Voters in two eastern German states are about to go to the polls in elections that could see the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party score its first wins at the regional level and a separate new populist force on the left establish a firm foothold.

The results in Saxony and Thuringia, due on Sunday evening, are expected to be disastrous for the three ruling parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left-led coalition government in Berlin, one year before Germany holds its next general election.

Many eastern voters say they are increasingly disillusioned with mainstream politics more than three decades after national reunification, with the lingering impact of structural decline, depopulation and lagging economic performance compounding a sense that they are still second-class citizens.

“The AfD has built up a core base [in the east] that now votes for it out of conviction, not just owing to frustration with the other parties,” said Prof André Brodocz, a political scientist at the University of Erfurt in Thuringia.

The anti-migration, anti-Islam AfD spent the last week of its campaign hammering home the message that the government is “failing” its citizens, while harnessing shock and outrage over the deadly mass stabbing in the western city of Solingen allegedly by a Syrian rejected asylum seeker.

The party, whose Saxony and Thuringia chapters security authorities have classed as rightwing extremist, could come out on top in both regions, as well as in Brandenburg, the rural state surrounding Berlin which will vote on 22 September, polls show.

The 11-year-old AfD clinched its first mayoral and district government posts last year but has never joined a state government. The remaining, democratic parties have vowed to maintain a “firewall” of opposition to working with the AfD, keeping it out of power.

Its co-leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, has repeatedly used banned Nazi slogans at his rallies and calls for an “about-face” in Germany’s culture of Holocaust remembrance and atonement.

He aims to achieve a blocking minority of one-third of the votes in Thuringia, where the Nazis first won power in a German state government in 1930 before consolidating control in Berlin three years later.

At a rally in Erfurt days before the election, Höcke told a cheering crowd that he and the AfD were the only ones standing in the way of the “cartel parties” working to “replace the German people” with a “multicultural society” under a “totalitarian dictatorship”.

Scholz’s coalition of the centre-left Social Democrats, the ecologist Greens and the liberal Free Democrats was already on the backfoot and each of the parties has reason to dread Sunday’s election night results.

Riven by ideological differences and personal rivalries, the government has repeatedly stumbled in recent months in realising its main policy initiatives including kickstarting the moribund economy and getting more electric vehicles on German roads. The Greens co-leader, Omid Nouripour, recently described the coalition in Berlin as a “transitional government” in the period after Angela Merkel’s 16 years in power.

If the governing parties fail to clear the 5% hurdle to representation in either of the states on Sunday – which opinion surveys indicate is possible – coalition building could prove highly tricky.

The leftwing but socially conservative Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), named after its firebrand leader, whose calls for higher taxes on the rich, a tougher line on migration and asylum, and an end to military support for Ukraine have struck a deep chord in the ex-communist east, could prove key in any coalition talks.

It is polling at about 11% in Saxony and 17% in Thuringia.

Her party’s rise was described as a “gamechanger” by Brodocz, underlining the rejection of the established political parties while offering disaffected easterners an alternative to the AfD, which many see as too radical.

Wagenknecht, already gearing up for the 2025 federal elections, has suggested she would drive up the price for joining any coalition, demanding “diplomacy” toward Russia while railing against a recent decision for the United States to begin deployment of long-range missiles in Germany from 2026.

The conservative opposition Christian Democratic Union party (CDU), which is leading in the national polls, could still eke out a victory in Saxony as it did five years ago, putting wind in the sails of its national leader, Friedrich Merz, who aims to challenge Scholz in the general election.

In Thuringia, it could come in second behind the AfD and then hammer out an ideologically awkward ruling alliance with smaller parties including Wagenknecht’s.

Merz has vowed the CDU will never work with the extremists but has moved his party steadily rightward, particularly in its migration rhetoric, during the post-Merkel years.

Ukraine has carried out one of its biggest ever drone attacks on Russia, with videos showing a series of explosions and fires at power stations and refineries including in Moscow.

Russia’s defence ministry downplayed the overnight strikes. It said it had intercepted and destroyed 158 unmanned enemy aerial vehicles. These were shot down over 15 regions, it claimed.

The strikes came as Russia bombarded Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv and made further incremental gains in the eastern Donbas region. Its forces have been rolling forward in recent weeks and are closing in on the city of Pokrovsk.

Footage posted on Telegram channels suggested some of the long-range Ukrainian drones hit targets deep inside Russia, causing damage. At least one struck an oil refinery in the Kapotnya district in south-east Moscow.

More drones hit a thermal power station in the Tver region, north of Moscow. There was an explosion at the Konakovo station, one of the biggest in Russia, soon after dawn at about 5am. An orange fireball engulfed several transformers.

Another coal-fired power plant at Kashira in Moscow oblast was also reportedly hit. The extent of the damage was unclear. Three drones were allegedly used. Russian officials said others crossed into the Voronezh, Tula, Kaluga, Bryansk, Belgorod, Lipetsk and Kursk regions.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s attacks on critical infrastructure inside Russia were an answer to the Kremlin’s repeated strikes on Ukrainian civilians and its own power infrastructure. “It is entirely justified for Ukrainians to respond to Russian terror by any means necessary to stop it,” he said.

He condemned Russia’s attack on Kharkiv on Sunday, when about a dozen Iskander-M ballistic missiles pummelled the city. “Russia is once again terrorising Kharkiv,” Zelenskiy tweeted, adding that a rescue operation was carried out with “all the necessary means”.

The short-range rockets hit buildings including Kharkiv’s giant concrete Palace of Sport. Black smoke poured from a gaping hole in its roof. Ukraine’s air defences were unable to shot down the Iskanders, which fly at 6,000km/h (3,730mph), said the regional prosecutor, Oleksandr Filchakov.

According to Kharkiv’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, 44 people were injured in the latest strikes. Seven of the victims were children including a three-month-old baby boy.

Bombs hit Kharkiv’s Kyiv district, near the hydropark, and landed next to a shopping centre and metro in Saltivka. In 2022 the Russians shelled this north-eastern area repeatedly. Local people who lived in its high-rise apartment blocks spent months sheltering in the underground station.

The newest salvo came after a Russian guided bomb smashed into a 12-storey residential building in Kharkiv on Friday. Several people died including Veronika Kozhushko, an 18-year-old artist, and a 14-year-old girl who was outside in a playground, sitting on a bench.

Zelenskiy said that over the past week the Kremlin had launched more than 160 missiles of various types, as well as 780 guided aerial bombs and 400 drones. “To fully protect and safeguard our cities from this aggression, we need greater support for Ukraine’s rightful response,” he said.

He has repeatedly called for the Biden administration to permit Ukraine to use US-supplied Atacms systems against military airfields on Russian territory. Visiting Washington last week, Ukraine’s defence minister, Rustem Umerov, gave US officials a list of potential high-value targets.

So far, however, the White House has refused to amend its red lines. The UK and France, which have supplied Kyiv with Storm Shadow and Scalp cruise missiles respectively, have also not given permission. They appear reluctant to act independently from the US.

Ukraine argues that destroying Russian airbases will protects its cities and help it to stem Russian advances in the east. In recent weeks Russian troops have made rapid progress. They are 5 miles away from Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian transport hub, and are approaching the neighbouring town of Myrnohrad.

Since 6 August, Ukraine’s armed forces have occupied 100 settlements inside Russia’s Kursk region, after a surprise incursion. In recent days this offensive has slowed down. Russia has sent in troops as reinforcements from other parts of the frontline while continuing its push for Pokrovsk.

On Sunday Russia’s defence ministry said it had captured two more villages in Donetsk oblast, Ptyche and Vyimka. Thousands of civilians have left Pokrovsk after an order to evacuate. Shops, banks and businesses have closed in anticipation of an imminent Russian attack.

Israel has confirmed the deaths of six more hostages taken in the 7 October attack by Hamas, saying they were killed by their captors shortly before their bodies were found on Saturday in a tunnel complex under Gaza.

“According to our initial estimation, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we reached them,” a military spokesperson, R Adm Daniel Hagari, told reporters in an early-morning briefing.

Hagari said the bodies were found during fighting in Rafah about a kilometre from a tunnel where another hostage, Qaid Farhan Alkadi, was rescued by Israeli forces on Tuesday.

Another Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson, Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, said the tunnel where the bodies were found was “a few dozen metres deep” and that the bodies were found during combat operations “above and below the ground in the area”.

The IDF said the cause of death had not been officially confirmed, but the Israeli press reported that the autopsy found all six had been shot in the head.

A senior Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, blamed the hostages’ deaths on Israel and the US, because Israel had not agreed to a ceasefire deal. He did not make any claims about how the hostages had died and did not comment on IDF suggestions that they had been executed.

An unnamed Hamas official was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying the hostages had been “killed by the [Israeli] occupation’s fire and bombing”, a claim denied by the IDF.

The news of the discovery of the hostages’ bodies brought calls for a mass protest from a hostage family organisation, which blamed the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for failing to agree a hostage-for-peace deal with Hamas that has been under negotiation for several months. The organisation warned that the country would “tremble”.

In a written statement, Netanyahu blamed Hamas for blocking the ceasefire agreement. “These days, while Israel is conducting intensive negotiations with the mediators in a supreme effort to reach a deal, Hamas continues to firmly refuse any proposal … Whoever murders abductees does not want a deal,” he said.

“We, for our part, did not let up. The Israeli government is committed, and I am personally committed, to continue striving for a deal that will return all our abductees and guarantee our security and existence.”

Unnamed Israeli security officials were quoted in the Israeli press on Sunday blaming Netanyahu’s insistence on holding on to strategic territory in Gaza as the principal obstacle to a deal. The Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, issued a statement calling for the cabinet to reverse a vote on Thursday to retain control of the Philadelphi corridor, along Gaza’s border with Egypt.

“It is too late for the hostages who were murdered in cold blood. We must bring back the hostages that are still being held by Hamas,” Gallant said. The defence minister was the only cabinet member to vote to give up control of the Philadelphi corridor in the interests of a hostage deal.

Eight hostages have been rescued and more than 100 were released in an earlier temporary ceasefire deal in November. The discovery of the six bodies leaves about 100 hostages still unaccounted for in Gaza. The IDF has confirmed 35 of them are known to have died during the more than 10 months of war in Gaza since the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel.

The IDF first reported on Saturday night that bodies had been found “during combat” and said work was still under way on extracting the remains and then identifying them.

Shortly after 7am on Sunday, the military confirmed it had located and recovered the bodies of Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Master Sgt Ori Danino on Saturday from an underground tunnel in the Rafah area of the Gaza Strip.

“They were all taken hostage on 7 October and were murdered by the Hamas terrorist organisation in the Gaza Strip,” said an IDF statement. “Following an identification procedure carried out by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, the Israel police and the IDF military rabbinate, the IDF manpower directorate’s hostage team, which is responsible for accompanying the families of the hostages, notified their families.

“The IDF and ISA [the Israel Security Agency, Shin Bet] send their heartfelt condolences to the families. The IDF and Israeli security forces are operating with all means to bring home all the hostages as fast as possible.”

Gallant said in a statement: “I commend the IDF and ISA forces for conducting a complex operation to retrieve the bodies of the hostages for burial in Israel.”

An organisation representing many relatives of the abductees, the Hostage Families Forum, called for a nationwide protest and general strike against the Netanyahu government, which it has long accused of dragging its feet over a hostage deal with Hamas that the US and its regional allies have been trying to broker since the end of May.

“Netanyahu abandoned the abductees. This is now a fact,” the forum said in a statement issued on Saturday night when the first reports emerged of bodies having been found. “Starting tomorrow, the country will tremble. We call on the public to prepare to bring the country to a standstill.”

It said in a further statement on Sunday: “These six individuals were taken alive, endured the horrors of captivity and were then coldly murdered … A deal for the return of the hostages has been on the table for over two months. Were it not for the delays, sabotage and excuses, those whose deaths we learned about this morning would likely still be alive.”

Reports in the Israeli press quoted officials as saying that three of the hostages whose bodies were found on Saturday – Goldberg-Polin, Yerushalmi and Gat– would have been released in the first phase of the ceasefire deal under negotiation.

The family of the 23-year-old Israeli-American Goldberg-Polin had confirmed his death a few hours before the IDF named the victims on Sunday. “With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh,” the statement said.

The Goldberg-Polin family had taken the Israeli hostage crisis to the global arena, meeting with world leaders to press their case. Last month they addressed the Democratic party convention, where the crowd chanted: “Bring them home.”

The family’s announcement was followed by a statement from Joe Biden saying he was “devastated and outraged”.

“It is as tragic as it is reprehensible,” Biden said. “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”

About 250 Israeli hostages were taken in the shock attack on southern Israel on 7 October, in which Hamas killed 1,200 people. In the war in Gaza that followed, 40,691 Palestinians have been killed, according to the latest estimate by the Palestinian health ministry.

Biden, speaking to reporters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, said he was “still optimistic” about a ceasefire. “I think we’re on the verge of having an agreement,” he said. “It’s time this war ended … People are continuing to meet. We think we can close the deal, they’ve all said they agree on the principles.”

The Gaza conflict is increasingly spreading to the occupied West Bank, where the IDF has carried out extensive raids in the past week aimed at tracking down Hamas and other militants. On Sunday, three Israeli police officers were shot dead in an attack on their car near the city of Hebron, in what the IDF described as a “drive-by shooting” by a single gunman, who was still being pursued at midday.

Israeli authorities said two car bomb attacks aimed at Israeli settlements on the West Bank were foiled on Saturday. One vehicle reportedly loaded with explosives, nails and screws detonated prematurely in a petrol station in the Gush Etzion cluster of settlements, while the other car was rammed by security guards in the Karmei Tzur settlement.

The Israeli police believe the car bombs had been built in Hebron nearby. The IDF’s spokesperson Shoshani said the incident showed an “intent to inflict mass casualties”, which had been prevented at the last minute.

Overnight, the rumours spread: the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had found bodies in Gaza. Everyone in Israel knew the corpses were likely to be hostages seized on 7 October. The grim details – how many, their identities, and how and when they died – slowly emerged during the early hours of Sunday, to mounting sorrow and fury across the country.

The bodies of six people kidnapped alive by Hamas – Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Master Sgt Ori Danino – were found in a Rafah tunnel 20 metres underground, a kilometre away from where another hostage, Qaid Farhan Alkadi, was found in relatively decent health last week. Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American citizen, appeared in a Hamas video in April. It was clear from the footage that his left hand had been amputated.

Initial autopsies indicated all six had died from shots to the head and had otherwise been in frail but stable condition, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. The IDF said it believed the hostages were killed on Friday or Saturday, shortly before troops arrived at the location, to prevent their rescue.

It is too early to tell yet, but anger at their deaths could be the spark that reinvigorates the protest movement in Israel calling for a ceasefire and hostage release deal, as well as calls for new elections aimed at toppling the rightwing government of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The longtime Israeli leader has been repeatedly accused of stalling on a ceasefire deal for his own political gain.

After something of a summer lull, this Saturday night’s protests across Israel for a ceasefire and hostage deal drew larger numbers than recent weeks. Demonstrators were already galvanised by the recovery two weeks ago of the bodies of another six hostages, five of whom were previously known to be dead, and the stalling ceasefire talks. Public support for a deal remains high.

The last cabinet meeting on Thursday reportedly ended in a shouting match between the prime minister and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, after the assembled ministers doubled down on Netanyahu’s demand that Israel must retain control of the Gaza-Egypt border, a big sticking point in ceasefire talks.

Einav Zangauker, whose 24-year-old son Matan is being held captive, accused Netanyahu of “murdering” the hostages still in Gaza. “He’s decided to sentence them to death. He’s decided to give them up. He’s decided to bury them in the rubble of his politics. He is committing a crime against his own people,” she told the crowd in Tel Aviv before the news of the most recent deaths broke.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum issued a statement calling on the public to prepare for widespread protests on Sunday. “Starting tomorrow, the country will shake … The abandonment is over,” it said.

On Sunday, hundreds of people gathered outside the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem, protesting in favour of a deal, and mass rallies are expected across the country in the evening. Strikes are also on the cards, the first such large-scale action in the 11-month-old war so far.

The mayors of Tel Aviv and nearby Givatayim announced the municipalities would be striking on Monday to demand the return of the hostages, and more are expected to follow suit.

The Histadrut, Israel’s biggest trade union, has declared a general strike from 6am on Monday after calls from the families of hostages and Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid.

This action from the labour movement is decisive – it will mean Tel Aviv airport, the only major route in and out of the country, will be closed, and could also affect hospitals and other public services, costing the economy millions of shekels.

The Histadrut has not taken such drastic action since March 2023, when Netanyahu tried to fire Gallant over his opposition to the government’s controversial judicial overhaul plans. It worked: Netanyahu was forced to reverse his decision, and the proposed changes to the judiciary were delayed until the Knesset’s summer session.

Economic pressure was employed successfully against Netanyahu last year, but since 7 October the prime minister has become more desperate than ever to cling on to power. If the protesters’ goal is to bring down his government, change will still need to come from within. Netanyahu’s coalition has a majority of four seats; five members of the government would have to desert their leader in order to force new elections.

Israel on Sunday confirmed the deaths of six hostages seized in the 7 October attack by Hamas.

About 250 hostages were taken during the surprise attack on southern Israel, in which Hamas killed 1,200 people. In the war in Gaza that followed, 40,691 Palestinians have been killed, according to the latest estimate by the Palestinian health ministry.

On Sunday, Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, said the country would continue the fight against Hamas while prioritising the rescue of the remaining hostages. “The heart of an entire nation is shattered to pieces,” said Herzog. “I embrace their families with all my heart, and apologise for failing to bring them home safely.”

Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23

Originally from California, Goldberg-Polin immigrated to Israel with his family as a young child. He was taken at gunpoint by Hamas militants while at the Nova music festival.

His parents, Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, had tirelessly worked to keep global attention on the Israeli hostage crisis, with efforts that included meeting the US president, Joe Biden, and Pope Francis as well as addressing the United Nations.

In August his parents spoke at the Democratic party convention, where they were greeted by a crowd that chanted: “Bring them home.” They described Hersh as a music lover and traveller with plans to attend university now that his military service had ended.

The family confirmed his death a few hours before the Israel Defense Forces named the victims on Sunday. “With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh,” they said in a statement.

Eden Yerushalmi, 24

Born in Tel Aviv, Yerushalmi loved spending summer days at the beach and was studying to become a pilates instructor, according to the Hostage Families Forum, which has been leading advocacy efforts for the captives’ release.

She had been working as a bartender at the Nova music festival on 7 October. After Hamas’s initial rocket attack set off air raid sirens, she told her family in a video that she was leaving the party. Over the next four hours, as Hamas continued its attack, she was in contact with the police and her sisters.

“They’ve caught me,” were her last words to them.

Carmel Gat, 40

From Tel Aviv, the occupational therapist was “full of compassion and love”, and enjoyed travel, rock concerts and the band Radiohead, according to the families’ forum.

She had been staying with her parents in kibbutz Be’eri on 7 October, one of the communities hardest hit by the attack. Hamas fighters broke into their home and kidnapped her; her mother was killed in the attack.

Hostages who were released during a ceasefire in November described Gat as their “guardian angel”, detailing how she had helped them survive captivity by teaching them meditation and yoga exercises.

Alexander Lobanov, 33

From the coastal city of Ashkelon, in southern Israel, Lobanov was married with two children, including a five-month-old baby born while he was in captivity.

On 7 October he was at the Nova festival, working as a bar manager.

Citing witnesses, the families’ forum said Lobanov had helped to evacuate people from the festival before running into the Be’eri forest with several other people. He was later captured in the forest by Hamas gunmen.

Almog Sarusi, 27

The forum described Sarusi as a “vibrant, positive person who loved travelling around Israel in his white Jeep with his guitar”. He had been at the music festival with his girlfriend of five years, who was shot and killed during the attack.

The forum said Sarusi stayed at his girlfriend’s side after she was injured, trying to save her. He was taken hostage as his girlfriend succumbed to her injuries.

Ori Danino, 25

Born in Jerusalem, Danino was the eldest of five siblings and had planned to study electrical engineering. “Ori was known for his ambition, love for people, and was beloved by all,” the forum said. “He loved nature and was very handy.”

He had been at the Nova festival on 7 October, according to the forum, and had been helping others try to escape when he was taken hostage.

With contributions from the Associated Press

Triathlon events at the Paralympic Games were postponed on Sunday morning, four hours before competition was to begin, with poor water quality in the River Seine once again making it unsafe for athletes.

Staging the swimming leg of the triathlon in the Seine was one of the most eye-catching offerings of Paris 2024, part of the promise to make the Games “open”. But concerns over the water quality have proven well-founded, with the event being postponed because of high levels of pollution, first at the Olympics and now the Paralympics.

A reluctance to delay the event led organisers to insist the races would be going ahead on Sunday until 3.30am, Paris time. It was only then that a meeting between executives from World Triathlon and Paris 2024 confirmed the postponement. When the scheduled start time of 7.30am arrived, there were bemused fans crossing the Ponte Alexandre III unaware the event had been delayed.

“The latest tests show a decrease in water quality in the river following the rain episodes over the last two days,” a statement from World Triathlon read, saying the events would go ahead on Monday if the water tests complied with “established World Triathlon thresholds”. A previous decision had brought events forward from Monday to Sunday because of potential deteriorating water quality.

“Paris 2024 and World Triathlon reiterate that their priority is the health of the athletes and with these conditions, the triathlon events cannot take place today,” the statement said.

Paralympics GB have strong medal hopes in the triathlon, with Lauren Steadman hoping to retain her title in the women’s PTS5 category. The GB team leader for para triathlon, Tom Hodgkinson, said he supported the decision to postpone but acknowledged disappointment at the outcome, with athletes having gone to bed expecting to race.

“The postponement is naturally disappointing, however we know it has been made for the right reason,” he said. “We work with the athletes to be best prepared, and that includes their ability to adapt to the circumstances they face.

“When the time comes to race, we know that athletes and staff will have done everything possible to make it a successful Paralympic Games.”

Test results on Saturday had shown acceptable levels for racing but Paris 2024 officials had acknowledged that they could dip further with more rain, after heavy downpours hit Paris on Friday and Saturday. Weather forecasts suggest dry and warm weather will now follow for the next few days. Images of the Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo, swimming in the Seine in July to prove its safety now seem a long time ago, however.

Afghan women, both inside and outside the country, have posted videos of themselves singing in protest against the Taliban’s laws banning women’s voices in public.

Late last month the Taliban published new restrictions aimed, it said, at combating vice and promoting virtue. The 35-article document, which includes a raft of draconian laws, deems women’s voices to be potential instruments of vice and stipulates that women must not sing or read aloud in public, nor let their voices carry beyond the walls of their homes.

As rights campaigners reacted with horror, Afghan women began pushing back. Across the country, women began uploading videos of themselves singing, in defiance of the Taliban’s systematic efforts to erase women from the public sphere.

“No command, system or man can close the mouth of an Afghan woman,” one 23-year-old said after posting her own video.

The 39-second video showed her singing outdoors. The song she sang had been carefully chosen for its lyrics, which spoke of protest and strength. “I am not that weak willow that trembles in every wind,” she sang. “I am from Afghanistan.”

In another video, reportedly recorded in Kabul, a woman is shown singing while dressed from head to toe in black. “You have silenced my voice for the foreseeable future,” she sang, her face concealed by a long veil. “You have imprisoned me in my home for the crime of being a woman.”

Other videos showed women in Afghanistan singing alone or in small groups, using hashtags such as “#My voice is not forbidden” and “#No to Taliban” as they raised their voices against what UN officials have described as a “gender-based apartheid”.

Others around the world soon joined in. “We do not go to the field with a gun, but our voice, our image,” said Hoda Khamosh, an Afghan woman living in Norway. She posted her own video in a bid to show “that we women are not just a few individuals who can be erased”, she said.

The new laws also force women to wear thick clothes that completely cover their bodies – including their faces – while in public, and bans them from looking directly at men they are not related to by blood or marriage.

Those who fail to comply with the restrictions can be detained and punished in a manner deemed appropriate by Taliban officials.

On Tuesday, the UN high commissioner for human rights called for the law to be repealed, describing it as “utterly intolerable”.

The new law cements policies that seek to completely erase women’s presence in public, “effectively attempting to render them into faceless, voiceless shadows”, said a spokesperson, Ravina Shamdasani.

Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, they have steadily eroded women’s rights. Women and girls have been blocked from attending secondary school, banned from nearly all forms of paid employment, and barred from public parks and gyms.

Earlier this year, the Taliban also announced that they would resume the practice of stoning women to death for adultery.

In an interview airing on Sunday, US supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson lamented her conservative colleagues’ decision to grant broad immunity to Donald Trump and other presidents for official acts as essentially protecting “one individual under one set of circumstances when we have a criminal justice system that had ordinarily treated everyone the same”.

“I mean that was my view of what the court determined,” Jackson said in the pre-recorded conversation for the news program CBS Sunday Morning. And she added: “I was concerned.”

As interviewer Norah O’Donnell noted, Jackson’s remarks – first circulated by the network in a preview – hewed closely to the written dissent that the liberal justice issued alongside the 1 July ruling.

Jackson’s dissent read: “The court … declared for the first time in history that the most powerful official in the United States can (under circumstances yet to be fully determined) become a law unto himself.”

The justice joined fellow liberals Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor in voting against the immunity ruling, handed down as Trump sought a second presidential term while grappling with criminal charges that he oversaw a sprawling effort to illegally overturn his defeat in the 2020 election against Joe Biden.

However, their bloc was overruled by the supreme court’s conservative supermajority – Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, John Roberts and Clarence Thomas. Critics of the decision have fumed that Trump appointed Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to the supreme court during the Republican’s presidency.

O’Donnell asked Jackson whether she was “prepared” in the event that the supreme court is tasked with deciding the outcome of November’s White House race between Trump and Kamala Harris, his Democratic rival. Jackson replied with seemingly forced laughter: “As prepared as anyone can be.”

She added: “I mean, I think there are legal issues that arise out of the political process … and so the supreme court has to be prepared to respond if that should be necessary.”

Polls for the moment generally show Trump trailing Harris in key battleground states that could decide the election. Republicans nominated him as their candidate despite his being convicted in a New York state court of falsifying business records in connection with hush-money payments to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who has alleged an extramarital sexual encounter with him about a decade before he successfully ran for the Oval Office.

Trump is also facing charges in three separate cases brought by federal prosecutors as well as a district attorney in Georgia over his efforts to nullify his 2020 defeat and his retention of government documents after leaving the White House. Many have perceived the supreme court’s presidential immunity ruling to be a threat to the viability of the federal prosecutors’ cases, if not all of them.

But in recent days the special counsel in charge of the federal cases – Jack Smith – took steps to shore up their respective positions.

Smith’s office obtained a new indictment against Trump in Washington DC’s federal courthouse emphasizing that the former president was acting outside the scope of his official duties when allegedly interfering with the outcome of the 2020 election.

Meanwhile, Smith’s office also asked a federal appeals court to reinstate the government secrets retention case, which a Trump-appointed trial judge dismissed in mid-July. The prosecutors maintained that Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of the case stemmed from an incorrect belief that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.

Trump is awaiting a sentencing hearing tentatively set for 18 September in the New York courthouse where he was convicted. Ahead of that proceeding, he has ambitiously requested that the case be transferred to the federal justice system, ostensibly to avail himself of an appeals process ultimately overseen by the supreme court. A similar pleading from Trump in advance of the New York trial failed.

No trial date has been set for the Georgia prosecution.

Jackson appeared on CBS to promote her memoir, titled Lovely One, being published on Tuesday. She became the first Black woman on the US supreme court after Biden appointed her in 2022 to replace the retiring Stephen Breyer.

A beluga whale nicknamed Hvaldimir, first spotted in Norway not far from Russian waters while wearing a harness that prompted rumours he might be a spy for Moscow, has been found dead.

The Norwegian public broadcaster NRK reported that the whale’s body was found floating in the Risavika Bay in southern Norway on Saturday by a father and son who were fishing.

The beluga, whose nickname was a combination of the Norwegian word for whale – hval – and the first name of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was lifted out of the water by crane and taken to a nearby harbour, where experts will examine it.

The marine biologist Sebastian Strand told NRK: “Unfortunately, we found Hvaldimir floating in the sea. He has passed away, but it’s not immediately clear what the cause of death is.” He added that no major external injuries were visible on the animal.

Strand, who has monitored Hvaldimir’s adventures for the past three years on behalf of the Norway-based non-profit organisation Marine Mind, said he was deeply affected by the whale’s sudden death.

“It’s absolutely horrible,” Strand said. “He was apparently in good condition as of [Friday], so we just have to figure out what might have happened here.”

The 4.2-metre (14ft), 1,225kg (2,700lb) whale was first spotted in April 2019 by fishers near the northern island of Ingøya, not far from the Arctic city of Hammerfest. He was wearing a harness and what appeared to be a mount for a small camera and a buckle marked with the words “Equipment St Petersburg”.

That sparked allegations the beluga was a “spy whale”. Experts have said the Russian navy is known to have trained whales for military purposes.

Over the years, the beluga was seen in the waters off several Norwegian coastal towns and it quickly became clear that he was very tame and enjoyed playing with people, NRK said.

Marine Mind said on its site that Hvaldimir was very interested in people and responded to hand signals. “Based on these observations, it appeared as if Hvaldimir arrived in Norway by crossing over from Russian waters, where it is presumed he was held in captivity,” it said.

Because of this behaviour, Norwegian media have also speculated that Hvaldimir may have been used as “a therapy whale” of some sort in Russia.

A beluga whale nicknamed Hvaldimir, first spotted in Norway not far from Russian waters while wearing a harness that prompted rumours he might be a spy for Moscow, has been found dead.

The Norwegian public broadcaster NRK reported that the whale’s body was found floating in the Risavika Bay in southern Norway on Saturday by a father and son who were fishing.

The beluga, whose nickname was a combination of the Norwegian word for whale – hval – and the first name of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was lifted out of the water by crane and taken to a nearby harbour, where experts will examine it.

The marine biologist Sebastian Strand told NRK: “Unfortunately, we found Hvaldimir floating in the sea. He has passed away, but it’s not immediately clear what the cause of death is.” He added that no major external injuries were visible on the animal.

Strand, who has monitored Hvaldimir’s adventures for the past three years on behalf of the Norway-based non-profit organisation Marine Mind, said he was deeply affected by the whale’s sudden death.

“It’s absolutely horrible,” Strand said. “He was apparently in good condition as of [Friday], so we just have to figure out what might have happened here.”

The 4.2-metre (14ft), 1,225kg (2,700lb) whale was first spotted in April 2019 by fishers near the northern island of Ingøya, not far from the Arctic city of Hammerfest. He was wearing a harness and what appeared to be a mount for a small camera and a buckle marked with the words “Equipment St Petersburg”.

That sparked allegations the beluga was a “spy whale”. Experts have said the Russian navy is known to have trained whales for military purposes.

Over the years, the beluga was seen in the waters off several Norwegian coastal towns and it quickly became clear that he was very tame and enjoyed playing with people, NRK said.

Marine Mind said on its site that Hvaldimir was very interested in people and responded to hand signals. “Based on these observations, it appeared as if Hvaldimir arrived in Norway by crossing over from Russian waters, where it is presumed he was held in captivity,” it said.

Because of this behaviour, Norwegian media have also speculated that Hvaldimir may have been used as “a therapy whale” of some sort in Russia.

Robert F Kennedy Jr is suing North Carolina’s state board of elections after it refused to remove his name from the electoral ballot following his decision to drop his independent presidential campaign and endorse Donald Trump.

The legal action comes after a series of ballot woes that initially impeded Kennedy’s campaign but are now threatening to undermine the impact of his decision to end it.

Kennedy announced the suspension of his presidential bid on 23 August, saying he planned to remove his name from the ballot in 10 states, including vital swing states where his was presence was likely to damage Trump in knife-edge contests with Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

“Our polling consistently showed that by staying on the ballot in the battleground states, I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats, with whom I disagree on the most existential issues,” Kennedy told journalists when he announced his withdrawal in Phoenix, Arizona, last month.

He has since been enthusiastically embraced by Trump, who has appointed him to his transition team, despite concerns among conservative Republicans about Kennedy’s Democratic past and his support for abortion rights.

However, Kennedy’s request to remove his name in North Carolina – a key battleground where recent opinion surveys have shown Harris taking a small lead – was rejected by the state election board after it said around 1.7m ballot papers had already been printed and that producing new ones would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“It would not be practical to reprint ballots that have already been printed and meet the state law deadline to start absentee voting,” the board said in a 29 August statement.

Sixty seven of the states 100 counties have already received their absentee mail-in ballots, meaning creating batches would create logistical problems, officials said. “When we talk about the printing a ballot we are not talking about … pressing ‘copy’ on a Xerox machine. This is a much more complex and layered process,” the election board’s executive director, Karen Brinson Bell, said.

Board members split three to two along Democratic-Republican party lines in denying Kennedy’s request.

A law suit filed on his behalf claims that the decision has damaged his rights of free speech.

“By refusing to acknowledge Kennedy’s statutory rights and entitlements, defendants have irreparably harmed him,” the suit argued. “Even worse, by forcing Kennedy to remain on the ballot against his will, defendants are compelling speech in violation of [the US constitution].”

The dispute with North Carolina is mirrored in two other states seen as vital to the outcome of the 5 November election.

Kennedy has also been refused permission to remove his name from the ballot in Wisconsin and Michigan, where polls indicate his presence could help Harris at the expense of Trump.

In Michigan, Harris gains 0.1% with Kennedy’s name on the ballot, according to RealClearPolitics, which already gives her a 2.2% lead over Trump from recent polling averages. The same analysis sees her gaining 0.5% through Kennedy’s presence in Wisconsin, where she already has a one point advantage in recent surveys.

Wisconsin – where Kennedy was nominated by the Natural Law Party – rejected his request to remove his name on 27 August, citing election law that states that only death could result in a candidate’s removal once nominated.

“Any person who files nomination papers and qualifies to appear on the ballot may not decline nomination,” the state’s election law says. “The name of that person shall appear upon the ballot except in case of death of the person.”

Kennedy has successfully removed himself from the ballot in several other battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona.

His struggle to get off the ballot in some states has been mirrored by his difficulties in getting on in others, where his presence is unlikely to affect the outcome.

In New York, an appeals committee last week upheld a judge’s decision to exclude from the ballot on the grounds that he lived in California and that an address he filed as a state residence was that of a friend.

“This is not a situation where Kennedy erroneously listed a former residence in the nominating petition, but rather, Kennedy listed an address at which the record evidence reflects he has never resided,” the panel of judges wrote.

Ironically, Georgia – another battleground state where Kennedy’s presence could adversely affect Trump – recently ruled that he was “not qualified” to appear on the ballot because of doubts about his New York residence. The Georgia secretary of state’s office has said that Kennedy’s name “will not be appearing on the ballot in Georgia this election”.

Artists have been urged to take a stand against “extortionate” dynamic pricing for concerts after Oasis tickets were hiked up to more than double their original price.

Fans of the Manchester band expressed their shock and anger after queueing online for hours only to find that the price of the £135 standing tickets had risen to £355.

The MP Lucy Powell, the leader of the House of Commons, said she had paid “more than I was expecting to pay” and that she did not like the so-called dynamic pricing model, whereby ticketing sites can raise prices based on demand.

Powell said she was “not sure how totally transparent” the process was after hundreds of thousands of fans waited for tickets based on the prices released last week.

Fans only discovered at the point of purchase, after spending hours in an online queue, that standing tickets described as “in demand” – costing £337.50 plus fees – were available. These offer the same as the basic £135 tickets despite being more than double the price.

Ticketmaster, which is owned by the US entertainment giant Live Nation, defended its dynamic pricing model – similar to that used by hotels and airlines – and said it did not set any ticket prices.

The firm has argued that the system is designed to discourage ticket touts by setting prices closer to market value. It says the “in demand” fees are agreed in advance with artists and their management.

The Lib Dem culture spokesperson, Jamie Stone MP, said: “It is scandalous to see our country’s biggest cultural moments being turned into obscene cash cows by greedy promoters and ticketing websites. The Oasis ticket fiasco must be a watershed moment and lead to an official investigation, either by the watchdog or a parliamentary body.”

Labour has pledged in its manifesto to tackle ticket touting – where secondary sites sell tickets at vastly inflated prices – and is due to launch a consultation on it in the autumn.

In Ireland, fans trying to buy tickets for Oasis’s Croke Park gigs for €86.50 (£73) were faced with prices of €415.50 for the same ticket.

Regina Doherty, an MEP for the Dublin constituency, called for an investigation into the pricing which, she said, was not “transparent advertising and certainly not fair to consumers”. She added: “Every ticket for these gigs was always going to be ‘in demand’, so slapping an extra label and €300 on some standing tickets is just extortionate.”

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said last year that it was “aware of the concerns” about ticketing websites using dynamic pricing and was “monitoring the situation”.

The commission said the “imposition of excessive prices by a dominant company” would be in breach of EU law.

Earlier this year, the US Department of Justice announced that it was suing Live Nation for “monopolisation and other unlawful conduct that thwarts competition in markets across the live entertainment industry”.

Jonathan Brown, the chief executive of the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers, defended the dynamic pricing policy and stressed that prices were set by artists. He said people were “used to” the shift in price, comparing it to booking a hotel or travel.

But John Robb, the musician and author, said it was “exploiting people’s excitement in the worst possible way … We need the government to look into this, and we need to stop people getting fleeced.”

Sean Adams, who manages artists including Charlotte Church and the Anchoress and founded the music website Drowned in Sound, called for MPs to investigate dynamic pricing, but said that “change really needs to come from artists”.

He added: “Why does a ‘band of the people’ go along with these corporate dynamic ticket policies that feel like it rips off fans who had the same chance of joining a digital queue as everyone else?”

Dozens of Oasis fans complained that they had not been warned that prices might rise when they reached the front of the queue.

Prof Michael Waterson, who was commissioned by the previous government to review anti-touting measures in 2016, said it was particularly important for ticketing firms to be transparent about prices in advance. “You can then think about whether you’re willing to pay higher amounts of money and it’s less of a surprise,” he said.

UK consumer regulations state that companies must be transparent about the prices they charge and must not mislead customers, such as by providing false or deceptive information or by leaving out important information or providing it too late.

The Competition and Markets Authority said it could not comment on individual cases.

The ticketing and security expert Reg Walker, who works with major music venues, said Ticketmaster would ultimately emerge as a major beneficiary from the higher fees. “The reason they push it [dynamic pricing] is that if you sell a ticket at £100, at 10% service charge you get £10. If you sell it at £400, you’re getting £40.

“So it’s in Ticketmaster’s interests to push this model. I’m not convinced that artists know what they’re getting into.”

The Guardian has approached Ticketmaster and representatives of Oasis for comment.

A former Miss South Africa contestant hounded over a nationality row was crowned Miss Universe Nigeria on Saturday, bringing to an end a difficult few weeks for the contender.

Born to a Nigerian father in South Africa, 23-year-old Chidimma Adetshina withdrew from the country’s competition “for the safety and wellbeing of my family” after a backlash that exposed anti-foreigner sentiment in South Africa.

“This journey has been a tough journey for me … I am so proud of myself and I’m really grateful for the love and the support,” Adetshina told AFP minutes after being crowned in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos. “This is something that I’ve always wanted, and I’m really glad that I have a second shot as well at achieving it.”

Her Nigerian heritage attracted vicious xenophobic attacks and sparked controversy when she was announced as a Miss South Africa finalist in July, while the government said it was investigating a claim that her mother may have stolen the identity of a South African woman.

Even though she had not been in the country for 20 years, organisers of the Nigerian contest invited her to join their final, saying it was a chance for her to “represent your father’s native land on an international stage”.

“We all need to stop with the xenophobia … with the tribalism,” first runner-up Paula Ezendu told AFP. “We’re all one family. We’re all human beings.”

Adetshina insisted she loved South Africa despite the nationality controversy and was grateful for the support from the country.

She will represent Nigeria at the international Miss Universe competition in November. “I know we are going to win,” she told reporters.

A British endurance swimmer is believed to have broken a world record for the fastest swim across Lake Geneva.

Sam Farrow, 31, from Wigan, swam the length of the lake from the Château de Chillon to the Bains des Pâquis – a distance of 45.2 miles (72.8km) – in 22 hours and 48 minutes.

She said: “I don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet. We went out there to try and get the fastest British female record and just in hopes of finishing it. I wanted to see what I could do. I never expected to get the overall fastest female or the time that I got. Complete shock.”

During the swim she had to tread water when taking breaks for food and drink. “You’re not allowed to touch the boat and no one on the boat is allowed to touch you,” she said. “They’ll put carbohydrate powders and little snacks in bottles on a rope, and they throw it out to me and I have to tread water while I eat.”

She endured fatigue, back aches and cramps and said she tried to take in the sights of Lake Geneva to get her through the pain.

“I got to about 55km, my back fatigued, so all the big muscles in my back were just cramping. The last 15km was agony,” she said. “Every so often I would have to stop swimming and curl up into a ball to bend my spine.”

She added: “I would just make myself think: you’re in the middle of Geneva at 4am, it’s absolutely beautiful. How lucky are you? Not many people get the chance to do this. Every time I had something potentially negative come in, I just tried to switch it.”

Farrow’s longest swims before Lake Geneva were across Loch Awe, Loch Lomond and Loch Ness in Scotland, which are between 36km and 41km in length. She started training for her more than 70km swim in December, juggling it with her job as an instant feeding practitioner and spending time with her two children.

“I’ve not done as much training as most of us would do,” she said. “I have two jobs and two children, so it’s definitely a juggling act.”

Her swim is yet to be ratified and she will find out at the end of September if she has officially broken the world record.