A billionaire and an engineer have become the first non-professional crew to perform one of the riskiest manoeuvres in space – a spacewalk.

Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis stepped out of the SpaceX spacecraft around 15 minutes apart, starting at 11:52BST, wearing specially-designed suits.

“Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here Earth sure looks like a perfect world,” Mr Isaacman said as he exited.

It was commercially funded by Mr Isaacman. Before, only astronauts with government-funded space agencies had done a spacewalk.

Images broadcast live showed the two crew emerge from the white Dragon capsule to float 435 miles (700km) above the blue Earth below.

Mr Isaacman emerged first, wiggling his limbs, hands and feet to test his suit. He returned back inside the hatch, and Ms Gillis, who works for SpaceX, then climbed out.

Both crew narrated their spacewalk, describing how their suits performed outside of the craft.

The walk, originally scheduled for 07:23BST, was postponed early on Thursday.

Anticipation and tension grew as the crew prepared to open the hatch on the craft that has no air lock, or doorway between the vacuum outside and the rest of the spacecraft.

The four crew members spent two days “pre-breathing” to prevent becoming seriously ill from decompression sickness, known as getting “the bends”, as the pressure changed. That involves replacing nitrogen in the blood with oxygen.

The craft was then depressurised to bring it closer to the conditions of the space vacuum outside.

This type of space walk took a “very different approach” to previous walks from, for example, the International Space Station, according to Dr Simeon Barber, research scientist at the Open University.

In recent decades astronauts used an airlock that separates most of a craft from the space vacuum outside – but this SpaceX Dragon capsule was in effect entirely exposed to space outside.

“It’s really exciting and I think it shows again that SpaceX is not afraid to do things in a different way,” he told BBC News.

But it was not without major risks.

Mr Isaacman, who funded the Polaris Dawn mission, was the only member of the four-person crew on the Polaris mission to have previously been to space.

He is commander on the Resilience spacecraft with his close friend Scott ‘Kidd’ Poteet, who is a retired air force pilot, and two SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis.

The Dragon capsule the team have flown in launched to space 46 times before, taking 50 crew in total. However, the capsule and the spacesuits are not subject to regulation and were untested in this environment.

Spacewalks are one of the most difficult manouevres in space, so the fact that a private company has pulled it off is a milestone in the history of space travel.

This walk at 435 miles (700km) was higher than any previous walk, and used innovative technology in the new extravehicular activity (EVA) astronaut suits.

These are an upgrade from SpaceX’s previous intravehicular activity (IVA) suits.

The EVA suit incorporates a heads-up display in its helmet, which provides information about the suit while it is being used.

Sarah Gillis read out data from her heads-up display during her time outside the Dragon capsule.

SpaceX say the suits are comfortable and flexible enough to be worn during launch and landing, eliminating the need to have separate IVA suits.

Extra nitrogen and oxygen tanks were installed and all four astronauts wore the suits, meaning the mission broke the record for the most people in the vacuum of space at once.

The Resilience spacecraft left Earth on Tuesday on a SpaceX rocket.

The mission said it would travel up to 870 miles (1,400km) up in orbit – further than any human has been in space since Nasa’s Apollo programme ended in the 1970s.

Government space agencies like Nasa want the private sector to transport their astronauts on missions and bring down the cost of space travel.

And entrepreneurs like Isaacman and Elon Musk want to expand private space travel so that more non-professional astronauts can go to space.

This is a major symbolic step forwards, but that day is probably a long way off as the costs remain prohibitively high.

American entrepreneur and billionaire Jared Isaacman became the first non-professional astronaut to walk in space on Thursday.

The 41-year-old bankrolled the Polaris Dawn mission that launched him and three others into space aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship.

Worth an estimated $1.9bn (£1.46bn), Mr Isaacman made his fortune from payment processing company Shift4 Payments, which he founded in 1999 aged 16.

The businessman had long been passionate about flying, first taking pilot lessons in 2004 and later setting a world record for circumnavigating the world in a light jet.

Stepping out into space for his first time on Thursday, the businessman said: “Back at home we all have a lot of work to do.

“But from here Earth sure looks like a perfect world.”

SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis also did a spacewalk after Isaacman returned.

Ms Gillis, the violinist-turned-aerospace-engineer, is the Polaris Dawn’s mission specialist.

Polaris Dawn is not Mr Isaacman’s first space mission. In 2021, he bankrolled and led the first private, all-civilian team to ever orbit the Earth.

That crew – named Inspiration4 – left on a SpaceX capsule from Florida and spent three days in space before splashing down successfully in the Atlantic Ocean.

Time magazine estimated that Mr Isaacman paid $200m (£153m) to fellow billionaire Elon Musk for all four seats aboard the SpaceX craft.

“That was a heck of a ride for us,” Mr Isaacman radioed shortly after landing at the time. “We’re just getting started.”

• Mission Polaris Dawn sets off on record orbit

Mr Isaacman was born in Union, New Jersey, where, from an early age, he wasn’t afraid to go against the grain and push boundaries.

At the age of 15, he dropped out of high school to bypass the four years it takes to graduate, opting instead to take the GED (a high school equivalency exam), according to the Netflix docuseries Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space.

“I was a horrible student,” Mr Isaacman said in the series. “And I wasn’t, like, happy in school, either.”

A year later, he launched his successful company Shift4 Payments from his parents’ basement, according to a report by Forbes.

The company now handles payments for a third of restaurants and hotels in the US, including big names like Hilton, Four Seasons, KFC and Arby’s; and processes over $260b (£199b) annually, according to its website.

Mr Isaacman also founded Draken International in 2011, a defence firm that trains Air Force pilots and owns the world’s largest fleet of private military aircrafts.

In 2019, Mr Isaacman sold a majority stake in Draken to Blackstone, a Wall Street firm, for a nine-figure sum, Forbes reported, launching himself into billionaire status.

The magazine dubbed him a “thrill seeker” in a 2020 profile, reporting that for fun, Mr Isaacman “bullets the MiG faster than the speed of sound and climbs mountains to unwind from non-stop, intense 80-plus-hour weeks”.

He also set a world speed record in 2009 for flying around the globe.

In the docuseries, Mr Isaacman said: “I do believe you only get one crack at life.”

“To the extent you have the means to do so, you have this obligation to live life to the fullest,” he added. “You never know when it’s going to be your last day.”

Mr Isaacman is married, has two daughters and lives with his family in New Jersey.

He and the others on board the Polaris Dawn are expected to return on Saturday.

Sitaram Yechury, the leader of India’s largest communist party, has died at the age of 72.

He was being treated for an acute respiratory tract infection at a Delhi hospital where he was admitted on 19 August.

Yechury, the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M), was a key figure in India’s politics over several decades.

Several politicians including main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and former rival Mamata Banerjee have paid their tributes.

Yechury started his political career as a student leader with the left-wing Student Federation of India. He was arrested during the Emergency in 1975, when the Congress government led by Indira Gandhi enforced a widespread curtailment of civil liberties.

After his release, he went on to become the president of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, where he studied economics.

He played an especially significant role during the peak years of coalition politics, when the stability of India’s federal governments depended on bringing together disparate ideologies and priorities.

In 1996, he played a leading role in forming a coalition of 13 parties, which governed India for nearly two years with two prime ministers – HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral – sharing the tenure.

In 2004, Yechury’s party won a historic 44 seats in the parliamentary election.

The Left parties, including the CPI(M), then supported the Congress-led government from “outside” – a term used for supporting the administration without taking ministerial roles.

But in 2008, they withdrew their support as a protest against the Indo-US nuclear deal, which required India to place its civil nuclear facilities under the watch of the International Atomic Energy Agency in exchange for full civil nuclear co-operation with the United States.

The Left’s decision was controversial and seen by many as questionable as it failed to repeat its 2004 electoral success.

By the time Yechury became the CPI(M)’s general secretary in 2015, the party had lost many of its former strongholds, including West Bengal state, and its parliamentary seats were on the decline.

He was a member of the Rajya Sabha, or the upper house of parliament, from 2005 to 2017.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, with whom Yechury shared a warm relationship, called him a “friend” while paying his tribute.

“A protector of the Idea of India with a deep understanding of our country. I will miss the long discussions we used to have,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Mamata Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress ended the Left’s 34-year-old rule in West Bengal in 2011, called his death “a loss for national politics”.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says three of its workers have been killed, and two others injured in a strike in eastern Ukraine.

The ICRC did not identify who was behind the attack but called it “unconscionable” that “shelling would hit an aid distribution site”.

Earlier, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said those killed were Ukrainian and blamed Moscow for the shelling, calling it “another Russian war crime”.

The agency said its vehicles are clearly marked and operate regularly in the frontline region of Donetsk.

“I condemn attacks on Red Cross personnel in the strongest terms,” said the agency’s president Mirjana Spoljaric, adding that: “Our hearts are broken today as we mourn the loss of our colleagues and care for the injured.”

The ICRC said its team had been preparing to distribute wood and coal briquettes to homes in Viroliubivka village, north of Donetsk city, when it was hit.

The distribution of the goods had not begun yet and no residents were affected by the explosion, the agency said.

It did not confirm any details about the identities of those killed.

Earlier, Ukrainian officials had reported shelling in Viroliubivka and said workers had been unloading supplies when the attack happened.

In a post on social media, Ukraine’s leader blamed a Russian strike. Zelensky shared a photo of a white truck in flames branded with the Red Cross logo on its side.

“Today, the occupier attacked the vehicles of the International Committee of the Red Cross humanitarian mission,” he said.

The Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets also commented online, urging the Red Cross to publicly attribute the attack to Russia.

“The shelling is already known about, but the ICRC… remain silent!” he wrote.

In its statement, the ICRC had reiterated that it is a “neutral, impartial and independent organisation with an exclusively humanitarian mandate”.

It deplored the “sharp rise” in the killings of humanitarians around the world in the past two years.

The United Nations has also made similar warnings. Its humanitarian mission to Ukraine earlier this year said 50 workers had killed or injured in Ukraine in 2023, including 11 killed in the line of duty, reported AFP news agency.

Malaysian police have rescued 402 children and teenagers that they suspect were physically and sexually abused across 20 care homes.

The victims, aged between one to 17, were said to have endured various forms of abuse, with some allegedly forced to perform sexual acts on other children, said Police Inspector-General Razarudin Husain at a press conference.

Police have arrested 171 suspects, including religious teachers and caretakers.

The care homes are allegedly linked to a prominent Islamic conglomerate which has issued a statement denying any wrongdoing.

Police raids on Wednesday across 20 welfare homes in the states of Selangor and Negeri Sembilan were prompted by reports earlier this month of child exploitation, molestation and sexual abuse at another facility in Negeri Sembilan state.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Insp Razarudin told reporters that some of the suspects – aged between 17 to 64 – would allegedly touch the children, claiming it was part of a religious treatment. Some children were also reportedly taught to perform similar sexual acts on other children at the home.

Children were also “punished using heated metal objects” and those who were ill were not allowed to seek medical treatment until their condition turned critical, he added.

The children will be temporarily housed at a police centre in the capital Kuala Lumpur and will undergo health checks, said Insp Razarudin.

Initial investigations found that many children were placed in these homes by their parents so they could undergo religious education, according to state news agency Bernama.

The raids come days after police opened an investigation against the Islamic Global Ikhwan Group (GISB) business group over child exploitation. The police has since confirmed that the two cases are linked.

Deputy Inspector-General of Police Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay said initial investigations have revealed that GISB’s modus operandi is to set up welfare homes to collection donations, said a report by the New Straits Times.

The group denied the allegations in a statement posted to Facebook on Wednesday.

“The company will not compromise with any activity that goes against the law, particularly regarding the exploitation of children,” it said.

GISB has hundreds of businesses across 20 countries, operating across sectors from hospitality, to food, to education.

The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia, or Suhakam, has called for stricter regulations in welfare homes.

“The problem is that these places are not properly regulated or supervised,” Suhakam’s children’s commissioner Farah Nini Dusuki told online news site Free Malaysia Today.

“We have a serious issue with monitoring and supervision, which is why we need the community to be more alert,” she said.

Visit BBC Action Line for details of organisations that can provide advice, information and support for people affected by sexual abuse.

Junior doctors in Kolkata are defying a court order to continue protests against the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at a state-run hospital in the city.

The discovery of the body of the 31-year-old woman on 9 August sparked nationwide outrage in India.

A hospital volunteer was arrested for the crime, which is now being investigated by a federal agency.

While protests have died down in other parts of India, doctors in Kolkata say they will hold firm until their demands are met.

Protesters have set up camp outside the state’s health department headquarters, voicing five key demands: justice for the victim, the removal of senior police officials, and enhanced security for health workers, among them.

A deadline set by the Supreme Court for them to return to work passed on Tuesday evening. The court is currently hearing a case related to the matter.

The protests have put the government of West Bengal state – of which Kolkata is the capital – on the back foot. Courts have criticised the local administration and police for lapses in the handling of the case, which they have denied.

The state government has said that 23 people have died after not accessing medical services during the strike. Reports on local channels and videos on social media also show patients alleging that the absence of doctors has adversely affected treatment.

But the protesting doctors say they have ensured that emergency services are not affected.

“Senior doctors are putting in all the effort they can,” said Dr Amrita Bhattacharya of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front.

“We are providing healthcare through telemedicine from the protest sites. They can’t replace the facilities of a hospital, and we are not even claiming that, but we are there to treat patients.”

On Wednesday, authorities declined the doctors’ conditions to hold negotiations, one of which was to telecast their meeting with the state’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee live on TV.

Organisers say while protests are happening across the state, the bulk of them are taking place in Kolkata.

The Indian Express reports that more than 300 rallies have been held in Kolkata over the past month, “many of these midnight events organised by women“.

• Indian women lead night protests after doctor’s rape and murder
• Kolkata doctor’s rape and murder has shocked India, says top court

Some of the protests have also escalated into chaotic political rallies, with police and protesters clashing with each other.

The doctors in Kolkata have often been joined by other health workers and people not connected with the profession as they shout slogans and sing and dance.

Behind them, there are several banners and posters seeking justice for the victim. Indian law prohibits naming victims of sex crimes so many protesters and news reports call her Abhaya, which means fearless.

Protesting doctors say that the brutal murder of their colleague at her workplace has shaken them.

Dr Bhattacharya says that earlier, when she was travelling to work, her mother would call to ask if she had reached the hospital safely.

“If I have reached the hospital, then I am fine. This is how we were conditioned to think,” she said. “So how can we go back to work knowing that people who have murdered our colleague might be roaming around free just next to us?”

On Wednesday, a state minister – West Bengal is governed by the Trinamool Congress party – alleged that the protests have been politicised by their rivals. But doctors insist they are not allied with any political party or ideology.

Dr Sumantra Dey said that the protests have participants from all walks of life as well as people from various political parties in their personal capacities.

“As of now, our mentors are senior doctors. We ask them what is the right path ahead, and we are choosing whether to listen to them as well,” he said.

This is a united front, he says, using a football analogy to illustrate his point.

“We might be Barcelona, we might be Manchester United but here we are playing for India.”

Singapore’s grandest arena, which has hosted Taylor Swift and Madonna, is getting ready to welcome an arguably bigger icon – Pope Francis.

The pontiff will celebrate Mass with 50,000 people at the National Stadium on Thursday evening, packing the venue as his 12-day Asia-Pacific tour draws to a close.

The 87-year-old has been to Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea – the visit to the Pacific Island was the furthest he has travelled to meet devotees.

He arrived in Singapore, where less than 10% of the population – around 400,000 people – identify as Catholic, on Wednesday afternoon. The three-day visit includes meetings with government officials, religious leaders and students.

This has been the longest foreign visit of his papacy and given his frail health, volunteers say the visit was unimaginable just a year ago. A spell of illness at the time had made overseas travel difficult, forcing him to cancel a trip to the UAE.

“Since we were told that he was coming [to Singapore], we’ve been praying,” says Karen Cheah, one of 5,000 volunteers who have been recruited for duties ranging from singing in the choir during Mass to protecting the Pope.

“Once he got on the plane and visited the other countries, the reality hit that it’s coming up: we are next.”

Hosting the Pope for even a single evening – as the stadium will – is no small feat.

It is a hive of activity the day before Mass. The pitch is covered with rubber flooring. The rows of chairs are growing as workers unload more of them.

At the other end of the arena, the choir is rehearsing hymns at full volume under the close watch of directors, the sound clashing with the routines being practised by the hosts of the event.

One volunteer is going through the sequences for Mass while manoeuvring an empty wheelchair. Pope Francis is expected to use a wheelchair for most engagements because of a knee ailment.

Meanwhile security volunteers are working with the police to secure an area around the Pope and guard where he is staying in Singapore.

These volunteers have completed weeks of training, where they learned skills including how to disengage from a tight grip and respond to a knife attack.

“Because of the current heightened sense of security, the police have been very active in working with us,” says Kevin Ho, who heads the security volunteer team.

“Our volunteers have been having sleepless nights, doing the operational work. We are trying to make the visit as safe and successful as it can be.”

The precautions have also increased because of a recent threat. Seven people were detained in Indonesia last week over a failed plot to attack the Pope. Police said they had confiscated bows, arrows, a drone and leaflets purportedly linked to the Islamic State militant group.

The Pope, born in Buenos Aires as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is known to be unafraid to address issues including LGBT+ inclusion and inter-religious tensions. On this trip, he made a joint call for peace in Jakarta alongside the grand imam of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque and met other religious leaders.

He praised Indonesians for choosing to have large families over pets, a seeming comment on plummeting birth rates in China, South Korea and Japan. But his figures that Indonesian parents are having up to five children were decades out of date, commentators pointed out. Indonesian women now have on average only slightly more than two children in their lifetime, UN data shows.

In resource-rich Papua New Guinea, which has been drawing international companies and investors, the Pope called for workers to be treated fairly. And in Timor-Leste, he said young people should be protected from abuse, after a prominent local bishop was accused of sexually abusing young boys there during the 1980s and 90s.

“Of course, the Pope has a message. But at the same time, he is also the message,” says Monsignor Stephen Yim, co-chair of the organising committee at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore.

This is Singapore’s second papal visit.

The late Pope John Paul II spent just five hours in the city state in 1986, which included officiating Mass at the old National Stadium.

Mr Ho, who was a student then, remembers that day well. He says the crowd roared as the pontiff made a lap of the venue in the popemobile, undeterred by the rain.

“The old stadium had no roof and we all got rained on,” Mr Ho recalls. “The only emotion I remember was that palpable sense of excitement when the Pope came around. It was electric. I will never forget that.”

Demand for Thursday’s Mass was also high – almost half of those who tried to get a seat were unsuccessful. Those who were unlucky received a reply with an emoji and verse from the Bible.

“Seeing the Pope in person feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” says Stephanie Yuen, who managed to get a seat at the stadium. “As a Catholic, that’s something I don’t want to miss, especially in my own country.”

The Mass will be “a very profound spiritual experience that I will get to share with thousands of my fellow Catholics in Singapore”, says Sherilyn Choo, another thrilled attendee.

The visit has also touched non-Catholics, such as carpenter Govindharaj Muthiah, who built two chairs for the Pope’s use in Singapore.

“Tensions around the globe are quite high. It’s heartwarming that he made trips to countries with many different religions,” Mr Muthiah says. “Unity is the message he is putting across.”

A former CIA officer has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for spying for the Chinese government.

Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 71, was arrested in August 2020 after admitting to an undercover FBI agent that he sold US secrets to China.

Ma, a naturalised US citizen born in Hong Kong, worked for the CIA from 1982 to 1989. He went on to work for the FBI later in his career.

Part of his plea agreement states that he must co-operate with prosecutors “for the rest of his life, including by submitting to debriefings by US government agencies”.

The plea deal requires him to submit to polygraph tests during those debriefings, according to the Associated Press news agency.

At a sentencing hearing on Wednesday, lawyers for the US government told the court that he has been co-operative, and has already taken part in “multiple interview sessions with government agents”.

Officials say Ma collaborated with a relative, who was also a CIA agent, to supply secrets to intelligence officers employed by the Shanghai State Security Bureau.

One meeting in Hong Kong was recorded on video and shows Ma counting $50,000 (£38,000) in cash for the secrets they shared, federal prosecutors say.

While living in Hawaii in 2004 he took a job at the FBI’s Honolulu office as a contract linguist.

The FBI, already aware of his espionage activities “hired Ma as part of a ruse to monitor and investigate his activities and contacts”, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

According to the AP, the unnamed collaborator was Ma’s brother, who died before he could be prosecuted.

At a court in Hawaii on Wednesday Ma was jailed for 10 years, as agreed with prosecutors, followed by five years of supervised release.

“Let it be a message to anyone else thinking of doing the same,” FBI Honolulu Special Agent-in-Charge Steven Merrill said in a statement, according to the AP.

“No matter how long it takes, or how much time passes, you will be brought to justice.”

Australia has stripped senior defence commanders of military honours over alleged war crimes committed under their watch in Afghanistan.

In parliament on Thursday, Defence Minister Richard Marles said they would lose their distinguished service medals, as recommended by a landmark inquiry which alleged there was an unchecked “warrior culture” within parts of the force.

The Brereton Report, released in 2020, found “credible evidence” that elite Australian soldiers unlawfully killed 39 people during the war in Afghanistan.

“This will always be a matter of national shame,” Mr Marles said.

“At the same time… [this is] a demonstration to the Australian people and to the world, that Australia is a country which holds itself accountable.”

He would not confirm how many officers are affected, but local media say it is less than ten.

Marles also stressed that the vast majority of Australian defence personnel who were deployed to Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021 had given “sacred service” and praised those who helped expose the alleged wrongdoing.

The decision does not affect those under investigation for war crimes themselves, including Australia’s most decorated living solider, Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith.

He denies any wrongdoing but in a high-profile defamation case last year was found – on the balance of probabilities – to have murdered four unarmed prisoners. He has not faced criminal charges over the allegations.

The civil trial was the first time a court has ever assessed accusations of war crimes by Australian forces.

Local media report that dozens of Australian soldiers are also being investigated for their roles in alleged war crimes. But so far charges have only been laid against one, former SAS trooper Oliver Schulz.

Former justice Paul Brereton found there was no credible information that officers high up the command chain knew of the alleged war crimes, but he said troop, squadron and task group commanders “bear moral command responsibility and accountability” for what happened under their watch.

They could not “in good conscience” retain their distinguished service medals – awarded for exceptional leadership in warlike operations – he said.

The issue of command accountability has been a vexing one for veterans.

Some have said they feel officers are being unfairly punished for others’ wrongdoing, but a government-commissioned report in May found “there is ongoing anger and bitter resentment” that their senior officers have not “publicly accepted some responsibility for policies or decisions that contributed to the misconduct”.

Responding to the decision to strip the officers’ medals, opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie, himself a former SAS soldier, said Australia must “learn from this tragic and bitter chapter in our military history”.

“Our soldiers must tell the truth and those in leadership must seek it out. If both our soldiers and our leaders had done so, we might not be in this place today,” he said.

Russia’s defence ministry says its forces have recaptured 10 settlements seized by Ukrainian forces in a surprise incursion in Russia’s Kursk border region last month.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Russia had begun “counter-offensive actions, which is going in line with our Ukrainian plan”.

Russia said its “Units of the North” forces had reclaimed the settlements over two days in the area around Snagost, on the western flank of the area occupied by Ukraine in its campaign launched on 6 August.

The first indication of a counteroffensive had come from Chechen special forces commander, Maj Gen Apti Alaudinov, who said six Ukrainian brigades had suffered heavy casualties.

A Ukrainian officer fighting in the Kursk region told the BBC that the Russian counteroffensive had begun some distance to the west of Sudzha.

“The fighting is very tough and the situation is not in our favour as of now,” the officer said on condition of anonymity.

Ukraine’s offensive was launched with the apparent aim of distracting Russia from its push into eastern Ukraine. It now claims up to 1,300 sq km (500 sq miles) of Russian territory.

However, Russian forces continued to seize villages in eastern Ukraine and are closing in on the strategic town of Pokrovsk.

Analysts from the US-based Institute for the Study of War said the size, scale and potential prospects of the Russian counterattacks were unclear and it was premature to draw any conclusions.

One social media account linked to a Ukrainian brigade said Russian forces had unexpectedly launched their attack near Snagost and that the Ukrainians were fighting back.

Russian military expert Anatoly Matviychuk told the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that more than 100 sq km of territory had been recaptured and “the enemy’s reserves, reinforcements, and logistical supplies can no longer reach Kursk region”.

Russia’s military was caught by surprise by the scale and intensity of the Ukraine incursion into Kursk region early last month.

Although Moscow was stunned by the ease with which Ukrainian forces seized towns and villages including Sudzha, President Vladimir Putin said almost a month afterwards that they had failed.

Ukrainian forces had tried to make Russia nervous – “to scurry, to send troops from one area to another and to stop our offensive in key areas, above all in Donbas” – he said.

Not only had it not worked, Putin argued that Ukraine’s offensive had merely helped Moscow’s “primary objective”, which he identified as capturing the Donbas – Ukraine’s industrial regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Russian forces are now only a few kilometres outside Pokrovsk and its adjoining town Myrnohrad and fierce fighting is reported on the approaches to the Pokrovsk.

An overpass between the two towns was destroyed overnight into Thursday and the Donetsk regional head said a water supply line to Pokrovsk had also been cut, although he said the town had access to several wells.

Meanwhile, a Russian drone attack left 14 people wounded in the northern Ukrainian town of Konotop, a key hub used by Kyiv for preparing its Kursk campaign.

Prosecutors in the Sumy border region posted photographs showing damaged apartment blocks in the town. Power supplies to Konotop were down because of the strike and officials said energy infrastructure had been significantly damaged.

Kamala Harris may have rattled Donald Trump on the debate stage, but the former president’s promise to save a nation in decline resonates with undecided voters in this part of a key battleground state.

It took Paul Simon four days to hitchhike from Saginaw, or so he sang in America, his iconic soundscape ballad of the 1960s with its lost souls on the highways of a country in flux.

Back then, this city’s long, slow decline had already begun, as Michigan’s once mighty car factories pulled down the shutters, buffeted by the winds of foreign competition.

Today, the angst and loneliness of Simon and Art Garfunkel’s song are magnified many times over.

I found 57-year-old Rachel Oviedo sitting on her porch, staring out at abandoned furniture in the street and beyond, the shell of a plant that once made car parts for Chevrolets and Buicks, but finally closed its doors in 2014.

“We sit here all day long,” she told me. “We see homeless people come in and out of there, they need to tear it down and make something out of it.”

“A grocery store,” she suggested. “Because we ain’t got no grocery stores round here.”

I first met her the day before Tuesday night’s debate in Philadelphia, when she told me she was still unsure of how she was going to vote.

Donald Trump, she said, felt like a known quantity and like “a man of his word”, while Kamala Harris looked promising but still somewhat unknown.

“I like her,” she said, “but we don’t know what she’s going to do.”

Most US states lean either so strongly Democratic or so strongly Republican that the result is a foregone conclusion.

And if Michigan is one of the few swing states, then Saginaw is one of the few places in it where the vote could genuinely go either way.

When they come to cast their ballots, it will be undecided voters like Rachel, in places like this, who’ll quite literally have the future of America in their hands.

Chuck Brenner, a retired Saginaw cop, is another one.

The 49-year-old, who still works part time in probation and runs his own real estate company, says he’s seen up close the problems here.

“Almost everybody’s dad worked in the car industry,” he told me.

“Back then, everybody had money and jobs were readily available. You’ve seen the change, people are struggling because people are growing up poor and then drugs and all that.”

Trump’s message of American decline resonates with Chuck.

“Absolutely,” he told me. “Because you can see it.”

But although he voted for Mr Trump in 2016, he went for Joe Biden in 2020.

“There was a lot of drama with Trump,“ he added. “And the legal issues. I kind of got sick of that.”

This time round, he’d only make up his mind, he insisted, once he’d watched the debate and heard what both candidates had to say.

Saginaw, like the wider state of Michigan, was once solid Democrat country – its political inclinations revealed in the list of candidates it has backed down the decades: Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

That 2016 vote, when Saginaw went – like Mr Brenner – for Trump, marked a shift.

You don’t have to spend long here to realise just how remarkable a shift that was.

Jeremy Zehnder runs a truck-polishing company, doing the kind of work Democrats used to be able to depend on for support.

Surrounded by the giant, gleaming trucks and trailers, the lifeblood of the American economy’s distribution networks, he tells me it’s not debate performances, but the cost of living that will determine how he votes.

And a majority of voters tell pollsters they trust Trump more on the economy.

“With the truckers, every one of those that we know of are leaning towards the right,” he told me.

“What, every one?” I ask.

“I don’t know of one that isn’t,” he replied. “I mean we do hundreds of trucks every year. And they all want to talk about it, everybody talks about it.”

At a United Auto Workers Union event where members watched the debate, I met one of the union organisers, Joe Losier.

The UAW has pledged its support to Kamala Harris and much of the crowd in the room whooped and clapped with every put-down she threw Trump’s way.

But dig a bit deeper and the fault lines of America’s political upheaval can be found here, too.

“My dad and all my uncles on both sides of my family, who are all UAW people, have become Republicans,” Mr Losier told me, unable to hide the incredulity in his own voice.

“These are second generation immigrants who came over here, started working in the auto industry back in World War One and it blows my mind that a lot of my family are tradesmen who are supporting Donald Trump.”

He’s even unsure which way his two adult sons are going to vote.

Dinner times are “horrible”, he said.

With workers fearing further shift cuts and job losses, the union finds itself increasingly out of step with its members.

There’s deep support here for Donald Trump’s promise of tough tariffs on imports, and disagreement with Kamala Harris’s argument in the debate that the policy would simply drive up prices.

After the debate, I called Chuck Brenner to see what he’d made of it. He had some good news for Democrats.

“I do believe Kamala was the shining star,” he told me. “And the bottom line is she’s won my vote. I was impressed by what she had to say, her delivery.”

“With Trump,” he went on, “it was kind of what I expected. There were no surprises there. It’s kind of like the same. The same.”

Rachel Oviedo was still undecided, she told me, but now leaning more towards Trump.

“I think he’ll do more for us up here,” she said.

“You know, he did things he shouldn’t have done”, she added. “But you gotta forgive people.”

And Jeremy Zehnder, the truck polisher, admitted to being slightly surprised by Harris’s performance.

“She did much better than I thought she would,” he told me. “I think she won it.”

But he’s sticking with Trump. It’s about policy, he said. Taxes, the border and the cost of living.

On the streets of Saginaw, Kathleen Skelcy was knocking on doors, busy canvassing for Harris.

She told me she finds it a struggle to see any rationale behind the political motivations of her opponents.

“That’s what’s scary, trying to understand these people and their thinking,” she said.

“I just think they’re not educated, or they fell asleep in school or something.”

It’s easy to see this as patronising, another sign that some Democrats chalk Trump’s appeal as merely delusional.

It’s clear, however, that trust and understanding can be in short supply on both sides.

As we’re talking, a Trump supporter, aggressive and threatening, emerges shouting from his home, following Kathleen up the street.

“Harris is a clown,” he yells, adding a few profanities for good measure.

And on the doorsteps, one Democratic supporter declines the offer of a Harris sign for their front yard, scared, they say, of inviting similar abuse.

In a few weeks, Saginaw will go the polls.

Before then, it’s almost certain that many more journalists will pass through this key bellwether district, all of them looking for America.

It’s here alright, in all its striving and struggling, and in a story today being lived out in stark political division.

A debate needs middle ground.

And there’s very little of that left.

• 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?
• ANALYSIS: Who won the Harris-Trump presidential debate?
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

Boeing’s new chief executive Kelly Ortberg has pleaded with workers to not go on strike as it would put the company’s “recovery in jeopardy”.

It comes hours ahead of a crucial union vote that could trigger industrial action at the embattled company.

The aviation giant’s executives and union representatives reached a deal earlier this week that includes a 25% pay rise over four years but it has yet to be approved by union members.

If workers vote against the agreement it would lead to a second ballot on whether to start a strike as early as Friday.

“I ask you not to sacrifice the opportunity to secure our future together, because of the frustrations of the past,” said Mr Ortberg in his message to staff.

“Working together, I know that we can get back on track, but a strike would put our shared recovery in jeopardy”.

On top of the proposed 25% pay rise, the preliminary deal would offer workers improved healthcare and retirement benefits, as well as 12 weeks of paid parental leave.

It would also include a commitment from Boeing to build its next commercial plane in the Seattle area if the project is started during the lifetime of the contract.

The union initially targeted a number of improvements to workers’ packages, including a 40% pay rise.

However, it appears the reaction from the 30,000 Boeing workers represented by the union was not entirely positive.

Union leader and top negotiator, John Holden, said it was not clear whether the deal had enough support among union members to be approved.

“They are angry,” he told the Reuters news agency.

The current contract between Boeing and the unions was reached in 2008 after an eight-week strike.

In 2014, the two sides agreed to extend the deal, which is due to expire at midnight on Thursday.

A rejection of the preliminary agreement between Boeing and its largest union would be a further significant setback for the firm.

A strike could potentially shut down aircraft production at a time when the company is facing deepening financial losses and struggling to repair its reputation following recent incidents and two fatal accidents five years ago.

It would also be a major blow to Mr Ortberg, an aerospace industry veteran and engineer, who took over as Boeing’s chief executive last month with a mission to turn the business around.

There are strong indications that the US and UK are poised to lift their restrictions within days on Ukraine using long-range missiles against targets inside Russia.

Ukraine already has supplies of these missiles, but is restricted to firing them at targets inside its own borders. Kyiv has been pleading for weeks for these restrictions to be lifted so it can fire on targets inside Russia.

So why the reluctance by the West and what difference could these missiles make to the war?

Storm Shadow is an Anglo-French cruise missile with a maximum range of around 250km (155 miles). The French call it Scalp.

Britain and France have already sent these missiles to Ukraine – but with the caveat that Kyiv can only fire them at targets inside its own borders.

It is launched from aircraft then flies at close to the speed of sound, hugging the terrain, before dropping down and detonating its high explosive warhead.

Storm Shadow is considered an ideal weapon for penetrating hardened bunkers and ammunition stores, such as those used by Russia in its war against Ukraine.

But each missile costs nearly US$1 million (£767,000), so they tend to be launched as part of a carefully planned flurry of much cheaper drones, sent ahead to confuse and exhaust the enemy’s air defences, just as Russia does to Ukraine.

They have been used with great effect, hitting Russia’s Black Sea naval headquarters at Sevastopol and making the whole of Crimea unsafe for the Russian navy.

Justin Crump, a military analyst, former British Army officer and CEO of the Sibylline consultancy, says Storm Shadow has been a highly effective weapon for Ukraine, striking precisely against well protected targets in occupied territory.

“It’s no surprise that Kyiv has lobbied for its use inside Russia, particularly to target airfields being used to mount the glide bomb attacks that have recently hindered Ukrainian front-line efforts,” he says.

Ukraine’s cities and front lines are under daily bombardment from Russia.

Many of the missiles and glide bombs that wreak devastation on military positions, blocks of flats and hospitals are launched by Russian aircraft far within Russia itself.

Kyiv complains that not being allowed to hit the bases these attacks are launched from is akin to making it fight this war with one arm tied behind its back.

At the Globsec security forum I attended in Prague this month, it was even suggested that Russian military airbases were better protected than Ukrainian civilians getting hit because of the restrictions.

Ukraine does have its own, innovative and effective long-range drone programme.

At times, these drone strikes have caught the Russians off guard and reached hundreds of kilometres inside Russia.

But they can only carry a small payload and most get detected and intercepted.

Kyiv argues that in order to push back the Russian air strikes, it needs long-range missiles, including Storm Shadow and comparable systems including American Atacms, which has an even greater range of 300km.

In a word: escalation.

Washington worries that although so far all of President Vladimir Putin’s threatened red lines have turned out to be empty bluffs, allowing Ukraine to hit targets deep inside Russia with Western-supplied missiles could just push him over the edge into retaliating.

The fear in the White House is that hardliners in the Kremlin could insist this retaliation takes the form of attacking transit points for missiles on their way to Ukraine, such as an airbase in Poland.

If that were to happen, Nato’s Article 5 could be invoked, meaning the alliance would be at war with Russia.

Ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the White House’s aim has been to give Kyiv as much support as possible without getting dragged into direct conflict with Moscow, something that would risk being a precursor to the unthinkable: a catastrophic nuclear exchange.

Nonetheless, it has allowed Ukraine to use Western supplied missiles against targets in Crimea and the four partially regions that Russia illegally annexed in 2022. While Moscow considers these regions part of its territory, the claims are not recognised by the US or internationally.

Some, but it may be a case of too little too late. Kyiv has been asking to use long-range Western missiles inside Russia for so long now that Moscow has already taken precautions for the eventuality of the restrictions being lifted.

It has moved bombers, missiles and some of the infrastructure that maintains them further back, away from the border with Ukraine and beyond the range of Storm Shadow.

Yet Justin Crump of Sibylline says while Russian air defence has evolved to counter the threat of Storm Shadow within Ukraine, this task will be much harder given the scope of Moscow’s territory that could now be exposed to attack.

“This will make military logistics, command and control, and air support harder to deliver, and even if Russian aircraft pull back further from Ukraine’s frontiers to avoid the missile threat they will still suffer an increase in the time and costs per sortie to the front line.”

Matthew Savill, director of military science at Rusi think tank, believes lifting restrictions would offer two main benefits to Ukraine.

Firstly, it might “unlock” another system, the Atacms.

Secondly, it would pose a dilemma for Russia as to where to position those precious air defences, something he says could make it easier for Ukraine’s drones to get through.

Ultimately though, says Savill, Storm Shadow is unlikely to turn the tide.

The controversial former Peruvian president, Alberto Fujimori has died aged 86.

To his supporters, Fujimori was the president who saved Peru from the twin evils of terrorism and economic collapse.

To his opponents, he was an authoritarian strongman who rode roughshod over the country’s democratic institutions to preserve his hold on power.

In 2009, he was sentenced to 25 years in jail for human rights abuses committed during his time in office – including authorising killings carried out by death squads – but he was released from prison in December after a pardon on humanitarian grounds was reinstated.

An agricultural engineer born of Japanese parents, Fujimori upset the odds when he won the Peruvian presidency in 1990 against Nobel Prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa.

Fujimori was a political unknown until weeks before the vote.

• 1990: Wins a surprise victory at polls

• 1992: Dissolves Peru’s congress with military backing, assuming greater control

• 1995: Restores congress and overwhelmingly wins a second term

• 2000: Re-elected for a third term amid allegations of ballot rigging

• 2000: Flees to Japan after Montesinos scandal breaks

• 2005: Detained in Chile at the Peruvian authorities’ request

• 2007: Extradited from Chile to face trial in Peru

• 2007: Jailed for six years for abuse of power

• 2009: Convicted of human rights abuses, jailed for 25 years

• 2017: Pardoned on health grounds, prompting protests

• 2019: Sent back to prison after Supreme Court overturned pardon in 2018

• 2023: Released from prison

• 2024: Dies of tongue cancer

Few knew what to expect from him when he inherited a country on the verge of economic collapse and racked by political violence.

He implemented a radical programme of free-market reforms, removing subsidies, privatising state-owned companies and reducing the role of the state in almost all spheres of the economy.

Though this shock therapy brought great hardship for ordinary Peruvians, it ended rampant hyperinflation and paved the way for sustained economic growth in the second half of the 1990s.

Fujimori also tackled the left-wing rebels whose 10-year insurgency caused thousands of deaths. But he says he never approved a “dirty war” against the rebels.

In 1992, with the support of the military, the president dissolved the Peruvian congress and courts and seized dictatorial powers.

He justified the measure by arguing that the legislative and judiciary had been hindering the security forces in their fight against the rebels.

Opposition politicians said he was really seeking to escape democratic accountability.

But that same year he was vindicated in the eyes of many Peruvians by the capture of the leader of the main rebel group, the Shining Path.

In 1995, Fujimori stood for re-election and won an overwhelming victory.

Most voters cited his victories over left-wing insurgents and hyperinflation as the reason for giving him their support.

One of the key moments of his presidency was the hostage siege by Marxist MRTA rebels at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima in 1996-97.

After a four-month stand-off, commandos were sent in to take the building.

All 14 rebels were killed and nearly all the 72 hostages were rescued in an operation that at the time cemented Mr Fujimori’s reputation of a man of action.

In his second term though, a growing number of Peruvians began to voice concern that the methods used against the insurgency were also being employed against the president’s democratic opponents.

His critics accused him of using the intelligence service led by Vladimiro Montesinos to intimidate and spy on rivals.

They said he exerted unfair control on the media and the judiciary, and used government resources to support his own campaigns.

This criticism increased when he announced he was to stand for an unprecedented third successive term.

Although he won the May 2000 elections, the victory marked the start of his downfall.

A tape emerged showing Montesinos apparently bribing an opposition member of Congress.

After the scandal broke, the opposition gained control of Congress for the first time in eight years and dismissed Fujimori on grounds of “moral incapacity”.

In November 2000, he fled to his parents’ native Japan, where he lived for five years in self-imposed exile.

In an effort to resurrect his political career and launch a new bid for the presidency, he flew to Chile in November 2005, only to be arrested at the request of the Peruvian authorities.

Fujimori then spent two years fighting to block his extradition to face a series of charges, a battle he lost in September 2007.

He was convicted and sentenced to six years in jail in December 2007 on charges of abuse of power, following the removal of sensitive video and audio tapes from Vladimir Montesinos’s home.

In April 2009, judges found him guilty of authorising death-squad killings in two incidents known as La Cantuta and Barrios Altos, and the kidnapping of a journalist and a businessman.

Fujimori repeatedly denied the charges, saying they were politically motivated.

The 15-month trial and the divisions in public opinion it generated echoed the controversy that accompanied Fujimori throughout his political career.

He led a colourful personal life too.

During his time in office, Fujimori divorced his wife Susana Higuchi after dismissing her as first lady in favour of their daughter, Keiko.

Fujimori married his long-term Japanese girlfriend, Satomi Kataoka, whilst facing extradition for corruption and human rights abuses in a Chilean detention centre in 2006.

Keiko Fujimori followed her father into politics, contesting the Peruvian presidential elections in 2010, 2016 and 2021 as the candidate of the right-wing Popular Force party.

Father and daughter remained close and while he was in jail serving his 25-year-sentence for human rights abuses, she campaigned vigorously for his release.

The former president was pardoned in 2017 and released but sent back to jail in 2019, when Peru’s supreme court overturned the controversial pardon.

Eventually the pardon was reinstated last year and he was freed in December.

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.

The Pacific Islands are scattered across a vast area of ocean, with some of the clearest waters in the world, and pristine beaches and rainforests.

They are a magnet for tourism, which is vital for many of the countries’ economies.

But the region’s travel industry, and those who rely on it, are increasingly fearful of the impact of continuing climate change.

“Pacific Island leaders have declared climate change as the foremost threat to the livelihoods, security, and well-being of Pacific communities,” says Christopher Cocker, the chief executive of the Pacific Tourism Organisation.

“Without immediate and innovative action, the future of tourism in the region remains highly uncertain.”

He adds: “All islands of the Pacific are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. However, low-lying atoll countries like Tuvalu, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia are more vulnerable.

“These islands are not only prone to inundation from rising seas, especially during king tides, but access to clean and safe drinking water is a challenge, with prolonged droughts and unpredictable rainfall patterns.”

Then there’s the threat of erratic and potentially devastating tropical storms, which are ranked from one (the weakest), to five (the strongest).

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has said that climate models of the Pacific Ocean have suggested “there could be a future shift towards fewer, but more intense, cyclones”.

However, in Tonga locals say they are now seeing stronger storms hit more often.

Nomuka is a small triangular island in Tonga’s Ha’apai archipelago, about 3,500km (2,175 miles) north-west of Sydney, Australia. Surrounded by ocean, its population of about 400 people feels at the mercy of nature’s whims and fury.

“We live with cyclones almost every year. I grew up there, and there were usually one or two that come in for a direct hit,” says Sione Taufa, an associate dean Pacific at the University of Auckland Business School, and a member of the New Zealand-Tonga Business Council.

“But nowadays we are seeing more of those category four or five cyclones coming in much more regularly.”

The peril that Pacific Islands states face has been highlighted recently by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. Last month he attended the Pacific Island Forum Leaders Meeting in Tonga, and called for the world’s most polluting countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

“The small [Pacific] islands don’t contribute to climate change but everything that happens because of climate change is multiplied here,” he said.

A two-hour flight heading north-west from Tonga are the islands of Fiji, a former British colony.

Last year Fiji welcomed 929,740 visitors, mostly from Australia, New Zealand, North America and China.

Here, too, there is anxiety about a shifting climate.

Marica Vakacola is from the Mamanuca Environment Society, a community organisation based in Nadi, by Fiji’s main international airport.

The group champions sustainable tourism and environment protection, and is restoring mangroves and planting trees. But Ms Vakacola tells me that this part of Viti Levu, Fiji’s biggest island, is already living with the consequences of warming temperatures.

Bore water is being contaminated by salinity from the encroaching sea and, more and more, rainwater must be harvested during the wet season.

“Water security is a big risk in terms of climate change,” explains Ms Vakacola.

“Most of the freshwater sources that were once good enough to be consumed are now being intruded by salt water. Beach fronts are being eroded by rising sea levels and we have experienced coral bleaching events because of changing temperatures of seawater.”

Susanne Becken, a professor of sustainable tourism at Griffith University in Australia, foresees potential for friction over scarce supplies of water across the Pacific Islands.

“Drinking water is increasingly becoming an issue in some places,” she says.

“There could be conflict with the community because tourists effectively use the water that local people need.”

Prof Becken has recently undertaken research in Fiji and the Cook Islands. It revealed some unexpected attitudes to climate change and the threat it brings to the island nations.

“There’s a bit of denial, where people were a little bit fatalist in the sense that there is not much we can do about it. It was easily dismissed as a global problem that the Pacific Islands can’t do much about. I was a bit surprised, to be honest, that people maybe feel a little bit helpless.

“It is almost like ‘let’s not talk about it’. Maybe they are preoccupied about getting growth of the tourism market back. It is not part of the story. It is a really tricky topic.”

Hard truths are, though, being confronted in the Cook Islands, a jewel of Polynesia popular with New Zealanders and Australians, where most of the tourism infrastructure stretches in ribbons around the coasts of the main islands.

Brad Kirner is the director of destination development at the Cook Islands Tourism Corporation. He concedes that discussions about global warming in the community can be fraught.

“If we face reality it’s going to need some pretty serious adaptation measures put in play. It’s a challenging conversation.

“There’s also the challenging conservation that, yes, travel is a significant contributor to global warming, and we need to face that fact. How do we come up with solutions?”

“We are a tiny percentage of world population and therefore we have a very small carbon footprint, but we are on the front line of climate change,” he adds.

While there might be a sense of despair, it shouldn’t be mistaken for an admission of defeat. Far from it. Tenacity runs deep in some of the world’s most isolated nations.

Social systems vary across the islands, where the influence of kinship groups, community networks and the diaspora in Australia, New Zealand and beyond is paramount.

“Obviously, they will appreciate all the assistance that is given especially in the aftermath of any natural disaster, but being treated with a victim mentality isn’t quite helpful,” says the University of Auckland’s Sione Taufa.

“If any assistance comes we’ll be grateful for it, and if it doesn’t we’ll try our best to survive. You lean on your neighbours to help you in time of need. Most importantly, it is a trust system.”

Creators and fans of the Japanese anime series One Piece explain why the show has become one of the most popular franchises in the world.

It is a show that has run for more than 1,000 episodes – and it counts French President Emmanuel Macron and rapper Travis Scott as fans. The comic series it is based on, meanwhile, has sold more than 500 million copies, earning a Guinness World Record.

And you can even buy merchandise for the series in clothing stores up and down the country.

The show is One Piece, a Japanese anime that celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2024.

Based around a series of comics by manga auteur Eiichiro Oda, it follows Monkey D Luffy, the leader of a group of pirates travelling the world on the hunt for a mysterious treasure known as the One Piece. Along the way, they engage in battles with the government and their fellow pirates, using powers gained by eating “Devil Fruits”.

As the series is now streaming on BBC iPlayer, creators and fans of the show explain how One Piece became such a phenomenon.

When Zach Logan began his One Piece Podcast in 2009, the show was little-known in the United States.

“You could measure it from anime conventions that we went to,” he tells the BBC. “Today they would be overrun by One Piece fans, but then it was like two and a half people – two people, and then their baby who they’d dressed up as Chopper.” In One Piece, Chopper is a toddler-sized hybrid of human and reindeer.

Logan describes the show in the late 2000s as a “niche within a niche”, with a small following within the already small fanbase for anime in the US.

In Japan, however, the success of One Piece was more instantaneous. When it was first published in 1997 in magazine Shonen Jump, the publication’s readership was falling behind that of its rival Shonen Magazine. One Piece’s inclusion helped Shonen Jump reclaim its spot as the most-read manga in Japan.

Hiroyuki Nakano, the current editor of the One Piece manga, read the series from its inception.

“I remember being truly amazed, thinking, ‘an incredible comic has begun,’” he says via an interpreter.

In the mid-1990s, manga (a term used for a range of Japanese comic books and graphic novels) was at its peak, with 1.34 billion manga collections sold in 1995. Popular titles of the time included Dragon Ball (about a martial artist on the search for magical orbs), Slam Dunk (about a basketball team) and Doraemon (about a time-travelling robotic cat).

For Nakono, however, the One Piece comic series changed the industry. “Instead of relying on a haphazard, week-by-week method,” he says, “it carefully built up characters, creating a story structure that leads to an emotional climax at the end.”

“There was a strong emphasis on cliffhangers in manga before One Piece,” he continues. “This approach often led to disappointments when the developments didn’t meet the build-up’s expectations.”

When it comes to the anime series, Logan adds that the show’s approach also gives it a stronger emotional punch than other anime.

He highlights the Drum Island arc (episodes 78 to 91), when viewers learn the backstory of Chopper, who was shunned by his fellow reindeer. “Watching Drum Island,” he says, “anyone with a soul would cry.”

The first episode of the anime adaptation aired in October 1999, but it took over a decade for it to develop a significant following outside Japan.

First transmitted in the US in 2004, the early dubbed version was criticised for its unconvincing voice actors and the decision to censor some of the battles by removing blood and replacing guns with water pistols or shovels.

“People were turned off by the first version of it,” says Logan.

Logan says the international popularity of the show was turbo-charged during the pandemic. “It was like gasoline on a fire. When people were at home, they had no excuse not to watch a show with 900-plus episodes.”

Though some may be intimidated by the show’s length – a binge from beginning to end would take two-and-a-half uninterrupted weeks – for Nakano, this is the show’s strength.

“When it comes to the sheer number of characters and ideas created by Oda-sensei [One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda], no other body of work can match it.”

Logan compares the show to Doctor Who, another cult show that can leave people intimidated by its length and leave them wondering when to start.

“You could skip certain parts and jump in at a certain point, but you’ll miss some important, brilliant stuff,” he says. “In One Piece, there’s stuff in episodes from 1999 or 2002 that’s still very prescient to the show because of how Oda interweaves things.

“I used to tell friends that they could skip things, but now I feel I would be committing malpractice to say that!

“People will start by complaining how long it is, and when they get to the end they’re like, ‘why isn’t there more?’”

Midwife Siro Devi is clinging to Monica Thatte, sobbing. Monica, in her late 20s, has returned to her birthplace – the Indian town where Siro has delivered hundreds of babies.

But this is no straightforward reunion. There is a painful history behind Siro’s tears. Shortly before Monica was born, Siro and several Indian midwives like her were regularly pressured to murder newborn girls.

Monica, evidence suggests, is one they saved.

I have been following Siro’s story for 30 years, ever since I went to interview her and four other rural midwives in India’s Bihar state in 1996.

They had been identified by a non-governmental organisation as being behind the murder of baby girls in the district of Katihar where, under pressure from the newborns’ parents, they were killing them by feeding them chemicals or simply wringing their necks.

Hakiya Devi, the eldest of the midwives I interviewed, told me at the time she had killed 12 or 13 babies. Another midwife, Dharmi Devi, admitted to killing more – at least 15-20.

It is impossible to ascertain the exact number of babies they may have killed, given the way the data was gathered.

But they featured in a report published in 1995 by an NGO, based on interviews with them and 30 other midwives. If the report’s estimates are accurate, more than 1,000 baby girls were being murdered every year in one district, by just 35 midwives. According to the report, Bihar at the time had more than half a million midwives. And infanticide was not limited to Bihar.

Refusing orders, Hakiya said, was almost never an option for a midwife.

“The family would lock the room and stand behind us with sticks,” says Hakiya Devi. “They’d say: ‘We already have four-five daughters. This will wipe out our wealth. Once we give dowry for our girls, we will starve to death. Now, another girl has been born. Kill her.’

“Who could we complain to? We were scared. If we went to the police, we’d get into trouble. If we spoke up, people would threaten us.”

The role of a midwife in rural India is rooted in tradition, and burdened by the harsh realities of poverty and caste. The midwives I interviewed belonged to the lower castes in India’s caste hierarchy. Midwifery was a profession passed on to them by mothers and grandmothers. They lived in a world where refusing orders of powerful, upper-caste families was unthinkable.

The midwife could be promised a sari, a sack of grain or a small amount of money for killing a baby. Sometimes even that was not paid. The birth of a boy earned them about 1,000 rupees. The birth of a girl earned them half.

The reason for this imbalance was steeped in India’s custom of giving a dowry, they explained. Though the custom was outlawed in 1961, it still held strong in the 90s – and indeed continues into the present day.

A dowry can be anything – cash, jewellery, utensils. But for many families, rich or poor, it is the condition of a wedding. And this is what, for many, still makes the birth of a son a celebration and the birth of a daughter a financial burden.

Siro Devi, the only midwife of those I interviewed who is still alive, used a vivid physical image to explain this disparity in status.

“A boy is above the ground – higher. A daughter is below – lower. Whether a son feeds or takes care of his parents or not, they all want a boy.”

The preference for sons can be seen in India’s national-level data. Its most recent census, in 2011, recorded a ratio of 943 women to every 1,000 men. This is nevertheless an improvement on the 1990s – in the 1991 census, the ratio was 927/1,000.

By the time I finished filming the midwives’ testimonies in 1996, a small, silent change had begun. The midwives who once carried out these orders had started to resist.

This change was instigated by Anila Kumari, a social worker who supported women in the villages around Katihar, and was dedicated to addressing the root causes of these killings.

Anila’s approach was simple. She asked the midwives, “Would you do this to your own daughter?”

Her question apparently pierced years of rationalisation and denial. The midwives got some financial help via community groups and gradually the cycle of violence was interrupted.

Siro, speaking to me in 2007, explained the change.

“Now, whoever asks me to kill, I tell them: ‘Look, give me the child, and I’ll take her to Anila Madam.’”

The midwives rescued at least five newborn girls from families who wanted them killed or had already abandoned them.

One child died, but Anila arranged for the other four to be sent to Bihar’s capital, Patna, to an NGO which organised their adoption.

The story could have ended there. But I wanted to know what had become of those girls who were adopted, and where life had taken them.

The Midwife’s Confession

Thirty years ago, a journalist in the Indian state of Bihar filmed a series of shocking confessions: midwives admitting they routinely murdered new-born baby girls. BBC Eye explores the disturbing story.

Watch on iPlayer (UK only), or if you are outside the UK watch on YouTube

The Midwife’s Confession

BBC Eye finds a woman who was possibly one of the girls abandoned in Bihar. What will happen when she returns to meet the only surviving midwife?

Listen on BBC Sounds or outside the UK, listen here

Anila’s records were meticulous but they had few details about post-adoption.

Working with a BBC World Service team, I got in touch with a woman called Medha Shekar who, back in the 90s, was researching infanticide in Bihar when the babies rescued by Anila and the midwives began arriving at her NGO. Remarkably, Medha was still in touch with a young woman who, she believed, was one of these rescued babies.

Anila told me that she had given all the girls saved by the midwives the prefix “Kosi” before their name, a homage to the Kosi river in Bihar. Medha remembered that Monica had been named with this “Kosi” prefix before her adoption.

The adoption agency would not let us look at Monica’s records, so we can never be sure. But her origins in Patna, her approximate date of birth and the prefix “Kosi” all point to the same conclusion: Monica is, in all probability, one of the five babies rescued by Anila and the midwives.

When I went to meet her at her parents’ home some 2,000km (1,242 miles) away in Pune, she said she felt lucky to have been adopted by a loving family.

“This is my definition of a normal happy life and I am living it,” she said.

Monica knew that she had been adopted from Bihar. But we were able to give her more details about the circumstances of her adoption.

Earlier this year, Monica travelled to Bihar to meet Anila and Siro.

Monica saw herself as the culmination of years of hard work by Anila and the midwives.

“Someone prepares a lot to do well in an exam. I feel like that. They did the hard work and now they’re so curious to meet the result… So definitely, I would like to meet them.”

Anila wept tears of joy when she met Monica. But Siro’s response felt different.

She sobbed hard, holding Monica close and combing through her hair.

“I took you [to the orphanage] to save your life… My soul is at peace now,” she told her.

But when, a couple of days later, I attempted to press Siro about her reaction, she resisted further scrutiny.

“What happened in the past is in the past,” she said.

But what is not in the past is the prejudice some still hold against baby girls.

Reports of infanticide are now relatively rare, but sex-selective abortion remains common, despite being illegal since 1994.

If one listens to the traditional folk songs sung during childbirth, known as Sohar, in parts of north India, joy is reserved for the birth of a male child. Even in 2024, it is an effort to get local singers to change the lyrics so that the song celebrates the birth of a girl.

While we were filming our documentary, two baby girls were discovered abandoned in Katihar – one in bushes, another at the roadside, just a few hours old. One later died. The other was put up for adoption.

Before Monica left Bihar, she visited this baby in the Special Adoption Centre in Katihar.

She says she was haunted by the realisation that though female infanticide may have been reduced, abandoning baby girls continues.

“This is a cycle… I can see myself there a few years ago, and now again there’s some girl similar to me.”

But there were to be happier similarities too.

The baby has now been adopted by a couple in the north-eastern state of Assam. They have named her Edha, which means happiness.

“We saw her photo, and we were clear – a baby once abandoned cannot be abandoned twice,” says her adoptive father Gaurav, an officer in the Indian air force.

Every few weeks Gaurav sends me a video of Edha’s latest antics. I sometimes share them with Monica.

Looking back, the 30 years spent on this story were never just about the past. It was about confronting uncomfortable truths. The past cannot be undone, but it can be transformed.

And in that transformation, there is hope.

“This is like doomsday for me. I feel so much grief. Can you imagine what I’ve gone through watching my children dying?” says Amina.

She’s lost six children. None of them lived past the age of three and another is now battling for her life.

Seven-month-old Bibi Hajira is the size of a newborn. Suffering from severe acute malnutrition, she occupies half a bed at a ward in Jalalabad regional hospital in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province.

“My children are dying because of poverty. All I can feed them is dry bread, and water that I warm up by keeping it out under the sun,” Amina says, nearly shouting in anguish.

What’s even more devastating is her story is far from unique – and that so many more lives could be saved with timely treatment.

Bibi Hajira is one of 3.2 million children with acute malnutrition, which is ravaging the country. It’s a condition that has plagued Afghanistan for decades, triggered by 40 years of war, extreme poverty and a multitude of factors in the three years since the Taliban took over.

But the situation has now reached an unprecedented precipice.

It’s hard for anyone to imagine what 3.2 million looks like, and so the stories from just one small hospital room can serve as an insight into the unfolding disaster.

There are 18 toddlers in seven beds. It’s not a seasonal surge, this is how it is day after day. No cries or gurgles, the unnerving silence in the room is only broken by the high-pitched beeps of a pulse rate monitor.

Most of the children aren’t sedated or wearing oxygen masks. They’re awake but they are far too weak to move or make a sound.

Sharing the bed with Bibi Hajira, wearing a purple tunic, her tiny arm covering her face, is three-year-old Sana. Her mother died while giving birth to her baby sister a few months ago, so her aunt Laila is taking care of her. Laila touches my arm and holds up seven fingers – one for each child she’s lost.

In the adjacent bed is three-year-old Ilham, far too small for his age, skin peeling off his arms, legs and face. Three years ago, his sister died aged two.

It is too painful to even look at one-year-old Asma. She has beautiful hazel eyes and long eyelashes, but they’re wide open, barely blinking as she breathes heavily into an oxygen mask that covers most of her little face.

Dr Sikandar Ghani, who’s standing over her, shakes his head. “I don’t think she will survive,” he says. Asma’s tiny body has gone into septic shock.

Despite the circumstances, up until then there was a stoicism in the room – nurses and mothers going about their work, feeding the children, soothing them. It all stops, a broken look on so many faces.

Asma’s mother Nasiba is weeping. She lifts her veil and leans down to kiss her daughter.

“It feels like the flesh is melting from my body. I can’t bear to see her suffering like this,” she cries. Nasiba has already lost three children. “My husband is a labourer. When he gets work, we eat.”

Dr Ghani tells us Asma could suffer cardiac arrest at any moment. We leave the room. Less than an hour later, she died.

Seven hundred children have died in the past six months at the hospital – more than three a day, the Taliban’s public health department in Nangarhar told us. A staggering number, but there would have been a lot more deaths if this facility had not been kept running by World Bank and Unicef funding.

Up until August 2021, international funds given directly to the previous government funded nearly all public healthcare in Afghanistan.

When the Taliban took over, the money was stopped because of international sanctions against them. This triggered a healthcare collapse. Aid agencies stepped in to provide what was meant to be a temporary emergency response.

It was always an unsustainable solution, and now, in a world distracted by so much else, funding for Afghanistan has shrunk. Equally, the Taliban government’s policies, specifically its restrictions on women, have meant that donors are hesitant to give funds.

“We inherited the problem of poverty and malnutrition, which has become worse because of natural disasters like floods and climate change. The international community should increase humanitarian aid, they should not connect it with political and internal issues,” Hamdullah Fitrat, the Taliban government’s deputy spokesman, told us.

Over the past three years we have been to more than a dozen health facilities in the country, and seen the situation deteriorating rapidly. During each of our past few visits to hospitals, we’ve witnessed children dying.

But what we have also seen is evidence that the right treatment can save children. Bibi Hajira, who was in a fragile state when we visited the hospital, is now much better and has been discharged, Dr Ghani told us over the phone.

“If we had more medicines, facilities and staff we could save more children. Our staff has strong commitment. We work tirelessly and are ready to do more,” he said.

“I also have children. When a child dies, we also suffer. I know what must go through the hearts of the parents.”

Malnutrition is not the only cause of a surge in mortality. Other preventable and curable diseases are also killing children.

In the intensive care unit next door to the malnutrition ward, six-month-old Umrah is battling severe pneumonia. She cries loudly as a nurse attaches a saline drip to her body. Umrah’s mother Nasreen sits by her, tears streaming down her face.

“I wish I could die in her place. I’m so scared,” she says. Two days after we visited the hospital, Umrah died.

These are the stories of those who made it to hospital. Countless others can’t. Only one out of five children who need hospital treatment can get it at Jalalabad hospital.

The pressure on the facility is so intense that almost immediately after Asma died, a tiny baby, three-month-old Aaliya, was moved into the half a bed that Asma left vacant.

No-one in the room had time to process what had happened. There was another seriously ill child to treat.

The Jalalabad hospital caters to the population of five provinces, estimated by the Taliban government to be roughly five million people. And now the pressure on it has increased further. Most of the more than 700,000 Afghan refugees forcibly deported by Pakistan since late last year continue to stay in Nangarhar.

In the communities around the hospital, we found evidence of another alarming statistic released this year by the UN: that 45% of children under the age of five are stunted – shorter than they should be – in Afghanistan.

Robina’s two-year-old son Mohammed cannot stand yet and is much shorter than he should be.

“The doctor has told me that if he gets treatment for the next three to six months, he will be fine. But we can’t even afford food. How do we pay for the treatment?” Robina asks.

She and her family had to leave Pakistan last year and now live in a dusty, dry settlement in the Sheikh Misri area, a short drive on mud tracks from Jalalabad.

“I’m scared he will become disabled and he will never be able to walk,” Robina says.

“In Pakistan, we also had a hard life. But there was work. Here my husband, a labourer, rarely finds work. We could have treated him if we were still in Pakistan.”

Unicef says stunting can cause severe irreversible physical and cognitive damage, the effects of which can last a lifetime and even affect the next generation.

“Afghanistan is already struggling economically. If large sections of our future generation are physically or mentally disabled, how will our society be able to help them?” asks Dr Ghani.

Mohammad can be saved from permanent damage if he’s treated before it’s too late.

But the community nutrition programmes run by aid agencies in Afghanistan have seen the most dramatic cuts – many of them have received just a quarter of the funding that’s needed.

In lane after lane of Sheikh Misri we meet families with malnourished or stunted children.

Sardar Gul has two malnourished children – three-year-old Umar and eight-month-old Mujib, a bright-eyed little boy he holds on his lap.

“A month ago Mujib’s weight had dropped to less than three kilos. Once we were able to register him with an aid agency, we started getting food sachets. Those have really helped him,” Sardar Gul says.

Mujib now weighs six kilos – still a couple of kilos underweight, but significantly improved.

It is evidence that timely intervention can help save children from death and disability.

The bearskin caps worn by soldiers outside Buckingham Palace now cost more than £2,000 each, figures from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) show.

The cost of the ceremonial caps, made from the fur of black bears, soared by 30% in a year, according to figures revealed in response to a Freedom of Information request from animal welfare campaigners.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) group are against using real fur in principle, but they say it is also now a financial as well as an ethical issue, with £1m spent on fur caps in recent years.

The MoD said: “We are open to exploring faux fur alternatives if they pass the necessary requirements.”

However, the ministry spokesman said a fake fur version would have to satisfy “safety and durability considerations” and that “no alternative has met all those criteria to date”.

The sharp increase in price is explained by the MoD as the result of a change in the “contractual arrangements” for the caps, which are all made from the fur of bears hunted in Canada.

The cost of the caps worn by the King’s Guard rose from £1,560 each in 2022 to £2,040 in 2023.

Elisa Allen, of Peta, called on the MoD to “stop wasting taxpayer pounds on caps made from slaughtered wildlife, and switch to faux fur today”.

The distinctive tall caps are worn on ceremonial events such as Trooping the Colour, and the figures from the MoD show that 24 new caps were bought in 2023 and 13 in 2022. Over the past decade the amount spent on replacement caps has been more than £1m.

Defenders of using real fur caps have argued that they are long-lasting and maintain their appearance for such showcase military occasions.

Animal welfare campaigners have claimed it is cruel and unnecessary for the King’s Guard to use real fur, saying it takes the fur of one bear to make each bearskin.

The decision on the use of real fur is up to the MoD rather than the royals, but as the BBC previously revealed, Queen Camilla switched this year to only buying fake fur clothes, saying in a letter she would “not procure any new fur garments”.

There has been criticism from Peta of how black bears are caught and killed, with accusations that hunters can use crossbows, and the animals might suffer for a long time.

However, the MoD says all of the fur it uses comes from legal and licensed hunts from the regulated Canadian market, and that bears are not “hunted to order” to make the caps.

There are fake fur alternatives on offer to make the caps, including a fabric made from synthetic fibres – proposed by Peta.

But the MoD is not yet convinced that fake fur meets the five tests it has set for a bearskin alternative, in terms of its comfort and keeping its shape in all types of weather.

Those tests are “water absorption, penetration, appearance, drying rate and compression”.

In opposition, Labour’s then-shadow defence minster Stephanie Peacock had called for “an immediate review of the possible alternatives to bear fur, taking an in-depth look at contracts and costs”.

She had told the House of Commons: “It is incredibly important that traditions develop and adapt if they are to survive.”

With Labour now in government, the MoD says it is open to considering fake fur alternatives and would welcome the submission of samples of materials for testing.

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Leaders in the US state of Ohio are trying to douse baseless rumours that Haitian immigrants in a town there have been eating residents’ pets as food.

The allegations have percolated up through right-wing media and were repeated without evidence by Donald Trump at his presidential debate with Kamala Harris on Tuesday.

“This is something that came up on the internet, and the internet can be quite crazy sometimes,” Ohio Governor Mike DeWine told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

His comments come after a parent in the town slammed Republicans for using his son’s death in an accident caused by a Haitian migrant in political messages.

Authorities say some 15,000 migrants of Haitian origin have resettled over the past couple of years in Springfield, a southwestern Ohio town with a population of less than 60,000 people.

Some local residents have expressed frustration over the influx, saying the new residents are straining city resources, from housing and healthcare.

But the criticisms have taken a turn in recent weeks amid unfounded claims on social media that the new migrants are abducting and eating animals, from pet cats and dogs to park ducks.

Those claims have now become part of the 2024 presidential election.

Trump, his running mate JD Vance, the world’s richest man Elon Musk and other prominent Republicans have amplified the reports.

Local officials have cast doubt on the stories.

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said on Tuesday that “we have not been able to verify any credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community”.

“The news story regarding a cat being killed or consumed did not originate in Springfield,” he added. “It actually involved a Canton woman who was arrested for animal cruelty last month.”

Canton is an Ohio city northeast of Springfield.

“I think we go with what the mayor says,” Governor DeWine told CBS on Wednesday. “He knows his city”.

A moderate Republican who has endorsed Trump’s re-election bid, DeWine has pledged to invest in Springfield’s healthcare and education systems to address its “unprecedented” population increase, but he also defended the newcomers.

“These Haitians came in here to work because there were jobs, and they filled a lot of jobs. And if you talk to employers, they’ve done a very, very good job and they work very, very hard,” he said.

Tensions in Springfield are rising, and on Thursday officials closed city hall following reports of a bomb threat.

“As a precautionary measure, the building has been evacuated, and authorities are currently conducting a thorough investigation,” the mayor’s office said on Facebook.

It is not yet known whether the threat is connected to the immigration controversy.

Concerns over public safety erupted last August after a Haitian immigrant driving without a valid US license crashed his minivan into a school bus.

One student – Aiden Clark, 11 – died after being thrown from the bus as it flipped, while 20 others were sent to the hospital.

The driver, Hermanio Joseph, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and felony vehicular homicide, and sentenced to nine to 13-and-a-half years in prison.

On Monday, the Trump campaign’s X account posted side-by-side photos of Clark and Joseph, and attacked Vice-President Kamala Harris’ immigration policies before the presidential debate.

“REMEMBER: 11-year-old Aiden Clark was killed on his way to school by a Haitian migrant that Kamala Harris let into the country in Springfield, Ohio,” the caption read.

Vance then wrote on X, formerly Twitter, about “citizens suffering under Kamala Harris’s policies”.

At a city commission meeting later the same day, Aiden’s father Nathan made a public plea: “Don’t spin this towards hate”.

“They have spoken my son’s name and used his death for political gain. This needs to stop now,” he said.

“My son was not murdered. He was accidentally killed by an immigrant from Haiti.”

Mr Clark added that he wished his child had been killed “by a 60-year-old white man” so “the incessant group of hate-spewing people would leave us alone”.

“They can vomit all the hate they want about illegal immigrants, the border crisis, and even untrue claims about fluffy pets being ravaged and eaten by community members,” he said.

“However, they are not allowed, nor have they ever been allowed to mention Aiden Clark from Springfield, Ohio.”

Just a few hours after Mr Clark spoke, Trump blasted Haitian immigrants in a prime-time debate watched, according to Nielsen, by more than 67 million TV viewers.

“In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Despite being fact-checked by moderators immediately after the remark, and facing backlash from many in the US immigrant community, the Trump campaign has defended its assertions.

Pressed by CNN to rebut the story, Vance said “city officials have not said it’s not true. They said they don’t have all the evidence”.

The Republican vice-presidential nominee also suggested that sharing the rumours on social media would focus attention on the costs of illegal immigration.

“If we have to meme about it to get the media to care, we’re going to keep doing it,” he said.

The Trump campaign told the BBC it was “deeply sorry to the Clark family for the loss of their son”.

“We hope the media will continue to cover the stories of the very real suffering and tragedies experienced by the people of Springfield, Ohio, due to the influx of illegal Haitian immigrants in their community,” the campaign said.

Dozens of people have been arrested after clashing with police at an anti-war demonstration in Melbourne.

Police said they were “appalled” by the actions of some demonstrators targeting a military hardware sales show in Australia’s second largest city, accusing them of pelting officers with rocks, manure and bottles filled with acid.

By contrast, protestors said officers were heavy-handed and responded with flashbang grenades and irritant sprays to control the hostile crowd.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the violence, saying Australians had a right to protest – but had to do so in a peaceful manner.

“You don’t say you’re opposed to defence equipment by throwing things at police,” Mr Albanese told local media. “They’ve got a job to do and our police officers should be respected at all times.”

Authorities said about 1,200 people had taken part in the demonstration targeting the Land Forces International Land Defence Exposition, many of whom sported Palestinian flags and sang pro-Palestinian chants.

Police had anticipated unrest ahead of the event, which is expected to draw over 1,000 corporations from 31 countries in the coming days. The expo, which is not open to the public, brings together military, defence, government, scientific and industry delegations from around the world.

Local media reported military artillery, trucks and semi-automatic weapons have been on display during the convention. Activists had said they were protesting as they claim many of the weapons on-show have been used by Israeli forces in Gaza.

Footage showed dumpsters being pushed towards police lines during the clashes, with multiple fires being lit across the city and demonstrators blocking roads. One activist climbed on top of a stationary truck at a set of traffic lights.

About two dozen police officers were treated for injuries sustained during the unrest, Victoria state Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said. He told reporters 39 people had been arrested in Wednesday’s clashes.

Commissioner Patton accused those behind the violence of being “hypocrites”, adding demonstrators said they wanted to “protest against war, so presumably [were] anti-violence”.

But his officers have been criticised by demonstrators for being overly heavy-handed. Organisers said they were “appalled at the level of violence directed against community members protesting for peace”.

“The police have been extremely violent towards protestors today, actually in an unprecedented way,” Jasmine Duff, an activist from Students for Palestine, said.

“They used flashbang grenades, they’ve been pepper spraying people very viciously.”

Some journalists reported seeing police fire rubber bullets, but Commissioner Patton said the projectiles were actually hard foam baton rounds.

Officials say around A$10m (£7.6m) was spent on deploying extra police to protect the event, with officers reportedly drafted in from New South Wales.

“It’s absolutely outrageous that reportedly $10 million has been spent on this police presence,” one of the protest group organisers, Anneke Demanuele from Students for Palestine, told ABC News.

Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan defended the state’s handling of the event, saying delegates had the right to gather in Melbourne.

“Any industry deserves the right to have these sort of events in a peaceful and respectful way,” she said.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from low-lying areas in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, as the Red River surges to its highest level in two decades, flooding the streets.

By Wednesday, flood waters from the swollen river reached a metre high in parts of the city, forcing some residents to navigate their neighbourhoods by boat.

Power has been cut to some districts because of safety concerns, while 10 of Hanoi’s 30 administrative districts are on “flood alert”, state media reported.

Vietnam is suffering the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi, which battered the north, killing at least 179 people. Floods and landslides across northern Vietnam have been the main causes of death, the government said.

“This is the worst flood I have seen,” Hanoi resident Tran Le Quyen told Reuters news agency. “It was dry yesterday morning. Now the entire street is flooded. We couldn’t sleep last night.”

Yagi, which was initially categorised as a super typhoon – the equivalent of a category 5 hurricane – but later downgraded to a tropical depression, has continued to wreak havoc in Vietnam since making landfall on Saturday.

It has been described as Asia’s most powerful typhoon this year.

“My home is now part of the river,” Nguyen Van Hung, who lives in a neighbourhood on the banks of the Red River, told Reuters.

An entire village, Lang Nu in the northern Lao Cai province, was swept away on Tuesday amid flash floods. At least 30 people have been confirmed dead, while hundreds of soldiers have been deployed to the village in search of those still missing.

Hoang Thi Bay, one of 63 survivors in the remote mountain community, told the AFP news agency that she avoided being swept away by holding on to a pillar.

“I looked out of the window and saw a huge amount of land coming towards me,” she said.

“I ran out to our kitchen, and clung tightly to a concrete pole. Our wooden stilt house was destroyed.”

Authorities are also paying careful attention on a hydropower plant in the northwestern Yen Bai province, as a huge inflow of water into the reservoir surrounding the dam raises concerns that it may collapse.

Deputy Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Hoang Hiep said on Wednesday that the hydropower plant is “safe”, but urged residents in the area to stay under shelter, as it may take up to two days for the water to recede to an “allowable level”.

Yagi has left a trail of destruction in the country’s northern region over the past four days. On Monday, it collapsed a busy bridge, plunging ten cars and two scooters into the Red River.

It also tore roofs from buildings, uprooted trees, and left widespread damage to infrastructure and factories in the north.

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

Scientists have warned 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.

The National Museum of Denmark is handing over an iconic cloak belonging to an indigenous group in Brazil at a ceremony being attended by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Considered sacred by the indigenous Tupinambá people, the garment was taken from Brazil during the Portuguese colonial period and has been on display in Copenhagen since 1689.

The 1.8m-long cloak is made of 4,000 red feathers from the scarlet ibis bird.

Brazil’s government has been trying to recover artefacts taken during the colonial period from around the world.

The cloak was returned in July and will be housed at the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro.

A group of 200 Tupinambá people have been camping outside the building, with drums and pipes filled with medicinal herbs, waiting to see the precious cloak and to reconnect with their ancient traditions.

Yakuy Tupinambá travelled more than 1,200km (745 miles) by bus from the eastern Olivenca municipality to see the garment. “I felt sadness and joy. A mixture between being born and dying,” he told the AFP news agency.

“Our ancestors say that when they [the Europeans] took it away, our village was left without a north,” indigenous chief Sussu Arana Morubyxada Tupinambá said.

Several Tupinambá sacred capes, which have survived hundreds of years, are still on display in museums across Europe.

They are thought to date back to the 16th Century.

Tupinambás leaders say this is not just about bringing artefacts back to their original homelands, but about recognising indigenous people, their lands and rights.

Brazil’s president has pledged to recognise indigenous land reserves, but the Tupinambás’ territory has not yet been formally demarcated by the government.

The Tupinambás say the mineral-rich territory is being devastated by large agriculture and mining businesses.

A billionaire and an engineer have become the first non-professional crew to perform one of the riskiest manoeuvres in space – a spacewalk.

Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis stepped out of the SpaceX spacecraft around 15 minutes apart, starting at 11:52BST, wearing specially-designed suits.

“Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here Earth sure looks like a perfect world,” Mr Isaacman said as he exited.

It was commercially funded by Mr Isaacman. Before, only astronauts with government-funded space agencies had done a spacewalk.

Images broadcast live showed the two crew emerge from the white Dragon capsule to float 435 miles (700km) above the blue Earth below.

Mr Isaacman emerged first, wiggling his limbs, hands and feet to test his suit. He returned back inside the hatch, and Ms Gillis, who works for SpaceX, then climbed out.

Both crew narrated their spacewalk, describing how their suits performed outside of the craft.

The walk, originally scheduled for 07:23BST, was postponed early on Thursday.

Anticipation and tension grew as the crew prepared to open the hatch on the craft that has no air lock, or doorway between the vacuum outside and the rest of the spacecraft.

The four crew members spent two days “pre-breathing” to prevent becoming seriously ill from decompression sickness, known as getting “the bends”, as the pressure changed. That involves replacing nitrogen in the blood with oxygen.

The craft was then depressurised to bring it closer to the conditions of the space vacuum outside.

This type of space walk took a “very different approach” to previous walks from, for example, the International Space Station, according to Dr Simeon Barber, research scientist at the Open University.

In recent decades astronauts used an airlock that separates most of a craft from the space vacuum outside – but this SpaceX Dragon capsule was in effect entirely exposed to space outside.

“It’s really exciting and I think it shows again that SpaceX is not afraid to do things in a different way,” he told BBC News.

But it was not without major risks.

Mr Isaacman, who funded the Polaris Dawn mission, was the only member of the four-person crew on the Polaris mission to have previously been to space.

He is commander on the Resilience spacecraft with his close friend Scott ‘Kidd’ Poteet, who is a retired air force pilot, and two SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis.

The Dragon capsule the team have flown in launched to space 46 times before, taking 50 crew in total. However, the capsule and the spacesuits are not subject to regulation and were untested in this environment.

Spacewalks are one of the most difficult manouevres in space, so the fact that a private company has pulled it off is a milestone in the history of space travel.

This walk at 435 miles (700km) was higher than any previous walk, and used innovative technology in the new extravehicular activity (EVA) astronaut suits.

These are an upgrade from SpaceX’s previous intravehicular activity (IVA) suits.

The EVA suit incorporates a heads-up display in its helmet, which provides information about the suit while it is being used.

Sarah Gillis read out data from her heads-up display during her time outside the Dragon capsule.

SpaceX say the suits are comfortable and flexible enough to be worn during launch and landing, eliminating the need to have separate IVA suits.

Extra nitrogen and oxygen tanks were installed and all four astronauts wore the suits, meaning the mission broke the record for the most people in the vacuum of space at once.

The Resilience spacecraft left Earth on Tuesday on a SpaceX rocket.

The mission said it would travel up to 870 miles (1,400km) up in orbit – further than any human has been in space since Nasa’s Apollo programme ended in the 1970s.

Government space agencies like Nasa want the private sector to transport their astronauts on missions and bring down the cost of space travel.

And entrepreneurs like Isaacman and Elon Musk want to expand private space travel so that more non-professional astronauts can go to space.

This is a major symbolic step forwards, but that day is probably a long way off as the costs remain prohibitively high.

President Joe Biden briefly wore a red Trump campaign hat at an event commemorating the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

He was visiting firefighters in Pennsylvania near where one of the four hijacked planes crashed, and the White House said he donned the cap as a gesture of unity.

Video recording the incident shows the president having a friendly conversation with a Trump supporter before they swap headwear.

Donald Trump’s campaign was quick to see the funny side. “Thanks for the support, Joe!” one post read with a photo of Biden in the trademark Republican hat.

Another said “Kamala did so bad in last night’s debate, Joe Biden just put on a Trump hat”.

The event in Shanksville commemorated Flight 93, which was hijacked by terrorists in 2001.

Passengers aboard the flight fought back and prevented a plan by al-Qaeda to crash the plane into a government building in Washington, DC. All 40 aboard died.

Biden greeted firefighters and paid respects at a cross made from the broken fuselage.

Footage inside the fire station posted to social media shows Biden chatting with people and interacting with a man wearing a red hat with “Trump 2024” emblazoned on the front.

• Trump’s message of US decline resonates in Midwest
• Election polls – is Harris or Trump winning?

Biden offers the man a hat with the presidential seal on it, saying he would autograph it.

After some joking about his age, Biden hands the man the autographed cap and offers to trade it for the Trump hat.

Several of those gathered call on him to put it on, to which he shouts: “I ain’t going that far!” before putting it on, to loud cheers.

The White House later explained it was a way to underline the unity theme of the day.

“As a gesture, he gave a hat to a Trump supporter who then said that in the same spirit, POTUS should put on his Trump cap,” deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The daughter of the man who swapped hats with the president said Biden kept the Trump hat after the interaction.

“My pap don’t care who it is,” Kelsey Simmers told the BBC. “He likes to joke and have fun.”

She said that her father ended up getting another cap from the Trump campaign after they reached out.

The incident happened hours after Trump had joked on the debate stage about sending Vice-President Kamala Harris a Make America Great Again hat.

• 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?

Kamala Harris may have rattled Donald Trump on the debate stage, but the former president’s promise to save a nation in decline resonates with undecided voters in this part of a key battleground state.

It took Paul Simon four days to hitchhike from Saginaw, or so he sang in America, his iconic soundscape ballad of the 1960s with its lost souls on the highways of a country in flux.

Back then, this city’s long, slow decline had already begun, as Michigan’s once mighty car factories pulled down the shutters, buffeted by the winds of foreign competition.

Today, the angst and loneliness of Simon and Art Garfunkel’s song are magnified many times over.

I found 57-year-old Rachel Oviedo sitting on her porch, staring out at abandoned furniture in the street and beyond, the shell of a plant that once made car parts for Chevrolets and Buicks, but finally closed its doors in 2014.

“We sit here all day long,” she told me. “We see homeless people come in and out of there, they need to tear it down and make something out of it.”

“A grocery store,” she suggested. “Because we ain’t got no grocery stores round here.”

I first met her the day before Tuesday night’s debate in Philadelphia, when she told me she was still unsure of how she was going to vote.

Donald Trump, she said, felt like a known quantity and like “a man of his word”, while Kamala Harris looked promising but still somewhat unknown.

“I like her,” she said, “but we don’t know what she’s going to do.”

Most US states lean either so strongly Democratic or so strongly Republican that the result is a foregone conclusion.

And if Michigan is one of the few swing states, then Saginaw is one of the few places in it where the vote could genuinely go either way.

When they come to cast their ballots, it will be undecided voters like Rachel, in places like this, who’ll quite literally have the future of America in their hands.

Chuck Brenner, a retired Saginaw cop, is another one.

The 49-year-old, who still works part time in probation and runs his own real estate company, says he’s seen up close the problems here.

“Almost everybody’s dad worked in the car industry,” he told me.

“Back then, everybody had money and jobs were readily available. You’ve seen the change, people are struggling because people are growing up poor and then drugs and all that.”

Trump’s message of American decline resonates with Chuck.

“Absolutely,” he told me. “Because you can see it.”

But although he voted for Mr Trump in 2016, he went for Joe Biden in 2020.

“There was a lot of drama with Trump,“ he added. “And the legal issues. I kind of got sick of that.”

This time round, he’d only make up his mind, he insisted, once he’d watched the debate and heard what both candidates had to say.

Saginaw, like the wider state of Michigan, was once solid Democrat country – its political inclinations revealed in the list of candidates it has backed down the decades: Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

That 2016 vote, when Saginaw went – like Mr Brenner – for Trump, marked a shift.

You don’t have to spend long here to realise just how remarkable a shift that was.

Jeremy Zehnder runs a truck-polishing company, doing the kind of work Democrats used to be able to depend on for support.

Surrounded by the giant, gleaming trucks and trailers, the lifeblood of the American economy’s distribution networks, he tells me it’s not debate performances, but the cost of living that will determine how he votes.

And a majority of voters tell pollsters they trust Trump more on the economy.

“With the truckers, every one of those that we know of are leaning towards the right,” he told me.

“What, every one?” I ask.

“I don’t know of one that isn’t,” he replied. “I mean we do hundreds of trucks every year. And they all want to talk about it, everybody talks about it.”

At a United Auto Workers Union event where members watched the debate, I met one of the union organisers, Joe Losier.

The UAW has pledged its support to Kamala Harris and much of the crowd in the room whooped and clapped with every put-down she threw Trump’s way.

But dig a bit deeper and the fault lines of America’s political upheaval can be found here, too.

“My dad and all my uncles on both sides of my family, who are all UAW people, have become Republicans,” Mr Losier told me, unable to hide the incredulity in his own voice.

“These are second generation immigrants who came over here, started working in the auto industry back in World War One and it blows my mind that a lot of my family are tradesmen who are supporting Donald Trump.”

He’s even unsure which way his two adult sons are going to vote.

Dinner times are “horrible”, he said.

With workers fearing further shift cuts and job losses, the union finds itself increasingly out of step with its members.

There’s deep support here for Donald Trump’s promise of tough tariffs on imports, and disagreement with Kamala Harris’s argument in the debate that the policy would simply drive up prices.

After the debate, I called Chuck Brenner to see what he’d made of it. He had some good news for Democrats.

“I do believe Kamala was the shining star,” he told me. “And the bottom line is she’s won my vote. I was impressed by what she had to say, her delivery.”

“With Trump,” he went on, “it was kind of what I expected. There were no surprises there. It’s kind of like the same. The same.”

Rachel Oviedo was still undecided, she told me, but now leaning more towards Trump.

“I think he’ll do more for us up here,” she said.

“You know, he did things he shouldn’t have done”, she added. “But you gotta forgive people.”

And Jeremy Zehnder, the truck polisher, admitted to being slightly surprised by Harris’s performance.

“She did much better than I thought she would,” he told me. “I think she won it.”

But he’s sticking with Trump. It’s about policy, he said. Taxes, the border and the cost of living.

On the streets of Saginaw, Kathleen Skelcy was knocking on doors, busy canvassing for Harris.

She told me she finds it a struggle to see any rationale behind the political motivations of her opponents.

“That’s what’s scary, trying to understand these people and their thinking,” she said.

“I just think they’re not educated, or they fell asleep in school or something.”

It’s easy to see this as patronising, another sign that some Democrats chalk Trump’s appeal as merely delusional.

It’s clear, however, that trust and understanding can be in short supply on both sides.

As we’re talking, a Trump supporter, aggressive and threatening, emerges shouting from his home, following Kathleen up the street.

“Harris is a clown,” he yells, adding a few profanities for good measure.

And on the doorsteps, one Democratic supporter declines the offer of a Harris sign for their front yard, scared, they say, of inviting similar abuse.

In a few weeks, Saginaw will go the polls.

Before then, it’s almost certain that many more journalists will pass through this key bellwether district, all of them looking for America.

It’s here alright, in all its striving and struggling, and in a story today being lived out in stark political division.

A debate needs middle ground.

And there’s very little of that left.

• 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?
• ANALYSIS: Who won the Harris-Trump presidential debate?
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

A “fabulous moment” has been captured as tiger cubs explored a new area of their safari park for the first time.

Along with mum Yana, the four rare Amur tigers ventured into the drive-through Tiger Territory section at Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire.

Amy Waller, from Longleat, said: “The four of them cautiously followed mum into the drive-through and then grew in confidence to explore the area.”

The four female cubs were born in May, making Longleat home to the largest number of tigers in the UK, as they joined Yana, their dad, Red, and their older sister, Yuki.

“We have always said it will be a gradual process led by Yana and the guidance of the keepers as it is really important we make sure Yana, and the cubs, are confident about where they are and what they are experiencing,” Ms Waller added.

“Yana decided when she’d had enough and led them back indoors.”

Amur tigers, also known as Siberian tigers, are native to the far east of Russia.

They are one of the most endangered species in the world and it is estimated that only 450 of them are left in the wild.

The species was on the brink of extinction in the 1940s, due to hunting and logging.

At one stage, it is believed the population fell to only 20 to 30 animals.

Visitors to the safari park will have the chance to see them in their paddock everyday.

Rock legend Jon Bon Jovi has been praised by police for helping a woman in distress who was on the ledge of a bridge in Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday night.

The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department shared a video of the Bon Jovi frontman and his team who were at the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge when the woman was standing precariously over the Cumberland River.

Bon Jovi, 62, and others talked to the woman and helped her come back on to the bridge, police said.

“It takes all of us to help keep each other safe,” Ch John Drake said in a brief statement.

Bon Jovi appeared to be in Nashville shooting a music video on the bridge, according to separate footage posted on social media.

In the video released by police, a woman in blue can be seen holding on to the railing while standing on the ledge.

Other people pass her and slightly further down the bridge, Bon Jovi’s team appears to be setting up camera equipment.

Bon Jovi walks over to the woman with someone else as his team stand further away.

The singer then can be seen waving hello at her and leaning on the railing near her.

After about a minute, Bon Jovi walks to the woman and with the help of another woman the pair get her back on to the pedestrian walkway on the bridge.

Other people walk over after the woman is safe and Bon Jovi embraces her in a hug.

A few minutes later the police footage shows Bon Jovi leaving the bridge with her.

Accompanying the video on social media, Metro Nashville Police Department said: “A shout out to Jon Bon Jovi and his team for helping a woman on the Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge [on] Tuesday night.

“Bon Jovi helped persuade her to come off the ledge over the Cumberland River to safety.”

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.

Trump and Harris met for the first time as candidates at the TV debate in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night, with the BBC’s Anthony Zurcher saying the Democrat came out on top in the fiery encounter.

But what do the polls tell us? We will have to wait a few days until the bigger national and state-level polls reflect any changes, but we have had a couple of limited snap polls.

A YouGov survey of more than 2,000 registered voters who watched at least some of the debate found that 54% thought Harris won, while 31% thought Trump did.

In a CNN/SSRS poll of 600 registered voters who watched the debate, 63% said Harris was the better performer while 37% went with Trump. Prior to the debate, the same voters were evenly split on who they thought would perform best.

That does not necessarily translate to votes though – only 4% said the debate changed their minds about who they might vote for. So we will have to wait and see how big an effect it has on the polling numbers in the coming days.

• Anthony Zurcher analysis: Who won the Harris-Trump debate?

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 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: Harris goads Trump into flustered performance
• 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

Leaders in the US state of Ohio are trying to douse baseless rumours that Haitian immigrants in a town there have been eating residents’ pets as food.

The allegations have percolated up through right-wing media and were repeated without evidence by Donald Trump at his presidential debate with Kamala Harris on Tuesday.

“This is something that came up on the internet, and the internet can be quite crazy sometimes,” Ohio Governor Mike DeWine told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

His comments come after a parent in the town slammed Republicans for using his son’s death in an accident caused by a Haitian migrant in political messages.

Authorities say some 15,000 migrants of Haitian origin have resettled over the past couple of years in Springfield, a southwestern Ohio town with a population of less than 60,000 people.

Some local residents have expressed frustration over the influx, saying the new residents are straining city resources, from housing and healthcare.

But the criticisms have taken a turn in recent weeks amid unfounded claims on social media that the new migrants are abducting and eating animals, from pet cats and dogs to park ducks.

Those claims have now become part of the 2024 presidential election.

Trump, his running mate JD Vance, the world’s richest man Elon Musk and other prominent Republicans have amplified the reports.

Local officials have cast doubt on the stories.

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said on Tuesday that “we have not been able to verify any credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community”.

“The news story regarding a cat being killed or consumed did not originate in Springfield,” he added. “It actually involved a Canton woman who was arrested for animal cruelty last month.”

Canton is an Ohio city northeast of Springfield.

“I think we go with what the mayor says,” Governor DeWine told CBS on Wednesday. “He knows his city”.

A moderate Republican who has endorsed Trump’s re-election bid, DeWine has pledged to invest in Springfield’s healthcare and education systems to address its “unprecedented” population increase, but he also defended the newcomers.

“These Haitians came in here to work because there were jobs, and they filled a lot of jobs. And if you talk to employers, they’ve done a very, very good job and they work very, very hard,” he said.

Tensions in Springfield are rising, and on Thursday officials closed city hall following reports of a bomb threat.

“As a precautionary measure, the building has been evacuated, and authorities are currently conducting a thorough investigation,” the mayor’s office said on Facebook.

It is not yet known whether the threat is connected to the immigration controversy.

Concerns over public safety erupted last August after a Haitian immigrant driving without a valid US license crashed his minivan into a school bus.

One student – Aiden Clark, 11 – died after being thrown from the bus as it flipped, while 20 others were sent to the hospital.

The driver, Hermanio Joseph, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and felony vehicular homicide, and sentenced to nine to 13-and-a-half years in prison.

On Monday, the Trump campaign’s X account posted side-by-side photos of Clark and Joseph, and attacked Vice-President Kamala Harris’ immigration policies before the presidential debate.

“REMEMBER: 11-year-old Aiden Clark was killed on his way to school by a Haitian migrant that Kamala Harris let into the country in Springfield, Ohio,” the caption read.

Vance then wrote on X, formerly Twitter, about “citizens suffering under Kamala Harris’s policies”.

At a city commission meeting later the same day, Aiden’s father Nathan made a public plea: “Don’t spin this towards hate”.

“They have spoken my son’s name and used his death for political gain. This needs to stop now,” he said.

“My son was not murdered. He was accidentally killed by an immigrant from Haiti.”

Mr Clark added that he wished his child had been killed “by a 60-year-old white man” so “the incessant group of hate-spewing people would leave us alone”.

“They can vomit all the hate they want about illegal immigrants, the border crisis, and even untrue claims about fluffy pets being ravaged and eaten by community members,” he said.

“However, they are not allowed, nor have they ever been allowed to mention Aiden Clark from Springfield, Ohio.”

Just a few hours after Mr Clark spoke, Trump blasted Haitian immigrants in a prime-time debate watched, according to Nielsen, by more than 67 million TV viewers.

“In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Despite being fact-checked by moderators immediately after the remark, and facing backlash from many in the US immigrant community, the Trump campaign has defended its assertions.

Pressed by CNN to rebut the story, Vance said “city officials have not said it’s not true. They said they don’t have all the evidence”.

The Republican vice-presidential nominee also suggested that sharing the rumours on social media would focus attention on the costs of illegal immigration.

“If we have to meme about it to get the media to care, we’re going to keep doing it,” he said.

The Trump campaign told the BBC it was “deeply sorry to the Clark family for the loss of their son”.

“We hope the media will continue to cover the stories of the very real suffering and tragedies experienced by the people of Springfield, Ohio, due to the influx of illegal Haitian immigrants in their community,” the campaign said.

There are strong indications that the US and UK are poised to lift their restrictions within days on Ukraine using long-range missiles against targets inside Russia.

Ukraine already has supplies of these missiles, but is restricted to firing them at targets inside its own borders. Kyiv has been pleading for weeks for these restrictions to be lifted so it can fire on targets inside Russia.

So why the reluctance by the West and what difference could these missiles make to the war?

Storm Shadow is an Anglo-French cruise missile with a maximum range of around 250km (155 miles). The French call it Scalp.

Britain and France have already sent these missiles to Ukraine – but with the caveat that Kyiv can only fire them at targets inside its own borders.

It is launched from aircraft then flies at close to the speed of sound, hugging the terrain, before dropping down and detonating its high explosive warhead.

Storm Shadow is considered an ideal weapon for penetrating hardened bunkers and ammunition stores, such as those used by Russia in its war against Ukraine.

But each missile costs nearly US$1 million (£767,000), so they tend to be launched as part of a carefully planned flurry of much cheaper drones, sent ahead to confuse and exhaust the enemy’s air defences, just as Russia does to Ukraine.

They have been used with great effect, hitting Russia’s Black Sea naval headquarters at Sevastopol and making the whole of Crimea unsafe for the Russian navy.

Justin Crump, a military analyst, former British Army officer and CEO of the Sibylline consultancy, says Storm Shadow has been a highly effective weapon for Ukraine, striking precisely against well protected targets in occupied territory.

“It’s no surprise that Kyiv has lobbied for its use inside Russia, particularly to target airfields being used to mount the glide bomb attacks that have recently hindered Ukrainian front-line efforts,” he says.

Ukraine’s cities and front lines are under daily bombardment from Russia.

Many of the missiles and glide bombs that wreak devastation on military positions, blocks of flats and hospitals are launched by Russian aircraft far within Russia itself.

Kyiv complains that not being allowed to hit the bases these attacks are launched from is akin to making it fight this war with one arm tied behind its back.

At the Globsec security forum I attended in Prague this month, it was even suggested that Russian military airbases were better protected than Ukrainian civilians getting hit because of the restrictions.

Ukraine does have its own, innovative and effective long-range drone programme.

At times, these drone strikes have caught the Russians off guard and reached hundreds of kilometres inside Russia.

But they can only carry a small payload and most get detected and intercepted.

Kyiv argues that in order to push back the Russian air strikes, it needs long-range missiles, including Storm Shadow and comparable systems including American Atacms, which has an even greater range of 300km.

In a word: escalation.

Washington worries that although so far all of President Vladimir Putin’s threatened red lines have turned out to be empty bluffs, allowing Ukraine to hit targets deep inside Russia with Western-supplied missiles could just push him over the edge into retaliating.

The fear in the White House is that hardliners in the Kremlin could insist this retaliation takes the form of attacking transit points for missiles on their way to Ukraine, such as an airbase in Poland.

If that were to happen, Nato’s Article 5 could be invoked, meaning the alliance would be at war with Russia.

Ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the White House’s aim has been to give Kyiv as much support as possible without getting dragged into direct conflict with Moscow, something that would risk being a precursor to the unthinkable: a catastrophic nuclear exchange.

Nonetheless, it has allowed Ukraine to use Western supplied missiles against targets in Crimea and the four partially regions that Russia illegally annexed in 2022. While Moscow considers these regions part of its territory, the claims are not recognised by the US or internationally.

Some, but it may be a case of too little too late. Kyiv has been asking to use long-range Western missiles inside Russia for so long now that Moscow has already taken precautions for the eventuality of the restrictions being lifted.

It has moved bombers, missiles and some of the infrastructure that maintains them further back, away from the border with Ukraine and beyond the range of Storm Shadow.

Yet Justin Crump of Sibylline says while Russian air defence has evolved to counter the threat of Storm Shadow within Ukraine, this task will be much harder given the scope of Moscow’s territory that could now be exposed to attack.

“This will make military logistics, command and control, and air support harder to deliver, and even if Russian aircraft pull back further from Ukraine’s frontiers to avoid the missile threat they will still suffer an increase in the time and costs per sortie to the front line.”

Matthew Savill, director of military science at Rusi think tank, believes lifting restrictions would offer two main benefits to Ukraine.

Firstly, it might “unlock” another system, the Atacms.

Secondly, it would pose a dilemma for Russia as to where to position those precious air defences, something he says could make it easier for Ukraine’s drones to get through.

Ultimately though, says Savill, Storm Shadow is unlikely to turn the tide.

Sitaram Yechury, the leader of India’s largest communist party, has died at the age of 72.

He was being treated for an acute respiratory tract infection at a Delhi hospital where he was admitted on 19 August.

Yechury, the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M), was a key figure in India’s politics over several decades.

Several politicians including main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and former rival Mamata Banerjee have paid their tributes.

Yechury started his political career as a student leader with the left-wing Student Federation of India. He was arrested during the Emergency in 1975, when the Congress government led by Indira Gandhi enforced a widespread curtailment of civil liberties.

After his release, he went on to become the president of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, where he studied economics.

He played an especially significant role during the peak years of coalition politics, when the stability of India’s federal governments depended on bringing together disparate ideologies and priorities.

In 1996, he played a leading role in forming a coalition of 13 parties, which governed India for nearly two years with two prime ministers – HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral – sharing the tenure.

In 2004, Yechury’s party won a historic 44 seats in the parliamentary election.

The Left parties, including the CPI(M), then supported the Congress-led government from “outside” – a term used for supporting the administration without taking ministerial roles.

But in 2008, they withdrew their support as a protest against the Indo-US nuclear deal, which required India to place its civil nuclear facilities under the watch of the International Atomic Energy Agency in exchange for full civil nuclear co-operation with the United States.

The Left’s decision was controversial and seen by many as questionable as it failed to repeat its 2004 electoral success.

By the time Yechury became the CPI(M)’s general secretary in 2015, the party had lost many of its former strongholds, including West Bengal state, and its parliamentary seats were on the decline.

He was a member of the Rajya Sabha, or the upper house of parliament, from 2005 to 2017.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, with whom Yechury shared a warm relationship, called him a “friend” while paying his tribute.

“A protector of the Idea of India with a deep understanding of our country. I will miss the long discussions we used to have,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Mamata Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress ended the Left’s 34-year-old rule in West Bengal in 2011, called his death “a loss for national politics”.

American entrepreneur and billionaire Jared Isaacman became the first non-professional astronaut to walk in space on Thursday.

The 41-year-old bankrolled the Polaris Dawn mission that launched him and three others into space aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship.

Worth an estimated $1.9bn (£1.46bn), Mr Isaacman made his fortune from payment processing company Shift4 Payments, which he founded in 1999 aged 16.

The businessman had long been passionate about flying, first taking pilot lessons in 2004 and later setting a world record for circumnavigating the world in a light jet.

Stepping out into space for his first time on Thursday, the businessman said: “Back at home we all have a lot of work to do.

“But from here Earth sure looks like a perfect world.”

SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis also did a spacewalk after Isaacman returned.

Ms Gillis, the violinist-turned-aerospace-engineer, is the Polaris Dawn’s mission specialist.

Polaris Dawn is not Mr Isaacman’s first space mission. In 2021, he bankrolled and led the first private, all-civilian team to ever orbit the Earth.

That crew – named Inspiration4 – left on a SpaceX capsule from Florida and spent three days in space before splashing down successfully in the Atlantic Ocean.

Time magazine estimated that Mr Isaacman paid $200m (£153m) to fellow billionaire Elon Musk for all four seats aboard the SpaceX craft.

“That was a heck of a ride for us,” Mr Isaacman radioed shortly after landing at the time. “We’re just getting started.”

• Mission Polaris Dawn sets off on record orbit

Mr Isaacman was born in Union, New Jersey, where, from an early age, he wasn’t afraid to go against the grain and push boundaries.

At the age of 15, he dropped out of high school to bypass the four years it takes to graduate, opting instead to take the GED (a high school equivalency exam), according to the Netflix docuseries Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space.

“I was a horrible student,” Mr Isaacman said in the series. “And I wasn’t, like, happy in school, either.”

A year later, he launched his successful company Shift4 Payments from his parents’ basement, according to a report by Forbes.

The company now handles payments for a third of restaurants and hotels in the US, including big names like Hilton, Four Seasons, KFC and Arby’s; and processes over $260b (£199b) annually, according to its website.

Mr Isaacman also founded Draken International in 2011, a defence firm that trains Air Force pilots and owns the world’s largest fleet of private military aircrafts.

In 2019, Mr Isaacman sold a majority stake in Draken to Blackstone, a Wall Street firm, for a nine-figure sum, Forbes reported, launching himself into billionaire status.

The magazine dubbed him a “thrill seeker” in a 2020 profile, reporting that for fun, Mr Isaacman “bullets the MiG faster than the speed of sound and climbs mountains to unwind from non-stop, intense 80-plus-hour weeks”.

He also set a world speed record in 2009 for flying around the globe.

In the docuseries, Mr Isaacman said: “I do believe you only get one crack at life.”

“To the extent you have the means to do so, you have this obligation to live life to the fullest,” he added. “You never know when it’s going to be your last day.”

Mr Isaacman is married, has two daughters and lives with his family in New Jersey.

He and the others on board the Polaris Dawn are expected to return on Saturday.