A gunman hid for nearly 12 hours in bushes before Donald Trump played an unscheduled game of golf at his oceanfront club in Florida – leaving locals stunned at what authorities say appears to be the second attempt to assassinate the former president in as many months.

It was hot and cloudy on Sunday afternoon when Trump and his good friend, real estate developer Steve Witkoff, arrived on the course of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

The former president was on the fifth fairway at 13:31 EDT (17:31 GMT), an area adjacent to busy roads near Palm Beach International Airport, when a member of his protection detail spotted a rifle poking out of foliage by the sixth hole.

Trump – who was evacuated unharmed – recounted on Monday night that he heard “probably four or five” shots ring out in the near-distance.

A quick-thinking Secret Service agent had opened fire in the direction of the suspect, who was about 300-500 yards away and did not have a clear line of sight to Trump, federal investigators said.

“Secret Service knew immediately it was bullets, and they grabbed me,” said Trump during a live-streamed event on X, formerly Twitter, from his Mar-a-Lago resort.

“We got into the carts and we moved along pretty, pretty good. I was with an agent, and the agent did a fantastic job.”

The gunman – who investigators say did not fire any shots – was concealed by the well-manicured shrubbery and tall palm trees that line the perimeter of the 27-hole course.

He had been lurking there on the public side of a fence since 01:59 local time on Sunday morning, according to mobile phone records, cited by federal officials.

The suspect was equipped with two digital cameras, a black plastic bag of food, an SKS-style semi-automatic rifle – a weapon with a range of nearly 440 yards – and a scope to magnify its lens.

The Republican presidential candidate’s last publicly scheduled campaign event had been on Saturday evening, on the other side of the country, in the state of Utah.

Residents say Trump spends almost every Sunday at the West Palm Beach golf club when he is not on the campaign trail.

But Secret Service director Ronald Rowe said on Monday that the former president was “not even really supposed to go there”, so agents had to put together a security plan at the last minute.

The foiled plot has left Trump’s neighbours in Palm Beach with pressing questions.

Did the suspect know the former president would be coming to play golf, or was it a guess?

How could he have gone undetected for so long, hiding in the bushes with a rifle?

The gunman escaped the scene in a black Nissan, ditching his backpack of goods and weapon.

A civilian woman was able to take a picture of his licence plate and pass it to investigators, Trump said on Monday night.

The gunman made it about 40 minutes before officers pulled over his vehicle on Interstate 95 and ordered him out.

Bodycam footage shows he seemed calm as officers shouted at him to step to the side before handcuffing him without incident.

On Monday, the suspect Ryan Routh, 58, appeared in a crowded Palm Beach court, wearing a blue prison jumpsuit and smiling as he chatted with his attorney.

He was charged with one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and one count of possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. More charges could follow.

Routh, a Hawaii resident with a criminal history, had come across the FBI’s radar in 2019 for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The bureau tipped off law enforcement in Honolulu at the time.

While his motive for allegedly planning to target Trump has not been revealed, the suspect had said in the past on social media that he voted for the Republican in 2016 before souring on him.

On the perimeter of Trump’s golf course on Monday, bright orange cones, barricades, police cars and officers shielded all corners of the club.

The incident has shocked West Palm Beach and neighbouring towns.

Shelby Stevens, a 52-year-old Trump supporter from West Palm Beach, told the BBC: “No matter how much security you have and everything else, if someone is willing to give their life to take someone else’s, it can happen.”

Cosme Blanco has lived just a few blocks away from the course for most of his life, where he said Trump comes as often as twice a week when he’s not campaigning.

The 61-year-old Trump supporter said the security presence around the golf club is typically not overwhelming. But all that changed on Sunday, when Blanco ran outside five minutes after shots were fired to see helicopters circling the neighbourhood.

“I was concerned. I’m going to be 62 years old and I’ve never seen America change this much,” said the Cuban immigrant.

Blanco said it would not be hard for a suspect to target Trump at his golf course.

The former president travelled there in a motorcade that would have taken about 12 minutes to go from Mar-a-Lago across a bridge overlooking the Lake Worth Lagoon.

“If they see the motorcade coming, I’m sure at that point they know he’s going to play golf – it’s common sense,” Blanco said.

But Anka Palitz, a Palm Beach resident who says she has known Trump personally for years, said Routh’s timing was suspicious.

“He doesn’t play golf every Sunday,” she said. “I think there’s a conspiracy.”

“How was he [the gunman] not seen?” she added.

Palitz, who said she used to go skiing with Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana, said she believed someone must have alerted the suspect that the former president was going to the course that day.

Patricia Pelham, a United Kingdom native who has been living in Florida for 30 years, wondered where the suspect was able to park his car close enough to quickly make a getaway.

“How come there’s not security around the outside?” asked the Briton, who added that she was no supporter of Trump.

Pelham said security measures have increased around Mar-a-Lago on the island of Palm Beach since Trump was injured when a 20-year-old gunman attempted to assassinate him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.

On Monday, police cars lined the roads of the island nearly every half mile, with the 17-acre resort blocked off to visitors.

Authorities have said that the entire golf course would have been surrounded had it been a sitting president of the United States on the green.

After blaming White House rhetoric for the latest alleged attempt to kill him, Trump said on Monday night that he had had a “very nice call” with President Joe Biden about boosting Secret Service protection.

President Biden, a Democrat, asked Congress on Monday to approve more money for the agency in the coming weeks, saying the Secret Service “needs more help”.

Michael Matranga, a former Secret Service agent who worked for former President Barack Obama, said Trump has had better security than many other former presidents, who typically receive less protection than White House incumbents.

For example, he said, former presidents aren’t typically offered counter-sniper teams like Trump.

The Secret Service has faced intense scrutiny since the first attempt on Trump’s life, with the leader of the agency, Kimberly Cheatle, resigning less than two weeks after the rally.

Agency officials have said the Secret Service is short on resources.

But even with the extra resources, Matranga said agents are forced to contend with a delicate balance of protecting Trump while allowing him to engage with constituents on the campaign trail and “enjoy a round of golf”.

They can’t just “keep him in a bullet proof box”, Matranga said.

Nor does Trump seem to want to be put in one.

In a fundraising email sent on Monday afternoon, he told his supporters: “My resolve is only stronger after another attempt on my life!”

It’s the kind of “tough” attitude that Stevens expects Trump to maintain as he continues to court voters in the weeks leading up to November’s general election.

“The way I see him, he’s not going to want the American people to know that he’d be afraid of going out,” Stevens said.

“I think he’ll still make a presence, not just here but everywhere. I don’t think that’s something he’s going to be shying away from.”

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Exuberant young men splashing around in a pool with one theatrically soaping himself as a crowd cheered. Sri Lankans dancing in an opulent hallway as the iconic bands played festive tunes with trumpets and drums.

These scenes beamed across the world on 13 July 2022 in the hours after crowds overran the presidential palace, forcing then-leader Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country.

It was a moment of triumph for them.

Hundreds of thousands of people from across Sri Lanka had defied a national curfew – they braved tear gas shells and water cannons to march peacefully to the presidential palace, calling on Rajapaksa to step down.

For weeks, he had resisted calls to resign, even though his elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa had already quit as prime minister to try to defuse public fury.

Months of protests – called the “aragalaya” (struggle) in Sinhala – had culminated in the events of July 2022, leading to Mr Rajapaksa’s humiliating, hurried exit.

Just a few months earlier, such events would have been unthinkable.

For years, the Rajapaksa family – led by Mahinda – held a vice-like grip over Sri Lankan politics.

In his first term, Mahinda Rajapaksa presided over the bloody end to Sri Lanka’s civil war against Tamil Tiger rebels. That victory helped him establish himself as a national “saviour” among the island’s majority Sinhalese – his most ardent supporters compared him to an emperor.

As he grew more powerful, so did his family. He appointed his younger brother, Gotabaya, as defence secretary – a position he wielded ruthlessly, critics say. Two other brothers – Basil and Chamal – rose to the jobs of finance minister and parliamentary speaker respectively.

The family appealed to a majority-Sinhalese nationalist base. So, for years, they survived allegations of corruption, economic misrule, widespread human rights abuses and suppression of dissent.

That changed in 2022, when a slew of policies set off the country’s worst-ever economic crisis.

Seventeen years after Mahinda first became president, Sri Lankan crowds celebrated the Rajapaksas’ fall, certain the family was finished.

But was it?

Cut to two years later, and Mahinda Rajapaksa’s son, Namal, has thrown his hat into the ring for the presidential election to be held on 21 September.

“It is bad enough that the people who were driven out after the aragalaya [mass protests] are contesting these polls,” Lakshan Sandaruwan, a university student who took part in the demonstrations, told BBC Sinhala. “What is even worse is that some may actually vote for a member of that family.”

Namal is not the only Rajapaksa who is back on the scene.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa himself – the man angry protesters chased out of the country – did not stay away for long.

He returned just 50 days after his inglorious departure, first to Singapore and then Thailand. On his return, he was given the privileges of a former president: a plush bungalow and security, all of it paid for by the government.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, an opposition politician, was appointed as president for the remaining two years of Rajapaksa’s tenure. The family-led Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna Party (SLPP), which has a two-thirds majority in parliament, threw their support behind him.

Before his unexpected elevation, Wickremesinghe, a six-time former prime minister, was the only MP from his United National Party after their abysmal showing in the 2020 parliamentary elections.

He has focused on rebuilding the economy. But he has been accused of protecting the Rajapaksa family, allowing them to regroup, while shielding them from prosecution – allegations he has denied.

Hours after Wickremesinghe became president, the military was deployed to clear the crowds at Galle Face in Colombo, which had been the epicentre of the protests.

Dozens of soldiers swooped on the site, dismantling tents and other belongings of demonstrators. In the following months, those who had stormed the presidential palace and were seen walking out with “souvenirs” – such as bed sheets or the odd keepsake to remember a historic day – have been jailed.

“Ranil protected the Rajapaksa family from the wrath of the people, ensuring the continuity of the SLPP-led parliament, cabinet and the government, and not doing anything to stop corruption, and even suppressing the progress of any investigation against the Rajapaksa family members,” said political scientist Jayadeva Uyangoda.

“He also protected them from international pressure for holding them accountable to serious human rights violations and war-related allegations.”

This has angered many Sri Lankans who are living through a cost-of-living crisis, and enduring more hardships because of reforms intended to revive a stagnant economy.

Although there are no shortages or power cuts, prices have sky-rocketed. The government has also scrapped subsidies on essentials such as electricity, and cut welfare spending.

Taxes, meanwhile, have gone up as Wickremesinghe has sharply increased tax rates and widened the net to shore up public revenue.

Some economists say the painful measures are necessary to restore Sri Lanka’s macro-economic stability as it attempts to restructure its international debt and stick to the terms of the bailout agreed with the International Monetary Fund.

The country’s foreign reserves have risen to around $6bn from a mere $20m at the height of the crisis, and inflation is around 0.5%.

But the real-world impact on millions of ordinary Sri Lankans has been devastating.

A study from policy research organisation Lirne Asia, which surveyed 10,000 households, estimated that as many as three million people fell below the poverty line in 2023, pushing the number of poor from four million to seven million.

These families are going hungry and, desperate for more money, they are pulling their children out of school.

The Rajapaksas have denied any wrongdoing but in 2023, the country’s Supreme Court ruled that the family – including Gotabaya and Mahinda – was directly responsible for economic mismanagement between 2019 and 2022, which triggered the crisis.

Nimesha Hansini, a university student in Colombo, told BBC Sinhala she felt the Rajapaksas were “directly responsible for the economic crisis due to the financial frauds carried out under the guise of development projects during their reign”.

“But nothing has changed for them – only their political power has decreased,” she added.

“I don’t have much to say about them,” says Rashmi, a farmer in the traditional Rajapaksa stronghold of Hambantota. “We are suffering because of what they have done. We voted for them before, but that will never happen again.”

These are the minds that Namal Rajapaksa is hoping to change – he wants to win back the base.

His campaign has centred around the legacy of his father Mahinda, who is still seen as a hero by some Sri Lankans.

This is despite some international calls to prosecute him for war crimes. The UN estimates that 100,000 people including 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed by Sri Lankan armed forces in the final stages of the conflict, but Mahinda Rajapaksa has never been convicted of any wrongdoing and rejects such allegations.

Mahinda’s images adorn Namal’s campaign rallies and his social media posts feature illustrations showing him alongside his father when he was younger.

He has even tried to highlight their resemblence to each other, growing out his moustache and wearing Mahinda’s trademark red shawl.

Many of his campaign posts strike a note of defiance: “We do not fear challenges; in fact, we welcome them. That’s something I learned from my father.”

Another post refers to him as “patriotic, courageous and forward-thinking”.

“It seems to me that Namal Rajapaksa thinks, not incorrectly, that representing the legacy of his father will enable him to protect his father’s vote base and benefit from it,” Prof Uyangoda said.

“It is one way to rebuild the shattered electoral bases of the SLPP.”

But many voters don’t appear to be buying it – and polls don’t suggest Namal is a serious contender for the top job.

One comment on a campaign post on Namal’s Instagram account was scathing: “The latest heir of the Rajapaksa family taking a shot at the presidency? Quite the family business isn’t it?”

Reactions on the ground were more vitriolic. “I will never vote for Namal Rajapaksa. The years of hardship we have lived are a curse on that family,” HM Sepalika, a villager who’s been resettled in Vavuniya in the north, told BBC Sinhala.

“The people of this country got together and staged this struggle because they didn’t want the Rajapaksas. But they still have so much greed and lust for power that they are trying to come back and ask people to vote for them,” said Nishanthi Harapitiya, a shop assistant in Hambantota.

Others say they cannot take Namal seriously.

“Why should he ask for our vote? He is a child with no experience. Who will vote for him? Unless someone votes for him out of pity for his father, he cannot be elected president,” said Mohammed Haladeen, a trader from Kathankudy in eastern Sri Lanka.

Attention is now largely focused on three candidates: opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, the leftist National People’s Party alliance’s Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Wickremesinghe, who is running as an independent candidate.

But Namal Rajapaksa could be playing a longer game.

Recent elections have shown that families or allies of once-unpopular strongmen do make big political comebacks – such as Bongbong Marcos in the Philippines or even Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia.

“He wants to remain politically relevant, protect the SLPP’s voter base, and be politically active till 2029,” Prof Uyangoda said.

Lakshan Sandaruwan, the university student who took part in the demonstrations, agrees.

“Namal is contesting the polls to prepare the necessary background for 2029, not to become the president this time,” he said.

“But if the people do not act intelligently, the people themselves will create a Rajapaksa president again.”

Dancing with the Stars is known for its glitz and glitter, and a staple of US television for almost 20 years. But on Tuesday during the show’s prime-time season premiere, there will be a twist, when convicted fraudster Anna Delvey – real name Anna Sorokin – takes to the floor wearing a bejewelled ankle monitor.

In a press release, Disney-owned ABC called Sorokin “an artist, fashion icon and infamous NYC socialite”, as well as “a notorious ankle bracelet fashionista”. She will be joining a cast that includes an NBA veteran, various reality-TV stars, and two Olympians, for the latest edition of the US spin-off from the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing format.

Critics accused the channel of glamorising her past crimes. The New York Post called it a “new low for pop culture”.

Some have also questioned how she has right to live and work in the US, as a German-Russian citizen.

Sorokin’s electronic ankle monitor is not for her original 2019 convictions, which came after she travelled the world masquerading as a European heiress, conning banks, lawyers and a private jet company out of more than $200,000 (£150,000).

Instead, the ankle monitor is the result of a years-long immigration battle in the US, where she is fighting deportation.

Debates online are raging over this new chapter of infamy.

Some appear to admire her endless ambition, as if she represents some sort of warped American Dream. Others have slammed her continued self-promotion and seeming lack of remorse as shameless.

During a heated discussion on The View talk show, Whoopi Goldberg said her ability to appear on Dancing with the Stars, despite facing immigration charges, is an example of a “two-tier immigration system” that favours the wealthy or connected.

Others have said it’s hardly surprising to see her convictions being overlooked in a country where a felon is running for president.

Sorokin first gained notoriety when New York Magazine published an investigation into her misdeeds in 2018. Her scams were later explored in the Netflix series Inventing Anna and BBC podcast Fake Heiress.

It was the audacity that intrigued people. She had worked her way into elite circles in New York City in a ruse that lasted for years. Her goal was to secure a $22m loan to build an arts foundation in her own name.

While living under the heiress persona, she forged bank statements, failed to settle thousands of dollars in hotel bills, dashed out of restaurants without paying, bounced cheques, created fake emails from accountants, and let others pick up her tabs after extravagant spending. Small businesses and individuals were also affected.

“She’s been a public figure for a long enough time that I don’t think people remember the details of what the crimes were – if ever they really knew them in the first place,” said Jessica Pressler, who wrote the first piece on her in New York Magazine, and became the inspiration for the fictionalised journalist character in Inventing Anna.

“People don’t look that far past the surface,” she added, acknowledging this is what aided the original grift. “Dancing With the Stars… it’s a natural extension of the story.”

Sorokin was arrested in 2017 while on the run in California and went on criminal trial in New York. In 2019, she was found guilty of eight theft-related charges, and sentenced to between four and 12 years.

That was part one of her legal struggles.

After serving almost four years, including time in the notorious Rikers Island jail, she was released in February 2021, and was expected to leave the US.

But she didn’t go.

Six weeks later – following a string of media appearances and having signed a paid TV deal with a German company – immigration authorities arrested her for overstaying her visa.

More than three years on, she is still fighting deportation. She has served time back in jail and under house arrest. In 2022, she was scheduled to board a plane in New York to return to Germany. But her lawyer intervened and she did not fly. Litigation regarding her deportation was ongoing, they said.

Her exact claims for asylum are unclear, but they are believed to relate to her Russian citizenship. She lived there in her early years but her family moved to Germany in her teens. When she was in New York in her 20s, she had a tourist visa.

While under house arrest, Sorokin started her own podcast and did interviews with various media. (Vogue magazine filmed a tour of her apartment in the East Village; Vogue UK wrote a “What is Anna Delvey reading?” feature.)

“Most of us would die of embarrassment at doing anything that she does,” said Pressler, describing how Sorokin stayed in a hotel for months without paying the bill and flew to Morocco with no money. “From staying in a hotel for months and not paying bills, to getting on a plane to Morocco with no money, no-one would do that. She does it with aplomb. I think on the whole any admiration people have for her is kind of limited to that.”

“They aren’t going to do these things, they don’t think the things she’s done are good, but the ordinary person wishes they could have that belief in themselves.”

John Sandweg – who served as the acting head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Barack Obama’s presidency – is her current immigration lawyer.

He told the BBC that lengthy deportation cases are not uncommon in the United States, but this has been “fairly protracted”.

“Her criminal case has also been on appeal for a long time and that has had an impact,” he added.

He said her house arrest terms were “really restrictive”. “We challenged those. She was banned from social media. We argued that was unconstitutional,” he said. She wasn’t a flight risk or a danger to society, and she had kept to her parole conditions, he added.

As a result of the challenge, her bond conditions were relaxed in August. She is now back on social media and she has been permitted to travel to Los Angeles for the filming of Dancing with the Stars. She also has a social security number.

ICE confirmed to the BBC that she had received permission to travel. “Anna Sorokin’s conditions of release were amended by a Department of Justice immigration judge,” said the spokesperson.

Sorokin had to pay rent while under house arrest, but this also caused dispute. Her landlord filed legal action, saying she had failed to pay three months’ rent. Court documents show he claimed Sorokin owed more than $12,000. The case was eventually resolved and she moved out.

Sorokin has employed plenty of lawyers in recent years. The funding is believed to have come from media deals and sales of her prison artwork.

Netflix controversially paid Sorokin $320,000 (£230,000) for her life story for its Inventing Anna series. After a state intervention, she was legally obliged to use some of that money to pay back the victims of her theft. But there was some money left over to pay for her lawyer in the original trial.

Netflix is facing a defamation trial, sparked by the series.

The case was brought by Sorokin’s one-time friend Rachel Williams, who was portrayed in the show.

Williams wrote a book My Friend Anna about their short-lived friendship and how it fell apart after she was left to foot a $62,000 bill at a luxury resort in Morocco.

The lawsuit argues that Netflix used her real name and biographical details in its Inventing Anna series, but she was unfairly depicted as a “vile and contemptible person”.

Netflix, in an attempt to dismiss the lawsuit, said their interpretation of Williams was open to “literary licence” and protected by the First Amendment, according to Variety magazine.

Sorokin is not involved in that case, although she has been subpoenaed as a witness for the trial.

Williams’ lawyer Alexander Rufus-Isaacs told the BBC that the case was expected to come to trial next year.

He said Sorokin’s employment on Dancing with the Stars was “glamourising and minimising the crimes she committed, and minimising the impact on the people she hurt”.

In court, Sorokin was found not guilty of the charge related to the Morocco trip. American Express eventually refunded Williams, but after she had suffered a long period of stress and anxiety, according to her book.

While some have viewed Sorokin as an anti-establishment hero for infiltrating and embarrassing wealthy institutions, Williams did not see it that way. She previously told the BBC: “The system that Anna was seeking to undermine… she wasn’t doing it out of some altruistic nobility, she wanted to be a part of them.”

In response to the recent backlash, Dancing with the Stars boss Conrad Green told Variety: “Yes, [Sorokin] had the issues she’s had, but we’ve had other people on the show who’ve had criminal issues in the past. She served her time. I think it’s perfectly valid for her to be on the show.”

For more on the rise and fall of Anna Delvey, listen to the BBC’s podcast Fake Heiress.

A court battle to determine the future of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and a £14.9bn family trust begins in the US on Monday.

The case will pit 93-year-old Mr Murdoch against three of his eldest children over who will gain the most voting shares and power to control News Corp and Fox News when the billionaire dies.

It has been reported that Mr Murdoch wanted to amend a family trust created in 1999 so that son Lachlan could take control without “interference” from his siblings Prudence, Elisabeth and James.

The famous family was one of the inspirations behind the hugely popular TV series Succession – something the Murdochs have always refused to comment on.

Mr Murdoch, who has been married five times, also has two younger children, Grace and Chloe, who do not have any voting rights under the trust agreement.

“From what we know, this plan essentially seeks to put Prudence, James and Elisabeth on the same footing as Murdoch’s two younger daughters,” said Walter Marsh, an Australian journalist and author of the biography Young Rupert: The making of the Murdoch Empire.

He added that “all voting power” could be handed over to Lachlan.

From the 1960s, Mr Murdoch built up his media empire into a globe-spanning media giant with major political and public influence.

His two companies are News Corporation, which owns newspapers including the Times and the Sun in the UK and the Wall Street Journal in the US, and Fox, which broadcasts Fox News.

• Listen on BBC Sounds: Good Bad Billionaire – Rupert Murdoch: The Succession Prequel

Mr Murdoch had been preparing his two sons to follow in his footsteps, beginning when they were teens, journalist Andrew Neil told the 2020 BBC documentary The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty.

“Family has always been very important to Rupert Murdoch, particularly from the point of view of forming a dynasty,” the former Sunday Times editor said.

Alice Enders, head of research at Enders Analysis, told the BBC the court battle was “actually about commercial interests”.

“The solution would of course have been either for the siblings to have agreed to the change or more likely than not have been bought out in some way, but the price of buying them out is astronomical and Lachlan would have had to assume it just the same as Rupert bought out his siblings many years ago,” she added.

In 1999, the Murdoch Family Trust, which owns the media companies, was supposed to largely settle the succession plans.

It led to Mr Murdoch giving his eldest children various jobs within his companies.

The trust gives the family eight votes, which it can use to have a say on the board of News Corp and Fox News.

Mr Murdoch currently controls four of those votes, with his eldest children being in charge of one each.

The trust agreement said that once Mr Murdoch died, his votes would be passed on to his four eldest children equally.

However, differences in opinions and political views were said to lead to a family rift.

The media mogul stepped down as Fox and News Corp chairman in favour of Lachlan, who reportedly shares the same right-wing views as his father.

This has reportedly led to James, Elisabeth and Prudence uniting and “fighting back”.

The private court case is being held at Washoe County Courthouse in Reno, Nevada.

Media outlets have been barred from the proceedings, which are expected to unfold with testimony from the media titan and the four children named in the trust over the next week, according to the New York Times, which first brought the dispute to light after obtaining copies of sealed court documents.

These types of family battles often end in settlements. The case could also be prolonged, if it ends in a decision that one side chooses to appeal against.

Prudence is Mr Murdoch’s eldest child, from his marriage to his first wife Patricia Booker.

He had Elisabeth, Lachlan and James with second wife Anna Mann, whom he was married to from 1967 to 1999.

Grace and Chloe’s mother is Wendi Deng, who was married to the billionaire from 1999 to 2013.

Mr Murdoch’s fourth marriage was to model Jerry Hall in 2016, with the couple divorcing in 2022.

He recently married his fifth wife Elena Zhukova in June this year.

Embattled hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has been arrested in New York City on unspecified federal charges, federal authorities told the BBC’s US partner CBS.

The arrest in Manhattan follows raids on two of his properties in Los Angeles and Miami in March as part of an “ongoing investigation” into sex trafficking by authorities.

Mr Combs’s attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said they were “disappointed” by the arrest and his client was an “innocent man”.

The musician has faced a series of allegations from sexual assault to abuse, including by his ex-partner Casandra “Cassie” Ventura. He has denied all the claims against him.

His arrest was made in connection with an ongoing investigation by US homeland security officials, multiple law enforcement sources told CBS.

US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams confirmed the arrest in a statement on Monday night.

“Earlier this evening, federal agents arrested Sean Combs, based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY,” the prosecutor said.

He said the office plans to unseal the indictment on Tuesday morning and we “will have more to say at that time”.

Combs faces a number of civil lawsuits, including allegations that he raped an underage girl and tried to “groom” a producer and force him to have sex with another man.

His attorney said on Monday night that Mr Combs was looking forward to “clearing his name in court”.

“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution,” Mr Agnifilo said in a written statement to the BBC.

“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man, and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the black community.”

The rapper’s legal problems began in November 2023 when Ms Ventura filed her lawsuit.

Two other women filed lawsuits that same week alleging abuse and assault – including one who said Mr Combs had choked her for so long that she passed out.

He denied all the allegations at the time and a spokesperson for the rapper called the lawsuits a “money grab”.

Then in December, another civil lawsuit alleged a woman had been “sex trafficked” by Mr Combs and two other men when she was 17 years old.

In February this year, new accusations came to light in a civil lawsuit filed by his former producer Rodney Jones Jr, who said Mr Combs made unwanted sexual advances and tried to “groom” him into having sex with others.

Mr Combs denied the allegations but one month later, his properties were raided. The musician was stopped at an airport in Miami as he was preparing to leave for the Bahamas and handed over electronics to authorities.

Many of the lawsuits came shortly before the expiration of the New York Adult Survivors Act, which temporarily allowed people who said they were sexually abused to file claims, even after the statute of limitations had expired.

In May, CCTV footage posted by CNN appeared to show the rap mogul attacking and beating Ms Ventura, an episode that was chronicled in her civil suit.

Mr Combs – who has also gone by the names Puffy, Puff Daddy, P Diddy, Love, and Brother Love – is one of rap’s most successful moguls.

One of the final messages from the five-person crew of the Titan submersible before it imploded, killing all inside, was “all good here”, a hearing has revealed.

Investigators with the US Coast Guard said the message was among the final communications between the Titan and its mother ship, before they lost contact for good.

Also shown at the hearing for the first time was an image, taken by a remotely operated vehicle, of Titan’s tail cone sitting on the sea floor following the implosion.

The deep-sea vessel was less than two hours into its descent towards the wreck of the Titanic when it imploded in June 2023.

Coast Guard officials began a two-week inquiry on Monday, aiming to uncover the facts of the incident and offer recommendations to prevent similar tragedies.

Investigators presented a recreation of the journey, including text messages between Titan and its mother ship, the Polar Prince.

Titan began its dive at 09:17 local time and support staff aboard the mother ship asked about the submersible’s depth and weight, as well as whether it could still see the ship on its onboard display.

Communications were patchy, but about an hour into the dive, Titan messaged “all good here”.

Its last message was sent at 10:47 local time, at a depth of 3,346m, to say it had dropped two weights. After that, communication was lost.

Officials presented a historical overview of the Titan, noting that its hull had never been subject to third-party testing and had been left exposed to weather and other elements while in storage.

In addition, they laid out serious problems experienced by the submersible on expeditions carried out before the disaster. In 2021 and 2022, over the course of 13 dives to the Titanic, it had 118 equipment issues.

These included the front dome falling off when it was brought out of the sea, its thrusters failing at 3,500m down and, on one dive, its batteries dying and leaving passengers stuck inside for 27 hours.

OceanGate, the manufacturer behind the craft, has previously faced questions over its design choices, its safety record and its adherence to regulations.

Tony Nissen, the company’s former engineering director, said the evidence he had seen was “disturbing… professionally and personally”.

Mr Nissen claimed that Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s late CEO who was on board Titan, had the last word on most engineering decisions and was difficult to work with.

“Stockton would fight for what he wanted and, even if it changed from day to day, he wouldn’t give an inch,” he said.

“Most people would eventually back down to Stockton, it was death by a thousand cuts.”

OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations following the incident.

The company currently has no full-time staff but will be represented by a lawyer at the inquiry, it said.

Monday saw the start of the first public phase of an already 15-month investigation.

Unanswered questions over the Titan’s ill-fated dive have fuelled a lingering debate over safety and the regulation of private undersea exploration.

The Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigations (MBI) is expected to hear from as many as 10 former OceanGate employees, including co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein, and experts in marine safety and undersea exploration.

An MBI is the highest available level of inquiry into US marine casualties and convenes roughly one hearing per year, its chairman said on Sunday.

“Out of thousands of investigations conducted, less than one rise to this level,” Jason Neubauer said.

“We hope that this hearing will help shed light on the cause of the tragedy and prevent anything like this from happening again.”

The board of top Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials has the authority to recommend civil penalties or make referrals for criminal prosecution to the US Department of Justice.

A search mission involving four governments unfolded after the submersible lost contact with its mother ship, the Polar Prince, on the morning of 18 June 2023 and never resurfaced.

As well as Rush, on board were British explorer Hamish Harding, veteran French diver Paul Henri Nargeolet, the British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman.

In a Muslim graveyard in Delhi, a tombstone stands out.

It has an inscription written in the Urdu language, but beneath it lies the name of a German-born Jewish woman – Gerda Philipsborn – followed by the epithet ‘Aapajaan’ or ‘elder sister’.

This is an unusual sight as the graves of the founders of Jamia Millia Islamia – a top Muslim university rooted in India’s independence movement – rest here. Its students have upheld this legacy of political activism, including protests against a controversial citizenship law introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in 2019.

So, how did a German Jew come to be invested in a place so distant and disconnected from her homeland?

The answer lies somewhere between friendship and a woman’s search for meaning, says Margrit Pernau, author of Jamia’s Aapa Jaan: The Many Lifeworlds of Gerda Philipsborn.

Pernau, who has spent a decade researching Jamia, says that though she had come across Philipsborn’s name several times during her research, her life was shrouded in mystery.

Even today, not many students know about Philipsborn and her contribution to the university. Syeda Hameed, a prominent activist and historian, says there’s a need for writings on her to be translated and made available to students “for their benefit and the benefit of future generations”.

Philipsborn’s journey from being a German a term of respect for white European women in colonial India – to becoming Jamia’s began in 1933 when she traveled to India after forging an unlikely friendship with three Indian men, Zakir Husain, Muhammad Mujeeb, and Abid Husain, who had gone to Berlin to study.

The men would go on to become the main founders of Jamia and also play important roles in India’s political history, with Zakir Husain becoming the country’s third president in 1967.

In the 1920s and 30s, it was uncommon to find cross-national friendships, let alone close, platonic relationships between three men and a woman.

The men, who were involved in the freedom movement, often spoke to Philipsborn about their plans to build an institution that would contribute towards India’s fight for freedom.

At the time, there were very few universities in British India, and even fewer ones that were not funded by the government. The men wanted Jamia to be a place where Muslim boys and girls could educate themselves, so that they could take up an active role in India’s freedom struggle. They also wanted the institution to promote unity between Hindus and Muslims and love for the motherland.

These altruistic plans had a deep impact on Philipsborn. Born into a wealthy family in 1895, she had seen her life, and the world around her, change due to war, industrialisation and a wave of anti-Semitism. She understood what it felt like to be oppressed, to long for freedom and to be driven by the desire to become an instrument of change, Pernau writes.

And so, shortly after her friends left Berlin to dedicate their lives to building Jamia, Philipsborn followed them to India. But moving from a bustling, modernised Berlin to a country mired in poverty was not an easy decision. Pernau sheds light on the many times Zakir Husain forbade Philipsborn from making the journey.

“More than once she had offered to join him [in India], and more than once he had proffered ‘advice, warnings, and admonitions not to come’,” Pernau writes.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Mujeeb wondered how a “still young, unmarried and unaccompanied woman would fit into Jamia, whose women at this time still observed purdah [the seclusion of women from the sight of men or strangers, practiced by some Muslims and Hindus],” she writes.

But Philipsborn made the journey despite these calls for caution.

Within months, she managed to make friends with the people of Jamia and even began teaching in the university’s primary school. Like the rest of the teaches there, she worked for minimal wage and agreed to dedicate her life to serving the institution.

She used the knowledge she had gained teaching at kindergartens in Germany to make education enjoyable and approachable for her students. When she was appointed the warden of a hostel for children, she took on the role of an for them, Pernau writes.

She did menial tasks like washing and oiling their hair and kept them close to her, emotionally and physically. “When the little children under her care fell sick, she attended to them with such devotion that they didn’t miss their mother,” Pernau says.

Philipsborn also encouraged Jamia’s girls and women to play a more active role in society. When she joined the editorial team of Payam-e Ta’lim, Jamia’s children’s journal, she contributed articles that spotlighted the hobbies and interests of women and encouraged girls to write for the journal.

Apart from her work with the children of Jamia, Gerda also helped its founders raise funds for the university, prepare speeches and often acted as their sounding board for all matters related to teaching and politics.

But seven years after she arrived in India, her work hit a roadblock.

Amid Britain’s war with Germany, German citizens in British India were viewed with suspicion, leading to their arrest and internment in camps where they endured harsh conditions, including inadequate water, blankets and food.

Philipsborn was taken to one such camp in 1940. Her internment made her fearful for her life as there was the possibility of authorities deporting her to Germany, where Hitler was persecuting the Jews. But even in the camp, she did her best to serve her inmates by organising small events to cheer them up and looking after those who had taken ill.

But a couple of months after being brought to the camp, Philipsborn developed a gastric ulcer. She was taken to a hospital for treatment and then moved back to the camp, where she stayed for a whole year.

After being released, she went back to Jamia and continued her work, but struggled to perform with the same gusto as her ulcer turned cancerous. She became increasingly weak, but tried to connect with children through her articles in the Payam-e Ta’lim.

In April 1943, Philipsborn died and was buried in the graveyard for Jamia families. “She died miles away from her family, but was surrounded by the people who loved her,” says Hameed about Gerda’s death.

And long after her death, her legacy as “Aapa Jaan” lives on in the corridors of Jamia, with a hostel and day care centre named after her.

Facebook owner Meta says it is banning several Russian state media networks, alleging they use deceptive tactics to carry out influence operations and evade detection on its platforms.

“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets. Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity,” Meta said.

The bans are expected to come into effect in the next few days.

The Russian embassy in Washington, broadcaster RT, formerly Russia Today, and the owner of the Sputnik news agency, Rossiya Segodnya, did not immediately respond to BBC requests for comment.

Russian state media outlets have come under increased scrutiny over claims they have tried to influence politics in Western countries.

As well as Facebook, social media giant Meta owns Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads.

The move marks an escalation in world’s biggest social media firm’s stance towards Russian state media companies.

Two years ago, Meta took more limited measures to limit the spread of Russian state-controlled media, including stopping the outlets from running adverts on its platforms and limiting the reach of their content.

After the start of the war in Ukraine, Meta – like other social media platforms – complied with requests from the EU, UK, and Ukraine to block some Russian state media in those regions.

Earlier this month, the US accused state broadcaster RT of paying a Tennessee firm $10m (£7.6m) to “create and distribute content to US audiences with hidden Russian government messaging”.

An indictment said videos – which often promoted right-wing narratives on issues such as immigration, gender and the economy – were secretly “edited, posted, and directed” by two RT employees.

Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced new sanctions against RT, accusing it of being a “de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence apparatus”.

The top US diplomat told reporters on Friday that RT is part of a network of Russian-backed media outlets which have sought to covertly “undermine democracy in the United States”.

He added that the Russian government has “embedded within RT, a unit with cyber operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence”.

RT live-streamed Mr Blinken’s remarks on X and declared it the “US’s latest conspiracy theory”.

Iran’s new president has said that morality police will no longer “bother” women over the wearing of the mandatory hijab headscarf, days after the UN warned women were still being violently punished for breaking the strict dress code.

Masoud Pezeshkian’s comments came on the second anniversary of the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing the hijab properly, sparking nationwide protests.

The UN last week said Iran’s government had “intensified efforts” since that period to suppress women’s rights and crush any last vestiges of activism.

But on Monday, Pezeshkian said that the regime’s morality police should no longer be confronting women on the street.

Pezeshkian, who became president after his predecessor died in a helicopter crash, is seen as a potentially reformist leader.

He was responding to questions from a female reporter who said she had taken detours en route to the press conference to avoid police vans. She was wearing her head scarf loosely with some hair showing.

When asked by Pezeshkian if the police were still on the streets she confirmed that was the case.

In response he said: “The morality police were not supposed to confront [women]. I will follow up so they don’t bother [them]”.

His comments were broadcast live on major state TV networks, including rolling news channel IRINN. The clip of the conversation with the female journalist has since gone viral online.

It was Pezeshkian’s first press conference since coming into office in July, replacing the ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi.

During his election campaign he pledged to oppose police patrols enforcing the mandatory hijab headscarf. He has also vowed to ease some of the country’s long-standing internet controls.

Iran stepped up surveillance of social media following the nationwide women-led anti-establishment protests in 2022.

• ‘Lashed for a social media photo’ in Iran

Signs of a potentially more relaxed attitude to the country’s strict dress code for women were present at Pezeshkian’s press conference on Monday, where some female journalists wore loose head coverings.

This was a noticeable departure from previous official events where female journalists are required to appear in full hijab, BBC Monitoring reported.

But the UN’s latest fact-finding mission in the country says women “still live in a system that relegates them to second class citizens”.

In its report released last week, the UN said: “State authorities have expanded repressive measures and policies to further deprive women and girls of their fundamental rights.”

It noted the government had “enhanced surveillance of hijab compliance” in both public and private environments while also endorsing an escalation in violence in punishing women and girls who break the rules.

“Security forces have further escalated pre-existing patterns of physical violence, including beating, kicking, and slapping women and girls who are perceived as failing to comply with the mandatory hijab laws and regulations,” the UN said.

It said authorities had also increasingly invoked the use of the death penalty against women activists and “scaled up” executions of those who had expressed solidarity with the 2022 protests known as the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.

The UN mission also noted that a “Hijab and Chastity” bill was in the final stages of approval before Iran’s Guardian Council and could be finalised imminently.

“The Bill provides for harsher penalties for women who do not wear the mandatory hijab, including exorbitant financial fines, longer prison sentences, restrictions on work and educational opportunities, and bans on travel,” the UN investigators said.

A shy yellow-eyed penguin has come out on top of one of New Zealand’s most contested competitions to win Bird of the Year.

More than 50,000 people voted in the competition – which has in the past seen its fair share of scandal – including claims of foreign interference and allegations of cheating.

Last year, the pūteketeke won the competition after comedian John Oliver threw his weight behind it, launching a campaign that involved him dressing up as the bird, complete with a striking burnt-orange mullet.

Thought to be one of the world’s rarest penguin species, the hoiho can be found only in New Zealand.

According to Forest & Bird, the organisation that runs the competition, the hoiho secured a victory with 6,328 votes – ahead of the Karure Chatham Island black robin with more than 5,000 votes.

This is the second time the hoiho has swooped in to win the competition, having also come in first in 2019 – the same year where allegations arose that the hoiho had only won after Russian interference.

Hundreds of votes for the bird were found to have come from Russia, though Forest & Bird said these were likely not fradulent votes, but those from Russian ornithologists.

In 2018, there were also claims that Australians tried to rig the contest in favour of the shag – a species of cormorant.

The hoiho, whose Maori name means “noise shouter”, is notoriously shy despite its loud, shrill call, says the organisation, who said the win would raise conservation efforts for the species.

It is an endangered species or three steps away from extinction and its numbers are decreasing, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

“This spotlight couldn’t have come at a better time,” said Forest & Bird’s chief executive Nicola Toki. “This iconic penguin is disappearing from mainland Aotearoa (New Zealand) before our eyes.”

Conservation efforts are taking place on land but Ms Toki says they are also needed at sea.

“They’re drowning in set nets and can’t find enough food,” she said. “Our hoiho urgently need marine protected areas to give them a shot at survival.”

The US Secret Service says it is “aware” of a social media post by Elon Musk in which he said that “no one is even trying” to assassinate President Joe Biden or Vice-president Kamala Harris.

Mr Musk has since deleted the post and said it was intended as a joke.

His post on X, formerly Twitter, came just hours after the suspected attempted assassination of Donald Trump at his golf course in Florida on Sunday.

The tech billionaire is a close ally of Trump, who has vowed to enlist Mr Musk to run a “government efficiency commission” if he wins a second term as US president.

Many X users criticised Mr Musk’s comments – which were accompanied by a raised eyebrow emoji – with some alleging that the post was a form of incitement against the US President and Vice President.

In a statement, the White House condemned the post, saying that “this rhetoric is irresponsible”.

“Violence should not be condemned, never encouraged or joked about,” the statement said, adding that there should be “no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country”.

When contacted by the BBC, the US Secret Service said only that it is “aware” of the post.

“As a matter of practice we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence,” the statement added. “We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees.”

After deleting the post, Mr Musk tweeted that “one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on X.”

“Turns out that jokes are way less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is in plain text,” a subsequent post read.

The controversial tech mogul is considered a close ally of Trump and formally endorsed him in the aftermath of a separate assassination attempt against the former president that took place at a rally on 13 July in Butler, Pennsylvania.

In that attempt, the suspect fired multiple rounds, injuring Trump and killing an attendee at the rally.

Since then, Mr Musk has often tweeted or re-posted messages critical of both Biden and Harris and in support of Trump.

Amazon is ending its hybrid work policy and ordering staff back to the office five days a week.

The change will go into effect in January, boss Andy Jassy said in a memo to staff announcing the new rule.

He said he believed the move would help staff be “better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other”.

Mr Jassy has long been known as a sceptic of remote work, but Amazon staff were previously allowed to work from home two days a week.

The company’s push to get its corporate staff back into the office has been a source of tension within the company, which employs more than 1.5 million people globally in full- and part-time positions, including hundreds of thousands corporate roles.

Staff at its Seattle headquarters staged a protest last year as the company tightened the full remote work allowance that was put in place during the pandemic.

Amazon subsequently fired the organiser of that protest, prompting claims of unfair retaliation, a dispute that has been taken up with labour officials.

In his message on Monday, Mr Jassy said he was worried that Amazon – which has long prided itself on preserving the intensity of a start-up while growing to become a tech giant – was seeing its corporate culture diluted by flexible work and too many bureaucratic layers.

He said he had created a “bureaucracy mailbox” for staff to make complaints about unnecessary rules and the company was asking managers to reorganise so that managers are overseeing more people.

Amazon said those changes could lead to job cuts, which would be communicated at the team level.

In addition to returning to the office five days a week, the company said it would bring back “assigned desk arrangements in locations that were previously organized that way” including its US headquarters.

The company said staff could still work from home in unusual circumstances, such as a sick child or house emergency, as was the case before the pandemic.

But unless they have been granted an exemption, Mr Jassy said: “Our expectation is that people will be in the office outside of extenuating circumstances”.

Remote work peaked during the pandemic. Many companies started recalling staff in 2022, but the return has been incomplete.

As of this summer, about 12% of full-time employees in the US were fully remote and another 27% reported having hybrid work policies in place, according to a monthly survey by economists Jose Maria Barrero, Nicholas Bloom, and Steven J Davis.

Bank bosses such as JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon have long been among the most high-profile figures critical of remote work and likely to demand full-time office attendance.

But the attitude has also spread to other industries, with UPS and Dell recalling staff back to the office full-time this year.

In his memo, Mr Jassy said that Amazon’s experience with its move to a hybrid policy had “strengthened our conviction about the benefits” of working in person.

But Prof Bloom, a professor at Stanford, said he did not think the announcements were a sign of a wider shift in work policies, noting that his data has found time spent at the office has been fairly stable for more than a year.

“For every high profile company cancelling work-from-home, there’s others that seem to be expanding it – they just don’t get picked up in the media,” he said.

On a bright September afternoon, a caravan of colourful cars, festooned with flags, arrives at a village in Indian-administered Kashmir for an election rally.

Iltija Mufti, a politician from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), slowly rises from the sunroof of one of the cars.

“Yeli ye Mufti (When Mufti will be in power),” she shouts at a crowd that has gathered to hear the third-generation leader of one of the most influential political dynasties of the region.

“Teli Tch’le Sakhti (Then the repression will end),” they respond in unison.

From a distance, army personnel in bulletproof jackets, armed with automatic rifles, stand watch, tracking every movement.

For the first time in a decade, elections are being held in 47 assembly seats of Kashmir, long marked by violence and unrest. The region, claimed by both India and Pakistan, has been the cause of three wars between the nuclear-armed neighbours. Since the 1990s, an armed insurgency against Indian rule has claimed thousands of lives, including civilians and security forces.

The three-phase polls will also extend to the 43 seats in the neighbouring Hindu-majority Jammu region.

The election is the first since 2019, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy, stripped its statehood, and split it into two federally-administered territories. Since then, the region has been governed by a federal administrator.

• Article 370: What happened with Kashmir and why it matters

In the fray are 13 main parties vying for a majority in the 90-seat assembly.

The major players are the two main regional parties – the PDP led by Mehbooba Mufti and the National Conference (NC) which is headed by Omar Abdullah. Both Mufti and Abdullah are former chief ministers of the region.

The NC has formed an alliance with India’s main opposition party Congress.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is also contesting but not many are betting on the party, which has a stronghold in Jammu but a weak political base in the valley.

In the last elections in 2014, the BJP had formed a government in alliance with PDP after sweeping Jammu. The alliance fell apart in 2018 after years of disagreements.

Also in the picture, this time, is Engineer Rashid – a controversial politician who has spent five years in jail accused in a terror case and was released on bail this week. Rashid came to limelight earlier this year when he pulled off a stunning victory in the general election over Abdullah. He fought the election from jail, with his sons leading an emotional campaign on the ground.

Elections in Kashmir have long been contentious, with residents and separatist leaders often boycotting them, viewing the process as Delhi’s attempt to legitimise its control.

Since 1947, Kashmir has held 12 assembly elections, but voter turnout has often been low and marked by violence. Militants have attacked polling stations, and security forces have been accused of forcing voters to come out and vote. Since the 1990s, hundreds of political workers have been kidnapped or killed by militant groups.

But for the first time in decades, even separatist leaders are contesting in several seats.

The most keenly watched of these is the outlawed Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) party, which has joined hands with Rashid’s Awami Ittehad Party (AIP).

Residents will vote to elect a local assembly, led by a chief minister and council of ministers. Though the assembly will have limited powers under Delhi’s rule, it has sparked hopes for a political change in the valley.

Almost all opposition parties have pledged to restore statehood and the region’s special status. The BJP has ruled out restoring autonomy but has promised to reinstate statehood to Jammu and Kashmir “at an appropriate time after the elections”.

Most residents appeared to be reconciled to the loss of their region’s autonomy.

“I don’t think Article 370 will come back unless any miracle happens,” said Suheel Mir, a research scholar, adding that parties were making promises about restoring autonomy in a “politically charged” atmosphere to get votes.

Several young men and women said they were more concerned about issues like political instability, corruption and most of all, unemployment – also a major concern in Jammu.

“We want to cast our vote to resolve our day-to-day issues. It has nothing to do with the Kashmir dispute,” said a man who did not wish to be named.

But others said they didn’t want to give the impression that they had accepted the events of 2019 and would participate in the election solely to vote against the BJP.

“We want to send a message to the government that the revocation is unacceptable to us no matter what,” said 38-year-old Zameer Ahmad.

Five years ago when Modi’s government abrogated Article 370, the 70-year-old constitutional provision that gave the region its autonomy, the government said it was necessary to restore normalcy in India’s only Muslim-majority region.

The move triggered a severe security clampdown, mass detentions, curfews and a months-long internet blackout, stripping residents of rights to jobs and land.

Since then, Modi and his ministers have extensively talked about a new era of peace and development in Kashmir, announcing projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars that they say are part of a plan to integrate the region’s economy with the rest of India. (Until Jammu and Kashmir’s special status was removed, outsiders could not buy land to do business there).

But locals say they have yet to see the benefits of such projects and continue to struggle with violence and high levels of unemployment.

Thousands of Indian army troops continue to be perpetually deployed there, with powers that have led to decades of allegations of human rights violations.

“There is an absence of democracy and freedoms in Kashmir and many political activists remain in jail,” said political scientist Noor Ahmad Baba.

“The election allows people to give their verdict for or against these changes.”

The change in mood is visible everywhere.

Across Jammu and Kashmir, streets are adorned with posters, party flags, and billboards and men at local bakeries freely discuss election outcomes over chai.

“There has been a complete overhaul of traditional political narratives,” said Tooba Punjabi, a researcher.

“Earlier, public boycotts defined elections. But now, it’s a means of putting the right party in place to undo damage.”

The shift in political attitudes was also evident earlier this year, when Kashmir registered a historic 58.46% voter turnout in the parliamentary election.

Many residents are now pinning their hopes on regional parties to raise their demands.

“These parties have acted as a shield between Delhi and Kashmir,” said businessman Tahir Hussain,” adding that “it didn’t matter who will form the government as long as it’s a local one”.

Analysts say the BJP’s performance could also receive a significant blow in Jammu this time, where internal discord and infighting has derailed its ambitions.

There’s also growing anger among the residents who are unhappy with the party’s policies.

Until now, the BJP’s push for development has resonated with people in Jammu who hope it would bring in more economic opportunities for them.

But many say they are yet to see any signs of change. “In fact, now that Article 370 has been scrapped, people from other states are coming to Jammu. Our rights on jobs and land are being taken away from us,” said Gulchain Singh Charak, a local politician.

Sunil Sethi, BJP’s chief spokesperson in the region, rejected the allegations.

“We have done massive infrastructure developments, build roads and brought foreign investors here,” he said.

Open your wardrobe, and there’s a good chance you’ll find garments made in Leicester.

The city was the engine of England’s clothing industry, with companies including retail giant Next keeping tens of thousands of people in work.

After many years of factory closures, a boom in fast fashion then created a profitable new industry.

Sub-contractors offered the flexibility to deliver large orders to tight deadlines, as stores focused on piling it high and selling it cheap.

But then the coronavirus pandemic lifted the lid on how intense competition had created widespread exploitation in Leicester’s supply chain.

Now the city is fighting to save its garment manufacturing industry once again.

Paramjit Kaur, 61, worked as a sewing machine operator at several Leicester companies after moving from India to join her husband Harvinder Singh.

By the time she arrived in 2015, there was already growing concern about garment factories paying well below the living wage.

Paramjit says she could not speak English and struggled to find work, so she spent years working in factories that paid her between £3 and £5 an hour.

She says some employers covered their tracks by creating a paper trail, which appeared to show she earned the National Living Wage.

Speaking in a mixture of Hindi and Punjabi, Paramjit described how one company asked her to work for a £5 hourly rate, adding others did not give her holiday or sick pay.

“They would show ‘full pay’ on the payslip but once the money was in my bank, I was told to return it,” she said.

“I used to give it back in cash. Three or four factories used to do this.”

When asked why she returned the money, Paramjit said: “It felt dirty and bad but I needed to work. No-one was paying more.

“We were desperate. We had to pay council tax, the gas bill, rent. The bills kept coming.

“It felt horrible. ‘Keep working, keep working’, is what they would say.”

Paramjit is one of several workers from India who told the BBC they earned £5 an hour or less in different clothing factories in Leicester.

That is well below the National Living Wage, which now stands at £11.44 an hour for adults over 21.

A woman in her 50s, who asked not to be identified for fear of repercussions, told the BBC she was paid £4 an hour to work as a “packer” in various garment factories.

“I thought it was reasonable and it was the going rate,” she said.

“It was what most people were getting. I was desperate to work and save because I have to support my parents, my sister and nieces back in India.”

The workers have been supported by the Fashion-workers Advice Bureau Leicester (FAB-L), which is funded by retail brands.

These brands insist that factories making their clothes allow FAB-L to go into their sites and support workers.

Tarek Islam, from FAB-L, says the group helps exploited garment workers who often struggle because of poor English language skills.

Tarek says Leicester’s garment workers sometimes accept such low wages because they are afraid of losing Universal Credit if they do not take action to get paid work.

Employers also convince workers they are doing them “a favour” by giving them the experience to find minimum wage jobs, Tarek adds.

Tarek says some firms demand unpaid hours, or cash refunds, so their audits record the payment of “full wages”.

“They [employers] may make a payslip for 18 hours, so on the system people are getting paid for 18 hours, but they’ll make them work for 36 hours,” Tarek says.

“So when you check the paperwork, everything seems fine. Another thing they’ll do is say, ‘I’ll pay the full wages in your account, so on paper we can pass all the audits, however we agreed only £5 to £6 an hour, so that extra money you need to give back to me’.”

Tarek says exploitation in the industry has been the “absolute norm”.

However, he adds: “Because the brands have increased their auditing process, and become tighter, the workers we’ve spoken to mostly say they’re being paid the minimum wage.”

Tarek says FAB-L has helped 90 garment workers recover a total of £180,000 of unpaid wages since its launch in early 2022.

But he believes that is the tip of the iceberg.

Tarek says one woman burst into tears as she explained how she was owed £5,000 – and too afraid to tell her husband in case he accused her of spending it.

Tarek discovered that her factory had not paid 60 workers for three months.

It then emerged that factory was also waiting for late payments, and FAB-L helped everyone recover their money.

Tarek says he has previously persuaded garment businesses to pay up by offering to “mediate” complaints with the fashion brands they supply.

“As soon as I say, ‘do you want me to raise it with the brand?’ They’ll say ‘maybe we can resolve it between ourselves’,” he said.

FAB-L has been funded by eight brands – including Asos, River Island and Next – and two trade unions.

The group was set up in response to damning headlines about exploitation in Leicester’s clothing supply chain during the pandemic.

The tipping point came after barrister Alison Levitt published a scathing report about factories supplying the online fashion retailer, Boohoo.

Tarek says UK fashion brands are now “trying to be reputable”, and now most garment workers still employed in Leicester say they are receiving the National Living Wage.

But many workers have lost their jobs as some suppliers shifted contracts overseas.

Several estimates seen by the BBC suggest the vast majority of Leicester’s garment factories have closed since the crackdown began.

The Apparel and Textile Manufacturers Federation believes about 700 were operating five years ago, compared to only 60 to 100 now.

Saeed Khilji, from the Textile Manufacturer Association of Leicestershire, believes the scandal in the city did “huge damage” to legitimate clothing businesses that were already struggling to make a profit.

He says that persuaded many retailers to avoid production in Leicester.

The pandemic also drove a rise in online shopping.

Another manufacturer, Alkesh Kapadia, believes that was an even more serious blow to Leicester’s business model.

He says the previous model relied on retailers ordering large quantities of each design to fill their stores across the country, whereas online brands need much smaller quantities of each design.

Alkesh used to export clothes from his Leicester factories as far afield as the US, Canada and India.

But he says he has lost £2.5m the past 12 to 18 months because retailers have demanded ever-lower prices at a time when costs have risen.

Now his company has moved production to factories in Morocco, Turkey and Tunisia, where manufacturing is cheaper.

“Fashion was my passion,” he says. “My surname is Kapadia. Kapadia means fabric.

“For 200 years we used to make fabrics. My father up there would be really upset that I have stopped this business.”

Meanwhile, Saaed used six Leicester factories to make his garments, but now he says he only runs an import-export business because the UK is impossible to afford.

“As a factory owner, we not only pay the minimum wage,” he says. “There’s also national insurance, rent, the electricity bill. Nothing has gone down.”

The catalyst for change was two-fold, he says.

“Mainly the price issue. Living costs were rising, but retailers didn’t want to pay the price, and secondly, we had sweatshops in Leicester, [but] 95% of factories were good but struggling, because we got this bad name because of this 5%,” Saeed adds.

Saeed’s factory, in Nottingham Road, never reopened after orders were cancelled during Covid.

“All orders we had stopped,” he says. “All fabrics we had, we can’t use it. Retailers cancelled orders because they can’t sell. When they cancelled, they didn’t pay us.”

He says that has left him with stock that he cannot sell and will donate to charity.

Saeed says he “cannot see any future” for garment production in Leicester, and Alkesh agrees.

“We are thinking that Leicester will die if you don’t do anything now. Even if you do something now, it’s very hard to save this industry,” Alkesh says.

Alkesh and Saeed are still based in Leicester, but both have set up their own online retail brands to sell imported clothes to customers directly.

However, the non-profit organisation Labour Behind the Label is now campaigning for fashion brands to support the city’s ailing manufacturing industry.

It wants brands to commit to ordering at least 1% of their products from Leicester’s factories.

Tarek, from FAB-L, says brands also need to consider more serious exploitation overseas.

“Imagine what exploitation is happening there,” he says. “Child labour. Trade unions being killed in factories.

“A brand producing in the UK, even with exploitation in their chain, is better than a brand that is producing out of the UK.”

Prof Rachel Granger, from the city’s De Montfort University, is an industry expert.

She believes Leicester’s garment industry will only survive if there is significant investment in new robot technology and a focus on quality.

“Germany had the same problem a decade earlier and invested in robots,” she says.

“There just are not the resources to invest, that is the crux of the problem.”

In a Muslim graveyard in Delhi, a tombstone stands out.

It has an inscription written in the Urdu language, but beneath it lies the name of a German-born Jewish woman – Gerda Philipsborn – followed by the epithet ‘Aapajaan’ or ‘elder sister’.

This is an unusual sight as the graves of the founders of Jamia Millia Islamia – a top Muslim university rooted in India’s independence movement – rest here. Its students have upheld this legacy of political activism, including protests against a controversial citizenship law introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in 2019.

So, how did a German Jew come to be invested in a place so distant and disconnected from her homeland?

The answer lies somewhere between friendship and a woman’s search for meaning, says Margrit Pernau, author of Jamia’s Aapa Jaan: The Many Lifeworlds of Gerda Philipsborn.

Pernau, who has spent a decade researching Jamia, says that though she had come across Philipsborn’s name several times during her research, her life was shrouded in mystery.

Even today, not many students know about Philipsborn and her contribution to the university. Syeda Hameed, a prominent activist and historian, says there’s a need for writings on her to be translated and made available to students “for their benefit and the benefit of future generations”.

Philipsborn’s journey from being a German a term of respect for white European women in colonial India – to becoming Jamia’s began in 1933 when she traveled to India after forging an unlikely friendship with three Indian men, Zakir Husain, Muhammad Mujeeb, and Abid Husain, who had gone to Berlin to study.

The men would go on to become the main founders of Jamia and also play important roles in India’s political history, with Zakir Husain becoming the country’s third president in 1967.

In the 1920s and 30s, it was uncommon to find cross-national friendships, let alone close, platonic relationships between three men and a woman.

The men, who were involved in the freedom movement, often spoke to Philipsborn about their plans to build an institution that would contribute towards India’s fight for freedom.

At the time, there were very few universities in British India, and even fewer ones that were not funded by the government. The men wanted Jamia to be a place where Muslim boys and girls could educate themselves, so that they could take up an active role in India’s freedom struggle. They also wanted the institution to promote unity between Hindus and Muslims and love for the motherland.

These altruistic plans had a deep impact on Philipsborn. Born into a wealthy family in 1895, she had seen her life, and the world around her, change due to war, industrialisation and a wave of anti-Semitism. She understood what it felt like to be oppressed, to long for freedom and to be driven by the desire to become an instrument of change, Pernau writes.

And so, shortly after her friends left Berlin to dedicate their lives to building Jamia, Philipsborn followed them to India. But moving from a bustling, modernised Berlin to a country mired in poverty was not an easy decision. Pernau sheds light on the many times Zakir Husain forbade Philipsborn from making the journey.

“More than once she had offered to join him [in India], and more than once he had proffered ‘advice, warnings, and admonitions not to come’,” Pernau writes.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Mujeeb wondered how a “still young, unmarried and unaccompanied woman would fit into Jamia, whose women at this time still observed purdah [the seclusion of women from the sight of men or strangers, practiced by some Muslims and Hindus],” she writes.

But Philipsborn made the journey despite these calls for caution.

Within months, she managed to make friends with the people of Jamia and even began teaching in the university’s primary school. Like the rest of the teaches there, she worked for minimal wage and agreed to dedicate her life to serving the institution.

She used the knowledge she had gained teaching at kindergartens in Germany to make education enjoyable and approachable for her students. When she was appointed the warden of a hostel for children, she took on the role of an for them, Pernau writes.

She did menial tasks like washing and oiling their hair and kept them close to her, emotionally and physically. “When the little children under her care fell sick, she attended to them with such devotion that they didn’t miss their mother,” Pernau says.

Philipsborn also encouraged Jamia’s girls and women to play a more active role in society. When she joined the editorial team of Payam-e Ta’lim, Jamia’s children’s journal, she contributed articles that spotlighted the hobbies and interests of women and encouraged girls to write for the journal.

Apart from her work with the children of Jamia, Gerda also helped its founders raise funds for the university, prepare speeches and often acted as their sounding board for all matters related to teaching and politics.

But seven years after she arrived in India, her work hit a roadblock.

Amid Britain’s war with Germany, German citizens in British India were viewed with suspicion, leading to their arrest and internment in camps where they endured harsh conditions, including inadequate water, blankets and food.

Philipsborn was taken to one such camp in 1940. Her internment made her fearful for her life as there was the possibility of authorities deporting her to Germany, where Hitler was persecuting the Jews. But even in the camp, she did her best to serve her inmates by organising small events to cheer them up and looking after those who had taken ill.

But a couple of months after being brought to the camp, Philipsborn developed a gastric ulcer. She was taken to a hospital for treatment and then moved back to the camp, where she stayed for a whole year.

After being released, she went back to Jamia and continued her work, but struggled to perform with the same gusto as her ulcer turned cancerous. She became increasingly weak, but tried to connect with children through her articles in the Payam-e Ta’lim.

In April 1943, Philipsborn died and was buried in the graveyard for Jamia families. “She died miles away from her family, but was surrounded by the people who loved her,” says Hameed about Gerda’s death.

And long after her death, her legacy as “Aapa Jaan” lives on in the corridors of Jamia, with a hostel and day care centre named after her.

You’ve been walking the red carpet in London and LA and the show you’ve done with Nicole Kidman is in Netflix’s most-watched charts.

How does that feel?

“Overwhelming, in a good way,” says Indian actor Ishaan Khatter.

The past few weeks have been intense for the 28-year-old, who plays Shooter Dival in murder mystery The Perfect Couple.

Ishaan says taking the part “was a no-brainer”, even though it was different to what he’s previously done.

“The most exciting thing about it, the most reassuring thing about it, was the way the character was written and the fact that it didn’t feel like a token diversity character,” he says.

Ishaan, from Mumbai, has largely made his name in Bollywood with films like Pippa and Dhadak, also starring in BBC drama A Suitable Boy.

Speaking to BBC Asian Network’s Haroon Rashid, he says the casting process for The Perfect Couple was “ethnicity agnostic” and actors from various backgrounds auditioned.

He says his character Shooter is mysterious and “three-dimensional” and credits the writers and director Susanne Bier for this.

“The fun is to play into the red herrings,” he says.

“It’s all you want, for audiences to really be taken for a ride. And it’s a testament to good craft,” he says.

A shower scene featuring Shooter was used in the show’s trailers and Ishaan says it was a rare example of a Hollywood production portraying a South Asian man as “desirable”.

“Yes, I was objectified,” he says, with a smile.

“It was one of the things that made the character unique and appealing to me.

“It makes it kind of a moment in history in that sense.

“I just thought it was a cool character in general and it was fun to play into that,” he says.

And he’s aware of how significant this shift could be going forward in giving more opportunities for South Asian actors in Western productions.

Ishaan says viewers will see young male Indian actors in “a new light”.

“As an audience I would be saying: ‘Hell yeah, this is what we should be doing more of.’

“I understand the sacredness of being put in a position where you’re representing on a global scale.

“I’m so happy to be in this position and to be able to be a part of something that is a stepping stone,” he says.

Earning a place on a cast which already contained the likes of Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber and Dakota Fanning led Ishaan to ask director Susanne why she picked him.

He was taken aback at her answer: “She was like: ‘I feel like you could be happy. You have it in you to be a happy person.’

“She was looking for a similar string in the character,” he says.

But despite having “a young career so far”, he felt prepared enough “to have the self-confidence to hold my own and be myself”.

“So I’m just doing me. I’m not going to do anything different.”

He also credits those names and the wider team for helping him through difficult moments.

Ishaan says filming in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, was a “long, drawn-out process” over four months, and a place where where he experienced homesickness for the first time.

But he says the cast bonded and that proved to be the difference.

“We only had each other’s company,” he says.

“Being able to hang out, do activities like axe-throwing or whale-watching.

“It definitely helped with the homesickness.”

Despite the positive reviews for his performance, Ishaan is not getting carried away.

“There’s definitely a lot of self-checking going on,” he says.

“Ego is the death of the actor and it genuinely matters to me to keep growing.

“I’m more interested in finding my potential than showing off what I’ve already done, that’s not interesting to me.

“It means a lot to get the feedback from the audience.

“This is what we do it for.

“The love has been just beautiful and overwhelming in the nicest way.”

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

Is your success because of who you are, or who you know?

Nepotism – giving work opportunities and advantages to your friends and family – has been the subject of debate in showbiz around the world for a number of years.

Some feel “nepo babies” – those who’ve been given a boost because of their parents – don’t deserve their success, while Gwyneth Paltrow called that term “ugly”.

But it’s not just a Hollywood thing.

Bollywood actress Ananya Panday has been criticised and heavily trolled over nepotism because her father Suyash “Chunky” Panday was a successful actor in the late 1980s.

While accepting her privilege, Ananya has often disputed how much of an impact his success had on her career.

But now the 25-year-old says she wants her work to do the talking.

“I was always the first person to be like: I know I come from a [film] family, my father’s an actor and obviously that’s given me more access [to opportunities].

“I’ve never fought it. But I realised that there is so much conversation about it and people are not going to stop asking about nepotism,” she tells BBC Asian Network’s Haroon Rashid.

“You think it’s over but people will keep talking about it. I realised it’s better to just not say anything any more and let your work speak.”

In her new show Call Me Bae, Ananya plays a character which some feel has real-life similarities to her.

Bae, aka Bella Chowdhary, comes from a privileged and elite background but is soon kicked out of her life of luxury and forced to try to make it on her own.

“It’s a riches to rags and almost underdog story,” Ananya says.

But she says real-life experiences did not impact her decision to take the role, instead she “just went with the story and script”.

“I think the lovely thing about this is that it’s very self-aware.

“It speaks about the privilege, wealth and the bubble that the character is living in, which breaks in the first episode.

“A lot of people say I’m very similar to Bae. I think once people watch it, they’ll see more differences than similarities,” she says.

The humour in the show is quite “tongue-in-cheek with a lot of pop culture references”, she says, and that includes a real-life interaction Ananya had on the topic of privilege and nepotism.

During a roundtable discussion with other actors in 2020, Ananya was saying she’d make no apologies for being her famous father’s daughter and that she was “so proud of him”.

After a long, impassioned speech from Ananya, Siddhant Chaturvedi, who does not come from a famous family, chipped in to support her.

“Everybody has their own struggle,” he said, before switching to Hindi and uttering a line that earned nods and noises of approval from his fellow actors.

“The difference is, where our dreams come true, their struggle begins (jahan humare sapne pure hote hai wahan inka struggle shuru hota hai).”

It was a line that went viral, and was included in the script for Call Me Bae.

Ananya says it’s not the first time someone tried to put this real-world line into scripted fiction.

“But in this situation it worked well because it went with the character of Bae.

“When you watch it in the scene, it’s not completely jarring that the conversation happens.”

As a result, she says she “felt safe in the environment”.

“It wasn’t the only cultural reference. I feel we don’t have that enough in our films and shows.”

Despite highlighting their differences, Ananya says she does identify strongly with her character, who she feels has “a human side with vulnerability”.

“I actually liked that she looks a certain way, but then turns the audience on their head. It makes you rethink everything about people who you maybe judge on a first glance.”

As an actress, she says “you have to set apart the person that you are and the characters you play on screen”.

“But I think it’s lovely when you can bring yourself to certain characters.

“If there is a tone that I understand, that I can bring to the characters I play which make it more relatable, then I think that’s more of a strength than a disadvantage.”

And she hopes the character of Bae “becomes synonymous” with her.

“There are certain characters that stay with actors and people remember them for roles and I feel like she has that memorable quality about her.”

While the show itself has had mixed reviews, there has been a largely positive reaction to Ananya’s performance, with the Times of India saying she delivers a “relatable performance that anchors the show”.

Ananya has previously received praise for her roles in films such as her debut Student of the Year 2, Pati Patni Aur Woh and Gehraiyaan.

But it does not take long for accusations of privilege to return, with comments such as “nepo” often found on posts to her 25 million Instagram followers.

Repeatedly having to prove yourself might feel frustrating, but Ananya says she is now in a different head space.

“I don’t know if I’m in that zone to cry about it or complain about it anymore.

“I think that’s a tag and conversation that will always stay,” she says.

She adds every film acts as “a reset button” for every actor.

“No matter what you’ve done in the past, the audience is going to judge you on your next [film].

“What is important at this point is just to put my head down and work and make sure that every time I bowl people over with my work.

“Because that’s the best that I can do.

“I have seen a shift and I do feel like it’s getting better. I feel there are good times ahead.”

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

Former BBC News presenter Huw Edwards has been given a suspended prison term after he admitted making indecent images of children. Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard he received more than 40 images over several months from convicted sex offender Alex Williams. Here are four things we learned from the sentencing hearing.

When Huw Edwards pleaded guilty in July, we knew that he had communicated with Alex Williams, the man who supplied the indecent images, from at the very least December 2020.

That’s when Williams, convicted earlier this year, sent Edwards the first images that count as “indecent”, the archaic legalese for depictions of abuse.

The online relationship in fact began two years before that and it was of a sexual nature. According to the evidence, it coincided with a period when Edwards was struggling with both his mental health and sexual identity.

Williams said he had contacted Edwards because he was hoping to get a response.

He did – and the online relationship lasted four years on and off – and Edwards began receiving legal pornographic images and a smaller number of illegal abuse images.

Prosecutor Ian Hope told the sentencing hearing they met once in person, and there was an evidence of a solitary video-call too.

The only evidence of this relationship comes from Williams’s phone as the handset used by Edwards at the time was not found.

The bulk of the 377 images were legal pornography featuring young adult men. But 41 of them depicted children.

Edwards would have been aware of what he was being sent, because he discussed it with Williams.

“In December 2020 Alex Williams said that he had ‘a file of vids and pics for you of someone special’,” prosecutor Ian Hope told the court.

“Mr Edwards immediately queried who the subject was and was then sent three images of seemingly the same person.”

That person was aged between 14 and 16 and the images were “Category C” in the table of severity of abuse, the lowest of the three tiers.

Williams then asked Edwards whether he wanted the “full file”.

Edwards responded: “Yes xxx…”

Williams then sent further and more severe images of abuse and a final video file of a Category A incident involving abuse of a boy aged between 13 and 15. Edwards and Williams wished each other a Happy Christmas.

When Williams said he had “hot” files that were big to send, Edwards recommended Dropbox. In time, the former newsreader referred to some of the material as “amazing” but it is not clear whether that meant the legal or illegal images.

We heard in court that Edwards had paid Williams. But this was not taken by the sentencing chief magistrate to mean that he had been paid for the indecent images. It was more a case of “thank you” for whatever was going on between them – in effect gifts.

For instance, Williams asked for “a Christmas gift after all the hot videos”.

Edwards sent him £200 for some Nike Air Force 1 trainers.

And in total, Williams received between £1,000 and £1,500, which helped pay his way at university.

• Watch: Huw Edwards: Fall from Grace
• Timeline: How the Huw Edwards scandal unfolded
• Shock, anger and damage limitation in the BBC

This on and off exchange continued through to 2021. Edwards ultimately received seven files of the worst type of abuse.

There’s no evidence as to what Edwards thought about those files – but a crucial part of the case shows that he did respond to questions Williams asked him about the subject matter. That shows that it was Williams who was leading the conversation about the nature of the images, rather than Edwards.

“Is the stuff I’m sending too young for you?” asked Williams on 19 February 2021. Three days later Edwards replies: “Don’t send underage.”

But when in August Williams offered Edwards more files, and said they involve people who were “yng”, the former newsreader said: “Go on.” This was the second of two videos featuring a child aged between seven and nine.

Prosecutor Ian Hope said: “Alex Williams says the subject is ‘quite yng looking’ to which Mr Edwards responds it ‘can be deceptive’ and asks if he has ‘any more?’ Alex Williams says he has but he is not sure if Mr Edwards would like them as they are illegal. Mr Edwards says ‘Ah ok don’t’.”

The evidence in the case shows that Edwards had been struggling with mental ill health for many years and had fragile self-esteem. The court heard he had what appears to have been unresolved feelings about his sexuality dating back to 1994.

Confusion about sexuality is not the same as an interest in images of child abuse – far from it. So what led to him receiving the images from Williams, even if he later regretted it?

A forensic psychotherapist wrote in a report for the court that the people Edwards was meeting via social media helped boost his low mood – but then created a “perfect storm” leading to the offending.

That decision making, the court heard, was linked to Edwards’ mental ill health and the wider picture of his complex character.

One expert who analysed Edwards said he grew up in a puritanical but hypocritical environment with a father described in court as “monstrous”. Edwards entered adulthood feeling inferior – and that was compounded, the expert concluded, by working in an organisation that he had perceived as being full of Oxford graduates (Note to readers: it isn’t).

In time he developed clinical depression leading to therapy at times – but his situation worsened from 2018 – and then more so during the first awful year of the pandemic, which coincides with the majority of the offending. The conclusion of the experts was that Edwards was sufficiently unwell that it affected his decision-making – a situation exacerbated by alcohol, a heart problem and a breakdown of relationships within his own family.

All of this could sound to some like a sob story – but the court accepted that there was evidence that Edwards’ mental health had improved – and therefore his understanding of his crimes – thanks to help. And that sign of improvement was a key factor in what the chief magistrate decided to do.

The burning question for many tonight is why was Huw Edwards not sent to prison? The simple answer is … there is no simple and uniform solution for dealing with offenders.

The offence he committed could in theory lead to 10 years in jail.

But, in practice, detailed sentencing guidelines, developed over years of comparing varying cases, save that severe punishment for the worst of the worst people who are producing the images that Williams scooped up and went on to share.

Edwards, by receiving them, was at the bottom of that chain of abuse.

So his sentence was always going to be well short of that maximum 10 years – and, likely to be shorter than the 12 months suspended sentence given to Alex Williams in March.

The guidelines say that for someone in Edwards’ position, the starting point is a year in jail with a range of between six months and three years.

Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring began his sentencing calculation with a year. He knocked three months off to take into account the mental health evidence and the fact that this was a first offence. This is absolutely standard procedure.

He then discounted the sentence by a third, bringing it down to six months, to credit the earliest possible guilty plea.

Again, this discount for an admission is a standard feature of sentencing law. It is an offer to focus an offender’s mind on pleading guilty early and accepting their crimes.

It saves a huge amount of public money by not tying up the criminal justice system with a jury trial. And it means, if the offender is willing, they can get on with the long and hard process of rehabilitation as soon as possible.

The next question was whether Edwards needed to be jailed to protect the public. The chief magistrate concluded not, because he accepted evidence that the offender before him had already understood the gravity of what he had done – and was responding to therapy.

And so he moved down a notch from immediate jail to a suspended six month sentence. That means that if Edwards were to commit another offence in the next two years, he would be likely to go to jail immediately. But if he stays on the road to reform, he won’t.

The prosecution had argued that Edwards needed to be subject to restrictions on his liberties through a Sexual Harm Prevention Order. That would have allowed agencies to monitor or curtail his communications and movements – including knowing his entire internet history on every device he uses.

The court heard that probation experts had used a “predictor tool” to estimate the likelihood of Edwards reoffending. It had found his risk of indirect internet-based offending – meaning viewing more images – to be medium.

But his lawyers argued that risk was diminishing because he was on the mend and had shown genuine remorse.

The chief magistrate said that it was not necessary to subject Edwards to the additional SHPO conditions, given the progress towards rehabilitation already underway.

Edwards must complete a 40-day Sex Offender Treatment Programme and 25 rehabilitation sessions aimed at helping him to fix his mental health and use of alcohol.

Even if all that is successful, there is a sting in the sentencing tail.

For the next seven years Edwards will be on the sex offender register – meaning he has to keep the police informed of his whereabouts. It will be difficult for him to travel abroad on holiday and some countries may never let him in at all.

He’s free from prison – but he is not free in the true sense of the word. His life choices will be watched on and off for years to come.

Seventy years after he first fronted a wildlife programme, Sir David Attenborough is keenly aware of the impact they can have.

“The world would be in a far, far worse situation now had there been no broadcasting of natural history,” he said.

“People have found it a source of fascination and beauty and interest, and this has become key to looking after the world.”

In September 2024, the BBC is marking 90 years of broadcasting from Bristol. We spoke exclusively to Sir David, who has presented many of the programmes made at BBC Bristol’s Natural History Unit.

When Sir David’s broadcasting career began in 1954, just 3.2 million people had television licences in the UK.

The goal of programmes like Zoo Quest was to capture wild animals for zoo collections, the accepted practice at the time.

Now, Sir David’s programmes all carry a strong message – that the natural world is at risk more than ever before.

“People are aware of the problems of conservation in a way which could not exist without broadcasting,” he said.

“The perilous state that the natural world is in at the moment, these things are apparent to people all around the world.

“You don’t watch a natural history programme, I hope, because you think it’s going to be good for the natural world; you do so because it is rivetingly interesting, and complicated, and beautiful.

“The awareness of people around the world about ecological damage, that is due to natural history,” he added.

Bristol’s association with wildlife programming goes back to the mid 1940s, when The Naturalist was produced on the Home Service by Desmond Hawkins from the city.

“Desmond was the king of natural history broadcasting and an accomplished naturalist,” said Sir David.

Ten years later, in 1955, wildlife programme Look, presented by Peter Scott, featured pioneering German filmmaker, Heinz Sielmann, the first person to film inside a woodpecker’s nest.

“This was sensational, everyone in Britain was blown away by this, and because there was only one television network, it was all you talked about at the bus stop when you were going into work,” recalls Sir David.

The switchboard at the Lime Grove studios was jammed with viewers ringing in to find out more, and it gave the BBC the nudge to set up the Natural History Unit in Bristol in 1957.

In 1979, Sir David presented Life on Earth, a landmark television programme made in Bristol, which attracted around 15 million viewers.

“Bristol led the world to be truthful,” he said.

“It started this with radio, and when television came along, Peter Scott and Desmond Hawkins continued that tradition.

“The other big mega power in broadcasting was the United States, and in the 1970s, viewers there thought natural history was just lions attacking antelopes.

“Bristol’s programmes taught them that termites could be just as interesting.

“When we first started trying to get the subscriptions to finance the plans I had, I remember making the mistake in pitching this to an American network controller.

“I waxed very eloquently about how the programme would be the history of life from the microscopic beginning, and the executive turned to me and said ‘you mean it’s going to be about green slime?’

“I replied ‘more or less,’ but we managed to flog it in the end.”

Sir David’s programmes have gone from being shot on 16mm film stock with clockwork cameras in 1954 to ultra high definition 4k in the present day.

When he was making Zoo Quest, cameras would only film for 40 seconds before the clockwork motor ran out.

Today, filmmakers gather hundreds of hours of video just to capture one special moment which may only last for seconds.

“When we started, the film people in London were very derisory about 16mm, they called it ‘bootlace’.

“We couldn’t film on 35mm because we couldn’t drag around those enormous great big cameras.

“Almost every year, we had better facilities. The film became smaller, the recording apparatus became more sensitive.

“I’ve tried to film Orangutan, and they do absolutely nothing – they just sit in the trees, and they’re very difficult to see.

“Now along comes a drone, and you can film things that you couldn’t possibly ever see from the ground,” Sir David said.

Sir David was awarded Freedom of the City of Bristol in 2013, to mark his connections with the programmes made there.

He almost became a Bristolian, but family life and work pressures intervened.

“In 1955, I was told I was to be made head of the Natural History Unit in Bristol, and I said I would prefer not to do so because I had just bought a house in London, my son and daughter were fixed in schools.

“I also had responsibility for Prime Ministerial broadcasts with Anthony Eden, which I wasn’t all that interested in, but nonetheless I had the responsibilities.

“Had it happened three years earlier I probably would have been there.

“It is always a joy to visit Bristol, the city has a regional personality.

“If you’re a broadcaster, particularly a natural history broadcaster, there is nowhere else like Bristol in the world.”

In his 98th year, Sir David’s next programme is a seven-part series called Asia, which will premiere later in 2024.

But despite the global acclaim his career has earned him, he remains very modest about his role in the shows he presents.

“I’m given huge credit for things that have nothing to do with me, because I speak the words and that’s the easiest business part of the entire outfit,” he said.

“A lot of people think that I’m there recording the programme, working the camera, working out the travel and putting in the expertise, whereas all of these things are part of the team.

“People are aware of the problems of conservation in a way that could not exist without broadcasting, and the BBC can claim that we’re leading that,” he added.

People have started catching a new Covid variant that could soon take off and become the dominant type, according to scientists.

Identified in Germany, in June, cases of the XEC variant have since emerged in the UK, US, Denmark and several other countries, say users on X, formerly known as Twitter.

It has some new mutations that might help it spread this autumn, although vaccines should still help prevent severe cases, experts say.

For those more likely to become seriously ill from Covid, the NHS offers a free booster shot.

The vaccines have been updated to better match recent variants, although not XEC, which has emerged from earlier Omicron subvariants.

Prof Francois Balloux, Director of the Genetics Institute at University College London, told BBC News that although XEC has a “slight transmission advantage” over other recent Covid variants, vaccines should still offer good protection.

He says it is possible XEC will become the dominant subvariant over the winter though.

Director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, in California, Eric Topol says XEC is “just getting started”.

“And that’s going to take many weeks, a couple months, before it really takes hold and starts to cause a wave,” he told the LA Times.

“XEC is definitely taking charge.

“That does appear to be the next variant.

“But it’s months off from getting into high levels.”

Symptoms are thought to be the same cold or flu-like ones as before:

• a high temperature
• aches
• tiredness
• a cough or sore throat

Most people feel better within a few weeks of Covid but it can take longer to recover.

There has been “strong growth” of XEC in Denmark and Germany, Covid data analyst Mike Honey says on X.

There is far less routine testing than before, making it difficult to know how much Covid might be around.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) says it is normal for viruses to mutate and change.

People qualifying for a free booster vaccine include:

• adults aged 65 years and over
• those living in a care home for older adults
• those over the age of six months in a clinical risk group
• some front-line NHS, care-home and social-care workers

The main vaccination drive for flu and Covid will start in October, although some may receive their shots earlier.

Dr Gayatri Amirthalingam, UKHSA Deputy Director, said: “It is normal and expected for viruses to genetically change over time. UKHSA continues to monitor all available information relating to emerging Covid variants in the UK and internationally, and to publish our data regularly.

“Vaccination provides the best protection against serious illness from COVID-19, and we urge those who are contacted by the NHS to come forward to receive their autumn vaccine.”

A court battle to determine the future of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and a £14.9bn family trust begins in the US on Monday.

The case will pit 93-year-old Mr Murdoch against three of his eldest children over who will gain the most voting shares and power to control News Corp and Fox News when the billionaire dies.

It has been reported that Mr Murdoch wanted to amend a family trust created in 1999 so that son Lachlan could take control without “interference” from his siblings Prudence, Elisabeth and James.

The famous family was one of the inspirations behind the hugely popular TV series Succession – something the Murdochs have always refused to comment on.

Mr Murdoch, who has been married five times, also has two younger children, Grace and Chloe, who do not have any voting rights under the trust agreement.

“From what we know, this plan essentially seeks to put Prudence, James and Elisabeth on the same footing as Murdoch’s two younger daughters,” said Walter Marsh, an Australian journalist and author of the biography Young Rupert: The making of the Murdoch Empire.

He added that “all voting power” could be handed over to Lachlan.

From the 1960s, Mr Murdoch built up his media empire into a globe-spanning media giant with major political and public influence.

His two companies are News Corporation, which owns newspapers including the Times and the Sun in the UK and the Wall Street Journal in the US, and Fox, which broadcasts Fox News.

• Listen on BBC Sounds: Good Bad Billionaire – Rupert Murdoch: The Succession Prequel

Mr Murdoch had been preparing his two sons to follow in his footsteps, beginning when they were teens, journalist Andrew Neil told the 2020 BBC documentary The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty.

“Family has always been very important to Rupert Murdoch, particularly from the point of view of forming a dynasty,” the former Sunday Times editor said.

Alice Enders, head of research at Enders Analysis, told the BBC the court battle was “actually about commercial interests”.

“The solution would of course have been either for the siblings to have agreed to the change or more likely than not have been bought out in some way, but the price of buying them out is astronomical and Lachlan would have had to assume it just the same as Rupert bought out his siblings many years ago,” she added.

In 1999, the Murdoch Family Trust, which owns the media companies, was supposed to largely settle the succession plans.

It led to Mr Murdoch giving his eldest children various jobs within his companies.

The trust gives the family eight votes, which it can use to have a say on the board of News Corp and Fox News.

Mr Murdoch currently controls four of those votes, with his eldest children being in charge of one each.

The trust agreement said that once Mr Murdoch died, his votes would be passed on to his four eldest children equally.

However, differences in opinions and political views were said to lead to a family rift.

The media mogul stepped down as Fox and News Corp chairman in favour of Lachlan, who reportedly shares the same right-wing views as his father.

This has reportedly led to James, Elisabeth and Prudence uniting and “fighting back”.

The private court case is being held at Washoe County Courthouse in Reno, Nevada.

Media outlets have been barred from the proceedings, which are expected to unfold with testimony from the media titan and the four children named in the trust over the next week, according to the New York Times, which first brought the dispute to light after obtaining copies of sealed court documents.

These types of family battles often end in settlements. The case could also be prolonged, if it ends in a decision that one side chooses to appeal against.

Prudence is Mr Murdoch’s eldest child, from his marriage to his first wife Patricia Booker.

He had Elisabeth, Lachlan and James with second wife Anna Mann, whom he was married to from 1967 to 1999.

Grace and Chloe’s mother is Wendi Deng, who was married to the billionaire from 1999 to 2013.

Mr Murdoch’s fourth marriage was to model Jerry Hall in 2016, with the couple divorcing in 2022.

He recently married his fifth wife Elena Zhukova in June this year.

Tito Jackson, an original member of the Jackson 5 pop group and brother of the late Michael Jackson, has died aged 70, US media report.

An official cause of death is yet to be determined.

Tito performed in the famous ensemble with brothers Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael, who died in 2009.

He was recently in Munich ahead of a performance that the group were due to give.

Steve Manning, a long-time Jackson family friend and former Jackson family manager, told Entertainment Tonight that Jackson died on Monday.

The news was confirmed in an Instagram post by Jackson’s three sons, Taj, Taryll and TJ Jackson, who were themselves an R’n’B/pop trio, 3T, in the 1990s.

“We are shocked, saddened and heartbroken,” they wrote. “Our father was an incredible man who cared about everyone and their well-being.”

They continued: “He will be missed tremendously. It will forever be ‘Tito Time’ for us.

“Please remember to do what our father always preached and that is ‘Love One Another’. We love you Pops.”

The Jackson 5’s hits included ABC, The Love You Save and I Want You Back.

• The Jackson 5 score UK number one
• Joe Jackson: Patriarch of Jackson family dies aged 89
• Paris Jackson pays tribute to grandad Joe

The group was formed in 1964. Tito played the guitar and provided backing vocals.

Jackson 5 has sold more than 150 million records worldwide.

In 1980, the siblings were presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

Days before his death, Tito posted a message on social media from Munich, Germany, where he visited a memorial to Michael with his brothers.

He wrote: “Before our show in Munich, my brothers Jackie, Marlon, and I, visited the beautiful memorial dedicated to our beloved brother, Michael Jackson.

“We’re deeply grateful for this special place that honours not only his memory but also our shared legacy. Thank you for keeping his spirit alive.”

The Jacksons performed in Germany on 10 September, days after their performance at Boogietown, a UK music festival celebrating funk, soul and disco in Surrey.

The siblings also performed at the Fool in Love Festival at Hollywood Park Grounds in Los Angeles on 31 August.

Former Jackson 5 drummer Jonathan Moffett led tributes on social media, writing on X: “There is great sadness in my heart tonight – I just found out that my brother in heart and spirit, Tito Jackson has passed.

“I’m stunned, devastated and speechless. I love you, Tito. My most sincere love & prayers for the entire Jackson family. I love you all VERY much”.

Tito was the third oldest Jackson and one of nine children. His other siblings include global stars Janet and La Toya Jackson.

All his siblings, other than Michael who died aged 50 in June 2009, are still alive.

The family’s patriarch, Joe Jackson, died at the age of 89 in 2018.

The group of performers and singers have produced a total of 27 US number one hits.

Alongside work in the band, Tito also had a solo career as a blues musician which started in 2003.

He was the final sibling to place a solo single on the Billboard charts with his 2016 hit, Get It Baby.

In 2019, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon embarked on a World Tour as The Jacksons.

Two years prior they performed a slew of shows in the UK as part of A Celebration of 50 Years, also stopping to perform at Glastonbury Festival.

A series of shootouts between rival tribes over a disputed gold mine has left at least 30 people dead in Papua New Guinea, police said on Monday.

Security forces have been given emergency powers to stop the fighting – including the use of “lethal force” – according to the country’s police commissioner.

Alcohol sales have been banned and an overnight curfew is in place, he added.

Unrest had been brewing near the Porgera gold mine in the country’s central highlands ever since members of the Sakar clan settled on land owned by their rivals, the Piande, sometime in August.

Police say that on Sunday alone, more than 300 shots were fired by tribesmen, after peace talks between the clans had failed.

“This deteriorating situation has been caused by illegal miners and settlers who are using violence to terrorise local communities and victimise traditional landowners,” said Papua New Guinea’s police commissioner David Manning.

“Put simply, if you raise a weapon in a public place or to threaten another person, you will be shot,” he added.

There were reports in local media that the Canadian-owned mine – the second largest in Papua New Guinea – was briefly forced to cease operations as the fighting intensified.

Buildings were set on fire and schools, hospitals and government offices in the region have been closed, according to the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier.

Tribal conflicts are a frequent occurrence in Papua New Guinea’s highlands, but an influx of automatic weapons has “turbocharged” the most recent bout of violence, according to police.

The Porgera gold mine once accounted for around 10 percent of Papua New Guinea’s yearly export earnings, but tribal violence and a slow government takeover have stalled production in recent years.

A witness, speaking to Radio New Zealand, described the recent levels of violence as “unprecedented”.

At least 26 people were killed, including 16 children, when three villages in East Sepik province were attacked earlier this year.

In 2022, gunfights between rival clans living near the mine killed at least 17 people.

Security teams have been posted along the highway leading to the mine, using loudhailers to broadcast messages of peace.

Pope Francis urged Papua New Guinea to “stop the spiral” of violence during a visit earlier this month.

“It is my particular hope that tribal violence will come to an end,” he said.

“It causes many victims, prevents people from living in peace and hinders development.”

The BBC has reached out to PNG Police for comment.

Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated as a powerful typhoon made landfall near China’s financial hub, Shanghai.

Typhoon Bebinca hit at about 07:30 local time (23:30 GMT) on Monday in the coastal area of Lingang New City in Shanghai’s east, the China Meteorological Administration said.

It is the strongest storm to hit Shanghai in 75 years, according to Chinese state media.

As a precaution, more than 400,000 people in the Shanghai Metropolitan area were relocated by Sunday evening, according to local officials.

A further 9,000 people were evacuated from the Chongming District, an island at the mouth of the Yangtze River that is also part of Shanghai.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled as the city’s two main airports grounded all flights. Train services were also cancelled and highways closed. A 40km/h (25mph) speed limit was imposed on roads inside the city.

Shanghai’s 25 million residents had been advised to stay home as the storm batters the city.

Authorities have issued a red alert for Bebinca, the highest level, as wind speeds of up to 151km/h (94 mph) were recorded at the typhoon’s eye. It is expected to weaken as it moves inland.

Videos posted online showed large trees toppled and people dragging their bicycles and motorcycles through flooded streets. A clip shared by Shanghai Daily showed a bus braking abruptly along Huaihai Road in a major shopping district as billboards blown by fierce winds collapsed onto the ground.

The storm was one of the most-discussed topics on Chinese social media platform Weibo on Monday, with some users sharing their fears that it would worsen.

“This is the kind of thing you’d only see on television,” wrote one Weibo user, who posted a video of trees swaying violently in a car park.

Another user advised others to make sure their doors and windows are properly locked and not to leave their homes unnecessarily.

It is rare for Shanghai to get a direct hit from strong typhoons, which tend to make landfall further south in China.

The city’s flood control headquarters said they received dozens of reports of incidents related to the typhoon – mostly fallen trees and billboards.

Resorts in Shanghai, including Shanghai Disney Resort, Jinjiang Amusement Park and Shanghai Wild Animal Park, have been temporarily closed and many ferries halted.

Another typhoon, Yagi, killed at least four people and injured 95 when it passed through China’s southern Hainan island this month, according to national weather authorities.

Yagi also caused severe flooding in Southeast Asia, killing hundreds of people in Vietnam and Myanmar.

Typhoon Bebinca also passed through Japan and the central and southern Philippines, where falling trees killed six people.

Chinese state media said Bebinca was expected to move north-west, causing heavy rain and high winds in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces.

American band Jane’s Addiction have cancelled the remaining dates of their tour, days after an on-stage brawl in Boston, Massachusetts.

On Friday night, the band – which hails from Los Angeles – cut short their gig after frontman Perry Farrell threw a punch at guitarist David Navarro.

In a statement posted on social media on Monday, the band said it “made the difficult decision to take some time away as a group”.

The band have also said refunds will be issued at point-of-purchase for the cancelled dates.

The band had 12 gigs across the US left on their tour before it was cancelled, ending in their home city on 16 October.

Footage on social media from Friday night’s gig showed 65-year-old Farrell shouting at Navarro, 57, and punching him, before being restrained by staff and taken off stage at Boston’s Leader Bank Pavilion.

According to Farrell’s wife, Etty, there had been mounting “tension and animosity” between band members “night after night” in the lead-up to the incident.

She added that Farrell had been frustrated with the volume the band had been playing at.

Jane’s Addiction formed in Los Angeles in 1985, and is considered one of the successes of the early alternative rock scene.

The band consists of Farrell, Navarro, drummer Stephen Perkins and bassist Eric Avery.

They recently reunited after more than a decade apart.

Their hits include the songs Just Because, Been Caught Stealing and True Nature.

The rockers released four albums together: Nothing’s Shocking (1988), Ritual De Lo Habitual (1990), Strays (2003), and The Great Escape Artist (2011).

In 2013, the band was honoured with a star on the legendary Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The US Secret Service says it is “aware” of a social media post by Elon Musk in which he said that “no one is even trying” to assassinate President Joe Biden or Vice-president Kamala Harris.

Mr Musk has since deleted the post and said it was intended as a joke.

His post on X, formerly Twitter, came just hours after the suspected attempted assassination of Donald Trump at his golf course in Florida on Sunday.

The tech billionaire is a close ally of Trump, who has vowed to enlist Mr Musk to run a “government efficiency commission” if he wins a second term as US president.

Many X users criticised Mr Musk’s comments – which were accompanied by a raised eyebrow emoji – with some alleging that the post was a form of incitement against the US President and Vice President.

In a statement, the White House condemned the post, saying that “this rhetoric is irresponsible”.

“Violence should not be condemned, never encouraged or joked about,” the statement said, adding that there should be “no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country”.

When contacted by the BBC, the US Secret Service said only that it is “aware” of the post.

“As a matter of practice we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence,” the statement added. “We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees.”

After deleting the post, Mr Musk tweeted that “one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on X.”

“Turns out that jokes are way less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is in plain text,” a subsequent post read.

The controversial tech mogul is considered a close ally of Trump and formally endorsed him in the aftermath of a separate assassination attempt against the former president that took place at a rally on 13 July in Butler, Pennsylvania.

In that attempt, the suspect fired multiple rounds, injuring Trump and killing an attendee at the rally.

Since then, Mr Musk has often tweeted or re-posted messages critical of both Biden and Harris and in support of Trump.

Embattled hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has been arrested in New York City on unspecified federal charges, federal authorities told the BBC’s US partner CBS.

The arrest in Manhattan follows raids on two of his properties in Los Angeles and Miami in March as part of an “ongoing investigation” into sex trafficking by authorities.

Mr Combs’s attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said they were “disappointed” by the arrest and his client was an “innocent man”.

The musician has faced a series of allegations from sexual assault to abuse, including by his ex-partner Casandra “Cassie” Ventura. He has denied all the claims against him.

His arrest was made in connection with an ongoing investigation by US homeland security officials, multiple law enforcement sources told CBS.

US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams confirmed the arrest in a statement on Monday night.

“Earlier this evening, federal agents arrested Sean Combs, based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY,” the prosecutor said.

He said the office plans to unseal the indictment on Tuesday morning and we “will have more to say at that time”.

Combs faces a number of civil lawsuits, including allegations that he raped an underage girl and tried to “groom” a producer and force him to have sex with another man.

His attorney said on Monday night that Mr Combs was looking forward to “clearing his name in court”.

“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution,” Mr Agnifilo said in a written statement to the BBC.

“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man, and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the black community.”

The rapper’s legal problems began in November 2023 when Ms Ventura filed her lawsuit.

Two other women filed lawsuits that same week alleging abuse and assault – including one who said Mr Combs had choked her for so long that she passed out.

He denied all the allegations at the time and a spokesperson for the rapper called the lawsuits a “money grab”.

Then in December, another civil lawsuit alleged a woman had been “sex trafficked” by Mr Combs and two other men when she was 17 years old.

In February this year, new accusations came to light in a civil lawsuit filed by his former producer Rodney Jones Jr, who said Mr Combs made unwanted sexual advances and tried to “groom” him into having sex with others.

Mr Combs denied the allegations but one month later, his properties were raided. The musician was stopped at an airport in Miami as he was preparing to leave for the Bahamas and handed over electronics to authorities.

Many of the lawsuits came shortly before the expiration of the New York Adult Survivors Act, which temporarily allowed people who said they were sexually abused to file claims, even after the statute of limitations had expired.

In May, CCTV footage posted by CNN appeared to show the rap mogul attacking and beating Ms Ventura, an episode that was chronicled in her civil suit.

Mr Combs – who has also gone by the names Puffy, Puff Daddy, P Diddy, Love, and Brother Love – is one of rap’s most successful moguls.

A gunman hid for nearly 12 hours in bushes before Donald Trump played an unscheduled game of golf at his oceanfront club in Florida – leaving locals stunned at what authorities say appears to be the second attempt to assassinate the former president in as many months.

It was hot and cloudy on Sunday afternoon when Trump and his good friend, real estate developer Steve Witkoff, arrived on the course of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

The former president was on the fifth fairway at 13:31 EDT (17:31 GMT), an area adjacent to busy roads near Palm Beach International Airport, when a member of his protection detail spotted a rifle poking out of foliage by the sixth hole.

Trump – who was evacuated unharmed – recounted on Monday night that he heard “probably four or five” shots ring out in the near-distance.

A quick-thinking Secret Service agent had opened fire in the direction of the suspect, who was about 300-500 yards away and did not have a clear line of sight to Trump, federal investigators said.

“Secret Service knew immediately it was bullets, and they grabbed me,” said Trump during a live-streamed event on X, formerly Twitter, from his Mar-a-Lago resort.

“We got into the carts and we moved along pretty, pretty good. I was with an agent, and the agent did a fantastic job.”

The gunman – who investigators say did not fire any shots – was concealed by the well-manicured shrubbery and tall palm trees that line the perimeter of the 27-hole course.

He had been lurking there on the public side of a fence since 01:59 local time on Sunday morning, according to mobile phone records, cited by federal officials.

The suspect was equipped with two digital cameras, a black plastic bag of food, an SKS-style semi-automatic rifle – a weapon with a range of nearly 440 yards – and a scope to magnify its lens.

The Republican presidential candidate’s last publicly scheduled campaign event had been on Saturday evening, on the other side of the country, in the state of Utah.

Residents say Trump spends almost every Sunday at the West Palm Beach golf club when he is not on the campaign trail.

But Secret Service director Ronald Rowe said on Monday that the former president was “not even really supposed to go there”, so agents had to put together a security plan at the last minute.

The foiled plot has left Trump’s neighbours in Palm Beach with pressing questions.

Did the suspect know the former president would be coming to play golf, or was it a guess?

How could he have gone undetected for so long, hiding in the bushes with a rifle?

The gunman escaped the scene in a black Nissan, ditching his backpack of goods and weapon.

A civilian woman was able to take a picture of his licence plate and pass it to investigators, Trump said on Monday night.

The gunman made it about 40 minutes before officers pulled over his vehicle on Interstate 95 and ordered him out.

Bodycam footage shows he seemed calm as officers shouted at him to step to the side before handcuffing him without incident.

On Monday, the suspect Ryan Routh, 58, appeared in a crowded Palm Beach court, wearing a blue prison jumpsuit and smiling as he chatted with his attorney.

He was charged with one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and one count of possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. More charges could follow.

Routh, a Hawaii resident with a criminal history, had come across the FBI’s radar in 2019 for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The bureau tipped off law enforcement in Honolulu at the time.

While his motive for allegedly planning to target Trump has not been revealed, the suspect had said in the past on social media that he voted for the Republican in 2016 before souring on him.

On the perimeter of Trump’s golf course on Monday, bright orange cones, barricades, police cars and officers shielded all corners of the club.

The incident has shocked West Palm Beach and neighbouring towns.

Shelby Stevens, a 52-year-old Trump supporter from West Palm Beach, told the BBC: “No matter how much security you have and everything else, if someone is willing to give their life to take someone else’s, it can happen.”

Cosme Blanco has lived just a few blocks away from the course for most of his life, where he said Trump comes as often as twice a week when he’s not campaigning.

The 61-year-old Trump supporter said the security presence around the golf club is typically not overwhelming. But all that changed on Sunday, when Blanco ran outside five minutes after shots were fired to see helicopters circling the neighbourhood.

“I was concerned. I’m going to be 62 years old and I’ve never seen America change this much,” said the Cuban immigrant.

Blanco said it would not be hard for a suspect to target Trump at his golf course.

The former president travelled there in a motorcade that would have taken about 12 minutes to go from Mar-a-Lago across a bridge overlooking the Lake Worth Lagoon.

“If they see the motorcade coming, I’m sure at that point they know he’s going to play golf – it’s common sense,” Blanco said.

But Anka Palitz, a Palm Beach resident who says she has known Trump personally for years, said Routh’s timing was suspicious.

“He doesn’t play golf every Sunday,” she said. “I think there’s a conspiracy.”

“How was he [the gunman] not seen?” she added.

Palitz, who said she used to go skiing with Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana, said she believed someone must have alerted the suspect that the former president was going to the course that day.

Patricia Pelham, a United Kingdom native who has been living in Florida for 30 years, wondered where the suspect was able to park his car close enough to quickly make a getaway.

“How come there’s not security around the outside?” asked the Briton, who added that she was no supporter of Trump.

Pelham said security measures have increased around Mar-a-Lago on the island of Palm Beach since Trump was injured when a 20-year-old gunman attempted to assassinate him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.

On Monday, police cars lined the roads of the island nearly every half mile, with the 17-acre resort blocked off to visitors.

Authorities have said that the entire golf course would have been surrounded had it been a sitting president of the United States on the green.

After blaming White House rhetoric for the latest alleged attempt to kill him, Trump said on Monday night that he had had a “very nice call” with President Joe Biden about boosting Secret Service protection.

President Biden, a Democrat, asked Congress on Monday to approve more money for the agency in the coming weeks, saying the Secret Service “needs more help”.

Michael Matranga, a former Secret Service agent who worked for former President Barack Obama, said Trump has had better security than many other former presidents, who typically receive less protection than White House incumbents.

For example, he said, former presidents aren’t typically offered counter-sniper teams like Trump.

The Secret Service has faced intense scrutiny since the first attempt on Trump’s life, with the leader of the agency, Kimberly Cheatle, resigning less than two weeks after the rally.

Agency officials have said the Secret Service is short on resources.

But even with the extra resources, Matranga said agents are forced to contend with a delicate balance of protecting Trump while allowing him to engage with constituents on the campaign trail and “enjoy a round of golf”.

They can’t just “keep him in a bullet proof box”, Matranga said.

Nor does Trump seem to want to be put in one.

In a fundraising email sent on Monday afternoon, he told his supporters: “My resolve is only stronger after another attempt on my life!”

It’s the kind of “tough” attitude that Stevens expects Trump to maintain as he continues to court voters in the weeks leading up to November’s general election.

“The way I see him, he’s not going to want the American people to know that he’d be afraid of going out,” Stevens said.

“I think he’ll still make a presence, not just here but everywhere. I don’t think that’s something he’s going to be shying away from.”

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One of the final messages from the five-person crew of the Titan submersible before it imploded, killing all inside, was “all good here”, a hearing has revealed.

Investigators with the US Coast Guard said the message was among the final communications between the Titan and its mother ship, before they lost contact for good.

Also shown at the hearing for the first time was an image, taken by a remotely operated vehicle, of Titan’s tail cone sitting on the sea floor following the implosion.

The deep-sea vessel was less than two hours into its descent towards the wreck of the Titanic when it imploded in June 2023.

Coast Guard officials began a two-week inquiry on Monday, aiming to uncover the facts of the incident and offer recommendations to prevent similar tragedies.

Investigators presented a recreation of the journey, including text messages between Titan and its mother ship, the Polar Prince.

Titan began its dive at 09:17 local time and support staff aboard the mother ship asked about the submersible’s depth and weight, as well as whether it could still see the ship on its onboard display.

Communications were patchy, but about an hour into the dive, Titan messaged “all good here”.

Its last message was sent at 10:47 local time, at a depth of 3,346m, to say it had dropped two weights. After that, communication was lost.

Officials presented a historical overview of the Titan, noting that its hull had never been subject to third-party testing and had been left exposed to weather and other elements while in storage.

In addition, they laid out serious problems experienced by the submersible on expeditions carried out before the disaster. In 2021 and 2022, over the course of 13 dives to the Titanic, it had 118 equipment issues.

These included the front dome falling off when it was brought out of the sea, its thrusters failing at 3,500m down and, on one dive, its batteries dying and leaving passengers stuck inside for 27 hours.

OceanGate, the manufacturer behind the craft, has previously faced questions over its design choices, its safety record and its adherence to regulations.

Tony Nissen, the company’s former engineering director, said the evidence he had seen was “disturbing… professionally and personally”.

Mr Nissen claimed that Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s late CEO who was on board Titan, had the last word on most engineering decisions and was difficult to work with.

“Stockton would fight for what he wanted and, even if it changed from day to day, he wouldn’t give an inch,” he said.

“Most people would eventually back down to Stockton, it was death by a thousand cuts.”

OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations following the incident.

The company currently has no full-time staff but will be represented by a lawyer at the inquiry, it said.

Monday saw the start of the first public phase of an already 15-month investigation.

Unanswered questions over the Titan’s ill-fated dive have fuelled a lingering debate over safety and the regulation of private undersea exploration.

The Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigations (MBI) is expected to hear from as many as 10 former OceanGate employees, including co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein, and experts in marine safety and undersea exploration.

An MBI is the highest available level of inquiry into US marine casualties and convenes roughly one hearing per year, its chairman said on Sunday.

“Out of thousands of investigations conducted, less than one rise to this level,” Jason Neubauer said.

“We hope that this hearing will help shed light on the cause of the tragedy and prevent anything like this from happening again.”

The board of top Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials has the authority to recommend civil penalties or make referrals for criminal prosecution to the US Department of Justice.

A search mission involving four governments unfolded after the submersible lost contact with its mother ship, the Polar Prince, on the morning of 18 June 2023 and never resurfaced.

As well as Rush, on board were British explorer Hamish Harding, veteran French diver Paul Henri Nargeolet, the British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman.

In a Muslim graveyard in Delhi, a tombstone stands out.

It has an inscription written in the Urdu language, but beneath it lies the name of a German-born Jewish woman – Gerda Philipsborn – followed by the epithet ‘Aapajaan’ or ‘elder sister’.

This is an unusual sight as the graves of the founders of Jamia Millia Islamia – a top Muslim university rooted in India’s independence movement – rest here. Its students have upheld this legacy of political activism, including protests against a controversial citizenship law introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in 2019.

So, how did a German Jew come to be invested in a place so distant and disconnected from her homeland?

The answer lies somewhere between friendship and a woman’s search for meaning, says Margrit Pernau, author of Jamia’s Aapa Jaan: The Many Lifeworlds of Gerda Philipsborn.

Pernau, who has spent a decade researching Jamia, says that though she had come across Philipsborn’s name several times during her research, her life was shrouded in mystery.

Even today, not many students know about Philipsborn and her contribution to the university. Syeda Hameed, a prominent activist and historian, says there’s a need for writings on her to be translated and made available to students “for their benefit and the benefit of future generations”.

Philipsborn’s journey from being a German a term of respect for white European women in colonial India – to becoming Jamia’s began in 1933 when she traveled to India after forging an unlikely friendship with three Indian men, Zakir Husain, Muhammad Mujeeb, and Abid Husain, who had gone to Berlin to study.

The men would go on to become the main founders of Jamia and also play important roles in India’s political history, with Zakir Husain becoming the country’s third president in 1967.

In the 1920s and 30s, it was uncommon to find cross-national friendships, let alone close, platonic relationships between three men and a woman.

The men, who were involved in the freedom movement, often spoke to Philipsborn about their plans to build an institution that would contribute towards India’s fight for freedom.

At the time, there were very few universities in British India, and even fewer ones that were not funded by the government. The men wanted Jamia to be a place where Muslim boys and girls could educate themselves, so that they could take up an active role in India’s freedom struggle. They also wanted the institution to promote unity between Hindus and Muslims and love for the motherland.

These altruistic plans had a deep impact on Philipsborn. Born into a wealthy family in 1895, she had seen her life, and the world around her, change due to war, industrialisation and a wave of anti-Semitism. She understood what it felt like to be oppressed, to long for freedom and to be driven by the desire to become an instrument of change, Pernau writes.

And so, shortly after her friends left Berlin to dedicate their lives to building Jamia, Philipsborn followed them to India. But moving from a bustling, modernised Berlin to a country mired in poverty was not an easy decision. Pernau sheds light on the many times Zakir Husain forbade Philipsborn from making the journey.

“More than once she had offered to join him [in India], and more than once he had proffered ‘advice, warnings, and admonitions not to come’,” Pernau writes.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Mujeeb wondered how a “still young, unmarried and unaccompanied woman would fit into Jamia, whose women at this time still observed purdah [the seclusion of women from the sight of men or strangers, practiced by some Muslims and Hindus],” she writes.

But Philipsborn made the journey despite these calls for caution.

Within months, she managed to make friends with the people of Jamia and even began teaching in the university’s primary school. Like the rest of the teaches there, she worked for minimal wage and agreed to dedicate her life to serving the institution.

She used the knowledge she had gained teaching at kindergartens in Germany to make education enjoyable and approachable for her students. When she was appointed the warden of a hostel for children, she took on the role of an for them, Pernau writes.

She did menial tasks like washing and oiling their hair and kept them close to her, emotionally and physically. “When the little children under her care fell sick, she attended to them with such devotion that they didn’t miss their mother,” Pernau says.

Philipsborn also encouraged Jamia’s girls and women to play a more active role in society. When she joined the editorial team of Payam-e Ta’lim, Jamia’s children’s journal, she contributed articles that spotlighted the hobbies and interests of women and encouraged girls to write for the journal.

Apart from her work with the children of Jamia, Gerda also helped its founders raise funds for the university, prepare speeches and often acted as their sounding board for all matters related to teaching and politics.

But seven years after she arrived in India, her work hit a roadblock.

Amid Britain’s war with Germany, German citizens in British India were viewed with suspicion, leading to their arrest and internment in camps where they endured harsh conditions, including inadequate water, blankets and food.

Philipsborn was taken to one such camp in 1940. Her internment made her fearful for her life as there was the possibility of authorities deporting her to Germany, where Hitler was persecuting the Jews. But even in the camp, she did her best to serve her inmates by organising small events to cheer them up and looking after those who had taken ill.

But a couple of months after being brought to the camp, Philipsborn developed a gastric ulcer. She was taken to a hospital for treatment and then moved back to the camp, where she stayed for a whole year.

After being released, she went back to Jamia and continued her work, but struggled to perform with the same gusto as her ulcer turned cancerous. She became increasingly weak, but tried to connect with children through her articles in the Payam-e Ta’lim.

In April 1943, Philipsborn died and was buried in the graveyard for Jamia families. “She died miles away from her family, but was surrounded by the people who loved her,” says Hameed about Gerda’s death.

And long after her death, her legacy as “Aapa Jaan” lives on in the corridors of Jamia, with a hostel and day care centre named after her.

The mayor of a Polish city has asked all 44,000 residents to evacuate, as widespread flooding continues to batter central Europe.

Nysa mayor Kordian Kolbiarz asked people to head for higher ground, citing the risk of an embankment breaching and releasing a cascade of water into the town from a nearby lake.

The death toll from the floods that hit over the weekend rose to at least 16 on Monday, with seven confirmed fatalities in Romania. Casualties were also recorded in Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland.

Budapest said it would close roads near the river Danube which runs through the Hungarian capital, citing the risk of flooding later this week.

“Please evacuate your belongings, yourselves, your loved ones. It is worth getting to the top floor of the building immediately, because the wave may be several metres high. This means that the whole town will be flooded,” Nysa Mayor Kolbiarz wrote.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said one billion zloty (£197m) would be allocated for flood victims in the country, adding that Poland would also apply for EU relief funds. His government has also declared a state of natural disaster.

Although conditions have stabilised in some places, others are bracing themselves for more disruption and danger from the floods, sparked by Storm Boris.

In Slovakia, the overflowing of the Danube River caused flooding in the Old Town area of the capital, Bratislava, with local media reporting that water levels exceeded 9m (30ft) and were expected to rise further.

Hungary is bracing itself for floods in the coming days. Warnings are in force along 500km (310 miles) of the Danube.

The river is rising by about a metre every 24 hours, with Budapest’s mayor offering residents a million sandbags to protect against floodwaters.

Some tram lines will not operate, while roads along the river will be closed in the Hungarian capital from Monday evening. Trains between Budapest and Vienna have also been cancelled.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on X that he had postponed all his international obligations “due to the extreme weather conditions and the ongoing floods in Hungary”.

The highest rainfall totals have been in the Czech Republic. In the north-eastern town of Jesenik, 473mm (19in) of rain has fallen since Thursday morning – five times the average monthly rainfall.

The Czech fire service delivered bottles of drinking water to stranded villages, where people were told not to drink water from their taps or their wells as it is likely heavily contaminated.

In the Austrian town of St Polten, more rain has fallen in four days than in the whole of the wettest autumn on record, in 1950.

Chancellor Karl Nehammer said the armed forces had been deployed to offer assistance to storm-hit regions. Austria’s Climate Ministry said €300m (£253m) in recovery funds would be made available.

Most parties paused campaigning for the federal elections due in less than two weeks, on 29 September.

Villages and town were submerged in eastern Romania. Emil Dragomir, mayor of Slobozia Conachi, told media that the flooding had had a devastating impact.

“If you were here, you would cry instantly, because people are desperate, their whole lives’ work is gone, there were people who were left with just the clothes they had on,” he said.

Thousands of people have been evacuted in Poland, including the personnel and patients of a hospital in the town of Nysa. Roads have been badly disrupted and train traffic was suspended in many parts of the country.

On Monday morning, the mayor of Paczków in south-west Poland appealed to residents to evacuate after water began overflowing in a nearby reservoir, endangering the town.

In other parts of Poland, however, water levels are now falling, according to local officials.

The mayor of Klodzko city, Michal Piszko, told Polish media the water had receded and the indications were the worst was now over.

Video footage from Monday morning showed that city centre streets which were inundated on Sunday were now water-free, although the footage also revealed the extent of damage done to the buildings.

More rain is expected throughout Monday and Tuesday in Austria, the Czech Republic and south-east Germany, where another 100mm could fall.

While it may still take days for the flood waters to subside, the weather will improve in central Europe from mid-week with much drier conditions.

Storm Boris will, however, now move further south into Italy, where it will reintensify and bring heavy rain. The Emilia-Romagna region is set to be worst hit, with 100-150mm of rain falling.

The record rainfall seen in central Europe has been caused by a number of factors, including climate change.

Different weather elements came together to create a “perfect storm” in which very cold air from the Arctic met warm air from the Mediterranean.

A pattern of atmospheric pressure also meant that Storm Boris was stuck in one place for a long time.

Scientists say that a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, leading to more intense rainfall. Warmer oceans also lead to more evaporation, feeding storm systems.

For every 1C rise in the global average temperature, the atmosphere is able to hold about 7% more moisture.

A court battle to determine the future of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and a £14.9bn family trust begins in the US on Monday.

The case will pit 93-year-old Mr Murdoch against three of his eldest children over who will gain the most voting shares and power to control News Corp and Fox News when the billionaire dies.

It has been reported that Mr Murdoch wanted to amend a family trust created in 1999 so that son Lachlan could take control without “interference” from his siblings Prudence, Elisabeth and James.

The famous family was one of the inspirations behind the hugely popular TV series Succession – something the Murdochs have always refused to comment on.

Mr Murdoch, who has been married five times, also has two younger children, Grace and Chloe, who do not have any voting rights under the trust agreement.

“From what we know, this plan essentially seeks to put Prudence, James and Elisabeth on the same footing as Murdoch’s two younger daughters,” said Walter Marsh, an Australian journalist and author of the biography Young Rupert: The making of the Murdoch Empire.

He added that “all voting power” could be handed over to Lachlan.

From the 1960s, Mr Murdoch built up his media empire into a globe-spanning media giant with major political and public influence.

His two companies are News Corporation, which owns newspapers including the Times and the Sun in the UK and the Wall Street Journal in the US, and Fox, which broadcasts Fox News.

• Listen on BBC Sounds: Good Bad Billionaire – Rupert Murdoch: The Succession Prequel

Mr Murdoch had been preparing his two sons to follow in his footsteps, beginning when they were teens, journalist Andrew Neil told the 2020 BBC documentary The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty.

“Family has always been very important to Rupert Murdoch, particularly from the point of view of forming a dynasty,” the former Sunday Times editor said.

Alice Enders, head of research at Enders Analysis, told the BBC the court battle was “actually about commercial interests”.

“The solution would of course have been either for the siblings to have agreed to the change or more likely than not have been bought out in some way, but the price of buying them out is astronomical and Lachlan would have had to assume it just the same as Rupert bought out his siblings many years ago,” she added.

In 1999, the Murdoch Family Trust, which owns the media companies, was supposed to largely settle the succession plans.

It led to Mr Murdoch giving his eldest children various jobs within his companies.

The trust gives the family eight votes, which it can use to have a say on the board of News Corp and Fox News.

Mr Murdoch currently controls four of those votes, with his eldest children being in charge of one each.

The trust agreement said that once Mr Murdoch died, his votes would be passed on to his four eldest children equally.

However, differences in opinions and political views were said to lead to a family rift.

The media mogul stepped down as Fox and News Corp chairman in favour of Lachlan, who reportedly shares the same right-wing views as his father.

This has reportedly led to James, Elisabeth and Prudence uniting and “fighting back”.

The private court case is being held at Washoe County Courthouse in Reno, Nevada.

Media outlets have been barred from the proceedings, which are expected to unfold with testimony from the media titan and the four children named in the trust over the next week, according to the New York Times, which first brought the dispute to light after obtaining copies of sealed court documents.

These types of family battles often end in settlements. The case could also be prolonged, if it ends in a decision that one side chooses to appeal against.

Prudence is Mr Murdoch’s eldest child, from his marriage to his first wife Patricia Booker.

He had Elisabeth, Lachlan and James with second wife Anna Mann, whom he was married to from 1967 to 1999.

Grace and Chloe’s mother is Wendi Deng, who was married to the billionaire from 1999 to 2013.

Mr Murdoch’s fourth marriage was to model Jerry Hall in 2016, with the couple divorcing in 2022.

He recently married his fifth wife Elena Zhukova in June this year.

Iran’s new president has said that morality police will no longer “bother” women over the wearing of the mandatory hijab headscarf, days after the UN warned women were still being violently punished for breaking the strict dress code.

Masoud Pezeshkian’s comments came on the second anniversary of the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing the hijab properly, sparking nationwide protests.

The UN last week said Iran’s government had “intensified efforts” since that period to suppress women’s rights and crush any last vestiges of activism.

But on Monday, Pezeshkian said that the regime’s morality police should no longer be confronting women on the street.

Pezeshkian, who became president after his predecessor died in a helicopter crash, is seen as a potentially reformist leader.

He was responding to questions from a female reporter who said she had taken detours en route to the press conference to avoid police vans. She was wearing her head scarf loosely with some hair showing.

When asked by Pezeshkian if the police were still on the streets she confirmed that was the case.

In response he said: “The morality police were not supposed to confront [women]. I will follow up so they don’t bother [them]”.

His comments were broadcast live on major state TV networks, including rolling news channel IRINN. The clip of the conversation with the female journalist has since gone viral online.

It was Pezeshkian’s first press conference since coming into office in July, replacing the ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi.

During his election campaign he pledged to oppose police patrols enforcing the mandatory hijab headscarf. He has also vowed to ease some of the country’s long-standing internet controls.

Iran stepped up surveillance of social media following the nationwide women-led anti-establishment protests in 2022.

• ‘Lashed for a social media photo’ in Iran

Signs of a potentially more relaxed attitude to the country’s strict dress code for women were present at Pezeshkian’s press conference on Monday, where some female journalists wore loose head coverings.

This was a noticeable departure from previous official events where female journalists are required to appear in full hijab, BBC Monitoring reported.

But the UN’s latest fact-finding mission in the country says women “still live in a system that relegates them to second class citizens”.

In its report released last week, the UN said: “State authorities have expanded repressive measures and policies to further deprive women and girls of their fundamental rights.”

It noted the government had “enhanced surveillance of hijab compliance” in both public and private environments while also endorsing an escalation in violence in punishing women and girls who break the rules.

“Security forces have further escalated pre-existing patterns of physical violence, including beating, kicking, and slapping women and girls who are perceived as failing to comply with the mandatory hijab laws and regulations,” the UN said.

It said authorities had also increasingly invoked the use of the death penalty against women activists and “scaled up” executions of those who had expressed solidarity with the 2022 protests known as the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.

The UN mission also noted that a “Hijab and Chastity” bill was in the final stages of approval before Iran’s Guardian Council and could be finalised imminently.

“The Bill provides for harsher penalties for women who do not wear the mandatory hijab, including exorbitant financial fines, longer prison sentences, restrictions on work and educational opportunities, and bans on travel,” the UN investigators said.

Exuberant young men splashing around in a pool with one theatrically soaping himself as a crowd cheered. Sri Lankans dancing in an opulent hallway as the iconic bands played festive tunes with trumpets and drums.

These scenes beamed across the world on 13 July 2022 in the hours after crowds overran the presidential palace, forcing then-leader Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country.

It was a moment of triumph for them.

Hundreds of thousands of people from across Sri Lanka had defied a national curfew – they braved tear gas shells and water cannons to march peacefully to the presidential palace, calling on Rajapaksa to step down.

For weeks, he had resisted calls to resign, even though his elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa had already quit as prime minister to try to defuse public fury.

Months of protests – called the “aragalaya” (struggle) in Sinhala – had culminated in the events of July 2022, leading to Mr Rajapaksa’s humiliating, hurried exit.

Just a few months earlier, such events would have been unthinkable.

For years, the Rajapaksa family – led by Mahinda – held a vice-like grip over Sri Lankan politics.

In his first term, Mahinda Rajapaksa presided over the bloody end to Sri Lanka’s civil war against Tamil Tiger rebels. That victory helped him establish himself as a national “saviour” among the island’s majority Sinhalese – his most ardent supporters compared him to an emperor.

As he grew more powerful, so did his family. He appointed his younger brother, Gotabaya, as defence secretary – a position he wielded ruthlessly, critics say. Two other brothers – Basil and Chamal – rose to the jobs of finance minister and parliamentary speaker respectively.

The family appealed to a majority-Sinhalese nationalist base. So, for years, they survived allegations of corruption, economic misrule, widespread human rights abuses and suppression of dissent.

That changed in 2022, when a slew of policies set off the country’s worst-ever economic crisis.

Seventeen years after Mahinda first became president, Sri Lankan crowds celebrated the Rajapaksas’ fall, certain the family was finished.

But was it?

Cut to two years later, and Mahinda Rajapaksa’s son, Namal, has thrown his hat into the ring for the presidential election to be held on 21 September.

“It is bad enough that the people who were driven out after the aragalaya [mass protests] are contesting these polls,” Lakshan Sandaruwan, a university student who took part in the demonstrations, told BBC Sinhala. “What is even worse is that some may actually vote for a member of that family.”

Namal is not the only Rajapaksa who is back on the scene.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa himself – the man angry protesters chased out of the country – did not stay away for long.

He returned just 50 days after his inglorious departure, first to Singapore and then Thailand. On his return, he was given the privileges of a former president: a plush bungalow and security, all of it paid for by the government.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, an opposition politician, was appointed as president for the remaining two years of Rajapaksa’s tenure. The family-led Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna Party (SLPP), which has a two-thirds majority in parliament, threw their support behind him.

Before his unexpected elevation, Wickremesinghe, a six-time former prime minister, was the only MP from his United National Party after their abysmal showing in the 2020 parliamentary elections.

He has focused on rebuilding the economy. But he has been accused of protecting the Rajapaksa family, allowing them to regroup, while shielding them from prosecution – allegations he has denied.

Hours after Wickremesinghe became president, the military was deployed to clear the crowds at Galle Face in Colombo, which had been the epicentre of the protests.

Dozens of soldiers swooped on the site, dismantling tents and other belongings of demonstrators. In the following months, those who had stormed the presidential palace and were seen walking out with “souvenirs” – such as bed sheets or the odd keepsake to remember a historic day – have been jailed.

“Ranil protected the Rajapaksa family from the wrath of the people, ensuring the continuity of the SLPP-led parliament, cabinet and the government, and not doing anything to stop corruption, and even suppressing the progress of any investigation against the Rajapaksa family members,” said political scientist Jayadeva Uyangoda.

“He also protected them from international pressure for holding them accountable to serious human rights violations and war-related allegations.”

This has angered many Sri Lankans who are living through a cost-of-living crisis, and enduring more hardships because of reforms intended to revive a stagnant economy.

Although there are no shortages or power cuts, prices have sky-rocketed. The government has also scrapped subsidies on essentials such as electricity, and cut welfare spending.

Taxes, meanwhile, have gone up as Wickremesinghe has sharply increased tax rates and widened the net to shore up public revenue.

Some economists say the painful measures are necessary to restore Sri Lanka’s macro-economic stability as it attempts to restructure its international debt and stick to the terms of the bailout agreed with the International Monetary Fund.

The country’s foreign reserves have risen to around $6bn from a mere $20m at the height of the crisis, and inflation is around 0.5%.

But the real-world impact on millions of ordinary Sri Lankans has been devastating.

A study from policy research organisation Lirne Asia, which surveyed 10,000 households, estimated that as many as three million people fell below the poverty line in 2023, pushing the number of poor from four million to seven million.

These families are going hungry and, desperate for more money, they are pulling their children out of school.

The Rajapaksas have denied any wrongdoing but in 2023, the country’s Supreme Court ruled that the family – including Gotabaya and Mahinda – was directly responsible for economic mismanagement between 2019 and 2022, which triggered the crisis.

Nimesha Hansini, a university student in Colombo, told BBC Sinhala she felt the Rajapaksas were “directly responsible for the economic crisis due to the financial frauds carried out under the guise of development projects during their reign”.

“But nothing has changed for them – only their political power has decreased,” she added.

“I don’t have much to say about them,” says Rashmi, a farmer in the traditional Rajapaksa stronghold of Hambantota. “We are suffering because of what they have done. We voted for them before, but that will never happen again.”

These are the minds that Namal Rajapaksa is hoping to change – he wants to win back the base.

His campaign has centred around the legacy of his father Mahinda, who is still seen as a hero by some Sri Lankans.

This is despite some international calls to prosecute him for war crimes. The UN estimates that 100,000 people including 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed by Sri Lankan armed forces in the final stages of the conflict, but Mahinda Rajapaksa has never been convicted of any wrongdoing and rejects such allegations.

Mahinda’s images adorn Namal’s campaign rallies and his social media posts feature illustrations showing him alongside his father when he was younger.

He has even tried to highlight their resemblence to each other, growing out his moustache and wearing Mahinda’s trademark red shawl.

Many of his campaign posts strike a note of defiance: “We do not fear challenges; in fact, we welcome them. That’s something I learned from my father.”

Another post refers to him as “patriotic, courageous and forward-thinking”.

“It seems to me that Namal Rajapaksa thinks, not incorrectly, that representing the legacy of his father will enable him to protect his father’s vote base and benefit from it,” Prof Uyangoda said.

“It is one way to rebuild the shattered electoral bases of the SLPP.”

But many voters don’t appear to be buying it – and polls don’t suggest Namal is a serious contender for the top job.

One comment on a campaign post on Namal’s Instagram account was scathing: “The latest heir of the Rajapaksa family taking a shot at the presidency? Quite the family business isn’t it?”

Reactions on the ground were more vitriolic. “I will never vote for Namal Rajapaksa. The years of hardship we have lived are a curse on that family,” HM Sepalika, a villager who’s been resettled in Vavuniya in the north, told BBC Sinhala.

“The people of this country got together and staged this struggle because they didn’t want the Rajapaksas. But they still have so much greed and lust for power that they are trying to come back and ask people to vote for them,” said Nishanthi Harapitiya, a shop assistant in Hambantota.

Others say they cannot take Namal seriously.

“Why should he ask for our vote? He is a child with no experience. Who will vote for him? Unless someone votes for him out of pity for his father, he cannot be elected president,” said Mohammed Haladeen, a trader from Kathankudy in eastern Sri Lanka.

Attention is now largely focused on three candidates: opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, the leftist National People’s Party alliance’s Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Wickremesinghe, who is running as an independent candidate.

But Namal Rajapaksa could be playing a longer game.

Recent elections have shown that families or allies of once-unpopular strongmen do make big political comebacks – such as Bongbong Marcos in the Philippines or even Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia.

“He wants to remain politically relevant, protect the SLPP’s voter base, and be politically active till 2029,” Prof Uyangoda said.

Lakshan Sandaruwan, the university student who took part in the demonstrations, agrees.

“Namal is contesting the polls to prepare the necessary background for 2029, not to become the president this time,” he said.

“But if the people do not act intelligently, the people themselves will create a Rajapaksa president again.”

Dancing with the Stars is known for its glitz and glitter, and a staple of US television for almost 20 years. But on Tuesday during the show’s prime-time season premiere, there will be a twist, when convicted fraudster Anna Delvey – real name Anna Sorokin – takes to the floor wearing a bejewelled ankle monitor.

In a press release, Disney-owned ABC called Sorokin “an artist, fashion icon and infamous NYC socialite”, as well as “a notorious ankle bracelet fashionista”. She will be joining a cast that includes an NBA veteran, various reality-TV stars, and two Olympians, for the latest edition of the US spin-off from the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing format.

Critics accused the channel of glamorising her past crimes. The New York Post called it a “new low for pop culture”.

Some have also questioned how she has right to live and work in the US, as a German-Russian citizen.

Sorokin’s electronic ankle monitor is not for her original 2019 convictions, which came after she travelled the world masquerading as a European heiress, conning banks, lawyers and a private jet company out of more than $200,000 (£150,000).

Instead, the ankle monitor is the result of a years-long immigration battle in the US, where she is fighting deportation.

Debates online are raging over this new chapter of infamy.

Some appear to admire her endless ambition, as if she represents some sort of warped American Dream. Others have slammed her continued self-promotion and seeming lack of remorse as shameless.

During a heated discussion on The View talk show, Whoopi Goldberg said her ability to appear on Dancing with the Stars, despite facing immigration charges, is an example of a “two-tier immigration system” that favours the wealthy or connected.

Others have said it’s hardly surprising to see her convictions being overlooked in a country where a felon is running for president.

Sorokin first gained notoriety when New York Magazine published an investigation into her misdeeds in 2018. Her scams were later explored in the Netflix series Inventing Anna and BBC podcast Fake Heiress.

It was the audacity that intrigued people. She had worked her way into elite circles in New York City in a ruse that lasted for years. Her goal was to secure a $22m loan to build an arts foundation in her own name.

While living under the heiress persona, she forged bank statements, failed to settle thousands of dollars in hotel bills, dashed out of restaurants without paying, bounced cheques, created fake emails from accountants, and let others pick up her tabs after extravagant spending. Small businesses and individuals were also affected.

“She’s been a public figure for a long enough time that I don’t think people remember the details of what the crimes were – if ever they really knew them in the first place,” said Jessica Pressler, who wrote the first piece on her in New York Magazine, and became the inspiration for the fictionalised journalist character in Inventing Anna.

“People don’t look that far past the surface,” she added, acknowledging this is what aided the original grift. “Dancing With the Stars… it’s a natural extension of the story.”

Sorokin was arrested in 2017 while on the run in California and went on criminal trial in New York. In 2019, she was found guilty of eight theft-related charges, and sentenced to between four and 12 years.

That was part one of her legal struggles.

After serving almost four years, including time in the notorious Rikers Island jail, she was released in February 2021, and was expected to leave the US.

But she didn’t go.

Six weeks later – following a string of media appearances and having signed a paid TV deal with a German company – immigration authorities arrested her for overstaying her visa.

More than three years on, she is still fighting deportation. She has served time back in jail and under house arrest. In 2022, she was scheduled to board a plane in New York to return to Germany. But her lawyer intervened and she did not fly. Litigation regarding her deportation was ongoing, they said.

Her exact claims for asylum are unclear, but they are believed to relate to her Russian citizenship. She lived there in her early years but her family moved to Germany in her teens. When she was in New York in her 20s, she had a tourist visa.

While under house arrest, Sorokin started her own podcast and did interviews with various media. (Vogue magazine filmed a tour of her apartment in the East Village; Vogue UK wrote a “What is Anna Delvey reading?” feature.)

“Most of us would die of embarrassment at doing anything that she does,” said Pressler, describing how Sorokin stayed in a hotel for months without paying the bill and flew to Morocco with no money. “From staying in a hotel for months and not paying bills, to getting on a plane to Morocco with no money, no-one would do that. She does it with aplomb. I think on the whole any admiration people have for her is kind of limited to that.”

“They aren’t going to do these things, they don’t think the things she’s done are good, but the ordinary person wishes they could have that belief in themselves.”

John Sandweg – who served as the acting head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Barack Obama’s presidency – is her current immigration lawyer.

He told the BBC that lengthy deportation cases are not uncommon in the United States, but this has been “fairly protracted”.

“Her criminal case has also been on appeal for a long time and that has had an impact,” he added.

He said her house arrest terms were “really restrictive”. “We challenged those. She was banned from social media. We argued that was unconstitutional,” he said. She wasn’t a flight risk or a danger to society, and she had kept to her parole conditions, he added.

As a result of the challenge, her bond conditions were relaxed in August. She is now back on social media and she has been permitted to travel to Los Angeles for the filming of Dancing with the Stars. She also has a social security number.

ICE confirmed to the BBC that she had received permission to travel. “Anna Sorokin’s conditions of release were amended by a Department of Justice immigration judge,” said the spokesperson.

Sorokin had to pay rent while under house arrest, but this also caused dispute. Her landlord filed legal action, saying she had failed to pay three months’ rent. Court documents show he claimed Sorokin owed more than $12,000. The case was eventually resolved and she moved out.

Sorokin has employed plenty of lawyers in recent years. The funding is believed to have come from media deals and sales of her prison artwork.

Netflix controversially paid Sorokin $320,000 (£230,000) for her life story for its Inventing Anna series. After a state intervention, she was legally obliged to use some of that money to pay back the victims of her theft. But there was some money left over to pay for her lawyer in the original trial.

Netflix is facing a defamation trial, sparked by the series.

The case was brought by Sorokin’s one-time friend Rachel Williams, who was portrayed in the show.

Williams wrote a book My Friend Anna about their short-lived friendship and how it fell apart after she was left to foot a $62,000 bill at a luxury resort in Morocco.

The lawsuit argues that Netflix used her real name and biographical details in its Inventing Anna series, but she was unfairly depicted as a “vile and contemptible person”.

Netflix, in an attempt to dismiss the lawsuit, said their interpretation of Williams was open to “literary licence” and protected by the First Amendment, according to Variety magazine.

Sorokin is not involved in that case, although she has been subpoenaed as a witness for the trial.

Williams’ lawyer Alexander Rufus-Isaacs told the BBC that the case was expected to come to trial next year.

He said Sorokin’s employment on Dancing with the Stars was “glamourising and minimising the crimes she committed, and minimising the impact on the people she hurt”.

In court, Sorokin was found not guilty of the charge related to the Morocco trip. American Express eventually refunded Williams, but after she had suffered a long period of stress and anxiety, according to her book.

While some have viewed Sorokin as an anti-establishment hero for infiltrating and embarrassing wealthy institutions, Williams did not see it that way. She previously told the BBC: “The system that Anna was seeking to undermine… she wasn’t doing it out of some altruistic nobility, she wanted to be a part of them.”

In response to the recent backlash, Dancing with the Stars boss Conrad Green told Variety: “Yes, [Sorokin] had the issues she’s had, but we’ve had other people on the show who’ve had criminal issues in the past. She served her time. I think it’s perfectly valid for her to be on the show.”

For more on the rise and fall of Anna Delvey, listen to the BBC’s podcast Fake Heiress.