Emmanuel Macron has appointed the EU’s former Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, as prime minister of France, as he seeks to put an end to two months of political paralysis after a snap election.

The French president said he had tasked Barnier with forming “a unifying government in the service of the country”.

Macron shocked France by calling a snap parliamentary election in June that resulted in a hung parliament and a deeply divided political landscape.

A leftwing coalition emerged as France’s biggest political force but with not enough seats to reach an absolute majority of 289 in the national assembly. Macron’s centrist faction and the far right make up the two other major groups. Barnier’s traditional rightwing party came fourth and has 47 seats in parliament.

He replaces Gabriel Attal, who resigned on 16 July after the snap election but was kept on by Macron in a caretaker capacity.

Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally party said support for Barnier would depend on his policy programme.

The Socialist party leader, Olivier Faure, part of the leftwing coalition that won the highest number of seats in the election, said it was a “denial of democracy” for Macron to appoint a prime minister from the party that came fourth. “We’re entering a crisis of regime,” Faure said.

Barnier was known for almost 50 years in rightwing French politics as a centrist, liberal-minded neo-Gaullist, devoted to the European cause. But in 2021 he stunned observers by lurching to the right and hardening his stance on immigration and security as part of an unsuccessful attempt to become the presidential candidate for the right against Macron in 2022.

At the time, Barnier claimed that unregulated immigration from outside the EU was weakening France’s sense of identity. He believed the UK’s vote to leave the EU showed how dangerous it could be when divisions in society were allowed to fester. Shocking many in Brussels, he called for a French moratorium of three to five years for non-European immigrants, in which even family members joining those already in France would be stopped, and called for the country to regain legal sovereignty from EU courts.

Barnier has previously said he wanted to return to a leading role in French politics. After the post-Brexit agreement was signed with the UK, he said he realised he missed France and wanted to be “useful” in French politics. “I’ve never been a technocrat, I’ve always been a politician,” Barnier said when he tried to become the presidential candidate for Les Républicains.

At 73, Barnier becomes the oldest premier in the history of modern France. This week, Julien Odoul, an MP for Le Pen’s party, criticised him over his age, saying he was a “French Joe Biden” who often changed his views, and was “an opportunist” with “no backbone”.

Barnier has long styled himself as a dependable elder statesman – a mountaineer and hiker from the Alps, who built his career in local village politics and likes walks in ancient forests.

First elected aged 22 as a local councillor in Savoie, he entered parliament aged only 27 in 1978. He served four times as a government minister and twice as EU commissioner. His supporters point out that he has won every direct vote he has stood for since the age of 22. He is a former environment minister, and co-organiser of the 1992 Winter Olympics.

Two of the people who died on the British tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s yacht, which capsized and sank off the coast of Sicily in August, reportedly died from asphyxiation when they ran out of oxygen in the cabins.

A source close to the investigation told the Guardian that Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, and his wife, Neda, “did not have water in their lungs, trachea, and stomach”.

The source, who described their deaths as “death by confinement”, confirmed the version provided by the firefighters’ divers and the coastguard, who had stated that the passengers trapped in the cabins had probably attempted to consume the oxygen in the air bubble that had formed as the boat sank.

Despite the clear evidence from the initial examinations, the source added that “the results are still provisional, as histological exams on samples taken from the bodies will be needed to ascertain the cause of death”.

The superyacht Bayesian sank off the coast of Porticello, a fishing village near Palermo, when the area was hit by violent storms. Seven people died, including Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah.

Fifteen people survived, including Lynch’s wife, whose company owned the Bayesian. It is thought that it was struck by a downburst, a gusty wind associated with storms.

Italian prosecutors have placed three crew members under investigation for manslaughter and shipwreck, including the captain of the yacht, James Cutfield, 51, from New Zealand. Being investigated in Italy does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will follow.

According to the local fire rescue service, “the bodies were found in the highest part of the ship, as it was clear people were trying to hide in cabins on the left-hand side”. The ship landed on its right-hand side after it sank, plunging to a depth of about 50 metres.

Officials believe the passengers sought escape routes, reaching the opposite side of the vessel they were in. The space to breathe was quickly shrinking as the water rapidly flooded the rooms and the air bubble was becoming increasingly unbreathable owing to the rise in carbon dioxide.

The body of Recaldo Thomas, the onboard cook, was found in the water near the vessel. Five of the victims were reportedly found in different rooms from those indicated by survivors.

According to the newspaper La Repubblica, Morgan Stanley International’s chair, Jonathan Bloomer, and his wife, Judy, are also believed to have died from suffocation, with the results of their autopsies reportedly identical to those of the Morvillos.

The Guardian cannot independently verify the information regarding the Bloomers.

The head forensic doctor at the Policlinico hospital in Palermo, who is carrying out autopsies on the bodies of the victims, declined to comment.

Autopsies are expected on the bodies of Lynch and Hannah on Thursday, while in the afternoon investigators will begin a technical assessment on the sunken yacht to verify whether a hatch was open, which could have led to its sinking.

The prosecutor’s office has been examining videos and photographs taken by local people on the night of the storm, as well as surveillance camera footage. In recent weeks the coastguard has visited all homes and public places with surveillance cameras.

Italian officials said it would be difficult to investigate the sinking fully unless the wreck is recovered.

Stephen Chamberlain, an associate of the tech tycoon Mike Lynch, died in hospital three days after being hit by a car while out running in Cambridgeshire, an inquest has heard.

Chamberlain was hit on 17 August when he was about six miles into his run having set out from the city of Ely that morning. The 52-year-old was the former vice-president of finance at the British software firm Autonomy and a co-defendant with Lynch in a US fraud trial over the sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 for $11bn.

A car driven by a 49-year-old woman from Haddenham hit Chamberlain at about 10.10am, causing him “significant injuries”, according to Cambridgeshire police and Caroline Jones, the area coroner for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. His medical cause of death was recorded as traumatic head injury.

At the inquest in Alconbury, Jones said: “A vehicle travelling between Stretham and Wicken on the A1123 crested a humpback bridge and was presented with a runner crossing the road from the nearside to the offside between two parts of a bridleway.”

Chamberlain was taken to Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge where he died on 20 August. The hearing was adjourned pending the outcome of the police investigation and any possible prosecutions.

The inquest comes after Lynch and six other people onboard the Bayesian superyacht died when it capsized and sank off the coast of Sicily on 19 August. Italian prosecutors have placed three crew members under investigation for manslaughter and shipwreck, including the captain of the yacht, James Cutfield.

The deaths come after Lynch and Chamberlain were cleared in June of US fraud charges that could have resulted in years in prison.

In 2005, Chamberlain joined Autonomy, a company founded by Lynch with two partners in 1996. Its software enabled a computer to search huge quantities of diverse information, including phone calls, emails and videos, and recognise words. In 2011 the US computing giant HP swooped to take it over.

Chamberlain, under Lynch and the company’s finance chief, Sushovan Hussain, was a key part of the team that saw through the $11bn deal. A year later, however, the deal soured after they left the company, when HP alleged “serious accounting improprieties” and knocked $8.8bn off its value.

A US Department of Justice investigation followed and, in 2018, Lynch and Chamberlain were indicted for conspiracy and wire fraud. Chamberlain was accused of artificially inflating Autonomy’s revenues and making false and misleading statements to auditors, analysts and regulators.

Chamberlain and Lynch were found not guilty of the charge in June after a trial at a federal court in San Francisco, California. Hussain was sentenced to five years in prison in the US after being convicted in 2018 of fraud in relation to the HP deal.

In an earlier statement released through the police, Chamberlain’s family described him as a “much-loved husband, father, son, brother and friend”.

“He was an amazing individual whose only goal in life was to help others in any way possible,” the statement said. “He will be deeply missed but forever in the hearts of his loved ones.”

Gary Lincenberg, Chamberlain’s lawyer, said in an earlier statement: “Steve fought successfully to clear his good name at trial earlier this year, and his good name now lives on through his wonderful family.”

Donald Trump pleaded not guilty on Thursday, via his legal team, to the revised charges in his federal criminal election interference investigation, in the first hearing in the Washington DC case since the US supreme court gave its immunity ruling.

The former US president and current Republican nominee for the White House in this November’s election was not present in federal court in the capital.

The US district judge, Tanya Chutkan, said she would not set a schedule in the case at this status conference for the prosecution and defense teams, but hopes to do so later on Thursday.

The case relates to Trump’s conduct surrounding events after he lost his re-election bid in November 2020 to his Democratic rival Joe Biden, culminating in the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, by thousands of extreme Trump supporters intent on overturning the election result.

Chutkan is hearing arguments about the potential next steps in the election subversion prosecution of Trump for the first time since the supreme court narrowed the case by ruling that former presidents are entitled to broad immunity from criminal charges.

As the hearing opened, the judge noted that it has been almost a year since she had seen the lawyers in her courtroom. The case has been frozen since last December as Trump pursued his appeal.

The defense lawyer John Lauro joked to the judge: “Life was almost meaningless without seeing you.”

Chutkan replied: “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

A not guilty plea was entered on Trump’s behalf for a revised indictment that the special counsel Jack Smith’s team filed last week to strip out certain allegations and comply with the supreme court’s ruling in July. Prosecutors have said they can be ready at any time to file a legal brief laying out its position on how to apply the justices’ immunity opinion to the case.

Defense lawyers are challenging the legitimacy of the case and said they intend to file multiple motions to dismiss the case, including one that piggybacks off a Florida judge’s ruling that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.

Neither side envisions a trial happening before the November election. The case is one of two federal prosecutions against Trump, in a host of legal cases. The other, charging him with illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, was dismissed in July by the US district judge Aileen Cannon, who said Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unlawful.

Smith’s team has appealed that ruling. Trump’s lawyers say they intend to ask Chutkan to dismiss the election case on the same grounds.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting.

The family of a Ugandan athlete who died in Kenya after allegedly being set on fire by her former boyfriend has called for justice and legal action against the culprit.

“I have a lot of grief because I’ve lost my daughter. I seek your help so that this person who has killed my daughter can be prosecuted,” Joseph Cheptegei, the father of Rebecca Cheptegei, told reporters at the hospital where she died.

Cheptegei, a long-distance runner who took part in the 2024 Paris Olympics, was in intensive care after her former boyfriend, Dickson Marangach, allegedly doused a jerrycan of petrol on her in her house in western Kenya and set her on fire, causing more than 80% burns. The incident happened on Sunday afternoon in Endebess town, Trans-Nzoia county, police said.

Before the incident, the pair had been heard fighting over the land on which the house lies, according to a report filed by the area chief. Marangach suffered less burns in the incident, and both were receiving specialised treatment at the Moi teaching and referral Hospital in Eldoret city.

Cheptegei died due to multiple organ failure, Dr Kimani Mbugua, a consultant at the hospital, told journalists. “Most of her systems actually failed following the burns,” he said. “The damage had already occurred by the time she was coming in. So we supported the organs as best as we could. But unfortunately, it was beyond what we could do.”

Cheptegei, 33, was part of the 25-member Ugandan team to Paris. She finished 44th in the women’s marathon in Paris. She qualified for the Olympics after reaching a personal best of 2:22:47 at the 2022 Abu Dhabi Marathon.

Her death has been met with shock in both her home country, Uganda, and Kenya, where she trained. Uganda’s sports minister, Peter Ogwang, termed the death “tragic, adding that Kenyan authorities are carrying out an investigation, while the country’s first lady, Janet Museveni, described the news as “deeply disturbing”.

“My heartfelt condolences go out to the athletics community, her family, friends, and the entire nation on the loss of our Olympian,” she said.

Cheptegei’s death has also turned a renewed spotlight on violence against female athletes and women in general in Kenya. In October 2021, Kenyan long-distance runner Agnes Tirop was stabbed to death at her home in Iten town in Elgeyo-Marakwet county. The following year, Damaris Mutua, a Kenyan-born Bahraini athlete, was found dead at her boyfriend’s home in the same town, with a postmortem report recording that she had been strangled. In both cases, police identified their partners as the prime suspects.

Violence against women is a common problem in Kenya, where a 2022 survey found that 34% of girls and women age 15 to 49 had experienced physical violence since they were aged 15.

Gender-based violence is rife in Kenya because many cases don’t get the attention they require in court, and so most people feel that they can get away with it, said Njeri wa Migwi, the co-founder of Usikimye, a nonprofit that works with victims of gender-based violence.

Kenyan society, she said, needs to stop looking at gender-based violence as an accepted social ill and instead look at it as a crime. “In all honour of the death of Rebecca Cheptegei, this should not have happened. This should not continue to happen,” Migwi said.

In their reaction to Cheptegei’s death, many prominent figures have referenced the problem. Donald Rukare, the president of the Uganda Olympic Committee, said: “May her gentle soul rest in peace and we strongly condemn violence against women. This was a cowardly and senseless act that has led to the loss of a great athlete. Her legacy will continue to endure.”

Kenya’s sports minister, Kipchumba Murkomen, stated: “This tragedy is a stark reminder to combat gender-based violence in our society, which in recent years has reared its ugly head in elite sporting circles. As a government, we remain committed to supporting justice for Rebecca. No one should have to go through such an ordeal.”

Cheptegei leaves behind two daughters.

A French woman whose husband has admitted drugging her and inviting more than 80 men to rape her at her home for almost a decade has told a court her world collapsed when police told her what had happened.

Gisèle Pélicot, 72, said “police saved my life” when they investigated her husband Dominique Pélicot’s computer in November 2020, after a security guard caught him filming up the skirts of women in a supermarket near their home in a village in southern France.

Police are said to have found a file labelled “abuses” on a USB drive connected to his computer that contained 20,000 images and films of his wife being raped almost 100 times.

When investigators first informed her of the years of abuse orchestrated and filmed by her husband, Giséle Pélicot, who had been drugged to the point of unconsciousness, told the court: “My world fell apart. For me, everything was falling apart. Everything I had built up over 50 years.”

She told a panel of five judges that she had only found the courage to watch the footage in May of this year. “Frankly, these are scenes of horror for me,” she said.

Referred to by her first name in court, Gisèle Pélicot has waived her right to anonymity in order for the trial to be held in public, with the support of her three adult children.

She said she was testifying “for all women” who had been assaulted while drugged and to ensure “no woman suffers this”.

Her husband this week answered “yes” in court when asked if he was guilty of the drugging and attacks. His lawyer said that after his arrest he “always declared himself guilty”, saying: “I put her to sleep, I offered her, and I filmed.”

Police have said that between 2011 and 2020, Dominique Pélicot crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication and mixed them into his wife’s evening meal or in her wine at their home in Mazan, near Carpentras in Provence. He then enlisted men to rape and sexually abuse her, contacting them via an online chatroom, where members discussed preferences for non-consenting partners.

The accused men recruited by her husband were instructed to avoid smelling of any kind of fragrance or cigarette smoke to avoid alerting his wife and to leave if she moved so much as an arm, investigators said. Fifty men are on trial for allegedly taking part in the rape and abuse.

Speaking in a calm and clear voice, Gisèle Pélicot told the court how she and her husband had married when they were 21, had three children and seven grandchildren, and had been very close. “We weren’t rich but we were happy. Even our friends said we were the ideal couple,” she said, describing how they had stood by each other through financial, work and health problems. “I always supported my husband.”

She told the court that without knowing she was being regularly drugged at night, she had begun to have difficulties remembering things and concentrating and even feared taking the train to see her adult children in case she missed her stop. She said she had lost weight and at one point had difficulty controlling her arm.

Asked by the judge if she had experienced gynaecological issues, Gisèle Pélicot said yes. She said medical tests during the police investigation showed she had been infected with several sexually transmitted diseases.

She said she had barely recognised herself in the images uncovered by police, saying she was motionless. “I was sacrificed on the altar of vice,” she said. “They regarded me like a rag doll, like a garbage bag.

“When you see that woman drugged, mistreated, a dead person on a bed – of course the body is not cold, it’s warm, but it’s as if I’m dead.” She told the court rape was not a strong enough word, it was torture.

She said in the hours after being told by police what had happened to her she felt like dying. She described how she had to explain the ordeal to her adult children, saying her daughter’s scream “was etched into my memory”.

She left the house with two suitcases, “all that was left for me of 50 years of life together”. Since then “I no longer have an identity … I don’t know if I’ll ever rebuild myself”, she said.

Gisèle Pélicot, who has been supported in court by her children, has been praised by lawyers for her strength and calm at the trial. She said she appeared solid but was “in ruins” and did not know how her body had withstood the abuse and now the trial.

The 50 men on trial with her husband include a local councillor, nurses, a journalist, a former police officer, a prison guard, soldier, firefighter and civil servant, many of whom lived around Mazan, a town of about 6,000 inhabitants. The men were aged between 26 and 73 at the time of their arrests.

Several of the accused have denied the charges, telling police they did not know Gisèle Pélicot was not a willing partner, accusing her husband of tricking them. Detectives were unable to identify and trace more than 30 other men who were recorded.

Gisèle Pélicot’s lawyer, Antoine Camus, said she did not want a trial behind closed doors because “that’s what her attackers would have wanted”.

The trial in Avignon is expected to last four months. Dominique Pélicot, 71, and the 50 other defendants face 20 years in prison if convicted of aggravated rape.

A French woman whose husband has admitted drugging her and inviting more than 80 men to rape her at her home for almost a decade has told a court her world collapsed when police told her what had happened.

Gisèle Pélicot, 72, said “police saved my life” when they investigated her husband Dominique Pélicot’s computer in November 2020, after a security guard caught him filming up the skirts of women in a supermarket near their home in a village in southern France.

Police are said to have found a file labelled “abuses” on a USB drive connected to his computer that contained 20,000 images and films of his wife being raped almost 100 times.

When investigators first informed her of the years of abuse orchestrated and filmed by her husband, Giséle Pélicot, who had been drugged to the point of unconsciousness, told the court: “My world fell apart. For me, everything was falling apart. Everything I had built up over 50 years.”

She told a panel of five judges that she had only found the courage to watch the footage in May of this year. “Frankly, these are scenes of horror for me,” she said.

Referred to by her first name in court, Gisèle Pélicot has waived her right to anonymity in order for the trial to be held in public, with the support of her three adult children.

She said she was testifying “for all women” who had been assaulted while drugged and to ensure “no woman suffers this”.

Her husband this week answered “yes” in court when asked if he was guilty of the drugging and attacks. His lawyer said that after his arrest he “always declared himself guilty”, saying: “I put her to sleep, I offered her, and I filmed.”

Police have said that between 2011 and 2020, Dominique Pélicot crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication and mixed them into his wife’s evening meal or in her wine at their home in Mazan, near Carpentras in Provence. He then enlisted men to rape and sexually abuse her, contacting them via an online chatroom, where members discussed preferences for non-consenting partners.

The accused men recruited by her husband were instructed to avoid smelling of any kind of fragrance or cigarette smoke to avoid alerting his wife and to leave if she moved so much as an arm, investigators said. Fifty men are on trial for allegedly taking part in the rape and abuse.

Speaking in a calm and clear voice, Gisèle Pélicot told the court how she and her husband had married when they were 21, had three children and seven grandchildren, and had been very close. “We weren’t rich but we were happy. Even our friends said we were the ideal couple,” she said, describing how they had stood by each other through financial, work and health problems. “I always supported my husband.”

She told the court that without knowing she was being regularly drugged at night, she had begun to have difficulties remembering things and concentrating and even feared taking the train to see her adult children in case she missed her stop. She said she had lost weight and at one point had difficulty controlling her arm.

Asked by the judge if she had experienced gynaecological issues, Gisèle Pélicot said yes. She said medical tests during the police investigation showed she had been infected with several sexually transmitted diseases.

She said she had barely recognised herself in the images uncovered by police, saying she was motionless. “I was sacrificed on the altar of vice,” she said. “They regarded me like a rag doll, like a garbage bag.

“When you see that woman drugged, mistreated, a dead person on a bed – of course the body is not cold, it’s warm, but it’s as if I’m dead.” She told the court rape was not a strong enough word, it was torture.

She said in the hours after being told by police what had happened to her she felt like dying. She described how she had to explain the ordeal to her adult children, saying her daughter’s scream “was etched into my memory”.

She left the house with two suitcases, “all that was left for me of 50 years of life together”. Since then “I no longer have an identity … I don’t know if I’ll ever rebuild myself”, she said.

Gisèle Pélicot, who has been supported in court by her children, has been praised by lawyers for her strength and calm at the trial. She said she appeared solid but was “in ruins” and did not know how her body had withstood the abuse and now the trial.

The 50 men on trial with her husband include a local councillor, nurses, a journalist, a former police officer, a prison guard, soldier, firefighter and civil servant, many of whom lived around Mazan, a town of about 6,000 inhabitants. The men were aged between 26 and 73 at the time of their arrests.

Several of the accused have denied the charges, telling police they did not know Gisèle Pélicot was not a willing partner, accusing her husband of tricking them. Detectives were unable to identify and trace more than 30 other men who were recorded.

Gisèle Pélicot’s lawyer, Antoine Camus, said she did not want a trial behind closed doors because “that’s what her attackers would have wanted”.

The trial in Avignon is expected to last four months. Dominique Pélicot, 71, and the 50 other defendants face 20 years in prison if convicted of aggravated rape.

Ukraine’s parliament has approved the appointment of Andrii Sybiha as its new foreign minister, replacing Dmytro Kuleba as part of the biggest government reshuffle since the full-scale Russian invasion.

The president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said of the reshuffle, which is taking place at a critical juncture in the war with Russia, that the country needed “new energy”.

Sybiha, a career diplomat, worked for several years in Zelenskiy’s office. He is one of eight new ministers expected to be appointed on Thursday.

Critics have said that the reshuffle represents a consolidation of power by a small group of Zelenskiy loyalists allied with Andriy Yermak, the head of the president’s office.

A former ambassador to Turkey, Sybiha had also served as Yermak’s deputy.

Alexander Kamyshin, a popular figure feted for keeping Ukraine’s railways running through the war, is also being moved from the strategic industries ministry to the president’s office.

Others have raised eyebrows over the timing of the reshuffle, amid a recent increase in Russian missile attacks on Ukraine.

The appointments come as Zelenskiy is preparing to travel to the United States later this month to present what Kyiv has called his “victory plan” to the US president, Joe Biden, a key ally.

Zelenskiy has repeatedly called on allies to lift restrictions that ban Kyiv from using western weapons for long-range strikes into Russia.

Russian forces are inching forward in the east and have stepped up their campaign of missile and drone attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities far from the frontline, hitting the power sector and other infrastructure in almost daily attacks.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said on Thursday that Ukraine’s incursion into the Russian region of Kursk had failed to slow Russia’s own advance in eastern Ukraine and had weakened Kyiv’s defences along the frontline in a boost to Moscow.

That was countered by Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, who told reporters in Oslo that Ukraine had achieved “a lot” in its Kursk offensive.

Putin, speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, said that Russian forces were gradually pushing Ukrainian soldiers out of Kursk, where on 6 August Ukraine launched the biggest foreign attack on Russia since the second world war.

Ukraine had weakened its defences elsewhere and allowed Russia to accelerate its push into the eastern Donbas area, he said, reiterating that Moscow’s primary aim was to take full control of the Donbas.

Putin said: “The enemy’s goal was to make us nervous and worry and to transfer troops from one sector to another and to stop our offensive in key areas, primarily in the Donbas. Did it work? No.”

Ukraine’s top commander, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, has said that one of the objectives of the Kursk operation was to divert Russian forces from other areas, primarily in eastern Ukraine near the cities of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.

Though the Kursk incursion was an embarrassment for Putin and the top military brass, Russian officials are now portraying it as one of Kyiv’s biggest tactical mistakes of the war, saying it ties down thousands of troops for little real gain.

“By transferring rather large and well-trained units to these border areas with us, the enemy weakened itself in key areas, and our troops accelerated offensive operations,” Putin said.

Zelenskiy has said Kyiv plans to hold territory in Kursk and that the operation, which he says is part of a not fully disclosed victory plan, has brought the war home to Russians.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

It was the festival disaster that gripped the world. A modern-day Lord of the Flies with Instagram influencers instead of schoolchildren.

But the return of the infamous Fyre festival is still on, its organiser has announced, but it remains uncertain when or where it is – or who may be performing is still not known a year on.

Plans to reboot the ill-fated getaway were announced last summer but it was feared history might have been repeating itself when no updates were issued.

But the event’s co-founder, Billy McFarland, has insisted it is still happening. And tickets have already been sold, with prices starting at $499 (£379) and rising to $7,999 (£6,077). “Fyre II has to work,” McFarland told the Wall Street Journal.

While Blink-182 and Migos were billed as headline acts for the original festival, acts and events for Fyre II are still being considered. “Karate combat on the beach, I think that would be amazing,” McFarland said. “Having some extreme sports, having some comedy and some fashion.”

He added that his associates were considering potential locations in Honduras, Belize, Turks and Caicos, Jamaica and Panama.

McFarland said people would be “hard-pressed” to trust him if his second go at Fyre festival failed. “It’s going to be very hard to get other opportunities, whether that’s a marketing job, a podcast appearance, a TV show or a relationship,” he added.

The original event, which in a lawsuit was likened to The Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies, was co-founded by McFarland and the rapper Ja Rule and scheduled to take place in the Bahamas in 2017.

It caused more than $26m in losses when it was cancelled over inadequate accommodation, food and water. Ja Rule was cleared of wrongdoing over the Fyre festival disaster in 2019, a year after McFarland was jailed.

As shown in the Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, organisers had used influencers such as Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid to promote the luxury event.

It was billed to take place on a remote private island that supposedly once belonged to the drug trafficker Pablo Escobar. There is no suggestion Jenner or Hadid knew about the state of the festival.

Guests were promised Instagram-worthy experiences, opulent accommodation and deluxe food, with tickets costing up to $12,780. But when they arrived, they found a rain-sodden campsite and emergency tents used for disaster relief.

Their luggage was thrown into a dark car park and what was supposed to be gourmet food turned out to be cheese sandwiches in takeaway containers. There was also no running water or electricity, and artists including Blink-182 pulled out of performing.

McFarland, the former founder of the card-based membership club Magnises, was jailed in 2018 after pleading guilty to numerous fraud charges relating to the festival and his company NYC VIP Access, which sold fake tickets to events such as the Met Gala. Vanity Fair described him as “the poster boy for millennial scamming”.

A group of 277 attenders of Fyre festival were in 2021 awarded settlement payouts of $7,220 each.

After being released last year, McFarland began planning a second incarnation of Fyre festival, which he said he devised during a stint in solitary confinement. He told his followers on social media: “This is everything I’ve been working towards. Let’s fucking go.”

German police have shot dead a man carrying a “long-barrelled gun” after an exchange of fire near the Israeli consulate and a Nazi history museum in Munich.

Witnesses reported hearing a flurry of gunshots at just after 9am local time. A police spokesperson confirmed the reports, adding that there was no indication any other suspects were involved.

In a joint statement, the Bavarian state police and prosecutors said they assumed the man had been planning a terrorist attack “involving the consulate general of the state of Israel”.

Ronen Steinke, a journalist from the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung, posted mobile phone footage of the shooting on X that he had apparently recorded from his office.

The Israeli general consulate and the nearby Nazi documentation centre are under constant police watch, but have been under increased surveillance since the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.

The suspect was reportedly a teenage Austrian national who had recently travelled to Germany and lived in the Salzburg area, according to the Standard and Spiegel news outlets, which also reported that he was known to the security authorities as an Islamist. Police in Munich declined to comment on the report and said they were not sharing information about the suspect.

A police spokesperson in the Bavarian state capital said the man had a “long-barrelled gun” that proved to be an old rifle.

Local media outlets were quick to point out that the incident took place on the 52nd anniversary of the assassination attacks at the Munich Olympics of 1972 in which Palestinian terrorists killed two Israeli athletes and took nine others hostage, who were subsequently killed in a botched rescue attempt. The terrorists had wanted to obtain the release of 200 prisoners in Israel, as well as the Red Army Faction terrorists Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof.

No immediate connection between the incident and the anniversary was made by police. There was no indication of further suspects or of any injured persons.

In a statement on X, the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, expressed “horror” at what he described as a terror attack.

“I spoke now with President of Germany, my dear friend Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Together we expressed our shared condemnation and horror at the terror attack this morning near the Israeli consulate in Munich,” Herzog said.

Police told the public to avoid the area around Karolinenplatz and urged those in residential and office buildings to stay put as the location was sealed off and a police helicopter patrolled overhead.

Benedikt Frank, the deputy director and chief executive of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), which is hosted annually in the city, whose office is located in the area, said he and colleagues were trapped in the building during the police operation.

“Our office, which is right next to the Nazi documentation centre in Munich’s city centre has been sealed off by the police. Our employees all find themselves in lockdown right now,” he told the tabloid Bild.

He added: “At 9.10am there was suddenly a loud bang. We heard at least a dozen shots. We don’t know anything else at this stage. There is currently a large number of emergency personnel on the street.”

The area in which the incident occurred is considered to be particularly historically sensitive. The Nazi documentation centre, which was opened in 2015, was built on the ruins of the so-called “Brown House”, the former party headquarters of the Nazis. The Israeli general consulate moved into the former Nazi party quarter at about the same time. Both buildings are afforded special protection on the grounds that they are considered at high risk of attack.

According to Israeli media, the consulate was closed at the time of the incident and no staff were present as a memorial ceremony to mark the Munich Olympics massacre was taking place at the same time.

Madrid will ban e-scooters rented through mobile apps after the city’s three licensed operators failed to implement limits on their clients’ circulation or to control their parking, the Spanish capital’s mayor has said.

José Luis Martínez-Almeida said on Thursday the licences of Lime, Dott and Tier Mobility would be cancelled from October, adding that the city had no plans to grant new licences to any other operators.

“The market was found to be incapable of meeting the requirements set by the mayor’s office to ensure the highest level of safety for citizens,” he said in a statement.

The “scooter sharing system” has raised opposition in cities around the world due to reckless driving and haphazard parking by some users.

Paris banned e-scooter rentals last year after a public consultation.

Since May 2023, the Madrid city council had regulated the rental e-scooter market, only authorising Amsterdam-based Dott, Germany’s Tier Mobility and US-based Lime, whose scooters are available on Uber’s app.

They were authorised to rent 2,000 scooters each.

The three operators were supposed to give the mayor’s office access to their data and were ordered to implement technology that forced customers to leave the scooters in authorised areas and prevented them from hiring scooters in pedestrian-only streets or near historic parks.

The operators failed to meet these conditions, the statement said, adding that they had 20 days to appeal.

Dott, Lime and Tier did not immediately respond to requests for comment.