The daily English lessons that Shabana attends are the highlight of her day. Taking the bus in Kabul to the private course with her friends, chatting and laughing with them, learning something new for one hour each day – it’s a brief respite from the emptiness that has engulfed her life since the Taliban took over Afghanistan.

In another country, Shabana* would have been graduating from high school next year, pursuing her dream to get a business degree. In Afghanistan, she and all teenage girls have been barred from formal education for three years.

Now even the small joys that were making life bearable are fraught with fear after a new law was announced saying if a woman is outside her home, even her voice must not be heard.

“When we got out, we’re scared. When we’re on the bus, we’re scared. We don’t dare to take down our masks. We even avoid speaking among ourselves, thinking that if someone from the Taliban hears us they could stop and question us,” she says.

The BBC has been in Afghanistan, allowing rare access to the country’s women and girls – as well as Taliban spokespeople – reacting to the new law, which was imposed by the Taliban’s supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada.

The law gives the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Ministry – the Taliban’s morality police – sweeping powers to enforce a stringent code of conduct for Afghan citizens.

For women who have already had their freedoms crushed bit by bit by a relentless series of decrees, it delivers another blow.

“If we can’t speak, why even live? We’re like dead bodies moving around,” Shabana says.

“When I learnt about the new law, I decided not to attend the course any more. Because if I go out, I’ll end up speaking and then something bad might happen. Maybe I won’t return home safely. But then my mother encouraged me to continue.”

In the three years since the Taliban takeover, it’s become clear that even if edicts aren’t strictly imposed, people start self-regulating out of fear. Women continue to be visible in small numbers on the streets of cities like Kabul, but nearly all of them now are covered from head to toe in loose black clothes or dark blue burqas, and most of them cover their faces with only their eyes visible, the impact of a decree announced last year.

“Every moment you feel like you’re in a prison. Even breathing has become difficult here,” said Nausheen, an activist.

Until last year, whenever new restrictions were announced, she was among small groups of women who marched on the streets of Kabul and other cities, demanding their rights.

The protests were violently cracked down on by the Taliban’s forces on multiple occasions, until they stopped altogether.

Nausheen was detained last year. “The Taliban dragged me into a vehicle saying ‘Why are you acting against us? This is an Islamic system.’ They took me to a dark, frightening place and held me there, using terrible language against me. They also beat me,” she says, breaking down into tears.

“When we were released from detention we were not the same people as before and that’s why we stopped protesting,” she adds. “I don’t want to be humiliated any more because I’m a woman. It is better to die than to live like this.”

Now Afghan women are showing their dissent by posting videos of themselves online, their faces covered, singing songs about freedom. “Let’s become one voice, let’s walk together holding hands and become free of this cruelty” are the lines of one such song.

Taliban government deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat, who didn’t want to be pictured with a woman or sit directly opposite me, justified the new edict, which came accompanied with copious footnotes – references to religious texts.

“The law approved by the supreme leader is in accordance with Islamic Sharia law. Any religious scholar can check its references,” he says.

Shireen, a teacher, does not agree.

“This is their own interpretation of Sharia. Islam has given the right to both men and women to choose if they want to study and progress.

“If they say that women’s voices should not be heard, let’s go back to history. There are so many women in Islamic history who have spoken out.”

Shireen is part of a network of Afghan women running secret schools quietly rebelling against the restrictions. Already operating under a great deal of risk, often having to move the location of the school for safety, the new law has compounded her fears.

The danger of discovery is so great, she cannot speak to us at home, instead choosing a discreet location.

“Every morning I wake up asking God to make the day pass safely. When the new law came, I explained all its rules to my students and told them things would be more difficult. But I am so tired of all this, sometimes I just want to scream,” she says. “They don’t see women as human beings, just as tools whose only place is inside the home.”

Karina, a psychologist who consults with a network of secret schools, has previously told us that Afghan women are suffering from a ‘pandemic of suicidal thoughts’ because of the restrictions against them.

After the new law was announced she says she had a surge in calls asking for help. “A friend of mine messaged me to say this was her last message. She was thinking of ending her life. They feel all hope is gone and there is no point in continuing living,” she said. “And it’s becoming more and more difficult to counsel them.”

I asked Hamdullah Fitrat about the Taliban government’s responsibility towards women and girls in their country who are being driven into depression and suicidal thoughts because they’re banned from education.

“Our sisters’ education is an important issue. We’re trying to resolve this issue which is the demand of a lot of our sisters,” the spokesman said.

But three years on, do they really expect people to believe them?

“We are awaiting a decision from our leadership. When it is made, we will all be told about it,” he replied.

From earlier meetings with Taliban officials, it has been evident for a while that there are divisions within the Taliban government on the issue of women’s education, with some wanting it to be restarted. But the Kandahar-based leadership has remained intransigent, and there has been no public breaking of ranks with the supreme leader’s diktats.

We have seen some evidence of the difference in views. Not far from Kabul, we were unexpectedly given access to a midwife training course regularly run by the Taliban’s public health ministry. It was under way when we visited, and because ours was a last-minute visit, we know it was not put on for us to see.

More than a dozen women in their 20s were attending the course being conducted by a senior female doctor. The course is a mix of theory and practical sessions.

The students couldn’t speak freely but many said they were happy to be able to do this work.

“My family feels so proud of me. I have left my children at home to come here, but they know I’m serving the country. This works gives me so much positive energy,” said Safia.

Many acknowledged their privilege, and some expressed fear about whether even this might be stopped eventually. The Taliban’s health ministry didn’t answer questions about how they would find students to do this course in the future, if girls were not receiving formal education after grade six.

Public health, security, arts and craft are among a handful of sectors where women have been able to continue working in parts of the country. But it isn’t a formal decree that gives them permission. It’s happening through a quiet understanding between ground-level Taliban officials, NGOs and other stakeholders involved.

The new law leaves even this informal system vulnerable to the scrutiny of the Taliban’s morality police.

Sources in humanitarian agencies have told us they are grappling to understand how the law should be interpreted but they believe it will make operations more difficult.

The law was announced less than two months after the Taliban attended UN-led talks on engagement with Afghanistan for the first time – a meeting that Afghan civil society representatives and women’s rights activists had been kept out of, at the insistence of the Taliban.

It’s led many in the international community to question whether it was worth accepting the Taliban’s conditions for a meeting, and what the future of engagement with them might look like.

Reacting to the new law, the EU put out a sharply worded statement describing the restrictions as ‘systematic and systemic abuses… which may amount to gender persecution which is a crime against humanity’. It also said the decree creates ‘another self-imposed obstacle to normalised relations and recognition by the international community’.

“The values laid out in the law are accepted in Afghan society. There are no problems. We want the international community, especially the UN and others to respect Islamic laws, traditions and the values of Muslim societies,” Taliban deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said.

Less than two weeks ago the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Ministry said it would no longer co-operate with the UN mission in Afghanistan because of its criticism of the law.

It’s evidence that relations which seemed to be progressing just two months ago, appear to have now hit a significant roadblock.

“I believe that when it comes to aid, the world should continue helping Afghanistan. But when it comes to talking to the Taliban, there should be a rule that in each discussion women must be present. And if that can’t happen, they [the international community] should stop talking to them,” psychologist Karina said.

“The world must care about what’s happening with Afghan women, because if it doesn’t this mentality could easily spread to them, to their homes.”

The former boyfriend of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei, who killed her by setting her on fire, has himself died from burns sustained in the attack, a Kenyan hospital official has said.

Dickson Ndiema ambushed the marathon runner as she returned home from church more than a week ago. He then doused her with petrol and set her ablaze.

Local administrators said the two had been in conflict over a small piece of land in north-west Kenya, where Cheptegei lived and trained.

Ndiema died on Monday night at the intensive care unit, where according to the hospital, he had been admitted with burns on more than 40% of his body.

“He developed respiratory failure as a result of the severe airway burns and sepsis that led to his eventual death on Monday evening at 18:30 hours [15:30 GMT] despite life-saving measures,” a press release from Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital said.

Cheptegei died last Thursday – four days after she was attacked. She suffered burns to more than 80% of her body.

• I saw athlete on fire running towards me after attack, neighbour tells BBC
• ‘Running for her family’ – Olympian mourned after vicious attack

Neighbours said that on the day of the attack, they heard screams before Cheptegei came running towards them shouting for help.

Local media reported that Ndiema had sneaked into Cheptegei’s home in western Kenya’s Trans Nzoia county with a five-litre jerry can full of petrol.

Some of the fuel he poured on Cheptegei splashed onto his own body, according to reports. As a result, Ndiema got caught in the fire after he set his former partner alight.

Ndiema was to face charges as police said they were treating Cheptegei’s death as murder, with the former boyfriend named as the main suspect.

But now that Ndiema has died, the criminal case has been dropped and an inquest into the two deaths will be opened instead.

Both Ndiema and Cheptegei were admitted to Moi Hospital before their deaths.

Cheptegei’s death shocked people across the world, with fellow Ugandans saying she was an inspiration to them.

The 33-year-old Olympian was the third female athlete to be killed in Kenya over the last three years. In each case, current or former romantic partners were named as the main suspects by police.

In 2021, world-record holder Agnes Tirop was stabbed to death and six months later Damaris Mutua was strangled.

“I don’t wish bad things on anyone, but of course I would have loved for him to face the law as an example for others so that these attacks on women can stop,” Beatrice Ayikoru, secretary-general of the Uganda Olympic Committee, told the Reuters news agency.

Cheptegei was born on the Kenyan side of the Kenya-Uganda border, but chose to cross over and represent Uganda to chase her athletics dream when she did not get a breakthrough in Kenya.

When she first got into running, she joined the Uganda People’s Defence Forces in 2008 and rose to sergeant rank.

Her career included competing in this year’s Paris Olympics. Although she came 44th in the marathon, people in her home area called her “champion”.

She also won gold at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2022.

Cheptegei is set to be buried on Saturday at her ancestral home in Bukwo, Uganda.

Attacks on women have become a major concern in Kenya. In 2022 at least 34% of women said they had experienced physical violence, according to a national survey.

An audible sigh of frustration drifted across the packed seats of courtroom “Voltaire” in Avignon’s Palace of Justice, as the lead judge, dressed in a scarlet robe, announced an unexpected but unavoidable delay to a trial that has gripped France.

“He is ill,” said Judge President Roger Arata, indicating that this extraordinary case of 51 alleged rapists would be delayed for “one, two, three days” or possibly even longer, after it was revealed that Dominique Pelicot was too sick to attend.

His lawyer said later he had been taken to hospital.

On the right edge of the courtroom, her head leaning gently against a wood-panelled wall, Gisèle Pelicot showed no visible emotion at the news that she would not, after all, be seeing her husband give evidence that day.

Last week, Gisèle Pelicot, 72, told the court that her calm demeanour masked a “field of devastation”, triggered by the instant, four years ago, when a French policeman had informed her that her apparently loving husband had, in fact, been drugging her for a decade and inviting strangers – more than 80 local men – to enter the family home, and the couple’s bedroom, to rape her while he filmed them.

She has waived her right to anonymity to highlight the danger to women of being drugged and sexually attacked – known as “chemical submission”.

It is little more than half an hour’s drive – through the gentle hills and vineyards that surround the looming, almost lunar landscape of Mont Ventoux – from Avignon’s courthouse to the quaint, medieval village of Mazan. The village was once briefly known for hosting British actress Keira Knightley’s wedding.

This is where the Pelicots lived, and where Dominique Pelicot filmed the local men that he had contacted online.

The mood in any place, at any one moment, is always hard to sum up.

“Honestly, no-one here gives a damn,” said a local caterer, Evan Tuvignon, leaning on his shop counter and suggesting that people were fed up with the whole case.

But several women told us the village was not only in shock, but that the unfolding revelations in court were causing new tensions in Mazan and the surrounding villages.

The names of the accused were recently shared widely on social media, and some of those men have since complained to the court that they, their families and children are now facing harassment on the streets and at school.

Two local women, loading their car on a narrow street in Mazan, said they’d seen the names and had recognised at least three of them.

“It creates tensions, you can imagine. You don’t know who to trust on the street. I’m relieved that I’ll be moving away from this village soon,” said Océane Martin, 25.

But beside her, Océane’s mother, Isabelle Liversain, 50, raised another, deeper concern.

It has been revealed that, while the police have already identified and detained 50 of the men whose images appeared on Dominique Pelicot’s hard drive, another 30 suspects – as yet unnamed and untraced – remain at large.

“So, we know 30 out of 80 still haven’t been caught. There are tensions here because people don’t know if they can trust their neighbours. You ask yourself – is he one of the 30? What is your neighbour getting up to behind closed doors?” said Caroline Martin in a voice sharp with frustration.

But Mazan’s 74-year-old mayor, Louis Bonnet, sought to play down those tensions, arguing that most of the alleged rapists came from other villages and seeking to frame the Pelicots as outsiders who hadn’t lived there long.

He went further, saying the threats against the accused and their families were to be expected.

“If they participated in these rapes, then it’s normal that they’re considered targets. There has to be transparency about everything that happened,” he said, while also condemning the accused and their actions.

In his interview with us, Mr Bonnet talked about the case itself, and in doing so veered towards the sort of attitudes that have already sparked fury in France as well as deep admiration for Gisèle Pelicot’s courage in confronting them.

“People here say ‘no one was killed’. It would have been much worse if [Pelicot] had killed his wife. But that didn’t happen in this case,” Mr Bonnet said.

Then he went on to address Gisèle Pelicot’s experiences.

“She’ll have trouble getting back on her feet again for sure,” he agreed, but suggested her rapes were less troubling than those of another victim in the nearby town of Carpentras who “was conscious when she was raped… and will carry the physical and mental trauma for a long time, which is even more serious”.

“When there are kids involved, or women killed, then that’s very serious because there’s no way back. In this case, the family will have to rebuild itself. It will be hard. But they’re not dead, so they can still do it.”

When I suggested that he was seeking to play down the gravity of the Pelicot case, he agreed.

“Yes, I am. What happened was very serious. But I’m not going to say the village has to bear the memory of a crime which goes beyond the limits of what can be considered acceptable,” he said.

His phrasing seemed clumsy. He was condemning the case. He didn’t want his village to be branded by it forever.

But he also appeared to belittle Gisèle Pelicot’s trauma.

I pushed back once again. Many women believed this case had exposed particular types of male behaviour that needed to change, I said.

“We can always wish to change attitudes, and we should. But in reality, there’s no magic formula. The people who acted in this way are impossible to understand and shouldn’t be excused or understood. But it still exists,” replied Mr Bonnet.

Inside the courtroom in Avignon, some of the accused – the 18 now in custody – sat inside a special glass-walled section watching the proceedings. A white man with grey, straggly hair stroked his bearded chin. Nearby, a younger black man seemed to be dozing.

Earlier, dozens of their fellow accused – those not in custody – jostled beside journalists in a large queue outside the courtroom.

Most of the men sought to hide their faces with masks, but a few did not. A larger man shuffled forward on crutches. Someone pulled a green hood down over their face.

French law offers the accused some protection from being identified in the media, but Gisèle Pelicot has declined her own legal right to privacy, preferring instead to become a symbol of defiance for many French women.

“She has shown such dignity and courage and humanity. It was a huge gift to [French women] that she chose to speak to the whole world in front of her rapist. They said she was broken. But she was so inspiring,” said Blandine Deverlanges, a local activist attending the court today.

She and her colleagues have recently painted slogans on walls around Avignon. One reads: “Ordinary men. Horrific crimes.”

Seated beside her mother, the couple’s daughter, Caroline, 45, did not hide her emotions.

She was recently shown evidence that her father had taken pictures of her, without her knowledge or permission. She believes she was drugged by him too and has become a campaigner on the issue of rape and drugs – a problem many experts believe is woefully under-reported and under-investigated in France.

At times, in court, Caroline frowned or raised a hand to her face in apparent frustration or disgust, as various defence lawyers raised objections or debated procedural issues. A police officer began giving evidence, speaking in the strong accent of southern France. Bright sunshine flooded through a skylight above the judges’ heads.

The atmosphere in the elegantly decorated court was calm, but it felt shocking, nonetheless, to see the family – mother, daughter and at least two sons – seated just metres from so many alleged rapists, now all with their masks removed.

Billionaire Jared Isaacman has taken off in a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for what he hopes will be the first ever privately funded spacewalk.

The mission, called Polaris Dawn, is the first of three funded by the founder of payments processing business Shift4.

He is onboard as commander alongside his close friend Scott ‘Kidd’ Poteet, who is a retired air force pilot, and two SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis.

The spacecraft, called Resilience, will go into an orbit that will eventually take them up to 870 miles (1,400km) above the planet. No human has been that far since Nasa’s Apollo programme ended in the 1970s.

The astronauts will pass through a region of space known as the Van Allen belt, which has high levels of radiation, but the crew will be protected by the spacecraft and their newly upgraded spacesuits.

A few passes of the belt will expose them to the equivalent of three months of the radiation astronauts experience on the International Space Station, which is within acceptable limits. They aim to study the effects that a relatively short but safe exposure has on the human body.

The crew will spend their second day in space at their maximum altitude, conducting up to 40 experiments, including intersatellite laser communication between the Dragon Spacecraft and Space X’s Starlink satellite constellation.

If all goes to plan, on day three into the mission, Mr Isaacman and Sarah Gillis are expected to attempt the first ever privately funded spacewalk, which is scheduled to last two hours.

This will be while they are 700km in orbit. The astronauts will be testing new extravehicular activity (EVA) astronaut suits which, as their name suggests, have been upgraded from Space X’s intravehicular activity (IVA) suits for working outside of spacecraft.

The EVA suit incorporates a heads-up display in its helmet, which provides information about the suit while it is being used. The EVA suits are said to be comfortable and flexible enough to be worn during launch and landing, eliminating the need to have separate IVA suits.

In an interview given while she was training for the spacewalk Ms Gillis said that it was a necessary part of Space X’s plans to send people to other worlds.

“So far only countries have been able to perform a spacewalk. Space X has huge ambitions to get to Mars and make life multiplanetary. In order to get there, we need to start somewhere. And the first step is testing out the first iteration of the EVA spacesuit so that we can make spacewalks and future suit designs even better.”

It was a sentiment echoed by Mr Isaacman.

“Space X know they need EVA capability if they are going to realise their long-term dream of populating another planet someday.”

The aim is to make spacesuits less of a tailor-made garment, more able to accommodate a wider range of commercial astronaut shapes and sizes in order to reduce costs as human spaceflight becomes more commonplace.

A unique aspect of the spacewalk is that the Dragon spacecraft, called Resilience, does not have an airlock, which is a sealed room between the doorway into the vacuum outside and the rest of the spacecraft.

Normally the airlock is depressurised before the astronauts step in and out, but in the case of Resilience, the entire craft will have to be depressurised and the non-spacewalking astronauts will have to be fully suited up.

The spacecraft has been adapted to withstand the vacuum. Extra nitrogen and oxygen tanks have been installed and all four astronauts will wear EVA suits, although only two will exit the spacecraft. The mission will therefore break the record for the most people in the vacuum of space at once.

The flight team has taken the challenge as an opportunity to do tests on the impact of decompression sickness, also known as the “bends” and the blurry vision astronauts can sometimes experience in space called spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome.

Tests on the impact of radiation from the Van Allen belts as well as the spacewalk are intended to lay the ground for further high-altitude missions by the private sector possibly to the Moon or Mars.

There are an awful lot of firsts for the rookie crew to achieve. Isaacman has been in space only once before and the other three have never flown in space.

“There’s a feeling that there are a great many risks here,” according to Dr Adam Baker, a rocket propulsion specialist at Cranfield University.

“They have set themselves a lot of ambitious objectives and they have relatively limited spaceflight experience.”

“But in counter to that, they have spent several thousand hours simulating the mission. So, they are doing their best to mitigate the risks.”

If the mission is a success, some analysts believe that it will be the start of an explosion of ever greater and cheaper private sector missions taking more people further than government space agencies have.

But Dr Baker takes a more cautious approach.

“The record so far has been a huge amount of money spent by the private sector, lots of dribs and drabs of publicity, but much less than 100 additional people on top of the 500 or so government-funded astronauts travelling to space and back, and many of those only for very brief periods.

“Spaceflight is difficult, expensive and dangerous, so expecting to see large numbers of even just well-off members of the population, as opposed to the ultra-rich, flying into space soon, or expecting you might be among them, is unlikely.”

Some find the idea of billionaires paying for themselves to go into space distasteful, and some eyebrows are being raised over a mission where the person paying for the trip is also the commander.

But this shouldn’t be brushed off as a vanity project, according to Dr Simeon Barber, a space scientist at the Open University, who develops scientific instruments on spacecrafts, almost entirely for government-funded projects.

“Isaacman is actually the most experienced astronaut of the crew – he alone has been to space before, on another self-funded mission with SpaceX, where he also took the position of Commander. In the context of the mission, he is the natural choice,” he told BBC News.

“More widely, the proceeds from selling this stellar class ticket to ride will remain on Earth – the money will buy materials and services, it will pay salaries and in turn will generate taxes. Not to mention the charitable funds the mission will raise.”

He says that many in the space sector believe the involvement of wealthy individuals to be a good thing.

“If they wish to venture off-planet, and one day to the Moon or even Mars, then that will create opportunities to do science along the way. And the more diverse the reasons there are to explore space, the more resilient the programme becomes.”

At least 127 people have now died and 54 others are missing in northern Vietnam, according to officials, as a super typhoon which hit on Saturday continues to bring heavy rainfall, landslides and flooding.

Thousands of people were seen stranded on rooftops in some northern provinces, while others posted desperate pleas for help on social media on Tuesday.

Typhoon Yagi – Vietnam’s most powerful storm in 30 years – has wreaked havoc across the north of the country, leaving 1.5 million people without power.

On Monday, dashcam footage showed the moment the Phong Chau bridge in Phu Tho province gave way, plunging several vehicles into the water below.

Although it has now weakened into a tropical depression, authorities have warned Yagi will create more disruption as it moves westwards.

Phan Thi Tuyet, 50, who lives close to the river, told the AFP news agency that she had never experienced such high water.

“I have lost everything, all gone,” she said, clutching her two dogs.

“I had to come to higher ground to save our lives. We could not bring any of the furniture with us. Everything is under water now.”

The storm – which brought winds of nearly 150km/h (92mph) – has damaged bridges, torn roofs off buildings, damaged factories and triggered widespread flooding and landslides, leaving 64 people still missing.

Authorities have now issued flood and landslide warnings for 401 communes across 18 northern provinces.

One-storey homes in parts of Thai Nguyen and Yen Bai provinces were almost completely submerged in the early hours of Tuesday, with residents waiting on the roofs for help.

As well as the dead and missing, flooding and landslides have also injured at least 752 people, officials at the ministry of agriculture said on Tuesday.

Before hitting Vietnam, Yagi left 24 people dead across southern China and the Philippines.

Meteorologists say that as the world warms typhoons can bring higher wind speeds and more intense rainfall, although the influence of climate change on individual storms is complicated.

Presidential debates matter in American politics. And the one that takes place on Tuesday night between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris – their only currently scheduled face-off – may matter more than most.

Joe Biden’s poor performance in the first presidential debate in late June created a firestorm of pressure within the Democratic Party that ultimately forced him to abandon his re-election campaign.

Even though Kamala Harris has been vice-president for more than three years and a candidate for president for seven weeks, she is still a relative unknown for many Americans. In a recent New York Times survey, 28% of likely November voters said that they needed to know more about the Californian.

That poll showed the race a statistical dead heat – a finding most recent surveys have also indicated, both nationally and in key battleground states. The 2024 presidential campaign has been full of historic tumult, but the American electorate is still sharply – and narrowly – divided.

That underscores the importance of Tuesday night’s debate, where even small shifts in the mood of the electorate could be the difference between victory and defeat for the candidates.

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For Ms Harris, the showdown in Philadelphia provides an opportunity for her to flesh out the details before an audience of tens of millions – although she will have to do so while under rhetorical fire from her Republican opponent.

This opportunity is not without risks, however, as Ms Harris could define herself – and her positions – in ways that damage her electoral prospects. She has struggled in the past with answering pointed questions under pressure, and her reluctance to sit for media interviews in the opening weeks of her campaign has denied her the opportunity to hone her linguistic chops.

Although she has tried to present herself as the change candidate in this election, the moderators – and the former president – are likely to press her to defend the Biden administration’s record, particularly on areas where polls show Democrats are weak, such as border security and inflation.

She will also have to explain why she has renounced some of the more liberal policies she embraced during her unsuccessful bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. She recently has walked back her positions on a fracking ban, decriminalising border crossing and nationalising health insurance, among others.

She has explained these changes as ones made to reflect new circumstances – but they may be viewed by some voters as moves born of political expediency.

For Trump, the debate presents an opportunity to wrest back the initiative in this campaign after a month where the Democrats – with their new nominee and high-energy convention – dominated political headlines. He has a history of thriving in the spotlight and setting the terms of political conversation that keeps his opponents off-balance and his issues – notably on immigration and trade, where his positions have broad popular support – at the forefront of political discussion.

The former president has his own potential pitfalls on Tuesday, however. His uneven performance during his June debate with Mr Biden drew little scrutiny because of his opponent’s sometimes catastrophic verbal miscues. Ms Harris is sure to present a more nimble opponent, and his answers will have to be sharper.

During a New York economic forum last week, he was unable to offer a clear explanation for his childcare policies. Such verbal meandering during the debate will provide Democrats with a wealth of campaign fodder.

Trump must also tread carefully when sparring with the vice-president – only the second woman presidential nominee and the first of colour. If he comes across as domineering or belittling, he could further damage his already weak support among female voters.

• Kamala Harris’s pain-free campaign faces first crunch moment
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The two candidates have used markedly different ways of preparing for Tuesday night’s event. The vice-president – and former prosecutor – has been in Pittsburgh, a few hours’ drive west of Philadelphia, holding mock debates and reviewing her policy proposals. The move also allowed her to campaign and benefit from some local media coverage in the largest and most crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Trump – who has participated in presidential debates in each of the past three elections – has held more informal sessions, including reviewing his positions on key issues. Last week, he participated in a town hall forum hosted by conservative cable network Fox News.

Tuesday, then, is set to be a contrast of styles as well as political views.

Although election day won’t arrive until November, early voting is set to begin this month in some key battleground states – including in pivotal Pennsylvania.

So while this debate could help set the political environment for the last two months of the 2024 presidential race, it also will be the last chance for the two candidates to reach some voters in states where every ballot matters.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
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The UK, France and Germany have announced fresh sanctions on Iran for supplying Russia with ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine.

Among the new measures, which have been announced as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits London, are restrictions on Iran Air’s ability to fly to the UK and Europe.

Mr Blinken said Russians had been trained by Iranians to use short-range missiles and they could be deployed against Ukrainians within weeks.

His host, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, said the Iranian deliveries marked a “dangerous escalation” which had allowed Russia to “fuel its illegal invasion of Ukraine”.

“Iran must stop supporting [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s unprovoked, premeditated and barbaric attack against a sovereign democratic state,” Mr Lammy added. “The UK will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

Speaking earlier, alongside Mr Lammy at a news conference in London, Mr Blinken said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “increasingly relying on support” for Iran and North Korea to help “wage his war of aggression on Ukraine”.

The UK Foreign Office also announced specific sanctions against several key individuals it said were heavily involved in the missiles supplies, including Iranian Brig Gen Seyed Hamzeh Ghalandari who commands the country’s exports of defence products to its partners. He has been placed under a travel ban and asset freeze, alongside two other Iranian officials.

Five Russian cargo ships have also been sanctioned, for transporting the military supplies from Iran, despite what the UK said were repeated warnings not to do so.

Meanwhile, several organisations, including some allegedly involved in the production of the Shahed drones – which Russia has used consistently in attacks on Ukrainian cities – have been sanctioned.

In a statement, the UK, France and Germany – known as the E3 – called on Iran “to immediately cease all support to Russia’s war against Ukraine and halt the development and transfers of its ballistic missiles”.

They added that Iran’s supply of missiles represented a “a direct threat to European security”.

Mr Blinken echoed the E3 statement, saying that the move “demonstrates how Iran’s destabilising influence stretches long beyond the Middle East”.

The Western sanctions come as Russia has continued to make gains in eastern Ukraine, with Moscow’s forces rapidly approaching the key settlement of Pokrovsk.

Pokrovsk is a key transportation hub. If it falls, then Russian forces will cut off one of the main supply routes in the region. This will likely force Ukraine to retreat from Chasiv Yar and the front line will move closer to Kramatorsk.

The Iranian short range missile deliveries will aid the Russian advance, Mr Blinken said, by allowing Moscow to use more of its existing arsenal for targets that are further from the frontline, while reserving the new missiles for closer range targets.

British luxury retailer Harrods has begun selling peaches from Japan’s Fukushima region as part of efforts to restore trust in produce grown there following 2011’s nuclear disaster.

The sale of the fruit at Harrods for £80 ($104) per box of three marks the first time peaches from Fukushima have been available in a European store.

The meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s reactors after a devastating tsunami caused a radiation leak that is still being dealt with to this day.

Since 2011, farms in the region – which is the second-largest producer of peaches in Japan – have struggled to sell their produce because of contamination fears.

The peaches’ sale at Harrods is part of efforts by the power plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), to restore the region’s reputation internationally.

It comes two years after the UK lifted its last import restrictions on Fukushima food products and following trial sales at cultural events.

Harrods is due to also begin selling a variety of grape called the Shine Muscat from the region in October.

Tepco has also staged similar campaigns in countries including the US and Thailand.

All farm and fishery produce exported from the area now has to undergo radiation testing.

However, anxiety about the lasting effects of radiation in Fukushima remains.

The Japanese government’s announcement last year that it would release treated waste water from the nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean proved highly controversial, despite having the backing of a United Nations nuclear watchdog.

China, which was the biggest buyer of seafood from Japan, responded by blocking imports. Russia also suspended imports, accusing Tokyo of not being transparent in its plans to release the treated water.

The US military in Japan later began bulk buying the seafood.

Meanwhile, efforts to clean up the Fukushima Daiichi power plant are continuing.

An operation to remove a small amount of radioactive debris was restarted on Tuesday. It will be used to try to assess the conditions inside the nuclear reactors.

The first trial to remove debris was suspended last month because problems arose with the equipment.

It is the first time that efforts to remove material have been made in the 13 years since the disaster.

The levels of radiation inside the reactors are so high that specialised robots have had to be built to withstand the conditions.

Some 600,000 people have gathered in a field outside Timor-Leste’s capital Dili for one of the biggest masses of Pope Francis’s papacy.

The open-air congregation represents nearly half the population of the small Southeast Asian country – one of the most Roman Catholic places on Earth and the only Catholic-majority nation the pontiff is visiting on his Asia-Pacific tour.

In anticipation of the crowds, at least one local telecom company had informed customers that their signal at the venue would be affected.

Tuesday’s mass is being held on disputed ground in Tasitolu, where authorities recently demolished homes and evicted nearly 90 people.

“They even demolished our belongings inside the house,” Zerita Correia previously told BBC News. “Now we have to rent nearby because my children are still in school in this area.”

The move attracted strong criticism from local residents, hundreds of whom had moved there over the past decade from rural parts of the country. Many came looking for work in the capital and built basic homes in the area.

The government says they are squatting and have no right to live on the land. A government minister told the BBC previously that residents had been made aware of plans to clear the area in September 2023.

It is one of several controversies that has darkened the pontiff’s visit – another being the case of a prominent East Timorese bishop, hailed as an independence hero, who was accused of sexually abusing young boys in the country during the 1980s and 90s.

A Vatican spokesman earlier said the Church had been aware of the case against Nobel Peace Prize-winning Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo in 2019 and had imposed disciplinary measures in 2020, including restrictions on Bishop Belo’s movements and a ban on voluntary contact with minors.

Many had wondered, however, whether the Pope would address the scandal during his time in Timor-Leste.

While not mentioning that or any other case specifically, Pope Francis used his speech on Monday to call on young people to be protected from abuse, telling officials: “Let us not forget the many children and adolescents whose dignity has been violated.”

He then called on people to do “everything possible to prevent every kind of abuse and guarantee a healthy and peaceful childhood for all young people”.

In an open letter, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests in Oceania said there had “still not been redress for the victims” and called on Pope Francis to use Church money to pay compensation to them. The Pope has not met with any of the victims so far.

The pontiff also used his speech to praise Timor-Leste – formerly known as East Timor – for its new era of “peace and freedom”, more than two decades after it achieved independence from neighbouring Indonesia.

“We give thanks to the Lord, since you never lost hope while going through such a dramatic period of your history, and after dark and difficult days, a dawn of peace and freedom has finally dawned,” he said.

Pope Francis, who landed in Dili on Monday afternoon, will have spent less than 48 hours in Timor-Leste when he flies to Singapore on Wednesday for the last leg of his 12-day tour.

Israel’s military has said it was “highly likely” its forces shot dead a US-Turkish woman at a protest in the occupied West Bank last week, though unintentionally.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was demonstrating in the town of Beita, near Nablus, against Jewish settlement expansion on 6 September.

Witnesses and Palestinian officials said she had been shot by Israeli troops, prompting an investigation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Their release of findings on Tuesday concluded it was “highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot.”

They added in their statement: “The IDF expresses its deepest regret over the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi.”

However, the US – Israel’s key ally – reacted angrily. Its Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said the IDF’s investigation appeared to show the killing of the US citizen was “unprovoked and unjustified”.

He said it supported eyewitnesses’ testimony that Ms Eygi had been protesting peacefully when she was directly shot.

“No-one should be shot and killed for attending a protest, no-one should have to put their life at risk just for freely expressing their views,” Mr Blinken told reporters shortly after the findings were released.

He said Israeli forces needed to “make some fundamental changes in the way that they operate in the West Bank, including changes to their rules of engagement.”

Ms Eygi arrived as a volunteer in the West Bank just a few days before she was killed.

Her family has said her life “was taken needlessly, unlawfully and violently by the Israeli military”.

They, along with the UN human rights office, have called for a full and independent investigation into Ms Eygi’s killing.

“A US citizen, Aysenur was peacefully standing for justice when she was killed by a bullet that video shows came from an Israeli military shooter,” her family said in statement released after her death.

Prior to the release of the Israeli report, the US and Turkish governments had condemned Ms Eygi’s killing. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan branding it as “barbaric”.

In its statement, the IDF said the “incident” had taken place during “a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tires and hurled rocks toward security forces at the Beita Junction.”

But the protest group which Ms Eygi had been with at the time dismissed claims it threw rocks at Israeli soldiers, saying such assertions were “false”. They said their protest had been peaceful.

Witnesses and other protesters at the demonstration have also said while there were some clashes with Israeli soldiers, Ms Eygi had not been near that area when she was hit.

Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli activist who was at the same protest as Ms Eygi, said he heard two gun shots.

He told the BBC’s Newshour programme there had been “no stone throwing” at Ms Eygi’s location.

It had been her first time attending a protest in the West Bank, he said. She had been with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organisation which takes part in weekly demonstrations at Beita against Israeli settlements.

Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem – land the Palestinians want as part of a future state – in the 1967 Middle East war.

The vast majority of the international community considers the settlements illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

Russian officials say they shot down 144 Ukrainian drones around the country overnight in a wave of attacks that have killed one woman, set residential buildings on fire and grounded flights in Moscow.

The governor of Moscow, Andrei Vorobyov, said several flats in two high-rise apartment buildings in Ramenskoye in Moscow region were set on fire.

Mr Vorobyov said a 46-year-old woman died and three people were injured in Ramenskoye, while 43 people were evacuated to temporary accommodation centres.

Ukraine has so far not commented on the attacks, but the Kremlin on Tuesday said the attack showed Ukraine was Russia’s enemy.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a daily call with reporters that the strike showed the need for Russia to continue its war in Ukraine, saying: “We must continue the military operation in order to protect ourselves from such displays of this regime.”

Russia’s defence ministry said earlier that of the 144 drones that its air defences intercepted, half were in the western border region of Bryansk, 20 were in Moscow and 14 were over the Kursk region.

State media reported that the strikes shut down four airports in Moscow and more than 30 domestic and international flights that serve the Russian capital were suspended.

Russia’s aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, confirmed on Telegram on Tuesday morning that three of the airports – Domodedovo, Zhukovsky and Vnukovo – had resumed operations.

In other developments on Tuesday, Russia said it had captured at least three villages in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

The defence ministry also said it had “liberated” the town of Krasnohorivka, also in Donetsk.

Separately, the Ukrainian Air Force said on Telegram that its air defences downed 38 out of 46 Shahed-type attack drones launched by Russia.

They were shot down over a number of regions and cities including Kyiv, Odesa, Kherson, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltova.

The air force added that Russia also launched an Iskander-M ballistic missile and a Kh-31 air-to-surface missile.

Ukraine and Russia regularly launch overnight drone raids on each other’s territory.

The latest wave of drone strikes comes as Moscow claims gains in eastern Ukraine.

In the last two days, Moscow said its forces had captured Memryk and Novohrodivka – two villages that are 24km and 10km from the key town of Pokrovsk.

Kyiv has not commented, but sources told the BBC that Ukrainian forces had retreated from Novohrodivka.

So far this month, Russia has launched a wave of deadly strikes on Lviv, Poltava and Kharkiv.

Russia’s response to Ukraine has hardened after Kyiv launched its offensive into the country’s Kursk region last month.

A row has erupted on Chinese social media over the use of air conditioners in classrooms as the country endures an unseasonal heatwave.

Parents in some of China’s hottest cities have called on schools to install air conditioners as temperatures surpass 35C.

The conversation heated up in the southern city of Changsha where the education department responded saying it will not install air cons so students can “cultivate the spirit of hard work and endurance”.

The comment drew outrage online, sparking a debate on who should pay for the air conditioners and whether they should be used at all.

“Hard work and endurance? Can we please then ask the education bureau to work in 40-degree heat, then discuss whether this is the way to cultivate such spirit in children,” wrote one Weibo user.

Another wrote: “Global warming has become so serious. What do you want the children to do?”

Most classrooms in China do not have air conditioners and rely on ceiling fans instead.

But calls to install them have intensified in recent months.

“Without air conditioning, it would be challenging to concentrate on studying,” Lin Yujun, the father of a junior high school student in Guangdong in southern China, told Shanghai-based news site Sixth Tone.

Not all parents are in favour of installing air conditioners. Some have voiced concern about the higher risk of catching a cold or other infections at school in air-conditioned classrooms. Others have suggested changes to the school calendar.

“It was never so hot in September in previous years. Perhaps the education board can extend school holidays, according to the weather,” a parent told CQ News in Chongqing.

Earlier this year, China’s weather bureau warned of hotter and longer heatwaves, adding that maximum temperatures across the country could rise by up to 2.8C within the next 30 years.

Schools, however, are reluctant to commit to the steep cost – of the aircons and the electricity bills that would follow.

A primary school in the southern city of Xiangtan drew criticism for asking parents to pay for the air conditioners – the school invited them to donate, reported Sixth Tone.

The local education bureau later ordered the school to reimburse the parents.

But comments online supported the school’s request as reasonable, saying that students’ comfort should be the priority.

“Now that [authorities] have stopped parents from contributing, when will school students be able to use air conditioners under such persistently high temperatures,” wrote Long Zhi Zhu, a commentator for local media outlet The Paper.

“[Everyone] has been going around in circles on this issue. Ultimately, the children are the ones who suffer,” wrote a Weibo user.

Some schools are trying to cope with the heat without the help of air conditioning – they have taken to placing buckets with large blocks of ice inside classrooms to cool the space down.

Some schools in eastern Jiangxi province and south-western Sichuan province postponed the start of the autumn semester, due to begin on 2 September, by a week.

At least 19 people have been killed in an overnight Israeli strike in the designated humanitarian zone in southern Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

Witnesses said the strike obliterated an area crowded with tents for displaced Palestinians in al-Mawasi, south-west of Khan Younis, leaving huge craters in the sand.

“The bombing was incredibly intense. People were thrown into the air,” one displaced man told the BBC. “You can’t imagine the devastation.”

The Israeli military said its aircraft attacked what it called “a number of senior Hamas terrorists” operating there – a claim Hamas denied.

The military also disputed the initial death toll put out by the Hamas-run Civil Defence authority, which reported that rescue teams had recovered more than 40 bodies.

Hundreds of thousands of people from other areas of Gaza are living in dire conditions in al-Mawasi after being told by Israel to evacuate there for their own safety.

The UN says the humanitarian zone spans only 41 sq km (16 sq miles) and lacks critical infrastructure and basic services, while aid provision is limited due to access and security issues.

Eyewitnesses said large explosions rocked al-Mawasi shortly after midnight local time on Tuesday (21:00 GMT on Monday).

Khaled Mahmoud, a volunteer for a charity who lives near the site of the strike, told the BBC that he and other volunteers rushed to help but were stunned by the scale of the destruction.

“The strikes created three craters 7m [23ft] deep and buried more than 20 tents,” he said.

Aya Madi, a displaced mother of seven from the southern city of Rafah, later told a freelance journalist working for the BBC: “We woke up to nothing but sand and fire.

“My children were screaming, and the tent collapsed on them. I pulled them out from under the rubble.

“I held my two-month-old son, thinking he was dead, covered in sand, barely breathing. I washed him and thanked God he was still alive.”

She said all of those killed were civilians, adding that there was “not a single resistance fighter”.

“All that remains is dust and ashes,” she added. “Some of [the casualties] were torn in parts, other they had to dig to find, some were found in people’s houses… The scene is terrifying.”

Another woman, Aisha Nafi al-Shaeri, said: “It was all tents of displaced people. And now everything is destroyed.”

“They told people to stay here, but there is no safe area. Those people had nothing, and they were sleeping.”

“They didn’t warn anyone. Everyone was sleeping, and suddenly they started shelling.”

The Civil Defence’s operations director said overnight that more than 40 people were killed and more than 60 others were injured.

Later on Monday, an official at the nearby Nasser hospital in Khan Younis told the BBC that 13 people killed in the strike had been brought there.

In the afternoon, the Hamas-run health ministry said in a statement that hospitals had received a total of 19 bodies and more than 60 wounded people, some of whom were in a serious condition. It did not say how many were men, women or children.

Rescuers were unable to reach a number of other victims still buried under sand and rubble, or on roads, the ministry added.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said aircraft had conducted “a precise strike on a number of senior Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control centre embedded inside the humanitarian area”.

They included Samer Abu Daqqa, head of Hamas’s aerial unit, and Osama Tabesh, head of the observation and targets department in Hamas’s military intelligence headquarters, it added.

“Prior to the strike, extensive intelligence gathering was conducted, as well as continuous aerial surveillance in the hours leading up to the strike, which confirmed the presence of the terrorists in the area alongside additional terrorist operatives,” it said, adding that casualty numbers put out by Hamas-run authorities did “not align” with its information.

The IDF accused Hamas of embedding its operatives and military infrastructure in the humanitarian zone and using civilians as human shields.

A Hamas statement denounced the strike on al-Mawasi as a “heinous massacre” and rejected the IDF’s claim that it had a command centre there.

“This is a clear lie that aims to justify these ugly crimes. The resistance has denied several times that any of its members exist within civilian gatherings or use these places for military purposes,” it said.

UN Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland condemned the strike on a densely-populated area where displaced people were sheltering.

“I underline that international humanitarian law, including the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack, must be upheld at all times,” he said. “I also emphasize that civilians must never be used as human shields.”

He also urged Israel and Hamas to immediately agree a deal that would for a ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages.

More than 40,980 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

An estimated 1.9 million people – more than 80% of the population – are estimated to have been displaced by the war, and some have had to flee as many as 10 times.

India had a lone shining moment at the 2012 London Paralympics when Girisha Hosanagara Nagarajegowda won a silver medal in the men’s high jump.

The country hadn’t won any medal at the 2008 edition in Beijing, so it felt special to millions of Indians.

But Nagarajegowda’s win also sparked discussions on whether a lone medal was enough for a country that has millions of people with disabilities.

It also raised questions around India’s attitudes to para sport and disability in general. But something seems to have clicked for the country since 2012.

India won four medals in Rio in 2016 and 20 at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.

And it closed the Paris Paralympics with an impressive tally of 29 medals. There have been so many moments to savour for India in Paris – from Sheetal Devi, who competes without arms, winning a bronze with Rakesh Kumar in a mixed compound archery event to Navdeep Singh registering a record throw of 47.32m in javelin to win a gold in the F41 category (athletes with short stature compete in this class).

These achievements are special given the leap of growth Indian para athletes have shown in just over a decade.

India still has a long way to go to take on countries like China (220 medals), Great Britain (124) and the US (105) but supporters of para sports in the country say the tide may be turning.

So what changed in this relatively short period of time?

Plenty.

Several government agencies, coaches and corporate firms came together to invest in para athletics.

And as they helped more heroes emerge, more children and their parents felt confident to take up para sport as a profession.

Gaurav Khanna, the head coach of the Indian para badminton team, says having people to look up to has changed mindsets:

“This has increased the number of athletes who are participating and who are having confidence that they can do better. When I joined the para badminton team in 2015, there were only 50 athletes in the national camp. Now that figure has gone up to 1,000.”

This is a stark change from the time he began training para athletes. Earlier, Khanna used to spot young talent in strange places like shopping malls, corner shops and even on roads while driving in the country’s rural areas.

“It used to be tough to convince parents to send their children for something they knew little about. Just imagine convincing the parents of a young girl to send her to a faraway camp and trust somebody they didn’t know. But that’s how earlier champions came to the fore,” he adds.

Technology has also played a crucial part. With India’s growing economic prowess, Indian para athletes now have access to world-class equipment.

Khanna says each category in different disability sports requires specific equipment, which is often designed to meet the needs of an individual athlete.

“We didn’t have access to good equipment earlier and we used whatever we could get. But now it’s a different world for our athletes,” he says.

Disability rights activist Nipun Malhotra also acknowledges the change in mindset. He says the biggest change he has noticed is that parents now believe that children with disabilities can also become heroes:

“I think families have started playing a much more important role, and people with disabilities have got integrated much more into families today than they were 20 years ago. This also affects how society looks at disability as well. The fact that there are people with disabilities who are excelling in sports also gives hope to the future generations.”

Khanna and Malhotra both give credit to government schemes like TOPS (Target Olympic Podium Scheme) for identifying and supporting young talent.

Private organisations like the Olympic Gold Quest, which is funded by corporate houses, have also helped para athletes realise their full potential.

And then there are people like Khanna who started talent scouting and coaching using their own money, and continue to do so.

Sheetal Devi’s journey wouldn’t be possible without the support she got from a private organisation. Born in a small village in Jammu district, she didn’t know much about archery until two years ago.

She visited the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board sports complex in Jammu’s Katra on a friend’s advice and met her coach Kuldeep Vedwan there.

• The Indian archer without arms shooting for a gold

Now she is as popular in India as Manu Bhaker, who won two bronze medals in shooting at the Paris Olympics.

Brands are already lining up to sign Devi, and a jewellery advert featuring her has gone viral.

Social media has helped para athletes connect with people directly and tell them their stories. Experts hope that this will help them build a brand and eventually take them to commercial success as well. Stars like Devi are already there and there is hope that many more will follow.

But there is plenty of work left to do.

India has a long way to go to become disability-friendly, with most public places still lacking basic facilities to help people navigate everyday life.

Malhotra, who was born with arthrogryposis – a rare congenital disorder that meant that the muscles in his arms and legs didn’t fully develop – found that many didn’t want to hire him despite his degree in economics from a prestigious college in India.

He hopes the triumph of India’s para athletes will slowly help in opening those shut doors.

“The upside of this [India’s medal tally in Paris] is pretty high. Disabled people, including those with degrees from Oxford, struggle to get jobs in India. What our Paralympics triumph will do is that it will open the minds of employers about employing disabled people without any fear,” he says.

While India’s impressive showing in Paris has delighted many, coaches like Khanna believe grassroots facilities for para athletes are still poor even in big Indian cities.

He points out that classifications in para sports are very technical and trained coaches are essential to identify raw talent and guide them towards the right categories – all this even before a young person can start training.

Sports facilities have improved drastically even in small Indian cities in the past two decades but para sport still lags behind by quite a distance.

“You will not find well-trained para sport coaches even in most prominent schools in cities like Delhi and Mumbai and this has to change,” says Malhotra.

For Khanna, change has to start at entry level and he urges government and private players to train more coaches.

He argues that players can hope for stardom today only if they are spotted and then supported by organisations.

“But we won’t get to the top of the table like this. We have to ensure that a disabled child even in the remotest part of the country should have access to a good coach and facilities,” the para badminton coach adds.

Announcing one of the world’s hottest rap artists as the Super Bowl’s half-time headliner might seem like an obvious move.

But the choice of Kendrick Lamar has prompted comments from hip-hop royalty – and some aren’t feeling euphoric.

This year’s Super Bowl – where the American Football championship is decided – is being held in New Orleans.

The Louisiana city is also the birthplace of Lil Wayne, who’s widely considered one of the most influential rappers ever.

Nicki Minaj, Birdman, Master P and Cam’ron have all said the hometown hero should have been part of the event.

And many of them think that Jay-Z – who has been co-producing the NFL event since 2019, might have something to do with the decision.

Lil Wayne and Jay-Z are both huge figures in hip-hop, and there’s a lot of history between them.

When Jay-Z released album Kingdom Come in 2006, Lil Wayne reportedly took issue with the rapper claiming he’d stage a comeback because “hip-hop was dead”.

He’s quoted as saying: “Now he comes back and still thinks it’s his house. It’s not your house anymore, and I’m better than you.”

Speaking on his YouTube series It Is What It Is after the Super Bowl announcement, rapper Cam’ron, appearing to refer to Jay-Z, said the feud was no secret.

“Lil Wayne had a problem with somebody before who’s kind of part of the organisation running it,” he said.

“This is payback.”

Nicki Minaj also made a series of posts on X, appearing to take aim at Jay-Z.

“Denying a young black man what he rightfully put into this game for no other reason but your ego,” she wrote.

This might have surprised some people, because it looked like the beef had been squashed by 2015 when Lil Wayne got involved with Jay-Z’s music platform Tidal and called him his “idol”.

He also described Jay-Z as “a real friend” in 2018.

In 2019, Roc Nation – the entertainment company Jay-Z owns – announced it would work with the NFL to “enhance live game experiences and amplify the league’s social justice efforts”.

He also oversees the artists booked for the Super Bowl and produces a half-time show that, with an audience of more than 100 million, is America’s most-watched musical performance.

In another post, Nicki referred to Jay-Z’s partnership with the NFL at a time when former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick was under attack for kneeling during the national anthem – a show of support for Black Lives Matter.

She said one “took a knee” while the other “took the bag”.

Nicki also appeared to accuse Jay-Z of speaking up when it suited him, in a post that seemed to reference his wife Beyoncé.

At the 2024 Grammys, Jay-Z spoke up for Beyoncé never having won album of the year.

This week, she was not nominated for any Country Music Awards, despite the popular hit Texas Hold ‘Em and country album Cowboy Carter

“Y’all know his next move is going to be to tell y’all a ‘certain someone’ is being treated soooooo unfairly so that y’all can go back into that trance,” she wrote.

Support for Lil Wayne didn’t mean that other acts weren’t backing Kendrick.

“You can love & respect Kendrick and still love & respect Wayne,” wrote Nicki.

“Even Kendrick loves & respects Wayne. Every real rapper loves & respects Wayne,” Nicki wrote.

In a post to his nearly four million Instagram followers, legendary rapper Master P said he saluted Kendrick and described him as “one of the hottest music artists in the world”.

But he said Lil Wayne “should be a part of this celebration as well”, considering his roots and history.

“He’s one of the greatest [Hip Hop] artists alive, still relevant and he’s a New Orleans native.

“Let’s not miss this cultural moment in the South… We have to give our legends their flowers while they are here.”

Nicki also praised Lil Wayne, who’s known for helping artists to get a foothold in the industry.

“This man has literally changed the FACE of hip hop. The hair too… He inspired so many to tat their faces & get locks.

“He never was in this for the money. It’s always been for the love of music,” Nicki says.

But looking at current streams, Kendrick Lamar dwarfs Lil Wayne, with 68.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify, compared to 36.5 million.

Kendrick is also known for being one of the most inventive lyricists hip-hop today.

In 2018, he became the first hip-hop artist to win the Pulitzer Prize for music and has so far won 17 Grammy awards.

BBC Newsbeat has requested comment from Jay-Z, Roc Nation and Lil Wayne – but not yet heard back.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

Such a personal video is a strikingly different approach for a health update about the Princess of Wales.

It is highly emotional and full of harvest colours heading into an almost melancholy tone, as Catherine walks in the countryside with her family.

There could have been a traditional press release, or a statement delivered to the camera, but instead there’s a soft focus, cinematic touch to this message.

Instead of footnotes and explainers about the completion of her chemotherapy, there’s stylised filming and an intimate first-person narration.

This is clearly a well-planned approach to releasing information, with the filming by Will Warr taking place in Norfolk last month, and the changes of clothes suggesting more than one filming session.

It’s a world away from old school royal releases which stuck to the barest of details and stayed as dry as the desert.

This much lusher treatment follows the trend of celebrities and public figures taking their messages straight to the public, using the language of social media rather than conventional news or an interview.

It allows a great deal of control over the message – with evocative music and slick editing driving the story forward, rather than any questions that might arise about her health or treatment.

We see Catherine, in a 1970s-style long flowing dress, spending time with her family in the woods and by the beach, playing a game with her own parents.

These are framed in a relatable way – a family relaxing after really tough times, in a rural setting that’s meant to send a message about the soothing powers of nature.

Over the top of the pictures is Catherine’s narration, in a movie voiceover style, capturing her sense of cautious optimism, as she welcomes the end of her chemotherapy while at the same time recognising the fragility of life.

It’s where Norfolk meets Hollywood plus Instagram.

There’s almost an echo of a film such as About Time in the video, with its melancholy music, sad themes and a life-affirming narration about how a family can be changed forever by unexpected events.

The comparisons are with movie styles and flashback sequences, rather than news releases.

There’s also clearly an awareness of how this short film might be seen by the many families facing cancer in their own lives. It’s a sensitivity that seems close to the surface.

It almost becomes a prayer at the end, with the invocation: “To all those who are continuing their own cancer journey – I remain with you, side by side, hand in hand. Out of darkness, can come light, so let that light shine bright.”

James Earl Jones might have enjoyed an acting career that lasted nearly 60 years. But the thing he will be remembered for was that voice.

It was a deep, rolling, glorious contrabass; once described as the sound that “Moses heard when addressed by God.”

He was the voice of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, summoning by speech alone the full power of the mystical ‘Force’.

More recently, he could be heard growling “This is CNN”, conveying urgency and bestowing gravitas on the US news channel’s tagline.

James Earl Jones was born on 17 January 1931 in Mississippi, of African-American, American Indian and Irish ancestry. His father, Robert Earl Jones abandoned his family not long after the birth of his son.

It was a big household, with 13 people, and it was decided that Jones should live with his grandmother in Memphis “to ease the burden”. But when he was driven to her house, he clung desperately to the car.

“It was the only way I could express that I wanted to be with them”, he recalled. “They accepted that.”

It was all so traumatic he developed a stammer that lasted into his teens. It got so bad that, for some time, he was unable to speak, and communicated only in writing.

Ironically, it was the stammer that turned him towards acting, giving him a life-long appreciation of the spoken word.

In high school, a sympathetic teacher discovered his talent for writing poetry and encouraged him to read his compositions out loud in class. Jones discovered that his stammer eased when he was speaking from memory. Encouraged, he began to take part in debates and public speaking competitions.

He was drawn to the theatre during his time at the University of Michigan and, after completing his military service, sought work as an actor in New York. For a time he lived with his father, not because he was seeking a reconciliation but simply to save on the rent.

“It was too late to get to know him as a father,” he said. “If you don’t learn that from the beginning, there’s no way to catch up.” But Robert, who had tried to make a go of acting himself, supported his son’s ambition with one condition.

“I can’t make a living doing this”, he told the young James. “So if you want to enter this world, do it because you love it.” It wasn’t bad advice.

Despite the difficulties black actors found finding work, Jones made his name in Broadway productions such as Jean Genet’s drama, The Blacks, in which black actors performed in white make-up to subvert colonial stereotypes.

He was fortunate to have hit a time when New York theatre was remaking itself in a different image. No longer did you have to be white and middle class to succeed.

He did Shakespeare; not only Othello, but King Lear, Oberon and Claudius. And there was cutting edge, modern work in Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and an all-black production of Tennessee Williams’ Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.

In 1968, he won a Tony award for his stage portrayal of a character based on the great black boxer, Jack Johnson in The Great White Hope. He later received an Oscar nomination for his performance in the film version, only the second black actor following Sidney Poitier to be so honoured.

His first film role was as a young, trim member of Slim Pickens’ flight crew in Stanley Kubrick’s dark satire Dr Strangelove.

He later appeared in a wide variety of movies such as Conan the Barbarian, Coming to America, Field of Dreams, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. He would think of himself as a journeyman actor who took whatever came along and paid a cheque.

“Denzel Washington, Sidney Poitier, Robert Redford, Tom Cruise: those guys have well-planned careers,” he admitted to the Guardian. “I’m just on a journey. Wherever I run across a job, I say, ‘OK, I’ll do that.”

As children know the world over, he was asked to voice Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. The man behind the mask, Dave Prowse, had a strong West Country accent. It was good enough for the Green Cross Code man, but lacked the menace of an evil Jedi bent on intergalactic power.

At his own insistence, Jones was not given a credit for his performance. He felt it was all merely another “special effect”. When the films broke all box office records, he was persuaded to rethink.

He was also well known as a television performer, playing the older Alex Hailey in Roots: The Next Generation and winning one of his two Emmys for the lead role in the US drama Gabriel’s Fire. His gravelly tones were used in The Simpsons and as the voice of Mufasa in The Lion King.

He also appeared in early episodes of Sesame Street. To see if the show worked, the producers showed clips to schoolchildren. The one that had the biggest impact, by far, was of James Earl Jones standing motionless, simply counting slowly from one to 10.

In 2011, he was awarded an honorary Oscar for his contribution to the film industry. He received it on the stage of a London theatre where he was appearing with Vanessa Redgrave in the play, Driving Miss Daisy.

Such was the authority in his voice, James Earl Jones became a stalwart of commercial voice-overs, documentaries and computer games. He was the voice of SeaWorld in Florida and NBC’s Olympic coverage. Someone even had the good sense to ask him to record all 27 books of the New Testament.

He was happy to hire out his voice for business, but was more reticent about politics. His father had been black-listed by Senator Joseph McCarthy and he steered clear of controversy.

“My voice is for hire”, he once said. “My endorsement is not for hire. I will do a voice-over, but I cannot endorse without making a different kind of commitment. My politics are very personal and subjective.”

He never retired, working long into his 80s. The boy from Mississippi with a strong stammer will be remembered as a powerful stage actor with a legendary voice.

In 2016, there was even a final performance as Darth Vader in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

His words still had the brutal power they’d wielded four decades previously; bringing to a new generation of children the timeless horror of the Dark Side.

An investor in the disastrous Fyre Festival has issued a warning to anyone interested in going to its planned reboot: “Proceed with caution.”

Andy King’s comment comes after Billy McFarland announced Fyre II, after only recently being released from prison for scamming millions from the original.

Mr King, who lost $1m in the original debacle, told the BBC that McFarland was “known for the biggest failure in pop culture and wants to flip the script. But I’m not sure he’s going about it the right way.”

McFarland, 32, spent four years in prison over the 2017 event in the Bahamas, which provided none of the promised “luxury” for tickets costing up to $250,000. Tickets for Fyre II next April will cost up to $1.1m (£840,000), he says.

McFarland told US media last week that “Fyre II has to work”. He claimed he had spent a year planning it, and had already sold 100 tickets at an ‘early bird’ rate of $499.

Mr King, 63, said he had met McFarland several months ago to discuss Fyre II but he feared his former business partner hadn’t “learned a lot in prison… he’s shooting from the hip again”.

“Billy has a gift. He’s got a lot of charisma. He knows how to pull people in,” the South Carolina-based event planner told BBC News.

“Think about it: when he was 24, he walked in to investment banking firms in New York and got them to invest $29m.”

He said Fyre II could be a “huge success” – but if McFarland was “running the show again, it won’t work”.

Mr King, who said none of his $1m investment in the original festival had been returned, was contacted by McFarland to meet investors in the new venture.

“I’m just seeing a lot of red flags, and a lot of red lights”, he said. “And I feel bad. It saddens me.

“We were going to rent one of the biggest estates in the Hamptons and have a big, swanky party,” said Mr King, referencing a famed playground of America’s rich and famous.

“We ended up having 30 people at a pizza place along the Montauk highway.”

He said subsequent calls were cancelled and he hadn’t heard from McFarland in seven or eight months.

The original Fyre was promoted by supermodels and celebrities as an exclusive getaway for the very rich, and the location was hyped as a private island once owned by drug lord Pablo Escobar.

Festival-goers arrived to find all the talent cancelled, bare mattresses to sleep on in storm-ravaged tents and cheese sandwiches in takeaway containers to eat.

McFarland was sentenced in 2018 to six years in jail for wire fraud, and was also ordered to return $29m to investors.

He was freed in 2022 under an early release programme but remains on probation until next August.

According to McFarland, tickets for next year will start at $1,400 but will go as high as $1.1m.

The most expensive package will include scuba diving, island hopping and luxury yachts.

He said the event was “not going to be just music” and could include sideshows like a live karate combat pit.

He admitted, however, that he has yet to book any talent.

Mr King said he would still want to talk to his old business partner about his new venture, despite still facing a backlash for his involvement in the original festival – everywhere he goes, he says, people still give him “the scam guy” treatment.

He emerged a sympathetic figure in the 2019 Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened for his efforts to turn the disaster around.

In arguably the most viral moment from the entire saga, he describes how McFarland urged him to offer sexual favours to Bahamian customs officials to secure enough bottled water for the event.

That “funny fame”, however, has come at a steep price for Mr King.

He added that he had stayed in touch with McFarland through his prison term and briefly advised him on reputation management last year.

At the very least, he said, “the Fyre brand is so well known around the world that there is going to be a lot of people that will be curious”.

“And they’re all watching.”

Teenage footballers listen to the Russian national anthem before a match. Nearby, artists paint Russian President Vladimir Putin’s portrait on a wall during a graffiti festival.

Welcome to Burkina Faso, one of the African nations where Russia is boosting its operations to gain influence.

Evidence found by the BBC shows that Russia is using media and cultural initiatives to attract African journalists, influencers, and students while spreading misleading information.

These events are being promoted by African Initiative, a newly founded Russian media organisation which defines itself as an “information bridge between Russia and Africa”. It inherited structures previously set up by the dismantled Wagner mercenary group and is believed by experts to have links with the Russian security services.

Registered in September 2023, a month after Wagner’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash, African Initiative has welcomed former employees from his disbanded enterprises.

Its efforts have been particularly focused on the three military-run countries of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

Following recent coups, these West African nations have distanced themselves from Western allies like France, criticising their failed interventions against jihadist groups and colonial legacies. They have instead pivoted towards Russia.

Alongside cultural events on the ground, African Initiative maintains a news website with stories in Russian, English, French, and Arabic, as well as a video channel and five Telegram channels, one of which has almost 60,000 subscribers.

Some of the Telegram channels were “recycled” from older ones which had been set up by groups linked to Wagner. They were the first to promote the Russian Defence Ministry’s paramilitary group Africa Corps, which has effectively replaced the military wing of Wagner in West Africa.

Pro-Kremlin narratives and misleading information, especially about the United States, are rife.

Stories on the African Initiative’s website suggest without evidence that the US is using Africa as a production and testing ground for bio-weapons, building on long-discredited Kremlin disinformation campaigns.

One story echoes the Kremlin’s unsubstantiated claims about US bio-labs being relocated from Ukraine to Africa. Another maintains without evidence that US bio-labs on the continent are increasing, claiming that “under the guise of research and humanitarian projects, the African continent is becoming a testing ground for the Pentagon”, suggesting that secretive biological experiments are being conducted.

While Prigozhin’s propaganda efforts targeted mainly France, African Initiative “targets Americans to a greater degree,” says researcher Jedrzej Czerep, head of the Middle East and Africa Programme at the Polish Institute of International Affairs. “It’s far more anti-American.”

In June, a group of bloggers and reporters from eight countries were invited for a seven-day “press tour” of the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. The trip was organised by Russian state media and Western-sanctioned Russian officials, and the journalists visited African Initiative’s headquarters in Moscow.

“Africa wasn’t getting much information [about the war],” Raymond Agbadi, a Ghanaian blogger and scientist who studied in Russia and who participated in the “press tour”, told the BBC. “Whatever information we were getting was not convincing enough for us to understand what the war was really about.”

American influencer Jackson Hinkle, a vocal supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin who has spread multiple false claims about Ukraine, was also on the visit.

After visiting Moscow, the journalists travelled 1,250km (780 miles) to the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol in the Donetsk region. Then they went to towns in the Zaporizhzhia region – all areas which were captured by Russia early in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Throughout the visit, the reporters were accompanied by Russian officials and travelled with the Russian military in vehicles marked with the Z sign – the symbol of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In May, African Initiative organised a separate “press tour” to Russian-occupied Mariupol for a delegation of bloggers from Mali.

Press trips for journalists are a widely used tool to attempt to sell a country’s viewpoints. But while “Western media does a lot of progressive training [for journalists] to report on key topics which have become global concerns, Russia uses these guided tours as a way of propagating certain narratives,” says Beverly Ochieng, senior analyst at Control Risks and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, noting that China organises similar tours.

Having African journalists report on their trips gives an “impression of authenticity” because they “reach out to the audience on languages they recognise”, rather than looking like it is part of “a wider campaign used to portray Russia in a positive light,” says Ms Ochieng.

In stories published since the trip, the African journalists refer to the Ukrainian cities occupied by Russian forces as “conflict zones in Russia” and quote Russian-installed authorities, echoing Russian state propaganda and presenting the Kremlin’s view of Ukraine’s borders.

In a piece published on JoyOnline, an English-speaking website operated by the Multimedia Group, Ghanaian journalist Ivy Setordjie writes that the Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia region [whose capital is under Ukrainian control], is “located in the south of European Russia.”

She tells the BBC she disagrees that the regions were illegally annexed by Russia, affirming that her reports are reflections of her own judgement and “not tilted towards” the country.

Beyond press tours, local affiliates of African Initiative in West Africa’s Sahel region have been actively involved in community outreach efforts aimed at boosting Russia’s image.

The BBC has been monitoring African Initiative’s Telegram channels and Facebook pages, where videos, images, and reports of their work on the ground are shared.

In Burkina Faso, we found reports about a football competition where the Russian national anthem was played, “friendship lessons” in schools where students are taught about Russia, a competition of the Soviet martial art “sambo”, first aid workshops for citizens and policemen, and a graffiti festival where participants drew Russian President Vladimir Putin alongside Burkina Faso’s former leader Thomas Sankara, all sponsored by African Initiative.

Images also show African Initiative members distributing groceries to locals and neighbourhood screenings of the Wagner-backed documentary The Tourist, about a group of Wagner instructors in the Central Africa Republic, where Wagner and its offshoots have been helping the government fight rebels for several years.

“The original idea with the Africa Corps was to erase whatever military structures Prigozhin had developed and to replace it with something new. African Initiative, often serving as its media wing, was more accommodating and happy to reuse all assets that were already there,” says researcher Mr Czerep from the Polish Institute of International Affairs.

The FSB, the Russian Federal Security Service, plays an important part in the new organisation, he notes. The head and editor-in-chief of African Initiative is Artyom Kureyev, identified by Russia experts as a Russian Federal Security Service agent. Mr Kureyev is linked to the Valdai Club, a Moscow-based think-tank close to President Putin.

African Initiative’s website lists Anna Zamaraeva, a former Wagner press officer, as deputy editor-in-chief.

Viktor Lukovenko, known as one of Prigozhin’s “political technologists,” founded the Burkina Faso office of the African Initiative but left the position in recent months. A former Russian nationalist with a criminal past, Mr Lukovenko served five years in prison for an attack in Moscow on a Swiss citizen who later died.

We reached out to African Initiative for comment. Its office in Moscow confirmed it had received our queries but did not respond. We also contacted the Russian government but did not receive a reply.

In February, in response to a report by the US Department of State, an article on African Initiative’s website stated that its editorial board “insists that its purpose is to spread knowledge about Africa in Russia and popularise Russia in African countries”, giving “various Africans an opportunity to be heard, including their criticisms of Western countries”.

Meanwhile, the organisation continues intensifying its outreach in the Sahel. In the last week of August, about 100 students in Burkina Faso attended a talk about training opportunities in Russia.

“I learned about the culture of Russia and the relation between our governments,” said a smiling teenager wearing a T-shirt with an African Initiative logo in a video recorded after the discussion.

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Grand Theft Auto makers Rockstar have battled hackers, tabloids and even US politicians, but they might not have expected fightback from an 80s pop star.

But that’s what they got from Martyn Ware – the influential musician from synth pop band Heaven 17.

He told followers on X he had rejected a “pitiful” offer from the video game giant to use the group’s top ten 1983 track Temptation in the upcoming GTA 6.

In a series of posts, the musician said he and two fellow songwriters had been offered $22,500 (£17,200) between them – $7,500 each before subtracting fees.

He said the one-off sum was “pathetic”, considering the huge sums of money made by the game’s prequel, and Rockstar had refused to negotiate a higher amount.

While many came out in support of the musician, some posts suggested the band had missed out on finding a new generation of fans.

Artists use agreements known as synchronisation licences – or sync deals – to allow their music to appear in games, films, TV shows or adverts.

Licensing expert Alex Tarrand tells BBC Newsbeat it’s a system that’s been in use for decades, and can be “challenging” to navigate because there’s very little transparency.

“The scale is so wide,” says Alex, who’s worked for gaming brands including Xbox, Disney and EA.

“I’ve heard of sync licences from really, really indie artists being a couple of thousand dollars.

“I’ve heard of sync licences from major artists going into the millions and going from six digits into seven digits, astronomically higher.”

This lack of clarity can create difficulties, Alex says, because neither side knows what the other expects to pay or be paid.

It leads to a difficult question – “how much is this song worth?”

The company making a game will likely be thinking about how they want to use the song.

Is it going to be played on the game’s title screen, in a crucial cinematic sequence, or be heard on rotation during regular gameplay?

Martyn Ware did not specify how Rockstar proposed to use his track, and declined to comment further when BBC Newsbeat contacted him.

Rockstar did not respond to requests for comment but it’s been assumed the song would have been included among the hundreds of original and licensed tracks on GTA 6’s in-game radio stations.

In his tweet, Martyn pointed out that GTA 5 is reported to have taken in $8.6bn since its 2013 release.

Naomi Pohl is general secretary of the Musician’s Union, which represents about 35,000 people in the UK industry.

She says she isn’t surprised by Martyn’s reaction to Rockstar’s offer.

“I think what’s so frustrating and upsetting for artists is when they can see that the money they’re being offered or the royalties that they’re making from their music are so disproportionately low in comparison to how much a product is making,” Naomi tells BBC Newsbeat.

GTA 6 is expected to be a similar blockbuster success, and Naomi thinks it’s reasonable to factor that into expectations.

“Clearly a video game that’s making billions of pounds, it’s insulting to be offered a very low fee when you know you’re the music creator,” she says.

“They’ve selected it for a reason and you’re not being paid appropriately for it.”

The artist, or whoever holds the rights to a song, gets the final say on the amount paid to use it.

Naomi points out that Martyn is a “long-established artist with a high profile already” and would likely have made sync deals in the past.

She points out that an artist might also have to factor in other parties, such as a song with multiple writing credits or a cut for a record label.

Both Naomi and Alex told Newsbeat that the $7,500 offer revealed by Martyn appeared low to them.

In one post, the artist said he would have accepted $75,000 or a suitable royalty deal.

“If he’s saying the value of my song is higher, then he’s right,” says Alex.

“There’s simply no disputing it.

“He has his own benchmarks for what his music has gotten in sync formats, and it sounds like they’re much higher than what that offer was.”

Responses to Martyn’s original post suggested he had been foolish to turn Rockstar down because of GTA’s massive popularity.

The last game has sold 200m copies since its 2013 release and still ranks among the world’s most-played games thanks to its popular online mode.

In theory, a lot of them could hear your music and decide to search it out on a streaming service.

Alex says it’s hard to quantify this effect, although there are reverse examples where big artists have attracted huge numbers of players with in-game concerts.

And when the trailer for GTA 6 was released, featuring a track from US rocker Tom Petty, the song saw a massive spike in streams.

But, Naomi says, exposure doesn’t pay the bills and “streaming doesn’t sustain careers”.

In response to one critic, Martyn said that he could expect to make about $1,000 (£760) for every million listens.

Naomi says this figure sounded accurate, but it can vary from artist to artist.

“Even if you own your own recording, so there’s not a record label involved, still the streaming rates can be pretty low,” says Naomi.

“Most people have to go and perform live and that’s the way they make money,” says Naomi.

“It’s not as easy to make money from recorded music as it used to be.”

Alex is the co-founder of Styngr, a company that aims to make licensing music for games easier.

He says their biggest customer is Roblox, where it powers in-game boomboxes that player avatars can carry with them.

These stream music into the game, and can either be ad-supported or ad-free if users buy listening time via in-game microtransactions.

Alex describes this as an example of a “micro, micro-subscription” and says Styngr has plans to offer the ability to buy short snippets of music to accompany emotes – short dance move animations that are already a popular feature of Fortnite.

Styngr and Alex says the system allows artists, labels and developers to have much more transparency over how much music is streamed.

When asked, he says he believes everyone involved sees a better return than they would get from a streaming service.

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Styngr is backed by Universal, Warner Music and Sony – some of the biggest record labels – and works closely with them.

For individual artists, union chief Naomi says new technologies can provide opportunities, but also challenges.

She says AI-generated music is a current focus, and the union has to “constantly update our agreements and our rates so that we are providing for the latest uses”.

Alex says sync deals won’t be disappearing any time soon, and there are situations where an artist will want to retain creative control over how their work is used.

“But I think there’s an opportunity to expand out of that mentality and avoid situations like we saw here, where both sides are probably pretty upset,” he says.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

Europe’s top court has ruled Google must pay a €2.4bn (£2bn) fine handed down for abusing the market dominance of its shopping comparison service.

The tech giant had appealed against the fine, which was originally levied by the European Commission in 2017.

It was at the time the largest penalty the Commission had ever imposed – though it has since been supplanted by a €4.3bn fine, also against Google.

Google said it was “disappointed” with the ruling.

It brings an end to a long-running case that was first brought by British firm Foundem in 2009, when the UK was still part of the EU.

Another of the complainants, shopping comparison site Kelkoo, called the ruling “a win for fair competition and consumer choice” in a post on X.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ), which made today’s judgement, said in its ruling the Commission was right to find Google’s conduct “discriminatory” and its appeal “must be dismissed in its entirety”.

It ordered Google and owner Alphabet to bear their own costs and pay the costs incurred by the European Commission.

In a statement, Google pointed out it had made changes in 2017 to comply with the European Commission’s decision.

“Our approach has worked successfully for more than seven years, generating billions of clicks for more than 800 comparison shopping services,” it said.

Anne Witt, professor of law at EDHEC Business School’s Augmented Law Institute, said it was “an important judgement”.

“This is bad news for Google, which has exhausted its legal remedies in this case,” she said – while pointing out there could be further problems ahead for the firm.

“Several follow-on actions by injured parties claiming compensation for losses suffered as a consequence of Google’s anticompetitive conduct are already pending in national courts.”

On Monday, Google was taken to court by the US government over its ad tech business – it has been accused of illegally operating a monopoly. That trial is ongoing.

Last week, UK regulators provisionally concluded Google used anti-competitive practices to dominate the market for online advertising technology.

The EU’s case against Google started with Foundem, which filed its complaint against the tech giant in 2009.

At its heart was the contention that Google made its own shopping recommendations appear more prominent than rivals in search results.

Google had tried to argue that the case had no legal or economic merit.

But seven years ago, the Commission agreed that the tech giant effectively monopolised online price comparison by preventing others from getting a foothold in the market.

That decision has now been upheld.

Industry insiders have been keeping a close eye on the EU case, with suggestions that its outcome may illuminate the direction of travel of the many other antitrust cases Google is currently facing from the European Commission.

The search giant has amassed fines of €8.2bn from the Commission, which has repeatedly alleged it abused its dominant market position. These are:

• 2017: €2.4bn fine over shopping results
• 2018: €4.3bn fine over claims it used Android software to unfairly promote its own apps
• 2019: €1.5bn fine for blocking adverts from rival search engines

The EU is also currently investigating the firm over whether it preferences its own goods and services over others in search results, as part of its Digital Markets Act.

If it finds Google guilty, the firm could face a fine of up to 10% of its annual turnover.

It is far from the only clash between the EU and big tech.

In a separate judgement today, the ECJ has told Apple it must pay back €13bn (£11bn; $14bn) in unpaid taxes to Ireland.

Jaime Bennington, the son of late Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington, has criticised the band for replacing his father with musician Emily Armstrong.

In an Instagram post, Jaime claimed the band’s founder, Mike Shinoda, had “quietly erased my father’s life and legacy in real time” by introducing Linkin Park’s new line-up last week.

Shinoda has said he knows “many people will take time to wrap their heads around” the change, and “if people are respectfully not there yet, I’m totally fine with that”.

Jaime Bennington also referenced accusations about Armstrong’s ties to Scientology, and her alleged support of actor Danny Masterson during his 2020 rape trial.

Armstrong previously issued a statement distancing herself from the actor, saying she had not spoken to him since a preliminary hearing revealed “unimaginable details” of his crimes. He was later found guilty.

On Instagram, Jaime Bennington said fans were “having a hard time wrapping their heads” around her recruitment.

He said the band had “failed to address the concerns of their diverse fan base” after the allegations emerged, and said they had “betrayed the trust” of their followers.

In a long series of video posts, Bennington also accused Shinoda of blocking him on social media, and said the band had failed to inform him of their reunion.

“They didn’t come to me with this announcement, they didn’t ask me how I felt, they didn’t offer me a ticket,” he said.

Armstrong was previously known as the frontwoman of LA rock band Dead Sara.

She made her live debut with Linkin Park at a performance on Thursday alongside new drummer Colin Brittain.

The concert coincided with news of the band’s first new music since Bennington’s death from suicide in 2017; and a world tour.

Almost immediately, however, Armstrong was questioned over her support of Masterson.

In an Instagram post, Mars Volta singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala wrote: “Do your fans know about your friend Danny Masterson? Your rapist friend.”

The singer’s wife Chrissie Carnell-Bixler was one of several women who accused Masterson of sexual assault.

The actor, best known for his role in That 70s Show, was cleared of those allegations, but was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison last September after being found guilty of two other charges of rape.

Armstrong issued a statement over the weekend, saying she wanted to “clear the air about something that happened a while back”.

“Several years ago, I was asked to support someone I considered a friend at a court appearance, and went to one early hearing as an observer,” she explained.

“Soon after, I realized I shouldn’t have. I always try to see the good in people and I misjudged him. I have never spoken with him since.”

Linkin Park did not comment on the accusations, a situation which Jaime Bennington characterised as disrespectful.

“When something happens, take accountability for what you did,” he said.

“Imagine if Mike Shinoda came out now and said, ‘You know what guys, I’m sorry. This was a little poorly planned. It didn’t go the way I wanted it to… But I do care about you and I do see how it impacts you and I apologise. Let me make it up to you. Let me talk to Emily. Let’s not move forward until we figure this out’.

“But that’s not what’s happening,” he said. “He doesn’t care to give an official statement about the impact of hiring someone like Emily.”

At around the same time as Bennington was posting on Instagram, Shinoda spoke to fans on his Discord channel, acknowledging the public reaction to Armstrong’s hiring.

“Seeing me and Em together, shoulder to shoulder, brought up SO many feelings for people in our crew and management,” he wrote. “Happy and sad at the same time. So complex.”

However, he warned fans to be careful with the tone of their comments.

“Disrespect me and you will lose my respect in return.”

Separately, Linkin Park’s lead guitarist Brad Delson has announced that he won’t be playing with the band on their comeback tour.

Delson, who was one of the original members in 1996, shared a statement saying he prefers to work “behind the scenes – in the studio, collaborating on our new music, and helping build our live show”.

As such, his place will be taken by guitarist Alex Feder for the forthcoming live shows.

He added that Armstrong has his full support and highlighted her “talent, passion, and partnership” while making the band’s new album.

A row has erupted on Chinese social media over the use of air conditioners in classrooms as the country endures an unseasonal heatwave.

Parents in some of China’s hottest cities have called on schools to install air conditioners as temperatures surpass 35C.

The conversation heated up in the southern city of Changsha where the education department responded saying it will not install air cons so students can “cultivate the spirit of hard work and endurance”.

The comment drew outrage online, sparking a debate on who should pay for the air conditioners and whether they should be used at all.

“Hard work and endurance? Can we please then ask the education bureau to work in 40-degree heat, then discuss whether this is the way to cultivate such spirit in children,” wrote one Weibo user.

Another wrote: “Global warming has become so serious. What do you want the children to do?”

Most classrooms in China do not have air conditioners and rely on ceiling fans instead.

But calls to install them have intensified in recent months.

“Without air conditioning, it would be challenging to concentrate on studying,” Lin Yujun, the father of a junior high school student in Guangdong in southern China, told Shanghai-based news site Sixth Tone.

Not all parents are in favour of installing air conditioners. Some have voiced concern about the higher risk of catching a cold or other infections at school in air-conditioned classrooms. Others have suggested changes to the school calendar.

“It was never so hot in September in previous years. Perhaps the education board can extend school holidays, according to the weather,” a parent told CQ News in Chongqing.

Earlier this year, China’s weather bureau warned of hotter and longer heatwaves, adding that maximum temperatures across the country could rise by up to 2.8C within the next 30 years.

Schools, however, are reluctant to commit to the steep cost – of the aircons and the electricity bills that would follow.

A primary school in the southern city of Xiangtan drew criticism for asking parents to pay for the air conditioners – the school invited them to donate, reported Sixth Tone.

The local education bureau later ordered the school to reimburse the parents.

But comments online supported the school’s request as reasonable, saying that students’ comfort should be the priority.

“Now that [authorities] have stopped parents from contributing, when will school students be able to use air conditioners under such persistently high temperatures,” wrote Long Zhi Zhu, a commentator for local media outlet The Paper.

“[Everyone] has been going around in circles on this issue. Ultimately, the children are the ones who suffer,” wrote a Weibo user.

Some schools are trying to cope with the heat without the help of air conditioning – they have taken to placing buckets with large blocks of ice inside classrooms to cool the space down.

Some schools in eastern Jiangxi province and south-western Sichuan province postponed the start of the autumn semester, due to begin on 2 September, by a week.

A US military veteran who received the world’s first whole-eye transplant has made significant progress a year later and has been able to resume his normal life, researchers say.

Aaron James, 46, also received a rare partial-face transplant. He lost most of his face in an accident in 2021 while working as a high-voltage utility lineman.

His donor eye has so far maintained normal pressure and blood flow and retained its size, unlike donor eyes in animals that often shrink after transplants, researchers at NYU Langone Health said in a new study.

Mr James has not regained sight in that eye, but researchers are hopeful he might eventually be able to see out of it again.

They said they were “truly amazed” by Mr James’s recovery.

“The outcomes we’re seeing after this procedure are quite incredible and could pave the way for new clinical protocols and inspire further research into complex transplants involving critical sensory organs,” said Dr Vaidehi Dedania, Mr James’ ophthalmologist.

The study authors said a test called electroretinography – which measures the retina’s electrical response to light – showed that the donor eye’s rods and cones, the light-sensitive nerve cells in the eye, survived the transplant.

“This electrical response converts light into signals that ultimately the brain could interpret for vision, giving hope for the future of whole-eye transplants with an aim to restore sight,” researchers said.

Mr James did not lose sight in his right eye. Last May, he underwent 21 hours of surgery that involved more than 140 healthcare professionals.

The donated face and eye came from a single male donor in his 30s. During the surgery, doctors injected adult stem cells from the donor’s bone marrow into the optic nerve to encourage its repair.

Researchers said Mr James had since passed many major milestones, including eating solid foods and being able to smell again.

“I’m pretty much back to being a normal guy, doing normal things,” Mr James said.

The 46-year-old military veteran is only the 19th person in the US to undergo a face transplant and the first person in the world to receive an entire human eye transplant.

Whole-eye transplant surgeries pose a host of challenges because of the complex structure and functions of the organ.

Researchers are now focused on using Mr James’s transplant to understand how to restore sight to the eye, said Dr Eduardo Rodriguez, a senior author of the study and the director of the Face Transplant Program at NYU.

Mr James, meanwhile, is now concentrating on sending his daughter, Alice, off to college.

“This has been the most transformative year of my life,” he said. “I’ve been given the gift of a second chance, and I don’t take a single moment for granted.”

An influential Filipino pastor wanted in the Philippines and the US for child sex trafficking has been arrested, ending a two-week long standoff between police officers and his followers.

Police have been attempting to arrest Apollo Quiboloy, who claims to be the “Appointed Son of God”, in a raid on his sprawling church compound.

Violent scuffles broke out between thousands of his followers and anti-riot police officers, with one church member dying of a heart attack during the raid.

Mr Quiboloy, whose Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) claims to have seven million followers, has denied all charges against him.

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

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said he trafficked girls and women from the Philippines to the US, where they were forced to solicit money for a bogus charity.

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

But as all this was happening, Mr Quiboloy was rising to national prominence under then-president Rodrigo Duterte, previously serving as spiritual adviser to the former leader.

However, his fortunes turned when Mr Duterte stepped down in June 2022.

Filipino authorities soon charged him with child abuse, sexual abuse and human trafficking and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

For two weeks , thousands of policemen have been engaged in a standoff with Mr Quiboloy’s followers, as they raided his 30-hectare (75-acre) KOJC compound in Davao. They said Mr Quiboloy was hiding in an underground bunker based on the sound of heartbeats detected by surveillance equipment.

The complex is home to some 40 buildings, including a cathedral, a school and even a hangar.

Interior Minister Benhur Abalos said on Monday that Mr Quiboloy was found inside the compound’s bible school. He also said that the pastor was arrested and did not surrender, contrary to earlier reports.

Witnesses provided important information that led to his arrest, added Mr Abalos.

Mr Quiboloy’s lawyer, Israelito Torreon, said earlier said his client surrendered “because he does not want the lawless violence to continue to happen”.

The regional police chief, Brig Gen Nicolas Torre, said a “concerted effort of everyone involved” led to the arrest.

Mr Quiboloy and four others who were arrested with him were flown to national police headquarters in the capital Manila where they are currently detained.

Before his arrest, Mr Quiboloy said that the “devil” was behind his legal woes.

He has also said that he does not want the FBI to “meddle” in his case.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Mr Marcos said the Philippines was not considering extraditing Mr Quiboloy for now.

The standoff at the KOJC has taken place as a very public falling out between the Marcos and Duterte political families has unfolded.

The US DOJ sought his arrest a few months before Mr Duterte handed power to current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, but it was only during Mr Marcos’ term that authorities started pursuing the pastor.

While Mr Quiboloy was in hiding, Mr Duterte said he knew where he was but would not tell the police.

Mr Duterte’s daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte also criticised police pursuing Mr Quiboloy of applying “questionable” force.

Mr Quiboloy set up the KOJC in Davao in 1985, after hearing God whisper to him “I will use you” while attending an event by American pastor Billy Graham in South Korea in 1973, says the organisation.

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

He delivers his sermons from a glass podium that is set against giant photographs of his lush hilltop estate called the “Garden of Eden Restored”.

These are broadcast on his own TV, radio and social media network.

Outside of his long-standing ties with the Duterte’s, Mr Quiboloy grew his political influence by endorsing candidates to his followers during elections, a common practice for religious leaders in the country where politics is based on patronage instead of ideology.

Some 600,000 people have gathered in a field outside Timor-Leste’s capital Dili for one of the biggest masses of Pope Francis’s papacy.

The open-air congregation represents nearly half the population of the small Southeast Asian country – one of the most Roman Catholic places on Earth and the only Catholic-majority nation the pontiff is visiting on his Asia-Pacific tour.

In anticipation of the crowds, at least one local telecom company had informed customers that their signal at the venue would be affected.

Tuesday’s mass is being held on disputed ground in Tasitolu, where authorities recently demolished homes and evicted nearly 90 people.

“They even demolished our belongings inside the house,” Zerita Correia previously told BBC News. “Now we have to rent nearby because my children are still in school in this area.”

The move attracted strong criticism from local residents, hundreds of whom had moved there over the past decade from rural parts of the country. Many came looking for work in the capital and built basic homes in the area.

The government says they are squatting and have no right to live on the land. A government minister told the BBC previously that residents had been made aware of plans to clear the area in September 2023.

It is one of several controversies that has darkened the pontiff’s visit – another being the case of a prominent East Timorese bishop, hailed as an independence hero, who was accused of sexually abusing young boys in the country during the 1980s and 90s.

A Vatican spokesman earlier said the Church had been aware of the case against Nobel Peace Prize-winning Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo in 2019 and had imposed disciplinary measures in 2020, including restrictions on Bishop Belo’s movements and a ban on voluntary contact with minors.

Many had wondered, however, whether the Pope would address the scandal during his time in Timor-Leste.

While not mentioning that or any other case specifically, Pope Francis used his speech on Monday to call on young people to be protected from abuse, telling officials: “Let us not forget the many children and adolescents whose dignity has been violated.”

He then called on people to do “everything possible to prevent every kind of abuse and guarantee a healthy and peaceful childhood for all young people”.

In an open letter, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests in Oceania said there had “still not been redress for the victims” and called on Pope Francis to use Church money to pay compensation to them. The Pope has not met with any of the victims so far.

The pontiff also used his speech to praise Timor-Leste – formerly known as East Timor – for its new era of “peace and freedom”, more than two decades after it achieved independence from neighbouring Indonesia.

“We give thanks to the Lord, since you never lost hope while going through such a dramatic period of your history, and after dark and difficult days, a dawn of peace and freedom has finally dawned,” he said.

Pope Francis, who landed in Dili on Monday afternoon, will have spent less than 48 hours in Timor-Leste when he flies to Singapore on Wednesday for the last leg of his 12-day tour.

British luxury retailer Harrods has begun selling peaches from Japan’s Fukushima region as part of efforts to restore trust in produce grown there following 2011’s nuclear disaster.

The sale of the fruit at Harrods for £80 ($104) per box of three marks the first time peaches from Fukushima have been available in a European store.

The meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s reactors after a devastating tsunami caused a radiation leak that is still being dealt with to this day.

Since 2011, farms in the region – which is the second-largest producer of peaches in Japan – have struggled to sell their produce because of contamination fears.

The peaches’ sale at Harrods is part of efforts by the power plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), to restore the region’s reputation internationally.

It comes two years after the UK lifted its last import restrictions on Fukushima food products and following trial sales at cultural events.

Harrods is due to also begin selling a variety of grape called the Shine Muscat from the region in October.

Tepco has also staged similar campaigns in countries including the US and Thailand.

All farm and fishery produce exported from the area now has to undergo radiation testing.

However, anxiety about the lasting effects of radiation in Fukushima remains.

The Japanese government’s announcement last year that it would release treated waste water from the nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean proved highly controversial, despite having the backing of a United Nations nuclear watchdog.

China, which was the biggest buyer of seafood from Japan, responded by blocking imports. Russia also suspended imports, accusing Tokyo of not being transparent in its plans to release the treated water.

The US military in Japan later began bulk buying the seafood.

Meanwhile, efforts to clean up the Fukushima Daiichi power plant are continuing.

An operation to remove a small amount of radioactive debris was restarted on Tuesday. It will be used to try to assess the conditions inside the nuclear reactors.

The first trial to remove debris was suspended last month because problems arose with the equipment.

It is the first time that efforts to remove material have been made in the 13 years since the disaster.

The levels of radiation inside the reactors are so high that specialised robots have had to be built to withstand the conditions.

With less than two months to go until Americans cast their ballots for president on election day, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will confront each other in their first debate on Tuesday.

The Republican ex-president and the Democratic vice-president remain locked in a tight race, both nationally and in the swing states.

The primetime duel on ABC News will be their first meeting and only the second time they have shared the same room.

It is not the first debate of the campaign. Trump faced Joe Biden on stage in June, weeks before the president dropped out of the race.

The debate begins at 21:00 EDT (02:00 BST) on Tuesday 10 September.

It takes place live on US network ABC from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The event will last 90 minutes with two commercial breaks, and there will be no audience in the room.

It will be streamed live on the BBC News channel. You will be able to watch on the BBC News website and app via our live page.

The BBC will have a team of reporters in Philadelphia and in Washington providing analysis, fact checks and reactions as part of our live coverage.

• Who is winning the race for the White House?
• Kamala Harris: The many identities of the first female VP
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ABC World News Tonight anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis will be the moderators.

They will not have to deal with two candidates interrupting each other because the mics will be muted when either of them is not speaking.

Those were the rules for the debate earlier this year between Trump and Mr Biden, following a disruptive 2020 debate between them.

Ms Harris was hoping to get the mics switched on throughout because the present format, her campaign said, “shields Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the vice-president”.

• LISTEN: Americast answers your questions before the debate

Trump will get the last word at the debate and Ms Harris chose to appear on the right side of viewers’ TV screens.

No topics or questions will be shared in advance with the candidates or their campaigns, and no props or pre-written notes will be allowed on stage.

Both candidates will only have a pen, notepad and water bottle, and cannot interact with campaign staff during commercial breaks.

Neither is permitted to step away from their lecterns – as Trump did against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

As shown by the fallout from Mr Biden’s stumbling debate performance that led to him ending his candidacy, presidential debates are high-stakes campaign milestones that can reshape the race.

It’s a unique chance for candidates to make a good impression with voters as clips go viral and soundbites are replayed over and over.

This will be particularly important for Kamala Harris, who has largely stuck to scripted appearances in her campaign so far.

New polling by Siena College for the New York Times, published on Sunday, suggests many voters have yet to work out who she is and what she stands for.

The race between her and Trump remains extremely close, both nationally and in the swing states that will decide the outcome.

Ms Harris is preparing by working with Washington lawyer Karen Dunn, according to the New York Times, which says Dunn has helped Democratic politicians plan for debates for nearly two decades.

Dunn, who often represents tech companies in court, operates with “tough love”, 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton told the newspaper.

“She’s unafraid to say, ‘That’s not going to work’… But she also offers encouragement,” Clinton said.

Philippe Reines, a former Clinton adviser who stood in for Trump during her mock debates, is reportedly reprising the role for Ms Harris.

Trump has taken a different approach that has partly focused on speaking to voters, his team says. One adviser told the BBC he was also working to hone the “theatrics” of his debate performance.

Notable advisers to the former president in the lead-up to this debate are Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who clashed with Ms Harris during the party’s 2020 primary debates, and Florida Republican congressman Matt Gaetz.

On 1 October, rival running mates JD Vance and Tim Walz will participate in a single vice-presidential debate on CBS News.

But the presidential campaigns have not agreed on the terms for any future showdowns between Trump and Ms Harris.

Trump has called for at least two more. He is pushing in particular for a showdown on more friendly turf – moderated by Fox News and with a large live audience.

The Harris campaign has said it will evaluate whether or not to do a second debate in October, once their first face-off has concluded.

The non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) that has overseen these events since 1988 has been sidelined in favour of the TV networks dealing directly with the campaigns.

The CPD, which intended to organise three debates in September and October, has blamed the Biden campaign for failing to abide by tradition.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• EXPLAINER: Seven swing states that could decide election
• FACT CHECK: Was US economy stronger under Biden or Trump?
• IMMIGRATION: Could Trump really deport a million migrants?
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

An audible sigh of frustration drifted across the packed seats of courtroom “Voltaire” in Avignon’s Palace of Justice, as the lead judge, dressed in a scarlet robe, announced an unexpected but unavoidable delay to a trial that has gripped France.

“He is ill,” said Judge President Roger Arata, indicating that this extraordinary case of 51 alleged rapists would be delayed for “one, two, three days” or possibly even longer, after it was revealed that Dominique Pelicot was too sick to attend.

His lawyer said later he had been taken to hospital.

On the right edge of the courtroom, her head leaning gently against a wood-panelled wall, Gisèle Pelicot showed no visible emotion at the news that she would not, after all, be seeing her husband give evidence that day.

Last week, Gisèle Pelicot, 72, told the court that her calm demeanour masked a “field of devastation”, triggered by the instant, four years ago, when a French policeman had informed her that her apparently loving husband had, in fact, been drugging her for a decade and inviting strangers – more than 80 local men – to enter the family home, and the couple’s bedroom, to rape her while he filmed them.

She has waived her right to anonymity to highlight the danger to women of being drugged and sexually attacked – known as “chemical submission”.

It is little more than half an hour’s drive – through the gentle hills and vineyards that surround the looming, almost lunar landscape of Mont Ventoux – from Avignon’s courthouse to the quaint, medieval village of Mazan. The village was once briefly known for hosting British actress Keira Knightley’s wedding.

This is where the Pelicots lived, and where Dominique Pelicot filmed the local men that he had contacted online.

The mood in any place, at any one moment, is always hard to sum up.

“Honestly, no-one here gives a damn,” said a local caterer, Evan Tuvignon, leaning on his shop counter and suggesting that people were fed up with the whole case.

But several women told us the village was not only in shock, but that the unfolding revelations in court were causing new tensions in Mazan and the surrounding villages.

The names of the accused were recently shared widely on social media, and some of those men have since complained to the court that they, their families and children are now facing harassment on the streets and at school.

Two local women, loading their car on a narrow street in Mazan, said they’d seen the names and had recognised at least three of them.

“It creates tensions, you can imagine. You don’t know who to trust on the street. I’m relieved that I’ll be moving away from this village soon,” said Océane Martin, 25.

But beside her, Océane’s mother, Isabelle Liversain, 50, raised another, deeper concern.

It has been revealed that, while the police have already identified and detained 50 of the men whose images appeared on Dominique Pelicot’s hard drive, another 30 suspects – as yet unnamed and untraced – remain at large.

“So, we know 30 out of 80 still haven’t been caught. There are tensions here because people don’t know if they can trust their neighbours. You ask yourself – is he one of the 30? What is your neighbour getting up to behind closed doors?” said Caroline Martin in a voice sharp with frustration.

But Mazan’s 74-year-old mayor, Louis Bonnet, sought to play down those tensions, arguing that most of the alleged rapists came from other villages and seeking to frame the Pelicots as outsiders who hadn’t lived there long.

He went further, saying the threats against the accused and their families were to be expected.

“If they participated in these rapes, then it’s normal that they’re considered targets. There has to be transparency about everything that happened,” he said, while also condemning the accused and their actions.

In his interview with us, Mr Bonnet talked about the case itself, and in doing so veered towards the sort of attitudes that have already sparked fury in France as well as deep admiration for Gisèle Pelicot’s courage in confronting them.

“People here say ‘no one was killed’. It would have been much worse if [Pelicot] had killed his wife. But that didn’t happen in this case,” Mr Bonnet said.

Then he went on to address Gisèle Pelicot’s experiences.

“She’ll have trouble getting back on her feet again for sure,” he agreed, but suggested her rapes were less troubling than those of another victim in the nearby town of Carpentras who “was conscious when she was raped… and will carry the physical and mental trauma for a long time, which is even more serious”.

“When there are kids involved, or women killed, then that’s very serious because there’s no way back. In this case, the family will have to rebuild itself. It will be hard. But they’re not dead, so they can still do it.”

When I suggested that he was seeking to play down the gravity of the Pelicot case, he agreed.

“Yes, I am. What happened was very serious. But I’m not going to say the village has to bear the memory of a crime which goes beyond the limits of what can be considered acceptable,” he said.

His phrasing seemed clumsy. He was condemning the case. He didn’t want his village to be branded by it forever.

But he also appeared to belittle Gisèle Pelicot’s trauma.

I pushed back once again. Many women believed this case had exposed particular types of male behaviour that needed to change, I said.

“We can always wish to change attitudes, and we should. But in reality, there’s no magic formula. The people who acted in this way are impossible to understand and shouldn’t be excused or understood. But it still exists,” replied Mr Bonnet.

Inside the courtroom in Avignon, some of the accused – the 18 now in custody – sat inside a special glass-walled section watching the proceedings. A white man with grey, straggly hair stroked his bearded chin. Nearby, a younger black man seemed to be dozing.

Earlier, dozens of their fellow accused – those not in custody – jostled beside journalists in a large queue outside the courtroom.

Most of the men sought to hide their faces with masks, but a few did not. A larger man shuffled forward on crutches. Someone pulled a green hood down over their face.

French law offers the accused some protection from being identified in the media, but Gisèle Pelicot has declined her own legal right to privacy, preferring instead to become a symbol of defiance for many French women.

“She has shown such dignity and courage and humanity. It was a huge gift to [French women] that she chose to speak to the whole world in front of her rapist. They said she was broken. But she was so inspiring,” said Blandine Deverlanges, a local activist attending the court today.

She and her colleagues have recently painted slogans on walls around Avignon. One reads: “Ordinary men. Horrific crimes.”

Seated beside her mother, the couple’s daughter, Caroline, 45, did not hide her emotions.

She was recently shown evidence that her father had taken pictures of her, without her knowledge or permission. She believes she was drugged by him too and has become a campaigner on the issue of rape and drugs – a problem many experts believe is woefully under-reported and under-investigated in France.

At times, in court, Caroline frowned or raised a hand to her face in apparent frustration or disgust, as various defence lawyers raised objections or debated procedural issues. A police officer began giving evidence, speaking in the strong accent of southern France. Bright sunshine flooded through a skylight above the judges’ heads.

The atmosphere in the elegantly decorated court was calm, but it felt shocking, nonetheless, to see the family – mother, daughter and at least two sons – seated just metres from so many alleged rapists, now all with their masks removed.

Voters in the US go to the polls on 5 November to elect their next president.

The election was initially a rematch of 2020 but it was upended in July when President Joe Biden ended his campaign and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris.

The big question now is – will the result mean a second Donald Trump term or America’s first woman president?

As election day approaches, we’ll be keeping track of the polls and seeing what effect big events like Tuesday’s presidential debate have on the race for the White House.

In the months leading up to Biden’s decision to drop out of the race, polls consistently showed him trailing former president Trump. Although hypothetical at the time, several polls suggested Harris wouldn’t fare much better.

But the race tightened after she hit the campaign trail and she developed a small lead over her rival in an average of national polls that she has maintained since. The latest national polling averages for the two candidates are shown below, rounded to the nearest whole number.

In the poll tracker chart below, the trend lines show how those averages have changed since Harris entered the race and the dots show the spread of the individual poll results.

Harris hit 47% during her party’s four-day convention in Chicago, which she brought to a close on 22 August with a speech promising a “new way forward” for all Americans. Her numbers have moved very little since then.

Trump’s average has also remained relatively steady, hovering around 44%, and there was no significant boost from the endorsement of Robert F Kennedy, who ended his independent candidacy on 23 August.

While these national polls are a useful guide as to how popular a candidate is across the country as a whole, they’re not necessarily an accurate way to predict the result of the election.

That’s because the US uses an electoral college system to elect its president, so winning the most votes can be less important than where they are won.

There are 50 states in the US but because most of them nearly always vote for the same party, in reality there are just a handful where both candidates stand a chance of winning. These are the places where the election will be won and lost and are known as battleground states.

• What is the electoral college?

Right now, the polls are very tight in the seven battleground states, which makes it hard to know who is really leading the race. There are fewer state polls than national polls so we have less data to work with and every poll has a margin of error that means the numbers could be higher or lower.

As is stands, recent polls suggest there is one or less than one percentage point separating the two candidates in several states. That includes Pennsylvania, which is key as it has the highest number of electoral votes on offer and therefore makes it easier for the winner to reach the 270 votes needed.

Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin had all been Democratic strongholds before Trump turned them red on his path to winning the presidency in 2016. Biden retook them in 2020 and if Harris can do the same this year then she will be on course to win the election.

In a sign of how the race has changed since Harris became the Democratic nominee, on the day Joe Biden quit the race he was trailing Trump by nearly five percentage points on average in these seven battleground states.

The figures we have used in the graphics above are averages created by polling analysis website 538, which is part of American news network ABC News. To create them, 538 collect the data from individual polls carried out both nationally and in battleground states by lots of polling companies.

As part of their quality control, 538 only include polls from companies that meet certain criteria, like being transparent about how many people they polled, when the poll was carried out and how the poll was conducted (telephone calls, text message, online, etc).

You can read more about the 538 methodology here.

At the moment, the polls suggest that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are within a couple of percentage points of each other both nationally and in battleground states – and when the race is that close, it’s very hard to predict winners.

Polls underestimated support for Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Polling companies will be trying to fix that problem in a number of ways, including how to make their results reflect the make-up of the voting population.

Those adjustments are difficult to get right and pollsters still have to make educated guesses about other factors like who will actually turn up to vote on 5 November.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• ANALYSIS: Will Harris debate tactics work against Trump?
• EXPLAINER: Seven swing states that could decide election
• IMMIGRATION: Could Trump really deport a million migrants?
• FACT CHECK: Was US economy stronger or weaker under Trump?
• Read more about: Kamala Harris | Donald Trump | US election

Police in Miami have released bodycam footage of a traffic stop involving American football star Tyreek Hill, who was pulled from his vehicle and handcuffed by officers.

Mr Hill was pulled over on his way to Hard Rock Stadium in the south Florida city just hours before the opening match of the season.

Miami-Dade police say one of the officers involved in the stop has been placed on administrative duties pending an investigation.

Two of Mr Hill’s Miami Dolphins teammates, Calais Campbell and Jonnu Smith, were also involved in the incident.

The team issued a statement on Monday backing their star wide receiver, saying: “We are saddened by the overly aggressive and violent conduct” shown to Mr Hill and the other players.

The team called for the officers involved in the incident to be disciplined.

But the local police union said that the officers acted properly during the encounter.

The traffic stop happened not far from the team’s home stadium, and the bodycam footage begins when Mr Hill’s car is pulled over, several officers approach, and one knocks on the window.

“Don’t knock on my window like that,” Mr Hill says several times after rolling the window down.

The officer responds: “Why don’t you have your seatbelt on?”

After a brief exchange Mr Hill then says: “Give me my ticket bro, so I can go, I’m gonna be late.”

Mr Hill then rolls the car window back up. The officer knocks on the window again and orders him to put it down again.

“Keep your window down (or) I’m going to get you out of the car,” the officer says. “As a matter of fact, get out of the car.”

The officers pull the football star out of the car and put him face down on the pavement.

“When we tell you to do something, you do it, do you understand?” one of the officers says, as they handcuff Mr Hill.

“You were beating on my window like you crazy,” Mr Hill is heard saying.

The officers then march him over to the curb and make him sit down.

“I just had surgery on my knee, bro,” Mr Hill tells the officers.

Two of Mr Hill’s teammates – defensive tackle Calais Campbell and tight end Jonnu Smith- stopped along the road as the incident was unfolding.

Mr Campbell also said he was placed in handcuffs as he tried to intervene in the situation.

Both players were released shortly after the traffic stop. Mr Hill was able to get to the game, scoring a touchdown in the Dolphins’ 20-17 win against the Jacksonville Jaguars. He celebrated by pretending to be placed in handcuffs with his teammates.

At a news conference after the game, Mr Hill said he did not know why he had been stopped and handcuffed.

“I was just doing what my uncle always told me to do if I was in a situation like that, just listen, put your hands on the steering wheel. Gotta be careful, man.

“They said I was speeding, but I don’t know,” he said. “What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill? Worst-case scenario, you know?”

In a statement, Miami-Dade Police Department Director Stephanie V Daniels said that an internal affairs investigation was underway and that one of the officers involved had been place on administrative duties.

“I’m committed to transparency and accountability to the community with any situation involving my officers,” Ms Daniels said.

The local police union issued a statement describing Mr Hill as “uncooperative” and said that he was “driving in a manner in which he was putting himself and others in great risk of danger”, but that he was never formally placed under arrest.

“Upon being stopped, Mr Hill was not immediately cooperative with the officers on the scene who, pursuant to policy and for their immediate safety, placed Mr Hill in handcuffs,” said the statement from South Florida Police Benevolent Association president Steadman Stahl.

Mr Hill’s attorney, Julius Collins, told CNN that the video contradicts the police union’s statement.

US media reported that Mr Hill was given citations for careless driving and failing to wear a seatbelt.

Presidential debates matter in American politics. And the one that takes place on Tuesday night between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris – their only currently scheduled face-off – may matter more than most.

Joe Biden’s poor performance in the first presidential debate in late June created a firestorm of pressure within the Democratic Party that ultimately forced him to abandon his re-election campaign.

Even though Kamala Harris has been vice-president for more than three years and a candidate for president for seven weeks, she is still a relative unknown for many Americans. In a recent New York Times survey, 28% of likely November voters said that they needed to know more about the Californian.

That poll showed the race a statistical dead heat – a finding most recent surveys have also indicated, both nationally and in key battleground states. The 2024 presidential campaign has been full of historic tumult, but the American electorate is still sharply – and narrowly – divided.

That underscores the importance of Tuesday night’s debate, where even small shifts in the mood of the electorate could be the difference between victory and defeat for the candidates.

• US election polls: Who is ahead – Harris or Trump?
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• Trump fine-tuning theatrics before Harris debate

For Ms Harris, the showdown in Philadelphia provides an opportunity for her to flesh out the details before an audience of tens of millions – although she will have to do so while under rhetorical fire from her Republican opponent.

This opportunity is not without risks, however, as Ms Harris could define herself – and her positions – in ways that damage her electoral prospects. She has struggled in the past with answering pointed questions under pressure, and her reluctance to sit for media interviews in the opening weeks of her campaign has denied her the opportunity to hone her linguistic chops.

Although she has tried to present herself as the change candidate in this election, the moderators – and the former president – are likely to press her to defend the Biden administration’s record, particularly on areas where polls show Democrats are weak, such as border security and inflation.

She will also have to explain why she has renounced some of the more liberal policies she embraced during her unsuccessful bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. She recently has walked back her positions on a fracking ban, decriminalising border crossing and nationalising health insurance, among others.

She has explained these changes as ones made to reflect new circumstances – but they may be viewed by some voters as moves born of political expediency.

For Trump, the debate presents an opportunity to wrest back the initiative in this campaign after a month where the Democrats – with their new nominee and high-energy convention – dominated political headlines. He has a history of thriving in the spotlight and setting the terms of political conversation that keeps his opponents off-balance and his issues – notably on immigration and trade, where his positions have broad popular support – at the forefront of political discussion.

The former president has his own potential pitfalls on Tuesday, however. His uneven performance during his June debate with Mr Biden drew little scrutiny because of his opponent’s sometimes catastrophic verbal miscues. Ms Harris is sure to present a more nimble opponent, and his answers will have to be sharper.

During a New York economic forum last week, he was unable to offer a clear explanation for his childcare policies. Such verbal meandering during the debate will provide Democrats with a wealth of campaign fodder.

Trump must also tread carefully when sparring with the vice-president – only the second woman presidential nominee and the first of colour. If he comes across as domineering or belittling, he could further damage his already weak support among female voters.

• Kamala Harris’s pain-free campaign faces first crunch moment
• Don’t mention Trump – how Republicans try to sway women voters

The two candidates have used markedly different ways of preparing for Tuesday night’s event. The vice-president – and former prosecutor – has been in Pittsburgh, a few hours’ drive west of Philadelphia, holding mock debates and reviewing her policy proposals. The move also allowed her to campaign and benefit from some local media coverage in the largest and most crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Trump – who has participated in presidential debates in each of the past three elections – has held more informal sessions, including reviewing his positions on key issues. Last week, he participated in a town hall forum hosted by conservative cable network Fox News.

Tuesday, then, is set to be a contrast of styles as well as political views.

Although election day won’t arrive until November, early voting is set to begin this month in some key battleground states – including in pivotal Pennsylvania.

So while this debate could help set the political environment for the last two months of the 2024 presidential race, it also will be the last chance for the two candidates to reach some voters in states where every ballot matters.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• FACT CHECK: Was US economy stronger under Biden or Trump?
• EXPLAINER: Seven swing states that could decide election
• VOTER VOICES: Voters want less drama at debate
• FACT CHECK: Was US economy stronger or weaker under Trump?

The former boyfriend of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei, who killed her by setting her on fire, has himself died from burns sustained in the attack, a Kenyan hospital official has said.

Dickson Ndiema ambushed the marathon runner as she returned home from church more than a week ago. He then doused her with petrol and set her ablaze.

Local administrators said the two had been in conflict over a small piece of land in north-west Kenya, where Cheptegei lived and trained.

Ndiema died on Monday night at the intensive care unit, where according to the hospital, he had been admitted with burns on more than 40% of his body.

“He developed respiratory failure as a result of the severe airway burns and sepsis that led to his eventual death on Monday evening at 18:30 hours [15:30 GMT] despite life-saving measures,” a press release from Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital said.

Cheptegei died last Thursday – four days after she was attacked. She suffered burns to more than 80% of her body.

• I saw athlete on fire running towards me after attack, neighbour tells BBC
• ‘Running for her family’ – Olympian mourned after vicious attack

Neighbours said that on the day of the attack, they heard screams before Cheptegei came running towards them shouting for help.

Local media reported that Ndiema had sneaked into Cheptegei’s home in western Kenya’s Trans Nzoia county with a five-litre jerry can full of petrol.

Some of the fuel he poured on Cheptegei splashed onto his own body, according to reports. As a result, Ndiema got caught in the fire after he set his former partner alight.

Ndiema was to face charges as police said they were treating Cheptegei’s death as murder, with the former boyfriend named as the main suspect.

But now that Ndiema has died, the criminal case has been dropped and an inquest into the two deaths will be opened instead.

Both Ndiema and Cheptegei were admitted to Moi Hospital before their deaths.

Cheptegei’s death shocked people across the world, with fellow Ugandans saying she was an inspiration to them.

The 33-year-old Olympian was the third female athlete to be killed in Kenya over the last three years. In each case, current or former romantic partners were named as the main suspects by police.

In 2021, world-record holder Agnes Tirop was stabbed to death and six months later Damaris Mutua was strangled.

“I don’t wish bad things on anyone, but of course I would have loved for him to face the law as an example for others so that these attacks on women can stop,” Beatrice Ayikoru, secretary-general of the Uganda Olympic Committee, told the Reuters news agency.

Cheptegei was born on the Kenyan side of the Kenya-Uganda border, but chose to cross over and represent Uganda to chase her athletics dream when she did not get a breakthrough in Kenya.

When she first got into running, she joined the Uganda People’s Defence Forces in 2008 and rose to sergeant rank.

Her career included competing in this year’s Paris Olympics. Although she came 44th in the marathon, people in her home area called her “champion”.

She also won gold at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2022.

Cheptegei is set to be buried on Saturday at her ancestral home in Bukwo, Uganda.

Attacks on women have become a major concern in Kenya. In 2022 at least 34% of women said they had experienced physical violence, according to a national survey.

The daily English lessons that Shabana attends are the highlight of her day. Taking the bus in Kabul to the private course with her friends, chatting and laughing with them, learning something new for one hour each day – it’s a brief respite from the emptiness that has engulfed her life since the Taliban took over Afghanistan.

In another country, Shabana* would have been graduating from high school next year, pursuing her dream to get a business degree. In Afghanistan, she and all teenage girls have been barred from formal education for three years.

Now even the small joys that were making life bearable are fraught with fear after a new law was announced saying if a woman is outside her home, even her voice must not be heard.

“When we got out, we’re scared. When we’re on the bus, we’re scared. We don’t dare to take down our masks. We even avoid speaking among ourselves, thinking that if someone from the Taliban hears us they could stop and question us,” she says.

The BBC has been in Afghanistan, allowing rare access to the country’s women and girls – as well as Taliban spokespeople – reacting to the new law, which was imposed by the Taliban’s supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada.

The law gives the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Ministry – the Taliban’s morality police – sweeping powers to enforce a stringent code of conduct for Afghan citizens.

For women who have already had their freedoms crushed bit by bit by a relentless series of decrees, it delivers another blow.

“If we can’t speak, why even live? We’re like dead bodies moving around,” Shabana says.

“When I learnt about the new law, I decided not to attend the course any more. Because if I go out, I’ll end up speaking and then something bad might happen. Maybe I won’t return home safely. But then my mother encouraged me to continue.”

In the three years since the Taliban takeover, it’s become clear that even if edicts aren’t strictly imposed, people start self-regulating out of fear. Women continue to be visible in small numbers on the streets of cities like Kabul, but nearly all of them now are covered from head to toe in loose black clothes or dark blue burqas, and most of them cover their faces with only their eyes visible, the impact of a decree announced last year.

“Every moment you feel like you’re in a prison. Even breathing has become difficult here,” said Nausheen, an activist.

Until last year, whenever new restrictions were announced, she was among small groups of women who marched on the streets of Kabul and other cities, demanding their rights.

The protests were violently cracked down on by the Taliban’s forces on multiple occasions, until they stopped altogether.

Nausheen was detained last year. “The Taliban dragged me into a vehicle saying ‘Why are you acting against us? This is an Islamic system.’ They took me to a dark, frightening place and held me there, using terrible language against me. They also beat me,” she says, breaking down into tears.

“When we were released from detention we were not the same people as before and that’s why we stopped protesting,” she adds. “I don’t want to be humiliated any more because I’m a woman. It is better to die than to live like this.”

Now Afghan women are showing their dissent by posting videos of themselves online, their faces covered, singing songs about freedom. “Let’s become one voice, let’s walk together holding hands and become free of this cruelty” are the lines of one such song.

Taliban government deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat, who didn’t want to be pictured with a woman or sit directly opposite me, justified the new edict, which came accompanied with copious footnotes – references to religious texts.

“The law approved by the supreme leader is in accordance with Islamic Sharia law. Any religious scholar can check its references,” he says.

Shireen, a teacher, does not agree.

“This is their own interpretation of Sharia. Islam has given the right to both men and women to choose if they want to study and progress.

“If they say that women’s voices should not be heard, let’s go back to history. There are so many women in Islamic history who have spoken out.”

Shireen is part of a network of Afghan women running secret schools quietly rebelling against the restrictions. Already operating under a great deal of risk, often having to move the location of the school for safety, the new law has compounded her fears.

The danger of discovery is so great, she cannot speak to us at home, instead choosing a discreet location.

“Every morning I wake up asking God to make the day pass safely. When the new law came, I explained all its rules to my students and told them things would be more difficult. But I am so tired of all this, sometimes I just want to scream,” she says. “They don’t see women as human beings, just as tools whose only place is inside the home.”

Karina, a psychologist who consults with a network of secret schools, has previously told us that Afghan women are suffering from a ‘pandemic of suicidal thoughts’ because of the restrictions against them.

After the new law was announced she says she had a surge in calls asking for help. “A friend of mine messaged me to say this was her last message. She was thinking of ending her life. They feel all hope is gone and there is no point in continuing living,” she said. “And it’s becoming more and more difficult to counsel them.”

I asked Hamdullah Fitrat about the Taliban government’s responsibility towards women and girls in their country who are being driven into depression and suicidal thoughts because they’re banned from education.

“Our sisters’ education is an important issue. We’re trying to resolve this issue which is the demand of a lot of our sisters,” the spokesman said.

But three years on, do they really expect people to believe them?

“We are awaiting a decision from our leadership. When it is made, we will all be told about it,” he replied.

From earlier meetings with Taliban officials, it has been evident for a while that there are divisions within the Taliban government on the issue of women’s education, with some wanting it to be restarted. But the Kandahar-based leadership has remained intransigent, and there has been no public breaking of ranks with the supreme leader’s diktats.

We have seen some evidence of the difference in views. Not far from Kabul, we were unexpectedly given access to a midwife training course regularly run by the Taliban’s public health ministry. It was under way when we visited, and because ours was a last-minute visit, we know it was not put on for us to see.

More than a dozen women in their 20s were attending the course being conducted by a senior female doctor. The course is a mix of theory and practical sessions.

The students couldn’t speak freely but many said they were happy to be able to do this work.

“My family feels so proud of me. I have left my children at home to come here, but they know I’m serving the country. This works gives me so much positive energy,” said Safia.

Many acknowledged their privilege, and some expressed fear about whether even this might be stopped eventually. The Taliban’s health ministry didn’t answer questions about how they would find students to do this course in the future, if girls were not receiving formal education after grade six.

Public health, security, arts and craft are among a handful of sectors where women have been able to continue working in parts of the country. But it isn’t a formal decree that gives them permission. It’s happening through a quiet understanding between ground-level Taliban officials, NGOs and other stakeholders involved.

The new law leaves even this informal system vulnerable to the scrutiny of the Taliban’s morality police.

Sources in humanitarian agencies have told us they are grappling to understand how the law should be interpreted but they believe it will make operations more difficult.

The law was announced less than two months after the Taliban attended UN-led talks on engagement with Afghanistan for the first time – a meeting that Afghan civil society representatives and women’s rights activists had been kept out of, at the insistence of the Taliban.

It’s led many in the international community to question whether it was worth accepting the Taliban’s conditions for a meeting, and what the future of engagement with them might look like.

Reacting to the new law, the EU put out a sharply worded statement describing the restrictions as ‘systematic and systemic abuses… which may amount to gender persecution which is a crime against humanity’. It also said the decree creates ‘another self-imposed obstacle to normalised relations and recognition by the international community’.

“The values laid out in the law are accepted in Afghan society. There are no problems. We want the international community, especially the UN and others to respect Islamic laws, traditions and the values of Muslim societies,” Taliban deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said.

Less than two weeks ago the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Ministry said it would no longer co-operate with the UN mission in Afghanistan because of its criticism of the law.

It’s evidence that relations which seemed to be progressing just two months ago, appear to have now hit a significant roadblock.

“I believe that when it comes to aid, the world should continue helping Afghanistan. But when it comes to talking to the Taliban, there should be a rule that in each discussion women must be present. And if that can’t happen, they [the international community] should stop talking to them,” psychologist Karina said.

“The world must care about what’s happening with Afghan women, because if it doesn’t this mentality could easily spread to them, to their homes.”

The UK, France and Germany have announced fresh sanctions on Iran for supplying Russia with ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine.

Among the new measures, which have been announced as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits London, are restrictions on Iran Air’s ability to fly to the UK and Europe.

Mr Blinken said Russians had been trained by Iranians to use short-range missiles and they could be deployed against Ukrainians within weeks.

His host, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, said the Iranian deliveries marked a “dangerous escalation” which had allowed Russia to “fuel its illegal invasion of Ukraine”.

“Iran must stop supporting [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s unprovoked, premeditated and barbaric attack against a sovereign democratic state,” Mr Lammy added. “The UK will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

Speaking earlier, alongside Mr Lammy at a news conference in London, Mr Blinken said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “increasingly relying on support” for Iran and North Korea to help “wage his war of aggression on Ukraine”.

The UK Foreign Office also announced specific sanctions against several key individuals it said were heavily involved in the missiles supplies, including Iranian Brig Gen Seyed Hamzeh Ghalandari who commands the country’s exports of defence products to its partners. He has been placed under a travel ban and asset freeze, alongside two other Iranian officials.

Five Russian cargo ships have also been sanctioned, for transporting the military supplies from Iran, despite what the UK said were repeated warnings not to do so.

Meanwhile, several organisations, including some allegedly involved in the production of the Shahed drones – which Russia has used consistently in attacks on Ukrainian cities – have been sanctioned.

In a statement, the UK, France and Germany – known as the E3 – called on Iran “to immediately cease all support to Russia’s war against Ukraine and halt the development and transfers of its ballistic missiles”.

They added that Iran’s supply of missiles represented a “a direct threat to European security”.

Mr Blinken echoed the E3 statement, saying that the move “demonstrates how Iran’s destabilising influence stretches long beyond the Middle East”.

The Western sanctions come as Russia has continued to make gains in eastern Ukraine, with Moscow’s forces rapidly approaching the key settlement of Pokrovsk.

Pokrovsk is a key transportation hub. If it falls, then Russian forces will cut off one of the main supply routes in the region. This will likely force Ukraine to retreat from Chasiv Yar and the front line will move closer to Kramatorsk.

The Iranian short range missile deliveries will aid the Russian advance, Mr Blinken said, by allowing Moscow to use more of its existing arsenal for targets that are further from the frontline, while reserving the new missiles for closer range targets.

At least 127 people have now died and 54 others are missing in northern Vietnam, according to officials, as a super typhoon which hit on Saturday continues to bring heavy rainfall, landslides and flooding.

Thousands of people were seen stranded on rooftops in some northern provinces, while others posted desperate pleas for help on social media on Tuesday.

Typhoon Yagi – Vietnam’s most powerful storm in 30 years – has wreaked havoc across the north of the country, leaving 1.5 million people without power.

On Monday, dashcam footage showed the moment the Phong Chau bridge in Phu Tho province gave way, plunging several vehicles into the water below.

Although it has now weakened into a tropical depression, authorities have warned Yagi will create more disruption as it moves westwards.

Phan Thi Tuyet, 50, who lives close to the river, told the AFP news agency that she had never experienced such high water.

“I have lost everything, all gone,” she said, clutching her two dogs.

“I had to come to higher ground to save our lives. We could not bring any of the furniture with us. Everything is under water now.”

The storm – which brought winds of nearly 150km/h (92mph) – has damaged bridges, torn roofs off buildings, damaged factories and triggered widespread flooding and landslides, leaving 64 people still missing.

Authorities have now issued flood and landslide warnings for 401 communes across 18 northern provinces.

One-storey homes in parts of Thai Nguyen and Yen Bai provinces were almost completely submerged in the early hours of Tuesday, with residents waiting on the roofs for help.

As well as the dead and missing, flooding and landslides have also injured at least 752 people, officials at the ministry of agriculture said on Tuesday.

Before hitting Vietnam, Yagi left 24 people dead across southern China and the Philippines.

Meteorologists say that as the world warms typhoons can bring higher wind speeds and more intense rainfall, although the influence of climate change on individual storms is complicated.

Billionaire Jared Isaacman has taken off in a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for what he hopes will be the first ever privately funded spacewalk.

The mission, called Polaris Dawn, is the first of three funded by the founder of payments processing business Shift4.

He is onboard as commander alongside his close friend Scott ‘Kidd’ Poteet, who is a retired air force pilot, and two SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis.

The spacecraft, called Resilience, will go into an orbit that will eventually take them up to 870 miles (1,400km) above the planet. No human has been that far since Nasa’s Apollo programme ended in the 1970s.

The astronauts will pass through a region of space known as the Van Allen belt, which has high levels of radiation, but the crew will be protected by the spacecraft and their newly upgraded spacesuits.

A few passes of the belt will expose them to the equivalent of three months of the radiation astronauts experience on the International Space Station, which is within acceptable limits. They aim to study the effects that a relatively short but safe exposure has on the human body.

The crew will spend their second day in space at their maximum altitude, conducting up to 40 experiments, including intersatellite laser communication between the Dragon Spacecraft and Space X’s Starlink satellite constellation.

If all goes to plan, on day three into the mission, Mr Isaacman and Sarah Gillis are expected to attempt the first ever privately funded spacewalk, which is scheduled to last two hours.

This will be while they are 700km in orbit. The astronauts will be testing new extravehicular activity (EVA) astronaut suits which, as their name suggests, have been upgraded from Space X’s intravehicular activity (IVA) suits for working outside of spacecraft.

The EVA suit incorporates a heads-up display in its helmet, which provides information about the suit while it is being used. The EVA suits are said to be comfortable and flexible enough to be worn during launch and landing, eliminating the need to have separate IVA suits.

In an interview given while she was training for the spacewalk Ms Gillis said that it was a necessary part of Space X’s plans to send people to other worlds.

“So far only countries have been able to perform a spacewalk. Space X has huge ambitions to get to Mars and make life multiplanetary. In order to get there, we need to start somewhere. And the first step is testing out the first iteration of the EVA spacesuit so that we can make spacewalks and future suit designs even better.”

It was a sentiment echoed by Mr Isaacman.

“Space X know they need EVA capability if they are going to realise their long-term dream of populating another planet someday.”

The aim is to make spacesuits less of a tailor-made garment, more able to accommodate a wider range of commercial astronaut shapes and sizes in order to reduce costs as human spaceflight becomes more commonplace.

A unique aspect of the spacewalk is that the Dragon spacecraft, called Resilience, does not have an airlock, which is a sealed room between the doorway into the vacuum outside and the rest of the spacecraft.

Normally the airlock is depressurised before the astronauts step in and out, but in the case of Resilience, the entire craft will have to be depressurised and the non-spacewalking astronauts will have to be fully suited up.

The spacecraft has been adapted to withstand the vacuum. Extra nitrogen and oxygen tanks have been installed and all four astronauts will wear EVA suits, although only two will exit the spacecraft. The mission will therefore break the record for the most people in the vacuum of space at once.

The flight team has taken the challenge as an opportunity to do tests on the impact of decompression sickness, also known as the “bends” and the blurry vision astronauts can sometimes experience in space called spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome.

Tests on the impact of radiation from the Van Allen belts as well as the spacewalk are intended to lay the ground for further high-altitude missions by the private sector possibly to the Moon or Mars.

There are an awful lot of firsts for the rookie crew to achieve. Isaacman has been in space only once before and the other three have never flown in space.

“There’s a feeling that there are a great many risks here,” according to Dr Adam Baker, a rocket propulsion specialist at Cranfield University.

“They have set themselves a lot of ambitious objectives and they have relatively limited spaceflight experience.”

“But in counter to that, they have spent several thousand hours simulating the mission. So, they are doing their best to mitigate the risks.”

If the mission is a success, some analysts believe that it will be the start of an explosion of ever greater and cheaper private sector missions taking more people further than government space agencies have.

But Dr Baker takes a more cautious approach.

“The record so far has been a huge amount of money spent by the private sector, lots of dribs and drabs of publicity, but much less than 100 additional people on top of the 500 or so government-funded astronauts travelling to space and back, and many of those only for very brief periods.

“Spaceflight is difficult, expensive and dangerous, so expecting to see large numbers of even just well-off members of the population, as opposed to the ultra-rich, flying into space soon, or expecting you might be among them, is unlikely.”

Some find the idea of billionaires paying for themselves to go into space distasteful, and some eyebrows are being raised over a mission where the person paying for the trip is also the commander.

But this shouldn’t be brushed off as a vanity project, according to Dr Simeon Barber, a space scientist at the Open University, who develops scientific instruments on spacecrafts, almost entirely for government-funded projects.

“Isaacman is actually the most experienced astronaut of the crew – he alone has been to space before, on another self-funded mission with SpaceX, where he also took the position of Commander. In the context of the mission, he is the natural choice,” he told BBC News.

“More widely, the proceeds from selling this stellar class ticket to ride will remain on Earth – the money will buy materials and services, it will pay salaries and in turn will generate taxes. Not to mention the charitable funds the mission will raise.”

He says that many in the space sector believe the involvement of wealthy individuals to be a good thing.

“If they wish to venture off-planet, and one day to the Moon or even Mars, then that will create opportunities to do science along the way. And the more diverse the reasons there are to explore space, the more resilient the programme becomes.”

Police in Miami have released bodycam footage of a traffic stop involving American football star Tyreek Hill, who was pulled from his vehicle and handcuffed by officers.

Mr Hill was pulled over on his way to Hard Rock Stadium in the south Florida city just hours before the opening match of the season.

Miami-Dade police say one of the officers involved in the stop has been placed on administrative duties pending an investigation.

Two of Mr Hill’s Miami Dolphins teammates, Calais Campbell and Jonnu Smith, were also involved in the incident.

The team issued a statement on Monday backing their star wide receiver, saying: “We are saddened by the overly aggressive and violent conduct” shown to Mr Hill and the other players.

The team called for the officers involved in the incident to be disciplined.

But the local police union said that the officers acted properly during the encounter.

The traffic stop happened not far from the team’s home stadium, and the bodycam footage begins when Mr Hill’s car is pulled over, several officers approach, and one knocks on the window.

“Don’t knock on my window like that,” Mr Hill says several times after rolling the window down.

The officer responds: “Why don’t you have your seatbelt on?”

After a brief exchange Mr Hill then says: “Give me my ticket bro, so I can go, I’m gonna be late.”

Mr Hill then rolls the car window back up. The officer knocks on the window again and orders him to put it down again.

“Keep your window down (or) I’m going to get you out of the car,” the officer says. “As a matter of fact, get out of the car.”

The officers pull the football star out of the car and put him face down on the pavement.

“When we tell you to do something, you do it, do you understand?” one of the officers says, as they handcuff Mr Hill.

“You were beating on my window like you crazy,” Mr Hill is heard saying.

The officers then march him over to the curb and make him sit down.

“I just had surgery on my knee, bro,” Mr Hill tells the officers.

Two of Mr Hill’s teammates – defensive tackle Calais Campbell and tight end Jonnu Smith- stopped along the road as the incident was unfolding.

Mr Campbell also said he was placed in handcuffs as he tried to intervene in the situation.

Both players were released shortly after the traffic stop. Mr Hill was able to get to the game, scoring a touchdown in the Dolphins’ 20-17 win against the Jacksonville Jaguars. He celebrated by pretending to be placed in handcuffs with his teammates.

At a news conference after the game, Mr Hill said he did not know why he had been stopped and handcuffed.

“I was just doing what my uncle always told me to do if I was in a situation like that, just listen, put your hands on the steering wheel. Gotta be careful, man.

“They said I was speeding, but I don’t know,” he said. “What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill? Worst-case scenario, you know?”

In a statement, Miami-Dade Police Department Director Stephanie V Daniels said that an internal affairs investigation was underway and that one of the officers involved had been place on administrative duties.

“I’m committed to transparency and accountability to the community with any situation involving my officers,” Ms Daniels said.

The local police union issued a statement describing Mr Hill as “uncooperative” and said that he was “driving in a manner in which he was putting himself and others in great risk of danger”, but that he was never formally placed under arrest.

“Upon being stopped, Mr Hill was not immediately cooperative with the officers on the scene who, pursuant to policy and for their immediate safety, placed Mr Hill in handcuffs,” said the statement from South Florida Police Benevolent Association president Steadman Stahl.

Mr Hill’s attorney, Julius Collins, told CNN that the video contradicts the police union’s statement.

US media reported that Mr Hill was given citations for careless driving and failing to wear a seatbelt.