding temples and shrines featured in the game, in what one X user characterised as a “successful example of cultural rediscovery”.

Niko Partners, a company that researches and analyses video games markets and consumers in Asia, similarly pointed out that Black Myth “helps showcase Chinese mythology, traditions, culture and real-life locations in China to the world”.

Ahead of Black Myth’s release, some content creators and streamers revealed that a company affiliated with its developer had sent them a list of topics to avoid talking about while livestreaming the game: including “feminist propaganda, fetishisation, and other content that instigates negative discourse”.

While it is not clear what was precisely meant by “feminist propaganda”, a widely circulated report by video game publication IGN in November alleged a history of sexist and inappropriate behaviour from employees of Game Science, the studio behind Black Myth.

Other topics designated as “Don’ts” in the document, which has been widely shared on social media and YouTube, included politics, Covid-19, and China’s video game industry policies.

The directive, which was sent out by co-publisher Hero Games, has stoked controversy outside China.

Multiple content creators refused to review the game, claiming its developers were trying to censor discussion and stifle freedom of speech.

Others chose to directly defy the warnings.

One creator with the username Moonmoon launched a Twitch stream of Black Myth titled “Covid-19 Isolation Taiwan (Is a Real Country) Feminism Propaganda”. Another streamer, Rui Zhong, discussed China’s one-child policy on camera while playing the game.

On Thursday, Chinese social media platform Weibo banned 138 users who were deemed to be violating its guidelines when discussing Black Myth.

According to an article on the state-run Global Times news site, a number of the banned Weibo users were “deviating from discussing the game itself but instead using it as a platform for spreading ‘gender opposition,’ ‘personal attacks’, and other irrational comments”.

While the controversy has attracted a lot of attention in international media and online, it has not really dented or detracted from Black Myth’s overwhelmingly positive reception.

The game made $53m in presales alone, with another 4.5 million copies sold within 24 hours of its release. Within the same timeframe it broke the record for the most-played single-player title ever released on Steam.

On platforms like Weibo, Reddit and YouTube, and elsewhere, reams of comments are celebrating the game’s success. Many suggest that the fallout from the controversies surrounding the game’s release has been overblown.

Ms Yu agreed, describing Black Myth as an “industry and overall market success”.

“When it comes to Chinese digital media and communication platforms, of course people cannot avoid talking about censorship,” she said. “Black Myth is… an example of how to tell the Chinese story well, and how to expand Chinese cultural influence globally. I don’t see any censorship there.”

She also pointed out that apparent attempts to steer or censor what reviewers said were unlikely to have come from Chinese officials themselves. More likely, Ms Yu suggested, is that the list of “Dos” and “Don’ts” came from a company that was trying to keep itself out of trouble.

“The company issues their notification so if anybody from the central government comes to have a chat with the company, the company can say, ‘look, I already told them. I can’t stop people from saying what they want to say.’

“They have basically, to use the colloquial term, covered their own ass,” she concluded. “I view it as a politically correct gesture to the Chinese censors, rather than a real directive coming from the top down.”

Hi, you’ve reached the voicemail of Yasmin Rufo. Please don’t leave a message as I won’t listen to it or call you back.

Unfortunately that isn’t my answerphone message but do I, along with most Gen Z and millennials, wish it was? Absolutely.

A recent survey found a quarter of people aged 18 to 34 never answer the phone – respondents say they ignore the ringing, respond via text or search the number online if they don’t recognise it.

The Uswitch survey of 2,000 people also found that nearly 70% of 18-34s prefer a text to a phone call.

For older generations, talking on the phone is normal – my parents spent their teenage years fighting with their siblings over the landline in the corridor only to then have their entire family listen in to their conversations.

In contrast, my teenage years were spent texting.

From the moment I received my pink flip Nokia on my 13th birthday, I was obsessed with texting.

I would spend every evening after school formulating 160-character texts to my friends, removing every unnecessary space and vowel until the message resembled jumbled up consonants even GCHQ would struggle to decipher.

After all, when it costs 10p a text there was no way I was going to spill over to 161 characters.

In 2009, phone calls on my mobile would have cost a fortune.

“We didn’t give you this phone so you could gossip with your friends all evening,” my parents would remind me as they looked through my monthly phone bill.

And so a generation of texters were born: mobile phone calls were for emergencies and the landline was used infrequently to speak to your grandparents.

Dr Elena Touroni, a consultant psychologist, explains that because young people didn’t develop the habit of speaking on the phone, “it now feels weird as it’s not the norm”.

This can make young people fear the worst when their phone starts ringing (or silently lighting up because no-one under the age of 35 has a loud ringtone).

More than half of the young people who responded in the Uswitch survey admitted that they thought an unexpected call means bad news.

Psychotherapist Eloise Skinner explains that anxiety around calls comes from “an association with something bad – a sense of foreboding or dread”.

“As our lives get busier and working schedules more unpredictable, we have less time to call a friend simply to catch up. Phone calls, then, become reserved for the important news in our lives, which can often be complicated and difficult.”

“It’s exactly that,” says 26-year-old Jack Longley, adding that he also never responds to unknown numbers as “it’s either scammers or cold callers”.

“It’s easier to just ignore the calls instead of sifting through to find out which ones are legitimate.”

But not speaking on the phone doesn’t mean young people aren’t in touch with their friends – our group chats ping throughout the day with a mixture of banal messages, memes, gossip and, more recently, voice notes.

Many of these conversations now take place on social media, particularly on Instagram and Snapchat where it’s easier to send images and memes alongside texts.

While we all agree that phone calling is a big no-no, the use of voice notes has split the younger generations.

In the Uswitch survey, 37% of 18-34s say voice notes are their preference of communication. In comparison, only 1% of 35 to 54-year-olds prefer voice messages over a call.

“A voice note is just like talking on the phone but better,” says Susie Jones, a 19-year-old student. “You get the benefits of hearing your friend’s voice but comes with no pressures so it’s a more polite way of communicating”.

But for me, listening to a five-minute voice note from a friend updating me about their life is painful – they get side-tracked, every second word is “like” or “uhm” and the whole story could have been told in a couple of text messages.

Both texts and voice notes allow young people to participate in conversations at their own pace and allows them to give more thoughtful and considered responses.

But to what extent does phone call phobia in your personal life start affecting your work life?

Henry Nelson-Case is a 31-year-old lawyer and content creator whose series of “overwhelmed millennial” videos are painfully relatable – sketches include the angst of sending a company-wide email, politely refusing to work overtime and of course, one about an employee doing anything to avoid a phone call.

He says “it’s the anxiety associated with real-time conversations, potential awkwardness, not having the answers and the pressure to respond immediately,” that makes him hate talking on the phone.

“Phone calls are more exposing and require a higher level of intimacy whereas messaging is detached and allows you to connect without feeling vulnerable or exposed,” explains Dr Touroni.

Dunja Relic, a 27-year-old lawyer, says she steers clear of workplace calls because “they can be time consuming and set you back on your tasks”.

Skinner describes this as the ‘this could have been an email’ sentiment.

“There’s a growing sense of protection over our time and calling someone requires the recipient to pause their day and dedicate attention to the conversation – a difficult thing for multitaskers to do.”

James Holton, a 64-year-old business owner, says his younger employees rarely respond to phone calls and “either have a default message that says they’re busy or they put my number on diverted calls, so the call never goes through”.

“They always have an excuse up their sleeves, with the most common being that my phone is silent, so I never saw it and forgot to call you later.”

He says he has definitely had to adapt after he noticed “a visible communication gap” and “if employees are more comfortable with texts, then it’s my responsibility to respect that choice”.

But, with a preference for non-verbal communication and a tendency to work from home, are we losing the ability for unscheduled and informal conversations?

Skinner says if the current trend continues then “we might lose a sense of closeness or connection”.

“When we communicate verbally we feel more aligned, emotionally, professionally or personally,” she continues. “This connection can lead to a greater sense of fulfilment, especially in the workplace.”

Ciara Brodie, a 25-year-old supermarket area manager, bucks the trend and says she “loves and appreciates when my seniors at work call me”.

“It’s more thoughtful than a text because it requires a certain amount of effort, so you really know that your manager values your input.”

She especially likes talking to colleagues over the phone on days she works from home as “it can be solitary, so it’s nice to stay connected”.

While some people may say this new communication trend is further proof of us being “generation snowflake”, it’s actually far from that.

Instead, it’s about adapting. No doubt 25 years ago people were resistant from switching from fax to email, but the change has made communication far more efficient.

Perhaps now it’s time to recognise the power of text and just as we ditched the fax machine in the 1990s, we can leave the dreaded phone calls behind in 2024.

Climbing into his backyard jacuzzi that overlooked the Santa Monica Mountains, Matthew Perry uttered the seven words that would ultimately lead to his death: “Shoot me up with a big one.”

The big one, court documents would later reveal, was a dose of ketamine, a prescription anaesthetic and a hallucinogen that has become popular for its off-label uses to treat depression and anxiety. It was the actor’s third injection of the day.

Hours after that fatal dose, the “Friends” actor was found face down in the jacuzzi. Medics pronounced him dead at the scene with a coroner finding ketamine was his primary cause of death.

The details about Perry’s last day alive on 28 October 2023 were revealed in court documents following a police probe that ultimately led to five people being charged in relation to his death.

The documents offer an in-depth look by the law enforcement agencies into his drug addiction, which he struggled with for decades, and a glimpse into Hollywood’s ketamine drug network. Doctors and experts told the BBC the growth in ketamine’s popularity in recent years has caused the market to explode, with the expansion of ketamine clinics and online services offering easy prescription access to the drug, as well as a burgeoning illicit drug market.

“It’s super easy [to get], – be it underground or prescription,” Dr David Mahjoubi, who serves as president of the American Board of Ketamine Physicians, told the BBC. “I have celebrities that are getting a prescription from me. It’s super easy, not hard at all.”

Federal authorities said their investigation into Perry’s death uncovered a “broad underground criminal network” of drug suppliers who distributed large quantities of ketamine across Los Angeles.

Federal court documents detail Perry’s last months alive and the transition from his treatments at a ketamine clinic for depression and anxiety, where a physician administered the drug and monitored for side effects, to an addiction that led him to “unscrupulous doctors” and a network of street dealers.

Perry had been open about his addiction problems, which stem back decades – even to his time playing Chandler Bing on “Friends”. If a drug entered his life, he seemed to become addicted.

But in his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, he said he’d finally got sober, and one woman told investigators at the coroner’s office that she believed he’d been sober for 19 months.

Somewhere in that time, he started receiving ketamine infusion therapy. Experts say Perry’s history of addiction helped lead him to quickly become hooked on the drug.

The federal investigation found that over a nearly two-month span before his death, Perry purchased dozens of vials of ketamine for thousands of dollars.

Over the three days before his death, his assistant injected him at least six times a day with ketamine shots.

Five people were arrested in the probe – three of whom already pleaded guilty in the conspiracy. In total, the group faces 23 counts in Perry’s death.

• Kenneth Iwamasa: Perry’s live-in personal assistant pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death. He admitted to helping Perry find ketamine and repeatedly injecting him with the drug, including the dose that killed him.
• Dr Salvador Plasencia: A physician accused of supplying Perry with large quantities of ketamine, injecting him on multiple occasions – including in a public parking lot – and teaching his assistant how to inject him with doses. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him arising out of Perry’s death.
• Dr Mark Chavez: A physician who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine. He admitted to selling ketamine to Dr Plasencia, including drugs he had diverted from a ketamine clinic.
• Jasveen Sangha, described by law enforcement as the “The Ketamine Queen“: An alleged street dealer who court documents say was known to work with celebrities and high-end clients. She is accused of supplying the drugs that ultimately killed Perry. Authorities raided her home and discovered what they called a “drug-selling emporium” with dozens of ketamine vials and thousands of pills. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges against her, including conspiracy to distribute ketamine and distribution of ketamine resulting in death.
• Eric Fleming: A middleman who authorities say got drugs from Ms Sangha and distributed them to Perry and his assistant. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death.

Numerous doctors and experts who spoke to the BBC for this story spoke about the toxic relationship between celebrity and medicine.

“The VIP treatment is usually not the best treatment,” Dr Gerard Sanacora, director of Yale University’s Depression Research Program, told the BBC.

“Doctors are humans, too, and despite taking the Hippocratic oath, not everyone abides by it,” he added, acknowledging doctors can “lose perspective when you have a VIP client” and there’s promises of invites to big parties or donations to research programs or charities.

Dr Mahjoubi, who operates two ketamine clinics in California – including one in Los Angeles – told the BBC that when celebrities are your patients, normal boundaries can be hard to maintain.

He said he was treating one unnamed celebrity who he offered his cell phone number to in case of emergencies.

The patient was “constantly trying to asking me favours – ‘hey, refill my prescription’- and it’s like Sunday evening.”

“I told him, ‘Look please email me anything medically related’ and blocked him,” Dr Mahjoubi said.

He also said he’s seen how ketamine has become a “go-to” party drug for celebrities, who think it is safer than something like cocaine, which can be laced with deadly drugs like fentanyl.

Another Los Angeles area doctor, who operates several pain management centres – another condition ketamine is marketed to – called the spread of ketamine treatments the new “wild west”.

He spoke to the BBC on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss ketamine’s popularity, detailing the nuanced relationships he’s witnessed between doctors and some celebrities.

Everyone wants to be a “doctor to the stars here”, the doctor explained. Some will go so far as offering free treatments or closing down their clinic or office for private access, all with the hope the celebrity patient will post about their treatment on social media.

“There are celebrities who are passed around from doctor-to-doctor and they are fought over,” the doctor added, calling it both “a weird relationship” and troubling business model.

A lot of these stars are “used to being told ‘yes’,” he said.

“If you don’t, they’ll just go to someone else who will give them what they want.”

Being surrounded by “yes men” can have life-changing ramifications, said Garrett Braukman, the executive director of the Alta Centers, a rehabilitation and detox treatment centre in Hollywood. About 20 to 30% of patients work in the film industry.

He said he’s seen an uptick in ketamine addiction, but it’s not outpacing commonly abused substances like alcohol, cocaine and opioids.

“People often get into the arts because of things they’ve experienced – a lot of time that’s trauma,” Mr Braukman said. When you add in Los Angeles’ fairly “normalized” drug culture and celebrity access, “it’s the perfect recipe for addiction,” he said.

A simple Google search for “ketamine prescription” reveals a handful of advertisements for online companies touting the benefits of “psychedelic therapy” to treat illnesses from depression and anxiety to Lyme disease and chronic pain, some offering a subscription for just $100 a month to get the drug.

One problem: The drug isn’t approved to treat those conditions.

The US Food and Drug Administration – the regulatory agency responsible for approving drugs and ensuring they’re safe, work and labelled properly – has only approved ketamine for general anaesthesia used under the care of a physician.

In 2019, the FDA approved a nasal-spray drug that is made from ketamine and okayed its use to treat depression, so long as the drug is coupled with additional therapy and administered under the direct supervision of a doctor. The doctor must also monitor the patient for two hours after the dose has been taken for potential side effects, which include hallucination, feeling disconnected from reality and increased blood pressure.

But these online clinics have exploited a grey area in the regulations to market off-label ketamine prescriptions directly to consumers, experts say.

While FDA advertising regulations restrict pharmaceutical companies that “manufacture, distribute, or pack”, they do not restrict new start-ups, like online “wellness” clinics.

“It’s a very tricky thing – it’s a loophole almost,” Dr Sanacora told the BBC.

Two weeks before Perry’s death, the FDA warned consumers about ketamine’s off-label use, noting “the lack of monitoring for adverse events, such as sedation and dissociation, by an onsite health care provider may put patients at risk”.

Doctors and experts say the market seemed to boom during the pandemic, when online telehealth services, clinics and at-home care proliferated.

The pain management doctor, who had spoken to the BBC on condition of anonymity, said some of these companies are structured in ways that “don’t want people to get better” but rather, to keep them on prescription subscriptions that keep money pouring in.

“It’s gotten out of hand,” he said.

Dr Sanacora, who has studied and researched how ketamine can be used to treat depression, said there is a lot of evidence of the drug’s efficacy. Drug trials are currently underway testing the merits of ketamine treatment for treatment-resistant depression.

But much is still not known about why it works, and it does come with risks, such as seizures and death.

Dr Sanacora said it’s unclear whether overdoses have increased, because the federal government does not track ketamine-related deaths, which it does for cocaine, heroin and opioid overdoes. Sometimes the drug is not even tested for during autopsies.

“There’s a lot we really don’t know,” he said.

The DEA’s chief Anne Milgram said the agency is targeting doctors who are over prescribing these drugs or prescribing it when it is not necessary.

Speaking with CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner, she compared ketamine and its use in the Perry case with the start of the opioid epidemic in the US.

“This, unfortunately, is a tragic arc that we have seen thinking back to the beginning of the opioid epidemic, where many Americans became addicted to controlled substances in doctors’ offices and through medical practitioners that then turned into street addiction as well.”

Qantas will refund or downgrade hundreds of passengers who were sold first-class flights at a huge discount last week because of a coding error.

“Unfortunately, this is a case where the fare was actually too good to be true,” a spokesperson for the Australian airline said.

On Thursday, when the erroneous offer was put up on its site, around 300 people quickly booked return flights between Australia and the US, paying 85% less than the usual first class fare.

Qantas said it will switch passengers who bought the bargain tickets into business class – one step down from first class – “at no additional cost”.

Customers paid less than a fraction of the usual price with the discounted fares available on the site for around eight hours.

That meant they would have paid a few thousand Australian dollars for tickets that are meant to cost more than AUD20,000 (£10,000), entitling them to whiskey and champagne, an à la carte food menu, plus a memory foam mattress and a “pillow menu” when they want to sleep.

However, the airline’s terms and conditions state when customers book that if there is an error or mistake that is reasonably obvious in the fare price, the airline is entitled to cancel the booking and offer a full refund.

“As a gesture of goodwill, we’re rebooking customers in business class at no additional cost. Customers also have the option of a full refund,” Qantas said in a statement.

A passenger travelling business class would still be paying 65% less than usual for their ticket, the airline said.

It’s not the first time an airline has mistakenly offered discount prices – in 2019, Cathay Pacific accidentally sold $16,000 business-class seats for $675. In the end, it did honour the tickets for those lucky passengers.

But airlines don’t always honour tickets sold mistakenly for cheap: in 2018, British Airways cancelled tickets between Dubai and Tel Aviv which were sold for £1 instead of £200.

China’s most decorated swimmer has made a winning return to the pool after serving a controversial four-year drugs ban.

Sun Yang won gold in the men’s 400m freestyle at China’s National Summer Swimming Championships in Hefei on Sunday – and then broke down while speaking to reporters.

He had been previously vilified by many in China as a drugs cheat, but his return was praised across state media.

His win on Sunday comes shortly after a highly publicised anti-doping row at the Paris Olympics this summer, in which China said its athletes were being unfairly targeted.

In a tearful poolside interview with reporters, the 32-year-old thanked those close to him for helping him get back to competing.

“This is really because of the reliance and support from my family — that’s what’s kept me going until today,” he told the South China Morning Post.

Sun was suspended by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) in 2020 for refusing to provide samples for testers who had visited his home.

In 2012, Sun became China’s first male swimmer to win an Olympic gold when he came first in the 400m and 1,500m freestyle races in London. Four years, he followed this up with another gold in the 200m freestyle at the Rio Olympics.

But his career came crashing down when anti-doping officials visited his home in 2018 for an out-of-competition test.

Sun and his team said the testers lacked the proper accreditation and refused to co-operate with them.

According to the testing team, a member of Sun’s entourage smashed a vial of his blood with a hammer to prevent them from departing with the sample.

Sun – who had already been suspended for three months in 2014 for using the banned substance Trimetazidine (TMZ) – denied any wrongdoing and he was initially cleared by swimming’s governing body Fina.

Two years later, however, CAS overturned the decision and ruled that Sun had refused to cooperate with the sample testers. He was given an eight-year ban, which was later reduced to four years and three months on appeal.

As he had never technically tested positive for any banned substances, Sun was allowed to keep all of his medals.

His victory on Sunday was widely hailed in Chinese state media outlets, whose posts on social channels were flooded with positive comments.

“Brother Sun, don’t cry. The past four years haven’t been easy. You’re amazing,” said one user on Weibo.

Another said: “Congratulations to Sun Yang. Four years and three months of determination and perseverance have all been worth it and have led to this moment. Looking forward to Los Angeles.”

Chinese swimmers have been in the spotlight since the Paris Olympics after a slew of doping allegations, followed by contentious US claims that the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) was covering it up.

Those who headed to Paris were drug-tested twice as much as some other nations, which, in turn, has fuelled accusations of a conspiracy to disrupt their performance.

At the time, the state-run Global Times blamed Western powers for “abusing doping tests to disrupt [the] Chinese swimming team”, while breaststroke champion Qin Haiyang accused opposing teams of using underhand “tricks” to disrupt Chinese competitors.

In his long-awaited return, Sun represented his home province of Zhejiang – but it is unclear whether he will be allowed to represent China on the international stage.

According to the country’s anti-doping regulations, athletes who have been banned for more than one year are not eligible to be selected for the national team.

Sun insists he will “go all out” to compete for a spot in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles – although his performance will need to drastically improve.

His race on Sunday featured no competitors who swam in the Paris Olympics and his time was nearly nine seconds slower than his previous best, which he clocked in London in 2012.

“I could have done better. Four years away from competition and without intensive training, I do feel rusty in controlling the tempo, and I need more competitions,” he told state-run outlet China Daily.

“But it’s a good start for my comeback, and I’m happy with this result,” he added.