It is becoming the bloodiest day in Lebanon since Hezbollah attacked Israel in support of Hamas on 7 October last year.

Israel launched a massive series of air strikes this morning that have so far killed 274 people according to the Lebanese government and the Israelis are warning of more attacks to come.

The war is escalating fast, a process that is being driven by the scale of Israel’s air offensive.

They are warning civilians to leave the areas they’re targeting. The next, they’ve said, will be the Bekaa Valley in the north-east of Lebanon which is a Hezbollah stronghold.

• Live coverage of this story
• What is Hezbollah in Lebanon?

Even before the current escalation, well over 100,000 Lebanese had to leave their homes because of Israeli strikes, with no immediate expectation of being able to return.

We are seeing yet another very large escalation by the Israelis.

Perhaps their calculation is that they believe Hezbollah is in such a weakened position right now that this is their opportunity to really inflict some damage on it, and to change the strategic picture in the hills and towns on either side of the border between Israel and Lebanon.

While the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict has been going on for decades, the current war between them started the day after the Hamas attacks on 7 October last year.

Hezbollah started a limited but continuous campaign of rocket fire over the border, trying to tie down Israeli troops and damage Israeli property and people. Around 60,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate to the centre of the country. In the last few days, returning them to their homes has been added to Israel’s list of war aims.

The US and UK, and other allies – and critics – of Israel believe that the only hope of cooling this dangerous crisis is to get a ceasefire in Gaza.

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has said attacks on Israel will go on until a Gaza ceasefire happens. But it seems pretty clear at this point that neither the leader of Hamas nor the leader of Israel is prepared to go for the deal the US has put on the table.

The war itself has overwhelming support from Israelis, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains unpopular with significant parts of Israel’s electorate, despite an improvement in his poll ratings.

Many Israelis also think Netanyahu is an appalling leader who tells lies and has abandoned the hostages in Gaza. So he is a very controversial character, but bolstered in the parliament by the right wingers who support him, he is politically secure.

His decision to go on the offensive is risky.

While Hezbollah is wounded, it has plenty of capacity to hit back. And that is why Israel’s friends and enemies are still preparing for the worst.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged top tech companies in the US to explore India as a destination for manufacturing and innovation.

He met CEOs of tech companies in New York a day after attending the annual meeting of Quad countries, which also includes the US, Australia and Japan.

India has been positioning itself as an alternative to China to attract global firms looking at diversifying their supply chains.

The country has been particularly focusing on manufacturing of semiconductors in the past few years but it still lags far behind major suppliers like China and Taiwan.

Modi’s meeting with the tech leaders on Monday was attended by 15 top CEOs, including Google’s Sundar Pichai, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, IBM’s Arvind Krishna and NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang.

Addressing the gathering, Modi said, “they can co-develop, co-design, and co-produce in India for the world”.

India’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the roundtable meeting touched upon technology’s use in innovations, “which have the potential to revolutionise the global economy and human development”.

Modi also addressed a rally of Indian-Americans whom he called “brand ambassadors” of the country and told the crowd of 15,000 in New York that India was key to “global development, global peace, global climate action, global innovations, global supply chains”.

On Saturday, Modi met US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the Quad summit and the two countries signed several agreements.

The India-US semiconductor pact – which they have described as a “watershed arrangement” – aims to establish a fabrication plant which will produce chips for national security, next-generation telecommunications and green energy applications, said a joint release.

This is India’s first such project with the US in which the country will provide chips to the US armed forces, allied militaries and Indian military.

Previous attempts at building homegrown semiconductor manufacturing industry in India have not seen desired results. But as the US aims to build resilience against China’s semiconductor industry – vital for modern technology – the deal gives a renewed fillip to India.

The Indian Express newspaper reported that the plant will focus on “three essential pillars for modern war fighting: advanced sensing, advanced communications and high voltage power electronics”.

The two leaders or the joint statement didn’t make any mention of the ongoing tensions over the targeting of Sikh leaders in the US and Canada. Sikh separatist leaders, who have been demanding a separate homeland to be carved out of India for decades, say they have faced threats and assassination attempts by groups backed by India. India denies the allegations.

This was Modi’s first US visit since he won his third term in June and it came weeks before the US presidential elections, where the Democrats are vying for re-election against former President Donald Trump of the Republican party.

Last week, Trump had announced that Modi was “a fantastic man” and he was going to meet him. But Indian diplomats were quiet about this meeting and it hasn’t happened so far.

On Saturday, the Quad leaders issued a joint communique which focused largely on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region.

“We strongly oppose any destabilising or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion…We seek a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated – one where all countries are free from coercion, and can exercise their agency to determine their futures,” the statement read.

Analysts say the statement didn’t name China but a large part of the message was aimed at the country. They also noticed that the language appeared to be much stronger.

“The language in the joint statement on provocations in the South China Sea, while not directly referring to China, is stronger than it’s ever been before. And that’s because all four Quad states are increasingly concerned about the escalation in Chinese activities there,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Centre think-tank in Washington.

The Quad partners also announced the expansion of maritime surveillance, a pilot logistics network for natural disasters and a project to combat cervical cancer.

A suspected gunman arrested near Donald Trump’s golf-course wrote a note months earlier saying he intended to kill the former president, a court filing shows.

“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump,” the note says.

In documents filed on Monday, prosecutors said the letter was dropped off at the home of a witness several months before the 15 September incident in Florida.

Ryan Routh, 58, is expected to appear at a federal court later on Monday and could face further charges.

He is so far facing two federal gun crime charges.

The pre-written letter, addressed to “The World”, appears to pre-empt a failed assassination attempt. “I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster,” it reads.

Routh, who told a judge during his first court appearance last week that he had no funds and no savings, then says in the letter that he would pay a cash reward to anyone “who can complete the job”.

A box containing the letter – as well as ammunition, building materials, tools and four phones – were dropped off at the home of the unnamed witness before the incident, according to the court documents filed by prosecutors.

The documents were filed in support of Routh’s continued pre-trial detention.

In the filing, prosecutors state that the unnamed witness, whose relation to Routh is unclear, opened the box after learning of the apparent assassination attempt.

Routh has been held in jail since his arrest on 15 September.

A Secret Service agent spotted his face in foliage while securing the sixth hole of Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach before noticing a rifle, prosecutors say.

The agent then jumped out of his golf cart, drew his gun and fired after seeing Routh allegedly move his gun, the court filing says. Routh did not fire his gun at any point during the incident, police have said.

The suspect managed to flee and left the weapon and some other items at the scene. He was arrested shortly afterwards after a witness spotted him on the Interstate 95, a major highway.

Court documents indicate he had 11 rounds of ammunition, one of which was chambered in the rifle.

Investigators also found a handwritten list in his vehicle of dates where Trump had public appearances scheduled between August and October.

Phone records show that Routh had been in the vicinity of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort for nearly a month between 18 August and 15 September.

Routh is originally from North Carolina and spent much of his life there, although he most recently lived in Hawaii. He has had numerous legal issues in the past, including multiple charges for stolen goods between 1997 and 2010.

In 2022, Routh went to Ukraine in a failed bid to recruit foreign soldiers for Ukraine’s military following the country’s invasion by Russian forces.

The American reportedly contacted the legion on a regular basis with ideas described by one Ukrainian soldier as “nonsensical” and “delusional”.

The suspect had also admitted to being turned down himself, claiming it was down to his age and lack of fighting experience.

Monday’s hearing is set to determine whether he should remain in custody. Prosecutors say he is a flight risk and a danger to the community.

A transcript from a key meeting at the firm behind the ill-fated Titan submersible has revealed the CEO said in 2018: “No-one is dying under my watch – period.”

It captures a heated exchange between OceanGate chief Stockton Rush and his former director of marine operations, David Lochridge, plus three other staff.

The log shows Mr Lochridge raised safety concerns, to which Rush responded: “I have no desire to die… I think this is one of the safest things I will ever do.”

The document was released by the US Coast Guard as part of its inquiry into the June 2023 disaster when the sub imploded while journeying to the Titanic shipwreck. All five passengers were killed, including Rush.

OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations following the incident, which led to questions about the submersible’s safety and design.

During two weeks of hearings, investigators are seeking to uncover what led to the tragedy, and to make recommendations to avoid repeat incidents.

• Watch and follow live updates from hearing
• Key takeaways from first week of Titan sub hearings
• Whistleblower testifies Titan sub tragedy was ‘inevitable’

The transcript was uploaded to the inquiry website on Friday, but sections of the document were redacted.

The US Coast Guard has now confirmed to BBC News who was speaking in this key exchange during the two-hour meeting.

Mr Lochridge – who gave evidence at the public inquiry last week as a former OceanGate employee – was called to the meeting on 19 January 2018.

He had compiled a “quality inspection report”, which raised serious problems with the sub’s design.

These included concerns about the poor quality of the sub’s hull, which was made of carbon fibre, and issues with the way Titan was being constructed and tested.

He told the inquiry last week: “That meeting turned out to be a two-hour, 10-minute discussion… on my termination and how my disagreements with the organisation, with regards to safety, didn’t matter.”

The 2018 meeting was recorded, and the transcript captures Mr Lochridge saying: “I am addressing what I view as safety concerns, concerns I have mentioned verbally… which have been dismissed by everybody.”

Stockton Rush was recorded replying: “I’ve listened to them, and I have given you my response to them, and you think my response is inadequate.”

Rush went on to say: “Everything I’ve done on this project is people telling me it won’t work – you can’t do that.”

After telling the meeting attendees that he had no desire to die and that he believed his sub was safe, Rush continued by saying: “I’ve got a nice granddaughter. I am going to be around. I understand this kind of risk, and I’m going into it with eyes open and I think this is one of the safest things I will ever do.”

He then added: “I can come up with 50 reasons why we have to call it off and we fail as a company. I’m not dying. No one is dying under my watch – period.”

Mr Lochridge was fired after the meeting and then took his concerns to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha).

But he said the US government agency was slow and failed to act. After increasing pressure from OceanGate’s lawyers, he dropped the case and signed a non-disclosure agreement.

At the end of his evidence to the Titan inquiry last week, he said that if the authorities had properly investigated OceanGate, the tragedy would have been averted.

In other developments related to the case, the US Coast Guard has also released an image of Titan showing how its dome fell off as the submersible was lifted out of the sea following a dive in 2021.

A paying passenger who was on that particular Titan mission described the incident during his own testimony on Friday.

Fred Hagen said: “The force of the platform hitting the deck… it basically sheared off several bolts and they shot off like bullets. And the titanium dome fell off.”

This was one of 118 technical incidents listed by the US Coast Guard with Titan dives to the Titanic that took place before the 2023 disaster.

The public hearings continue this week.

Monday’s evidence comes from OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein, the company’s former engineering director Phil Brooks and Roy Thomas from the American Bureau of Shipping.

Six people have been killed and 10 others are missing after record rainfall caused floods and landslides in parts of Japan’s Ishikawa prefecture.

The cities of Wajima and Suzu, which are still recovering from a deadly earthquake that devastated the area on 1 January, are among the hardest hit by the deluge, which began on Saturday and continued until noon local time (03:00 GMT) on Monday.

On Sunday, both cities saw twice the amount of rainfall they typically receive in September in an average year, local media reported.

Dozens of rivers burst their banks, cutting off roads and isolating more than 100 communities across the prefecture, the reports added.

Two of the people who died were found near a landslide-hit tunnel in Wajima. One of them was a construction worker carrying out road repairs.

Two elderly men and an elderly woman were among the other fatalities, the Japan Times said citing local authorities.

Japan’s meteorological agency issued its highest “life-threatening” alert level for Ishikawa on Saturday and downgraded it to a regular warning on Sunday. However, authorities have called for continued vigilance as the torrential rain was likely to continue until at least noon on Monday.

The floodwaters inundated temporary housing built for people who had lost their homes in the New Year’s Day earthquake. Footage aired by NHK showed an entire street in Wajima submerged under water.

The region is still recovering from the powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake in January which killed at least 236 people, toppled buildings and sparked a major fire.

Some 4,000 households were left without power on Monday, according to the Hokuriku Electric Power Company.

More than 40,000 residents across four cities in Ishikawa – including Wajima, Suzu and the town of Noto – have been evacuated over the weekend.

Another 16,000 residents in the Niigata and Yamagata prefectures north of Ishikawa were also told to evacuate, the AFP news agency said.

North Korea secured a record-equalling third victory in the Fifa Under-20 Women’s World Cup on Sunday, beating Japan 1-0 in Bogota.

They became the joint most successful side in the football tournament’s history, equalling powerhouse nations Germany and the United States.

Choe Il-son’s 15th minute winner capped a superb tournament for North Korea, who won every single game in Colombia.

The 17-year-old forward finished as the competition’s overall top scorer, winning the Golden Boot with six goals.

“It’s so hard to express ourselves right now – this has been a dream of so many of us for so long,” said North Korea’s captain, Chae Un-yong.

“The final match was tough, as we expected, and we had to remain calm and play according to the coach’s tactical instructions.”

North Korea stormed their way through the tournament, despatching the likes of Argentina, the Netherlands and Brazil en route to the semis.

A 1-0 victory over the United States set up an all-Asian final against Japan – who finished as runners-up in the previous tournament in 2022.

Choe’s goal – a slightly deflected left foot strike – was enough to secure a historic win for North Korea in the El Camin Stadium

She was named player of the match and won both the Golden Boot and the Golden Ball, the latter being awarded to the World Cup’s best overall player.

North Korea’s triumph is even more notable given the country withdrew from global sporting competition for several years due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Having not played a match since 2018, the North Korean Women’s U20 returned to the international stage in March this year to compete in the Asian Cup in Uzbekistan.

Despite the six-year-break, they won that tournament, beating Japan 2-1 to secure their second title.

“To firstly win the Asian Cup and now follow that with this success means that I’m so proud of the team,” said the team coach, Ri Song-ho, following their World Cup triumph.

“We have shown that we are very dangerous in the way that we build up attacks, it’s all about the speed of how we go forward.”

Unlike their male counterparts – who are ranked 111th in the world – North Korea’s women are a genuine force in world football.

The senior side is currently ninth in the Fifa world rankings, higher than countries such as France and Australia.

To date, they have won three Asian Cups, three Asian Games and three East Asian Championships.

North Koreans rarely get to see their national sides play at home, though.

The country’s limited transport connections with the outside world – as well as its poor diplomatic relations with many governments – mean that the vast majority of North Korea’s “home” matches are played at a neutral venue, often in China or the Middle East.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to present a “plan for victory” in the country’s war with Russia to President Joe Biden during this week’s visit to the US.

Zelensky also intends to present the plan to Congress and the two candidates in the US presidential election: Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.

He is expected to ramp up efforts to persuade the US and its allies to allow Ukraine to fire the missiles they supplied deep into Russian territory for the first time in the war.

Zelensky’s visit to the US coincides with efforts from the White House to prepare a new $375m (£283m) military aid package for Ukraine.

This autumn would “determine the future of this war,” Zelensky wrote in a post on X.

In a statement ahead of the visit, the Ukrainian leader previewed three elements to his plan: further weapons donations, diplomatic efforts to force Russia to agree to peace, and holding Moscow accountable for its full-scale invasion in 2022.

Ukraine has been pleading for months for the US, UK and other Western allies to ease restrictions on the use of long-range missiles so it can strike targets in Russia which Kyiv says are used to launch attacks.

Earlier in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Western countries that he would consider long-range missile strikes to be “direct participation” by the Nato military alliance in the war.

When asked by reporters on Sunday whether he had made a decision on allowing Ukraine to use US-made long-range weapons, Biden answered: “No.”

• What weapons are the UK and other countries giving Ukraine?

Trump has previously criticised US support for Ukraine and spoken highly of Putin, but said he would “probably” meet Zelensky.

The ex-president previously flagged his own plan to end the war “within 24 hours” if re-elected in November, but has not given details.

According to Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who he met in March, Trump has vowed to “not give a penny in the Ukraine-Russia war. That is why the war will end”.

Zelensky’s statement also voiced gratitude for the support from Ukraine’s allies to date, singling out the US in particular as its “leading supporter”.

The US has been the largest foreign donor to Ukraine, and to date has provided $56bn for its defence.

After arriving in the US on Sunday, Zelensky stopped in Biden’s birth town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to visit a munitions factory involved in supplying the Ukrainian war effort.

After Washington, Zelensky is expected to head to New York and the United Nations for a planned meeting of the Security Council on Tuesday and a speech at the General Assembly on Wednesday.

Cathay Pacific has banned a Hong Kong couple from its flights after their row with a mainland Chinese traveller over her reclining seat.

The Chinese woman had complained on social media that she was harassed by the couple seated behind her on a Cathay flight after reclining her seat.

The Hong Kong flag carrier said on Sunday that it had added the couple to its no-fly list, saying it has “a strict zero-tolerance policy” towards behaviours that disrespect fellow passengers.

The Chinese woman’s post on social media platform Xiaohongshu, which captured part of the confrontation, had garnered 194,000 likes as of Monday morning and drawn mixed reactions online.

The incident took place on a flight from Hong Kong to London on 17 September.

In her post, the Chinese woman recalled how the middle-aged couple – a husband and wife – had accused her of obstructing their view of the in-flight television and asked her to straighten her seat.

When she refused, the wife stretched her legs and put them on the armrests of her seat, then started scolding her in Cantonese and slapping her arm, the woman said.

“When she realised I couldn’t speak Cantonese, she started calling me ‘mainland girl’ in a derogatory tone,” she said.

The husband, who was seated directly behind her, “frantically pushed” the back of her seat, the woman said. Her video showed the seat vibrating.

Another scene showed the wife raising her middle finger at the woman.

The woman then sought help from a flight attendant, who suggested that she straighten her seat.

“I was shocked because it was not meal time, yet the flight attendant wanted me to compromise,” the woman said. “I rejected the suggestion.”

Several passengers who witnessed the incident criticised the Hong Kong couple’s behaviour.

“Don’t call yourself a Hong Konger, you bully,” one passenger said.

Another said, “This is too much. How old are you? Why are you bullying a young girl?”

The woman’s post on Xiaohongshu sparked similar outrage.

“If they want more space, they should have paid for first-class seats,” one person wrote.

Several commenters were quick to defend Hong Kong’s reputation, with one saying “Most people in Hong Kong are kind, this couple is an exception.”

It has also triggered a debate on whether reclining one’s aeroplane seat is an acceptable practice.

Several users said that it should be acceptable, given that the ability to recline is a built-in function of the seats.

Others said it can get uncomfortable when passengers in front recline their seats too far back.

Human rights in Russia have “severely deteriorated” since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, culminating in a “systematic crackdown” on civil society, a UN report has found.

The investigation details police brutality, widespread repression of independent media and persistent attempts to silence Kremlin critics using punitive new laws.

Mariana Katzarova, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Russia, was denied entry into the country and compiled the report by speaking to political groups, activists and lawyers.

She found “credible reports” of torture and allegations of sexual violence, rape and threats of sexual abuse by police.

The Kremlin has not commented publicly since its release.

Human rights abuses in Russia have been well documented during the Vladimir Putin era, but the latest UN report pays particular attention to how the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has accelerated what it says was previously a “steady decline”.

It details how laws passed in recent years targeting the spread of so-called fake news, and individuals or organisations deemed to have received foreign support, have sought to “muzzle” any opposition, both physically and online.

The new laws have led to “mass arbitrary arrests” and long prison sentences, it adds.

Among the cases the report highlights is that of Artyom Kamardin, who was jailed for seven years for reading an anti-war poem in public – an act authorities deemed to be “inciting hatred”.

Ms Katzarova told the BBC: “Russians are getting shockingly long prison sentences.

“It’s seven years for reading an anti war-poem, or saying a prayer by a priest which was against the war, or producing a play perceived to be anti-war. Two women are still in prison for that in Russia.”

She praised those who continue to organise despite threats and said she believes opposition to the war is quietly widespread.

“As in any totalitarian, authoritarian state, people don’t want to get in trouble – it doesn’t mean that they are supportive of some madness, an aggressive war against their neighbour,” she added.

The report accuses the government of seeking to propagate its views on the Ukraine conflict among children via the introduction of mandatory school lessons, officially labelled as “important conversations”.

“Children refusing to attend such classes and their parents are subject to pressure and harassment,” it adds. The report highlights the case of a fifth-grader from Moscow who was interrogated by police after skipping the class, before their mother was charged with “failing to fulfil parental duties”.

• Fined for yellow and blue shoes: How Russian laws smother dissent

It found that many men sent to Ukraine “have been mobilised by deception, the use of force, or by taking advantage of their vulnerability”, while those who have refused to fight have been held in detention centres in occupied areas and “threatened with execution, violence or a prison sentence if they did not return to the front lines”.

Men from indigenous communities make up a disproportionate number of those drafted into the army, it found, and there is evidence “authorities have imposed travel restrictions, blocking exit routes from towns and villages during mobilisation sweeps”.

Ms Katzarova said: “Indigenous people… are really facing extinction if this continues.

“I think, partly my guess and the trends that indigenous leaders are painting, is that this is part of the Russian authorities really wanting to send to the front line ‘disposable people’, not the Slavs from St Petersburg or Moscow.”

Elsewhere in the report:

• It accuses judges of acting as a “mouthpiece” for the government because of the depth of political interference
• It describes Russia as an “increasingly homophobic society”, pointing to recent laws curtailing the freedoms of LGBT+ people
• It says female anti-war activists have been disproportionately affected by the crackdown on dissent and are “even more vulnerable in custody”
• It describes a “climate of fear and repression” amid widespread police brutality in Chechnya, adding that the southern republic should serve as a “warning” for what could happen elsewhere in Russia

The report deals with human rights in Russia’s internationally recognised borders, so does not comment on reported abuses in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.

Police are offering a $50,000 (£37,400) reward for any information that leads to an arrest as the hunt continues for a group of attackers after a deadly shooting in the US city of Birmingham, Alabama.

Four people were killed and 17 others were injured in the shooting on Saturday night.

On Monday morning, officials said they were still searching for a suspect, sifting through many tips received from the public.

Investigators have described the attack as a “hit” that involved multiple gunmen who appeared to target a specific individual.

Here is everything we know about the incident so far.

The attack unfolded just after 23:00 local time (05:00 BST) around Magnolia Avenue South, in the Five Points South nightlife district. Local media said it happened as patrons queued to enter a hookah and cigar lounge.

The shooting was characterised by Scott Thurmond, the Birmingham police chief, as “targeted” rather than a random incident.

A number of attackers are alleged to have got out of a vehicle and opened fire on a crowd in a public area before fleeing the scene.

They are alleged to have used “machine gun conversion devices”. Investigators say they have collected about 100 shell casings from the scene, among other evidence.

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin blamed “Glock switches” – devices that can be attached to handguns to make them fire automatically – and described these as the “number one public safety issue” in the area.

The hookah lounge, Hush, said it was “heartbroken” that its customers were caught up in the incident – which it stressed had nothing to do with the venue itself.

• Full story: Saturday night’s deadly shooting in Birmingham
• How many US mass shootings have there been in 2024?

A woman and three men who were killed have been named by Birmingham police, who said the victims were local to the area:

• Anitra Holloman, 21, from Bessemer
• Tahj Booker, 27, from Birmingham
• Carlos McCain, 27, from Birmingham
• Roderick Lynn Patterson Jr, 26, also from Birmingham

Holloman, Booker and McCain were pronounced dead at the scene by emergency officials. Patterson Jr died after being taken to hospital.

The person targeted in the “hit” was thought to be among those killed, Mr Thurmond said, without specifying who that individual was.

The police chief said investigators had received information to suggest that “someone was willing to pay money to have that person killed”.

Police say they believe the attack was targeted because several of the victims had extensive criminal histories.

Officials say 17 others were injured, revising down an earlier figure of 18. Their wounds varied in severity, some of them being life-threatening. Many were taken to hospital. Five people were still in the hospital on Monday, according to authorities.

A 24-year-old man, Gabriel Eslami, told local news outlet Al.com he had been shot in the buttocks as he queued for the Hush lounge, and was hospitalised himself.

He described seeing “blood everywhere” and the sight of “people’s bodies laid out on the pavement”.

No arrests have been made.

A search continues for the culprits, and little is known about them.

Police believe, however, that the incident may stem from a murder-for-hire plot.

Other agencies have been helping with the investigation: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the FBI.

The bloodshed comes amid a spate of gun violence in Birmingham.

A further shooting on Sunday evening in the Alabama city resulted in another person being killed and at least one other injured. Police told local media they were not ruling out a connection with the previous night’s incident.

There have been more than 400 mass shootings across the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are injured or killed.

The incident in Birmingham is the second mass shooting to place in the city in a two-month period, and the third quadruple homicide of 2024.

In July, another nightclub shooting left four people dead and 10 injured, while in February for men were gunned down outside a public library.

In Latino exile communities across the country, a question is being asked: is Kamala Harris really a communist?

The vice-president has been the subject of numerous misleading claims that she is a socialist or communist since becoming the Democratic candidate for president, according to the US’s largest Spanish-language fact-checker Factchequeado.

Experts say these claims capitalise on genuine fears held by some voters who fled repression in countries like Cuba and Venezuela.

In one viral video, Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz appear to pose for a selfie in front of a sign for Revolutionary Communists of America, a far-left group.

The video is fake. The background was doctored by a group of Donald Trump’s supporters known as the Dilley Meme Team.

Their original post had more than 420,000 views, but it was shared by many Spanish accounts – and repeated offline.

“It’s everywhere, this doubt: ‘Is this person a communist?’” Evelyn Pérez-Verdía, a cultural context strategist from south Florida, told the BBC.

She was listening to the Spanish-language radio station La Nueva Poderosa in Miami when she heard the hosts discussing the false meme.

“Did you see them standing in front of that picture? They have no shame in who they are,” the hosts said.

She contacted the station to point out it was a fake video. The hosts later said on air that they wanted to clarify the story was “not true” but that “doesn’t take away from the reality that Kamala is a Marxist”.

There are nearly 36.2 million eligible Latino voters in America, about 14.7% of the US electorate, and many live in key swing states like Nevada and Arizona, which makes them a coveted demographic for both campaigns.

They are by no means a homogeneous voting demographic, but historically, Latinos have tended to favour the Democrats. In 2020, 44% voted for Joe Biden, with only 16% voting for Trump. But polls suggest Republicans have gained ground this election cycle, with many factors cited including the economy, immigration, and abortion rights.

And for some immigrants, concerns about America today reflect their past experiences in their home countries.

Political messages warning about “socialism” or “communism” have been particularly prevalent in communities with large Cuban and Venezuelan populations, like in south Florida, experts noted.

These expats are especially vulnerable to misinformation about communism because of the trauma they experienced fleeing repression, said Samantha Barrios, a Venezuelan-American based in Miami, Florida, who votes Democrat.

She accused right-leaning Spanish media of using these terms to “scare Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans” because of “the main reason that we left our countries, trying to leave these regimes”.

For some, their criticism of the Democrats is grounded in opinions that the US government has not provided a tough enough response to political repression in Cuba or Venezuela.

But Ms Barrio is wary of the way these legitimate concerns are being weaponised through false claims that Kamala Harris herself is a communist.

Ms Pérez-Verdía agrees, but she also criticised the Democrat campaign for not doing enough to address their concerns.

“Don’t laugh off people’s fears. It’s really disrespectful. People have genuine fears, they came to the United States, they left everything behind. If they have doubts you should address their doubts.”

Not all claims exclusively target Latinos, said the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas (DDIA), which monitors more than 1,300 WhatsApp groups and more than 200 Telegram channels in Spanish and Portuguese.

And notable right-wing and pro-Trump actors and influencers have pushed a “fear of socialism” since 2020, the organisation found.

But while Joe Biden was accused of being a communist when he ran for president, Factchequeado’s founder, Laura Zommer, said their fact checkers had “never” seen this volume of AI and doctored images before.

Some of this misinformation has been spread by Trump himself, or his high-profile supporters.

Elon Musk, who has endorsed Trump, posted a faked image of Kamala Harris in a red uniform emblazoned with the communist hammer and sickle, captioned “Kamala vows to be a communist dictator on day one. Can you believe she wears that outfit!?”

It had more than 83.9 million views. A reverse image search suggests this was the earliest posting of the image on X.

• Trump makes pitch to black and Latino voters in New York
• Major labour union declines to endorse Harris or Trump
• The political brawl brewing on Florida’s airwaves

Donald Trump shared an AI image of Harris addressing a communist crowd that had at least 81.5 million views on X, but it was not the first posting of this image.

Posts linking Harris to communism really took off online after the presidential debate, according a report by the DDIA prepared for the BBC.

During the debate, Donald Trump called Kamala Harris and her father a “Marxist” and suggested she would turn the US into “Venezuela on steroids” through her immigration policies.

After the debate, “Marxista” trended on social media and searches for “Marxist” on Google in the US jumped 1000% in 17 hours.

Factchequeado said the most searched question in Spanish after the debate was: “Who is Kamala Harris’s father?”

The DDIA said two claims especially gained traction in the week after the presidential debate. In one, a fabricated document falsely claiming Kamala Harris is a member of the Russian communist party went viral, according to Meta’s own metrics. Another claim, that Harris is “Kamarada [Comrade] Kamala”, arose from a Trump speech in which he portrays her as a “communist comrade”.

BBC Verify traced the membership card image to a website which allows people to make fake communist party documents.

The membership number, stamp and other details on the card were identical to a template on the site for making a party membership card.

Posts sharing the fake image, which was first shared in August, have been viewed more than half a million times.

The Democratic Party is not a socialist party, nor does it claim to support communist regimes. But some high-profile members like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have described their political views as “democratic socialist”.

When she was a California senator, Harris co-sponsored Sanders’ Medicare for All bill, which would have brought a single-payer health care system to the US. She has since said she no longer supports a single-payer health-care system, which would have abolished private insurers.

She has never advocated for communist policies, such as the abolition or seizure of private property.

Kamala Harris’s plan to crackdown on “price gouging” at supermarkets has been cited in Spanish social media posts as “communist”. Mr Musk claimed it would mean “empty shelves, just like in Venezuela”.

Her proposal, which would involve asking the trade commission to investigate price spikes far above the increase in the cost of production, is a far cry from the widespread price controls seen in Cuba and Venezuela that were in part blamed for severe food shortages.

But for some voters who fled those countries, their fear lies in anything they feel remotely resembles policies from the countries they came from.

Duke Machado, who runs a Latino Republican Facebook page from Texas called Latino Strikeforce, said he fears that if the Democrats win, the country would be on a slippery slope to communism.

“If we’re not careful, we’ll slide into Cuba and Venezuela. Their ultimate goal is to destroy capitalism.”

When asked if it was responsible to share fears that the Democrats could turn the US into a communist country with his followers, including Latino exiles who had fled repression, he said: “It’s not irresponsible at all. I see it as a duty.”

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• EXPLAINER: Seven swing states that could decide election
• FACT CHECK: Was US economy stronger under Biden or Trump?
• POLICIES: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

A BBC investigation has exposed decades of serious sexual abuse allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed, the former owner of luxury department store Harrods.

The billionaire businessman, who died last year aged 94, is accused of multiple counts of rape and attempted rape by several women who worked for him – many of whom felt unable to report what had happened until recently.

At the time of many of the alleged attacks, Fayed was the owner of Harrods, the Ritz Paris hotel and football club Fulham FC.

He was a well-known public figure who had links to senior figures in Parliament and courted royalty and celebrities alike.

Here are some key dates spanning nearly 40 years where there were claims about his behaviour.

• Mohamed Al Fayed accused of multiple rapes by staff
• Timeline of sex abuse allegations
• How culture of fear at Harrods protected a predator
• Fulham ‘protected’ women’s team players from Fayed
• Watch on iPlayer: Al Fayed – Predator at Harrods

1985 – Mohamed Al Fayed buys Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, London, and becomes chairman.

1986 – “Alice”, who spoke in the 2024 BBC documentary, started working at Harrods when she was 16. She says she was sexually abused from 1987 and worked as a personal assistant to Fayed – a position she held until 1991.

1988-1991 – “He was vile,” says another one of the women, “Sophia”, who worked as his personal assistant during these years. She says he tried to rape her more than once.

1990s – “Rachel” – a woman who worked as a personal assistant for Fayed in the 90s – says in the same BBC documentary that the billionaire raped her in his luxury apartment overlooking Hyde Park in west London.

1994 – The “cash for questions” scandal erupts in Westminster. Fayed goes public and admits making payments to two Conservative MPs to ask questions in Parliament.

1994-1995 “Steve”, who worked for the billionaire during this time, tells the BBC in the 2024 documentary that security staff “did know that certain things were happening to certain female employees at Harrods and Park Lane”.

1995 – Vanity Fair publishes an article alleging racism, staff surveillance and sexual misconduct by Fayed against Harrods staff.

Fayed sues for libel, which sparks a two-year investigation from Vanity Fair editor Henry Porter. According to documents and statements compiled by Vanity Fair – that the BBC has seen – allegations of sexual harassment and assault were being made in relation to several women.

1997 – Fayed buys then third-division Fulham FC for a reported £30m.

In May, Fayed begins moves to drop his legal action against Vanity Fair, via negotiations between publisher Conde Nast UK and a Harrods executive, Michael Cole – an ex-BBC journalist.

Princess Diana and his son Dodi Al Fayed die in a car crash in Paris that August.

In a piece for the Observer on Sunday, Mr Porter says Conde Nast’s owner, Si Newhouse, agreed to close down the case “out of respect for the grieving father”.

Evidence on Fayed’s alleged activities collected by Vanity Fair is stored securely by Mr Porter, who has since allowed journalists – including the BBC documentary makers – access, he says in the Observer.

In December of that year, ITV’s The Big Story reported further serious allegations including sexual harassment and groping – which is classed as sexual assault.

Fayed issues angry statement saying claims were outrageous and untrue. He claims he did not contribute to the programme as he wasn’t able to hear allegations in advance.

1998 – Another former BBC journalist, biographer Tom Bower, publishes “Fayed: The Unauthorised Biography” with more women alleging sexual assault.

Fayed’s then official spokesperson, Michael Cole, calls it “a travesty of the truth”, saying: “We helped Tom, and then he betrayed all of that help”.

2008 – One of the women in the BBC investigation, “Ellie”, not her real name, was 15 in 2008 when she reported an assault to the police – an allegation that made headlines but did not result in any charge.

2009 – In the 2024 BBC documentary, Gemma, who worked as one of Fayed’s personal assistants between 2007-09, said his behaviour became more frightening during work trips abroad. She said that his attacks culminated in her rape at Villa Windsor in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne.

2010 – Mohamed Al Fayed sells Harrods for a reported £1.5bn to the Qatar Investment Authority. A Channel 4 Dispatches programme in which a number of women were going to make allegations was cancelled.

2013 – July: Fayed sells Fulham FC to Shahid Khan, owner of NFL side Jacksonville Jaguars in a deal said to be in the region of £150-£200m.

A woman in her twenties alleges Fayed raped her. Police investigate but no charges are brought against him.

2015 – The Mirror publishes an article about the 2013 allegations. The Met Police confirms it looked again at the case after new information came to light, but again no charges are brought.

2017 – A Channel 4 Dispatches is broadcast with three women alleging groping, assault, and sexual harassment. One woman waives her right to anonymity for the first time.

2018 – Channel 4 News follows up the Dispatches film after more women come forward, including an employee who was 15 at the time. Fayed’s lawyers dismiss the claims relating to the child as “false”, and say he was unable to comment on the other allegations.

2018-2023 – Police investigate claims by three other women during this period. The Crown Prosecution Service were called in to advise detectives but a full file of evidence was never passed on to prosecutors, as first reported by the Sunday Times in September 2024.

2023 – In July, Harrods begins settling claims with women who came forward alleging sexual assault by Fayed.

Mohamed Al Fayed dies in London aged 94 in August 2023.

2024 – The BBC Documentary “Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods” aired in September with a number of women alleging sexual abuse at the hands of Fayed.

The BBC heard testimony from more than 20 women with allegations ranging from sexual assault to rape. Five said they were raped.

Harrods has already reached financial settlements with the majority of people who have approached them since 2023, and has had new inquiries this week.

Harrods is accepting vicarious liability for the actions of Fayed, and there are no non-disclosure agreements attached to the settlements.

Harrods’ current owners said earlier this week they were “utterly appalled by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by Mohamed Al Fayed”.

“These were the actions of an individual who was intent on abusing his power wherever he operated and we condemn them in the strongest terms,” they said in a response to the BBC investigation.

“We also acknowledge that during this time his victims were failed and for this we sincerely apologise. We are doing everything we can to fix this.”

At a press conference on 20 September, lawyer Gloria Allred said the “ugly truth” was that under Mr Al Fayed’s chairmanship, Harrods was “a toxic, unsafe and abusive environment”.

She added: “The allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed include serial rape, attempted rape, sexual battery and sexual abuse of minors.

“The allegations involve cover-ups, threats and a quarter century of sexual abuse by Mohamed Al Fayed after he purchased Harrods and became its chairman.”

Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods

A BBC investigation into allegations of rape and attempted rape by Mohamed Al Fayed, the former owner of Harrods. Did the luxury store protect a billionaire predator?

Watch Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods on BBC iPlayer now

Listen to World of Secrets, Season 4: Al Fayed, Predator at Harrods on BBC Sounds. If you’re outside the UK, you can listen wherever you get your podcasts, external.

Left-leaning politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake has been elected as Sri Lanka’s next president after he won the debt-ridden country’s first election since its economy collapsed in 2022.

The 55-year-old beat off his nearest rival, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, to emerge as the clear winner after a historic second round of counting, which included second-preference votes. Outgoing president Ranil Wikremesinghe trailed in third.

It’s a remarkable turnaround for a man who won just 3% of the votes in the 2019 election. Dissanayake, who contested as candidate for the National People’s Power (NPP) alliance, has drawn increasing support in recent years for his anti-corruption platform and pro-poor policies – particularly in the wake of the country’s worst ever economic crisis, which is still having an impact on millions.

He will now inherit governance of a nation that is struggling to emerge from the shadow of that crisis, and a populace that is desperate for change.

So who is president-elect Anura Kumara Dissanayake?

Dissanayake was born on 24 November, 1968 in Galewela, a multi-cultural and multi-religious town in central Sri Lanka.

Raised as a member of the middle-class, he is public school educated, has a degree in physics, and first entered politics as a student around the time when the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement was signed in 1987: an event that would lead to one of Sri Lanka’s bloodiest periods.

From 1987 to 1989, the Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) – a Marxist political party with which Dissanayake would later become closely associated – spearheaded an armed revolt against the Sri Lankan government.

The insurrectionist campaign, spurred by discontent among the youth of the rural lower and middle classes, precipitated a conflict marked by raids, assassinations and attacks against both political opponents and civilians which claimed thousands of lives.

Dissanayake, who was elected to the JVP’s central committee in 1997 and became its leader in 2008, has since apologised for the group’s violence during this so-called “season of terror”.

“A lot of things happened during the armed conflict that should not have happened,” he said in a 2014 interview with the BBC.

“We are still shocked, and shocked that things happened at our hands that should not have happened. We are always deeply saddened and shocked about that.”

The JVP, which currently has just three seats in parliament, is part of the NPP coalition that Dissanayake now heads.

While campaigning for the presidential election, Dissanayake addressed another violent moment in Sri Lanka’s recent history: the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings.

On 21 April 2019, a succession of deadly blasts tore through churches and international hotels across the capital Colombo, killing at least 290 people and injuring hundreds more in what quickly became the worst attack in Sri Lanka’s history.

Five years later, however, investigations into how the co-ordinated attacks happened, and the security failures that led to them, have failed to provide answers.

Some have accused the former government, led by Gotabaya Rajapaksa, of obstructing investigations.

In a recent interview with BBC Sinhala, Dissanayake promised he would hold an investigation into the matter if elected – suggesting that authorities had avoided doing so because they were afraid of revealing “their own responsibility”.

It’s just one of many unfulfilled promises from Sri Lanka’s political elite, he added.

“It’s not just this investigation,” he said. “Politicians who promised to stop corruption have engaged in corruption; those who promised to create a debt-free Sri Lanka have only worsened the debt burden; people who promised to strengthen the law have broken it.

“This is exactly why the people of this country want different leadership. We are the ones who can provide it.”

Dissanayake was viewed as a strong contender in the lead-up to Saturday’s election, positioning himself as the candidate for change against a backdrop of simmering nationwide discontent.

Former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was driven out of Sri Lanka in 2022 by mass protests sparked by the economic meltdown.

Years of under-taxation, weak exports and major policy errors, combined with the Covid-19 pandemic, dried up the country’s foreign exchange reserves. Public debt reached more than $83bn and inflation soared to 70%.

Rajapaksa and his government were blamed for the crisis. And though his successor, President Wickremesinghe, introduced economic reforms that brought down inflation and strengthened the Sri Lankan rupee, people continue to feel the pinch.

On a deeper level, the 2022 economic crisis and the circumstances surrounding it – including systemic corruption and political impunity – created demand for a different kind of political leadership. Dissanayake has leveraged that demand to his advantage.

He has cast himself as a potential disruptor to a status quo which critics say has long rewarded corruption and cronyism among the political elite.

Dissanayake has repeatedly said he plans to dissolve parliament after coming to power, in order to have a clean slate and a fresh mandate for his policies – suggesting in a recent interview with BBC Sinhala that he would do this within days of being elected.

“There is no point continuing with a parliament that is not in line with what the people want,” he said.

Among Dissanayake’s policy pledges are tough anti-corruption measures, bigger welfare schemes and a promise to slash taxes.

Tax hikes and welfare cuts were imposed by the current government as part of austerity measures aimed at steering the country’s economy back on track – but they also left many people unable to make ends meet.

Dissanayake’s promise to rein in those measures appears to have galvanised support among voters, in an election where analysts predicted economic concerns would be front of mind.

“The country’s soaring inflation, skyrocketing cost-of-living and poverty have left the electorate desperate for solutions to stabilise prices and improve livelihoods,” Soumya Bhowmick, an associate fellow at India-based think tank the Observer Research Foundation, told the BBC before the election.

“With the country seeking to emerge from its economic collapse, this election serves as a crucial moment for shaping Sri Lanka’s recovery trajectory and restoring both domestic and international confidence in its governance.”

Some onlookers, including investors and market participants, expressed concern that Dissanayake’s economic policies could have an impact on fiscal targets and disrupt Sri Lanka’s road to recovery.

The presidential candidate tempered his messaging during campaign speeches, however, insisting that he was committed to ensuring repayment of Sri Lanka’s debt.

He also noted that any changes would be imposed in consultation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has provided a buttress for the country’s still-embattled economy.

Many analysts think the next president’s main task is building a stable economy.

Athulasiri Samarakoon, senior lecturer in political science and international studies at the Open University of Sri Lanka, told the BBC that “the most serious challenge is how to restore this economy”, including managing public expenditure and increasing public revenue generation.

“Any future government will have to work with the International Monetary Fund,” he noted.

About 76% of Sri Lanka’s 17.1 million electorate turned out to vote in Saturday’s election, according to officials.

By mid-morning on Sunday, Dissanayake had already received messages of congratulations from supporters of his two main rivals, incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa.

Foreign Minister Ali Sabry said on X that early results clearly pointed to a Dissanayake victory.

“Though I heavily campaigned for President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the people of Sri Lanka have made their decision, and I fully respect their mandate for Anura Kumara Dissanayake,” Sabry said.

MP Harsha de Silva, who supported Premadasa, said he had called Dissanayake to offer his congratulations.

“We campaigned hard for @sajithpremadasa but it was not to be. It is now clear @anuradisanayake will be the new President of #SriLanka,” said de Silva, who represents Colombo in parliament.

Another Premadasa supporter, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spokesman MA Sumanthiran, said Dissanayake delivered an “impressive win” without relying on “racial or religious chauvinism”.

Half a billion fans, a multi-million dollar personal fortune and a global business empire.

It would take a lot to dethrone YouTube’s biggest influencer Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast.

But a 54-page court document could be his toughest test yet.

Five female contestants on upcoming Prime Video show Beast Games are launching legal action against his production company MrB2024 and Amazon in Los Angeles.

Billed as the largest ever reality competition series, 1,000 contestants are set to compete for a $5m (£3.7m) prize when the show airs – or if it airs. The lawsuit has plunged the show into crisis.

Among many redacted pages, the legal document includes allegations that they “particularly and collectively suffered” in an environment that “systematically fostered a culture of misogyny and sexism”.

It cuts to the core of MrBeast’s image as one of the nicest guys on the internet.

I flicked through the document, which includes suggestions that participants were “underfed and overtired”. Meals were provided “sporadically and sparsely” which “endangered the health and welfare” of the contestants, it is claimed.

In one section where almost all of the claims are redacted from public view, it says the defendants “created, permitted to exist, and fostered a culture and pattern and practice of sexual harassment including in the form of a hostile work environment”.

Back in August, the New York Times spoke to more than a dozen of the (yet unreleased) show’s participants, and reported there were “several hospitalisations” on the set, with one person telling the paper they had gone over 20 hours without being fed.

Contestants also alleged they had not received their medication on time.

The BBC has approached MrBeast and Amazon – he has not yet publicly commented.

So will these latest allegations hurt the king of YouTube’s popularity?

MrBeast is no stranger to controversy this year – and has managed to come out unscathed each time.

In July, the 26-year-old American said he had hired investigators after his former co-host Ava Kris Tyson was accused of grooming a teenager.

Ava denied the allegations, but has apologised for “past behaviour” which was “not acceptable”.

MrBeast said he was “disgusted” by the “serious allegations”.

Later, further allegations about business practices surfaced on an anonymous YouTube channel, claiming to be a former employee. The BBC has not been able to independently verify the claims or this person’s identity.

Some of his philanthropic efforts – such as building wells in Africa, and paying for surgery for people with reduced sight and hearing – have drawn criticisms around exploitation.

“Deaf people like me deserve better than MrBeast’s latest piece of inspiration porn,” one person told the Independent last year.

But his empire continues to grow. The day before the lawsuit emerged on Wednesday, he revealed a team-up with fellow famous faces KSI and Logan Paul – a new food line designed to challenge Lunchables.

And as I wrote in an article about his meteoric rise last year, he has made his millions through hard work.

His videos are big budget experiences, with his most popular – viewed 652 million times – recreating the Netflix hit Squid Game in real life with a $456,000 (£342,000) prize.

Most of his philanthropy is less controversial – including giving away houses, cash and cars – which has worked to create an image of him being one of the internet’s good guys.

According to his website, he has delivered more than 25 million meals to the needy around the world.

People continue to flock to his social channels. In June, he gained enough subscribers to make his YouTube channel the largest in the world.

According to stats-checker Socialblade, MrBeast picked up an extra five million subscribers in the last 30 days alone.

That’s just one metric – we can’t tell how many people unsubscribed from his channel, for example.

What is certain is that the number of people who’ve actively decided to stop watching his videos has been eclipsed by those who’ve decided to subscribe.

He wouldn’t be the only YouTuber whose popularity holds through controversy – others have faced far more significant storms than MrBeast, with few facing many consequences outside of a public apology.

Logan Paul faced a massive backlash in 2018 after he uploaded a video to his 15 million subscribers which showed the body of a person who had apparently taken their own life.

After removing the original video, he shared a less than two-minute apology titled simply: “So sorry.”

Now, he has 23 million subscribers, owns an incredibly popular sports drink, and up until August was the WWE United States champion. He’s had quite a few pay-per-view boxing bouts, too.

Other high-profile YouTubers, including Pewdiepie, James Charles, and Jeffree Star have all had their own controversies, and got on with their careers after uploading apology videos.

A more modern example is Herschel “Guy” Beahm, known online as Dr Disrespect, who admitted he sent messages to “an individual minor” in 2017.

He stressed that “nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed” and went offline for two months after posting the statement.

His comeback livestream earlier this month attracted more than three million views, despite criticism from other high-profile streamers.

Dr Disrespect remains the second-most watched streamer in the US this year, according to Streams Charts.

The point is: YouTubers tend to be forgiven quickly.

While MrBeast’s fanbase has continued growing, controversy is swirling once again – and his next move could determine his long-term success.

James Lunn, chief strategy officer at Savvy Marketing, says the star is “in an incredibly unique position” with a “multi-faceted” brand spanning many industries.

“We are indeed in uncharted waters,” he says, and “a proactive approach, addressing the issues transparently and ensuring accountability, could protect his brand”.

Brand expert Catherine Shuttleworth says the “sheer scale” of MrBeast’s fame may act as a buffer against backlash, but the latest lawsuit could be difficult.

“When it comes to his business ventures, particularly those targeting families and children – like Feastables chocolate bars or Lunchly – it’s a different story,” she says.

“Parents, who often hold the purchasing power, tend to be less tolerant of controversies involving safety, fairness, and ethics.”

Back in August 2023, when writing about MrBeast, I predicted he would soon take the YouTube crown despite him having half as many subscribers then.

He is now facing extra challenges as his fame rises, and a lot of the internet is eagerly awaiting his reply to what is, so far, one side of a complex story.

They are two competing views on where desk-based employees work best.

Amazon is ordering its staff back to the office five days a week, just as the government is pushing for rights to flexible working – including working from home – to be strengthened.

The tech giant says employees will be able to better “invent, collaborate, and be connected”.

But just as the firm’s announcement became news, the UK government was linking flexibility to better performance and a more productive, loyal workforce.

Few are short of an opinion on how effective working from home is and for a government there are broader considerations such as how, for example, caring responsibilities are affected.

But more than four years since the start of the pandemic, what does the evidence tell us about how we work best and is Amazon right to believe people being in the office full time will allow them to collaborate better?

Amazon’s fellow tech giant Microsoft studied its employees during the pandemic. It looked at the emails, calendars, instant messages and calls of 61,000 of its employees in the US during the first six months of 2020. The findings were published in Nature Human Behaviour.

The study indicated that, during Covid, remote workers tended to collaborate more with networks of colleagues they already had, and that they built fewer “bridges” between different networks.

There was also a drop in communication that happened in real time – meetings that would have happened in real life weren’t necessarily happening online. Instead, more emails and instant messages were sent.

The authors suggested this may make it harder to convey and understand complex information.

Microsoft’s was a data-led study. But what about human experience?

A 2020 survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) of 1,000 senior decision-makers in organisations found about a third struggled with “reduced staff interaction and cooperation”.

However, more than 40% of the managers said there was more collaboration when people were working from home.

Greater collaboration is hard to object to, but equally it is no guarantee of productivity.

In 2010, China’s biggest travel agency CTrip tried something very new among staff in its airfare and hotel booking department.

Almost 250 staff were identified as potential home workers – they needed to be established at the company and have a proper home working set-up.

Around half that group started working from home. The other group stayed office-based.

Researchers at Stanford University found the workers were 13% more productive when working from home – mainly because workers had fewer breaks and sick days, and they could take more calls because it was quieter.

There was a particularly significant drop in staff quitting for non-managers, women, and people with long commutes, the researchers said.

However, those Chinese home-workers were seeing a bit of the office: they were spending one day a week among colleagues. It could be this brought some benefit – a separate study years later from researchers at Stanford suggested fully remote work can lead to a 10% drop in productivity compared with working in the office all the time.

Barriers to communication, lack of mentoring for staff, problems building a work culture, and difficulties with self-motivation were all cited.

Amazon is not alone in telling employees to return to the office full-time.

Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon famously described working from home as an “aberration”. The US firm requires bankers to be in the office five days per week.

Rival US banks JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley have also backed workers returning to the office, whereas some banks in Europe have taken a softer approach.

Elon Musk’s Tesla also requires employees to be in the office full time, leading to reports of problems finding space for them.

Another Musk company, SpaceX, brought in a policy requiring workers to return to the office full-time.

But it wasn’t without consequences: when it brought the policy in, SpaceX lost 15% of its senior-level employees, according to a study published earlier this year.

The pandemic changed work routines that were in many cases decades old.

Linda Noble, now 62, from Barnsley, was used to putting on a suit and make-up. In 2020 she was a senior officer in local government, scrutinising governance in the fire service and the police service.

Then Covid struck and she was working from home.

“I loathed it. I missed the communication – going into work, someone would make you smile,” she says.

But with time, Ms Noble adjusted. She set up her home office and she thinks that before long she was twice as productive as previously – even if that was in part because of an inability to switch off.

Many disabled people also believe working from home makes them more productive.

A 2023 study of 400 people suggested that disabled workers felt they had more autonomy and control when working from home, which led them to better manage their health and wellbeing, and 85% felt more productive.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, not all studies come to the same conclusions. Some suggest an improvement to physical health from working at home, others disagree. The same goes for mental health.

The wellbeing of staff was a key reason one UK business decided to get them back to the office as soon as possible after lockdown restrictions ended, according to one of its directors, Francis Ashcroft.

He was chief executive of a large private UK children’s care services company. He says “some people were struggling with raised anxiety” and wanted to get back to the office “to be part of a team”.

Mr Ashcroft said there was “also a recognition that 80% of staff were at the coalface”, working in person in children’s homes and education, and so it was “right to come back” for reasons of fairness.

Although team members were collaborating online at 95% of what they had been, “coming back into the office added that 5% back”, he argues.

“It brought a realness and a sense of belonging,” Mr Ashcroft says, adding that “when it comes to delivering a service, the teamwork was much better in the office”.

Despite this experience, an umbrella review of home working that examined a range of other studies concluded that, on the whole, working from home boosts how much workers can get done.

What difference there is in approach between the government and Amazon essentially boils down to whether or not some home working should be part of the mix, with Amazon believing it shouldn’t.

Linda Noble’s time solely working from home is over. She is just about to start a hybrid job. She’s attracted by the “balance” between working from home and office work.

According to the CIPD, benefits of hybrid working include “a better work/life balance, greater ability to focus with fewer distractions, more time for family and friends and wellbeing activity, saved commuting time and costs, plus higher levels of motivation and engagement.”

And it may be that this can reduce staff churn. A study published this year found that a Chinese firm that adopted hybrid working reduced the rate at which employees quit by a third.

From an employee perspective, the optimum time for hybrid working is three days in the office – this makes employees most engaged, according to a Gallup survey of US workers, although it also says there is “no one-size-fits-all”.

In the UK, the number of people exclusively working from home is falling. But, crucially, hybrid working is continuing to rise, running at 27% of the working population.

Gallup says that despite highly publicised moves by firms to get employees back in the office, the underlying trend is that the future of office work is hybrid.

This tallies with the position of the UK government, which is clear that it believes the potential to work at home drives up productivity.

The calculation by Amazon appears to be that what evidence there is for increased productivity among employees who work in part from home fails to capture the particulars of how they operate.

North Korea secured a record-equalling third victory in the Fifa Under-20 Women’s World Cup on Sunday, beating Japan 1-0 in Bogota.

They became the joint most successful side in the football tournament’s history, equalling powerhouse nations Germany and the United States.

Choe Il-son’s 15th minute winner capped a superb tournament for North Korea, who won every single game in Colombia.

The 17-year-old forward finished as the competition’s overall top scorer, winning the Golden Boot with six goals.

“It’s so hard to express ourselves right now – this has been a dream of so many of us for so long,” said North Korea’s captain, Chae Un-yong.

“The final match was tough, as we expected, and we had to remain calm and play according to the coach’s tactical instructions.”

North Korea stormed their way through the tournament, despatching the likes of Argentina, the Netherlands and Brazil en route to the semis.

A 1-0 victory over the United States set up an all-Asian final against Japan – who finished as runners-up in the previous tournament in 2022.

Choe’s goal – a slightly deflected left foot strike – was enough to secure a historic win for North Korea in the El Camin Stadium

She was named player of the match and won both the Golden Boot and the Golden Ball, the latter being awarded to the World Cup’s best overall player.

North Korea’s triumph is even more notable given the country withdrew from global sporting competition for several years due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Having not played a match since 2018, the North Korean Women’s U20 returned to the international stage in March this year to compete in the Asian Cup in Uzbekistan.

Despite the six-year-break, they won that tournament, beating Japan 2-1 to secure their second title.

“To firstly win the Asian Cup and now follow that with this success means that I’m so proud of the team,” said the team coach, Ri Song-ho, following their World Cup triumph.

“We have shown that we are very dangerous in the way that we build up attacks, it’s all about the speed of how we go forward.”

Unlike their male counterparts – who are ranked 111th in the world – North Korea’s women are a genuine force in world football.

The senior side is currently ninth in the Fifa world rankings, higher than countries such as France and Australia.

To date, they have won three Asian Cups, three Asian Games and three East Asian Championships.

North Koreans rarely get to see their national sides play at home, though.

The country’s limited transport connections with the outside world – as well as its poor diplomatic relations with many governments – mean that the vast majority of North Korea’s “home” matches are played at a neutral venue, often in China or the Middle East.

Russia’s chess team is to remain banned from international competitions, officials have ruled.

In a dramatic move, an International Chess Federation (Fide) general assembly meeting in Budapest voted to maintain sanctions against Russia and its ally, Belarus.

Both countries were kicked out of the federation after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Those supporting the move say chess in Russia is controlled by Vladimir Putin, with people including the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, sitting on the board which runs the game domestically.

A majority of delegates in Budapest voted in favour of a motion to conduct consultations with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) regarding the possibility of lifting some restrictions against children and vulnerable groups.

However, bans against the Russian national team, officials, flag and anthem in international competitions will remain.

The final decision now rests with the federation’s strategic body, the Fide Council, which is unlikely to overturn the results of the ballot.

Malcolm Pein, head of the English Chess Federation, told the BBC the result was a “crushing defeat” for Russia.

“There is no doubt that many delegates feared consequences for the governing body’s relationship with the IOC if policy diverged,” he said.

Sixty-six countries supported the motion, with 41 opting for a third option – that all restrictions should remain in place.

Just 21 countries voted to lift sanctions. As well as Russia and Belarus, they included several former Soviet republics and other Russian allies in Africa and Asia.

The highly anticipated vote was seen as a test of Western resolve to maintain pressure on Russia in culture, sport and diplomacy.

Before voting began, Ukraine called on delegates to reject the proposal to lift sanctions.

“It’s a victory for Ukraine,” the Ukrainian Chess Federation’s Viktor Kapustin told the BBC.

“This vote means that Russia does not have enough support that they assumed they had,” he added.

“Russia is an aggressor and invader, and the aggressor must be punished in all spheres of their life, including sport. It’s important to keep the sanctions, or even strengthen them. For them to recognise their crimes.”

Russia said politics should be left out of chess and urged other representatives to vote to lift all sanctions.

Kyiv was supported by England, Scotland, Wales, the US, France and many other western nations. The IOC, with which Fide is affiliated, had also recommended that the organisation comply with an earlier decision by the Olympic body that sanctions against Russia in sport remain in place.

Following Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Fide voted to ban the Russian national team and officials from competitions.

In a separate move, a Fide commission applied sanctions to the Russian Chess Federation (CFR) last June, excluding it for two years for “bringing chess into disrepute” and violating the international organisation’s principles.

It found that the Russian federation had organised tournaments in areas of Ukraine illegally occupied by Russian forces and reprimanded Fide’s Russian president for his membership of the CFR board.

Earlier this month, the ban was commuted to a €45,000 (£37,700) fine and the reprimand cancelled, a move which was criticised by Ukraine and its allies.

Ex-defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who are both under international sanctions, are also CFR board members.

From finding an alligator in a car boot to being called out to an ostrich loose on the street in the middle of the night, the Scottish SPCA’s Mike Flynn MBE has seen it all.

After 37 years with the organisation, the chief superintendent retires on Monday as he turns 65. He was a zoo elephant keeper before joining the animal charity.

“Everyone always thinks the Scottish SPCA is all puppies and kittens, but it’s far from it,” he told BBC Scotland News of his varied animal encounters over the years.

As for his proudest work-related moment, he said that was the ban on the use of snares and glue traps being introduced earlier this year.

The alligator incident happened back in 2004 in Edinburgh, after the Scottish SPCA initially spotted an advert.

A man was trying to sell the 4ft (1.2m) reptile, after buying it over the internet. He had realised he could not care for it.

Posing as potential buyers, officers and plain-clothes police met him in a car park. The boot of the Vauxhall Cavalier was opened and they were confronted by the unrestrained and unmuzzled creature.

“He was keeping it in a bath on the fifth floor of a tenement in Leith,” Mr Flynn said.

“He advertised it. We got in touch pretending to be buyers and he turned up at a car park with this alligator in the back of the car. We caught him red-handed.

“So I ended up with my colleague getting the enviable task of taking this alligator to Torremolinos in Spain.

“It was transported in a purpose-built crate, it was flown from Edinburgh to London, then London to Madrid. It was then transported in the rear of a hire car by myself and a colleague from Madrid to Torremolinos.

“And he’s still there today – Jimmy the alligator from Leith in Edinburgh.”

Mr Flynn started with the Scottish SPCA back in 1987.

“Prior to that I worked seven years at Edinburgh Zoo as an elephant keeper,” he said. “So I’ve always enjoyed the animal background.

“I joined the society with the intention of being here until I dropped. But 65 is beckoning and I think that’s a fair enough stint – 37 years is long enough for anybody.

“Working with animals has always been a passion, but to be honest being an inspector isn’t always about working with animals. That’s a tiny part of it.

“Every animal you deal with, you’ve got to deal with a person. So for every animal we help, we’re helping a member of the public or other organisations. You’ve got to have an empathy with animals, but you’ve got to have a lot of people skills too.”

Mr Flynn still “vividly” remembers his first day at the animal charity.

“The chief inspector at the time, the first thing he did was take you into this old cupboard to give you second hand uniform,” he recalled.

“So first day on the street, I think I had a jacket that fitted somebody about six sizes bigger than me.

“In my day you had to carry about a pocket full of two pences if you had to phone back to the office – you had to find a phone box – to find out if there were any other jobs coming. Back in those days, trying to find a phone box in Edinburgh that worked was a bit of a miracle anyway.”

He described another memorable incident.

“We’ve had wild boar, ostriches – I remember getting a phone call one Sunday morning from someone I actually thought was drunk,” Mr Flynn said.

“He said that he had seen an ostrich on Leith Walk in Edinburgh, but he said it was limping.

“And lo and behold, I got there and the police are pointing at this ostrich which is walking down the street.

“It was a farmed ostrich which had fallen off the back of a lorry. The guy wasn’t that drunk after all.”

He spoke out about many high-profile criminal cases over the years, including what was believed to be Scotland’s biggest puppy farm, in the north east of Scotland.

More than 100 dogs, puppies, rabbits and ferrets were seized when Scottish SPCA officers and police raided the farm, near Fyvie, in November 2017.

In 2006 he was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s 80th birthday honours list for services to animal welfare in Scotland.

“That was fantastic,” he said. “It was surreal. It was a real privilege.

“It came totally out of the blue. I got the MBE, but that was for the work of the Scottish SPCA.

“Everyone in our organisation deserves that recognition.”

“Work-wise I think the biggest achievement – and it’s taken at least 15 years to get there – is getting snaring banned.

“That was first raised way back in 2010 and we’ve constantly been at that and it’s finally been passed by the Scottish Parliament that snaring of all forms will be banned.

“That’s been a personal passion of mine because I’ve pulled too many animals out of legal and illegal snares that have just suffered immensely.”

He added: “I’ve achieved all the things I wanted to achieve over the last 20 years that I was aiming for. And with the 65th birthday coming up, I thought well let’s go out on a high and enjoy what you’ve done.

“And honestly I’ve never had a bad day with the society. And that’s all down to the goodwill of the Scottish public because it’s all donations from the public and I just hope they will continue to support us because they do make a change.”

And as for the prospect of retired life?

“It will be strange,” he admitted. “I’ll be checking the phone isn’t broken because it won’t be ringing as much.

“I’m going to take it quietly. I’ve got a couple of projects I’m going to be helping other people with. I’ll still be on the Scottish government’s animal welfare commission.

“I’m not disappearing completely off the scene and I’ll still be in contact with my old colleagues.”

The lifelong animal lover added: “It will take a while to sink in. It’s been 37 glorious years. I can’t complain. I can honestly say that I haven’t had one bad day in all that time. I’ve loved it.”

The last time Oasis played Wembley Stadium, in 2009, a standing ticket cost exactly £44.04.

For their return next summer, the same ticket was priced at £150. Vastly more than the old ticket price which, when adjusted for inflation, would cost £68.

Not only that, but some fans were charged hundreds of pounds more than the face value, after so-called “dynamic pricing” boosted the cost in response to high demand.

But Oasis aren’t alone. If you’ve logged onto Ticketmaster over the last couple of years, you’ll know the cost of live music has soared.

Ticket prices shot up by 23% last year, having already risen 19% since the pandemic. Going to a gig can cost the same amount as taking a holiday, and prices are only rising.

At the most extreme end of the scale, Madonna charged £1,306.75 for VIP passes to her Celebration tour; and Beyoncé offered fans the chance to sit on the stage of her Renaissance concerts for the bargain price of £2,400.

Overall, the average ticket price for the top 100 tours around the world was £101 last year, up from £82 in 2022, according to Pollstar, a trade publication that tracks the concert industry.

In the UK, 51% of people say high prices have stopped them going to gigs at least once in the last five years. Among 16 to 34-year-olds, two-thirds of concert-goers say they’ve reduced the number of shows they attend. But despite this, tours with high-priced tickets keep selling out – but only for the biggest-name artists.

Abbi Glover, 33, from New Holland, Lincolnshire, said the cost of tickets “creates a divide” between those who can afford them and those who are “priced out”.

“I work hard and earn a decent wage. What do I have to do to be able to just enjoy these things when I’m doing everything I possibly can?”

UK prices are still below those in the US but, as ticketing expert Reg Walker told the BBC, “what happens there happens here five to 10 years later”.

So why have costs skyrocketed?

If your first thought was “greed”, well, that’s definitely part of it.

“It’s not speculation to think that some artists want to make as much money as they can,” says Gideon Gottfried, Pollstar’s European editor.

One musician who’s been bullish about the price hikes is Bruce Springsteen.

Fans were alarmed when some seats for his 2023 US tour were priced as high as $5,000 (£3,874), thanks to Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Springsteen argued that most of the tickets were in an “affordable range”, but he was fed up with touts making money off his back, so he chose to match their prices.

“I’m going, ‘Hey, why shouldn’t that money go to the guys that are going to be up there sweating three hours a night for it?’” he said.

• Listen to Mark read this article on Sounds

Kiss star Gene Simmons also defended the system.

“Whatever the pricing is, it’s all academic,” he told Forbes. “Somebody sits in a room and tries to figure out how far the rubber band can stretch. And if you’re not selling tickets, guess what happens? The price goes down. Capitalism!

“Vote with [your] money,” he concluded. “You don’t like the ticket pricing? Don’t buy a ticket.”

Springsteen and Simmons are in good company. Other artists who’ve embraced dynamic pricing include Coldplay, Harry Styles, Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift (although she ditched it for the Eras tour after significant fan backlash).

Following the Oasis debacle, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer vowed to get a “grip” on the situation and “make sure that tickets are available at a price that people can actually afford”.

But it might not be so simple…

Aside from the lure of a big payday, there are many reasons why artists are charging more.

Some are trying to combat the impact of streaming – the majority of musicians make just 5% of their income from streaming, a sharp decline from the years when vinyl and CD were king.

Others are worried about their longevity, in an era when entire careers can be measured in the span of a TikTok trend.

“Nobody really knows what the heck is going on, and how the economy will develop and what the next crisis is going to be,” says Gottfried, “so some artists are trying to milk the cow as much as possible, while it’s still possible.”

Not everyone thinks that way. Punk-pop star Yungblud organised his own festival in Milton Keynes this August, setting prices at a market-beating £49.50.

He was compelled to take action after noticing unsold seats on his US arena tour last year.

“Five hundred seats would be completely empty because they were $200 a ticket,” he told Music Week. “I’d have 1,000 kids outside the venue who couldn’t afford to come in and I was like, ‘Something’s got to change here.’”

But the festival didn’t go completely to plan. Heightened security after a stabbing in Milton Keynes the previous weekend led to delays of up to three hours for fans waiting to get into the venue. As temperatures soared above 30 degrees Celsius, some passed out in the queue. Others gave up and went home.

Higher-priced tickets could have paid for extra security staff and eased those pressures – illustrating the delicate balance that has to be struck when setting prices.

Still, Yungblud isn’t the only one trying to get a fair deal for concert-goers.

Paul Heaton capped prices for his upcoming tour at £35. Pop star Caity Baser set her 2023 concerts at just £11 – or “two meal deals”, as she put it – to help cash-strapped fans.

But these artists don’t require big productions full of pyrotechnics and jumbotron video screens.

For acts who do, the cost of touring has spiralled since the pandemic. Here are just a few examples:

• Transport Whether you’re in a minivan or a private jet, it costs more to travel these days. Fuel prices have risen by 20% since 2019 and a shortage of drivers post-Brexit means experienced crew can charge a premium.

• Freight costs A tour isn’t just about moving bodies – for big arena and stadium shows, the stage also has to be transported. According to the pop star Lorde, the cost of shipping her stage around the world increased by up to 300% after Covid. And logistics company Freightwaves says the cost of insuring one truck can be as high as $5m (£3.8m). For context, Taylor Swift’s Eras tour requires up to 50 trucks.

• Catering We’ve all seen our food bills increase, and touring artists are no exception. When you have hundreds of mouths to feed, the costs add up.

• Stage equipment From sound systems to lighting rigs, rental costs for tour gear have risen by 15-20%. And with more tours on the road, equipment is overbooked – which can push prices even higher.

• Accommodation Hotels and accommodation are a major cost. Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour, for example, had more than 300 people on the road at any one time. With hotel prices doubling in the last five years, this adds another strain on tour finances.

“We’ve seen projects where the cost of overheads have increased by up to 35 to 40%,” says Stuart Galbraith, CEO of concert promoters Kilimanjaro Live, “and the only form of income that comes in to cover all of that is ticket money”.

Even when prices go up, the profit margins are minimal, according to Stephan Thanscheidt, CEO of FKP Scorpio, which organises more than 20 European festivals, as well as tours by Ed Sheeran, the Rolling Stones and Foo Fighters.

“The costs associated with our productions have doubled or tripled [but] we cannot and will not compensate for this by tripling the ticket prices,” he told Pollstar last year.

That means the artist’s share of the box office – roughly 56% of the money you pay – increasingly goes towards production costs, not profits.

The squeeze is particularly tight on UK festival organisers, which have also been hit by a ban on “red diesel”, a fuel tinted with red dye, which they previously used to power the generators and heavy vehicles needed to construct festival sites.

The move is part of the UK’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gases, and meant some organisers suddenly had to pay a higher rate of fuel duty from April 2022 – a big increase of 46 pence per litre.

Since then, the average cost of a UK festival ticket has shot up by 22%. Combined with other rising costs, more than 50 festivals went on hiatus or closed completely this summer.

Small venues are under pressure, too. Their prices might average between £7 and £10, but they’re struggling to sell shows – partly because fans have already spent their money on stadium tickets that cost the same as a games console.

Toni Coe-Brooker from the Music Venues Trust said this is down to “a culture in which people think that grassroots gigs should be free”.

In the past, that didn’t matter because owners made plenty of money behind the bar. But Gen Z are increasingly turning their backs on alcohol. One study says 26% of 16-to-25-year-olds are teetotal, and that leaves yet another hole in venues’ finances.

Combined with other pressures including higher rent and electricity bills, 125 music venues closed or stopped hosting live music in 2023.

In those that remain, costs are so tight that “a lot of venue operators aren’t even paying themselves, which is really worrying,” says Coe-Brooker.

The Music Venue Trust wants bigger concert halls to donate £1 from each ticket sold to the grassroots scene and the next generation of artists.

That wouldn’t necessarily push prices up again – the trust says the £1 fee would be factored into existing costs – but here’s the fascinating thing: If the artist is the right one, fans will pay regardless.

Live Nation is the world’s biggest concert promoter and it shifted a record 118 million tickets in the first six months of 2024.

According to its latest earnings report, sales for arenas, amphitheatres, theatre and club shows are all up double digits.

“People’s enthusiasm to go out has not been as curbed as we expected in the current economy,” says Gottfried.

“VIP ticket sales have definitely picked up. Every single promoter I’ve spoken to across the individual European markets, has seen an uptake in almost every case. And £1,000 for a VIP package is not at all unheard of.”

However, the same rules don’t apply to everyone.

The biggest names might get away with charging hundreds of pounds per show, but “the weaker tours are coming under more pressure,” says Galbraith.

In other words, with an ongoing squeeze on their disposable incomes, fans are cutting back on experiences that don’t seem unique or essential.

“We’re competing in a marketplace that isn’t just gig to gig,” says Galbraith. “It’s also, are we value for money versus a restaurant? Are we value for money versus a mini break? So every tour has to be as cost effective as they possibly can.”

There are some signs that we’ve reached a peak. Jennifer Lopez and the Black Keys both scrapped recent US arena tours, after fans baulked at average prices of around $150 (£116). And the most expensive tickets for Billie Eilish’s 2025 UK tour (£398, of which £151 goes to local charities) are still available, months after going on sale.

It’s hard to say whether this will change. But Leah Rafferty, 27, from Sheffield, is an example of a fan who will pay whatever is asked. She lives with her parents, which allows her to spend her disposable income on concerts – something she says she feels “extremely lucky” to do.

A devoted Swiftie, she has seen The Eras Tour six times: Once in Edinburgh, twice in Liverpool and three times in London, at a cost of £1,192.57.

“As long as it doesn’t bankrupt me, I’m happy to spend whatever it costs.”

That’s exactly what promoters are relying on, says Gottfried.

“One of the reasons you haven’t seen notable dips [in sales], despite people struggling economically, is that seeing their favourite artist means so much to them that they make irrational decisions.

“Any market will be distorted by people making irrational decisions. It might be a beautiful decision for them but it’s also an irrational one, because their emotions and their fandom will make them pay outrageous money.”

At least four people have been killed and 18 injured in a mass shooting in Birmingham, Alabama, police say.

“Multiple shooters fired multiple shots on a group of people” late on Saturday in the Five Points South area of the city, Birmingham Police officer Truman Fitzgerald said.

Officers found the bodies of two men and one woman at the scene, while a third man later died of bullet wounds in hospital, Birmingham Police said

The culprits are believed to have approached the scene in a vehicle before getting out and opening fire. No suspects have been arrested.

Mr Fitzgerald added that they believed the shooting was “not random and stemmed from an isolated incident where multiple victims were caught in the crossfire”.

The shooting may have been a result of a murder-for-hire plot, Police Chief Scott Thurmond was quoted as saying by local news outlet Al.com.

The intended target was among those killed, Mr Thurmond said at a news conference on Sunday.

“It wasn’t the location, it was the person, so wherever the person was was where it was going to take place, wherever they can catch that individual,’’ Mr Thurmond said. “That’s just where they happened to catch them.”

The other victims – all of whom were standing outside – are so far believed to have been caught in the gunfire.

Four of the injured suffered life-threatening wounds, according to Mr Fitzgerald.

The BBC has contacted the Birmingham Police Department for comment.

Authorities are also pressing to find the shooters.

The police said in a statement that they are working with the FBI and other federal agencies, are offering a $5,000 reward for information and have opened a web portal for submitting photos and videos of the incident.

The Five Points South district is known for its nightlife. The shooting occurred on Magnolia Avenue, Mr Fitzgerald said.

Witnesses who were queuing outside a hookah and cigar lounge on Magnolia Avenue at the time told local news site Al.com that some of the gunfire sounded as though it came from a gun converted to be fully automatic.

Earlier on Sunday, Mr Fitzgerald had told reporters there were “dozens of gunshot victims” after the incident.

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin blamed “Glock switches” – devices that can be attached to handguns to make them fire automatically – for the violence, posting on social media on Sunday that they “are the number one public safety issue in our city and state”.

“Converting a semi-automatic weapon into a fully automatic weapon that discharges all bullets within seconds doesn’t belong on our domestic streets,” he wrote, adding that the city does not have the power to outlaw Glock switches, only the state.

He told CNN later on Sunday that more than 100 shell casings had been found at the crime scene.

There have been more than 400 mass shootings across the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are injured or killed.

The incident in Birmingham is the second mass shooting to place in the city in a two-month period, and the third quadruple homicide of 2024, according to Al.com.

Australia’s consumer watchdog is suing the country’s two biggest supermarket chains, alleging they falsely claimed to have permanently dropped the prices of hundreds of items.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) claims Coles and Woolworths broke consumer law by temporarily raising prices before lowering them to a value either the same as or higher than the original cost.

Coles said it would defend itself against the allegations, while Woolworths said it would review the claims.

The grocery giants, which account for two thirds of the Australian market, have come under increasing scrutiny in the past year over alleged price gouging and anti-competitive practices.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the alleged conduct, if proven to be true, is “completely unacceptable”.

“This is not in the Australian spirit. Customers don’t deserve to be treated as fools,” he said at a press conference, at which he also revealed draft legislation for a previously promised “code of conduct” for supermarkets.

ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said Coles and Woolworths have spent years marketing their ‘Prices Dropped’ and ‘Down Down’ promotions, which Australian shoppers now understand to represent a sustained reduction in the regular prices of products.

But in many cases “the discounts were, in fact, illusory”, she added.

The watchdog’s investigation – sparked by complaints and the ACCC’s own monitoring – found Woolworths had misled customers about 266 products over 20 months, and Coles for 245 products across 15 months.

The products included everything from pet food, Band-Aid plasters and mouthwash, to Australian favourites like Arnott’s Tim Tam biscuits, Bega Cheese and Kellogg’s cereal.

The ACCC estimated that the two companies “sold tens of millions” of the affected products and “derived significant revenue from those sales”.

“Many consumers rely on discounts to help their grocery budgets stretch further, particularly during this time of cost of living pressures,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.

“It is critical that Australian consumers are able to rely on the accuracy of pricing and discount claims.”

The ACCC is seeking that the Federal Court of Australia impose “significant” penalties on the two firms, and an order forcing them to increase their charitable meal delivery programs.

In a statement, Coles said the company’s own costs were rising which led to an increase in product prices.

It had “sought to strike an appropriate balance” between managing that and “offering value to customers” by restarting promotions “as soon as possible” after new prices were set, it said.

The company takes consumer law “extremely seriously” and “places great emphasis on building trust with all stakeholders”, it added.

Woolworths said in a statement that it would engage with the ACCC over the claims.

“Our customers are telling us they want us to work even harder to deliver meaningful value to them and it’s important they can trust the value they see when shopping our stores.”

Amid growing scrutiny of the supermarkets, the government commissioned a review of the country’s existing Food and Grocery Code of Conduct.

The review recommended a stronger, mandatory code of conduct be introduced and policed by the ACCC, so they can protect suppliers as well as consumers.

The new code will set out standards for the companies’ dealings with providers, who say they are being unfairly squeezed, and introduce massive fines for breaches.

Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus has married his partner Christina Sas in a ceremony hosted by the comedian and broadcaster Sandi Toksvig.

The 79-year-old Swedish singer, who has been married twice before, met Sas in Nuremberg, Germany, in 2021 in connection with the release of Abba’s last album Voyage.

A post to his Instagram page said: “Today on the 21st of September 2024, Björn Ulvaeus married Christina Sas from Herning, Denmark.

They met in Nurnberg in 2021 in connection with the release of Abba’s last album Voyage and started dating in the spring of 2022.”

The wedding took place in Copenhagen in the presence of close friends and family.

Ulvaeus posted a number of photos from the day, one of which showed the host of BBC show QI, Toksvig, dressed in red robes standing next to Ulvaeus, who donned a suit, and his wife Sas, who wore a green wrap dress.

The broadcaster Gyles Brandreth said in a post to Instagram that he had “loved meeting Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus” and Sas for his Rosebud podcast.

He added that Toksvig had officiated the ceremony and Ulvaeus said she made the day “extra special”.

TV presenter Toksvig has been friends with Björn since the pair collaborated on Mamma Mia: The Party! in 2018.

Ulvaeus is known for being one quarter of Swedish pop group Abba, who this year celebrated 50 years since their winning performance at the Eurovision Song Contest with their song Waterloo.

The group was comprised two couples – Ulvaeus and Agnetha Faltskog, and Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

The Swedish musician married Abba bandmate Fältskog in 1971. The pair had two children, Linda, 49, and Peter, 44, before divorcing in 1980.

Andersson and Lyngstad also divorced in 1981, a year before the band split.

The quartet did not reform to perform at Eurovision 2024 despite the event being held in Malmo, Sweden.

Ulvaeus was also previously married to Lena Kallersjo, from 1981-2022.

Planned power cuts in Ecuador have begun a day early as severe drought disrupts its hydroelectric plants.

The country is suffering its worst drought in 60 years, with no significant rainfall in more than two months.

The government had already announced nightly blackouts across the country from Monday, but 12 provinces had their power cut from 08:00 to 17:00 local time over the weekend.

Several South American countries are currently experiencing their worst droughts on record, which is also fuelling a number of wildfires.

Hydroelectric plants cover 70% of Ecuador’s electricity demand, but the water reserves that fuel it have fallen to critical levels.

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa said there could be further cuts and other emergency measures introduced if water levels in the hydroelectric plants are not restored soon.

In addition to the 71 days without rain, Noboa also blamed the emergency on political failings.

In a statement, the president blamed the power crisis on the failure of previous governments to adequately maintain infrastructure and the lack of contingency planning.

A red alert has been imposed in 15 provinces including the capital Quito.

Sixty neighbourhoods in Quito have had their water supplies cut as part of rationing measures.

It was less than six months ago that Ecuadorians were last rationing electricity.

In April, drought saw the country impose power cuts of up to 13 hours a day.

The current drought is certainly not contained to Ecuador – several other countries in South America are suffering the impact of the worst drought in living memory

Extreme drought has devastated vast areas of the Amazon and the Pantanal in Brazil, Bolivia and Peru.

In Colombia, firefighters are battling dozens of fires, which have so far ravaged almost 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres).

Earlier this week, Peru’s government declared a 60-day state of emergency in the jungle regions bordering Brazil and Ecuador which have been worst affected by forest fires.

The drought has also weakened the vast Amazon River, affecting food supplies and the livelihoods of locals.

Last week, the Brazilian Geological Service (SGB) said water levels in many of the rivers in the Amazon basin had reached their lowest on record.

In 2023, the Amazon basin suffered its most severe drought in at least 45 years – which scientists at the World Weather Attribution group found had been made many times more likely by climate change.

Cathay Pacific has banned a Hong Kong couple from its flights after their row with a mainland Chinese traveller over her reclining seat.

The Chinese woman had complained on social media that she was harassed by the couple seated behind her on a Cathay flight after reclining her seat.

The Hong Kong flag carrier said on Sunday that it had added the couple to its no-fly list, saying it has “a strict zero-tolerance policy” towards behaviours that disrespect fellow passengers.

The Chinese woman’s post on social media platform Xiaohongshu, which captured part of the confrontation, had garnered 194,000 likes as of Monday morning and drawn mixed reactions online.

The incident took place on a flight from Hong Kong to London on 17 September.

In her post, the Chinese woman recalled how the middle-aged couple – a husband and wife – had accused her of obstructing their view of the in-flight television and asked her to straighten her seat.

When she refused, the wife stretched her legs and put them on the armrests of her seat, then started scolding her in Cantonese and slapping her arm, the woman said.

“When she realised I couldn’t speak Cantonese, she started calling me ‘mainland girl’ in a derogatory tone,” she said.

The husband, who was seated directly behind her, “frantically pushed” the back of her seat, the woman said. Her video showed the seat vibrating.

Another scene showed the wife raising her middle finger at the woman.

The woman then sought help from a flight attendant, who suggested that she straighten her seat.

“I was shocked because it was not meal time, yet the flight attendant wanted me to compromise,” the woman said. “I rejected the suggestion.”

Several passengers who witnessed the incident criticised the Hong Kong couple’s behaviour.

“Don’t call yourself a Hong Konger, you bully,” one passenger said.

Another said, “This is too much. How old are you? Why are you bullying a young girl?”

The woman’s post on Xiaohongshu sparked similar outrage.

“If they want more space, they should have paid for first-class seats,” one person wrote.

Several commenters were quick to defend Hong Kong’s reputation, with one saying “Most people in Hong Kong are kind, this couple is an exception.”

It has also triggered a debate on whether reclining one’s aeroplane seat is an acceptable practice.

Several users said that it should be acceptable, given that the ability to recline is a built-in function of the seats.

Others said it can get uncomfortable when passengers in front recline their seats too far back.

A suspected gunman arrested near Donald Trump’s golf-course wrote a note months earlier saying he intended to kill the former president, a court filing shows.

“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump,” the note says.

In documents filed on Monday, prosecutors said the letter was dropped off at the home of a witness several months before the 15 September incident in Florida.

Ryan Routh, 58, is expected to appear at a federal court later on Monday and could face further charges.

He is so far facing two federal gun crime charges.

The pre-written letter, addressed to “The World”, appears to pre-empt a failed assassination attempt. “I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster,” it reads.

Routh, who told a judge during his first court appearance last week that he had no funds and no savings, then says in the letter that he would pay a cash reward to anyone “who can complete the job”.

A box containing the letter – as well as ammunition, building materials, tools and four phones – were dropped off at the home of the unnamed witness before the incident, according to the court documents filed by prosecutors.

The documents were filed in support of Routh’s continued pre-trial detention.

In the filing, prosecutors state that the unnamed witness, whose relation to Routh is unclear, opened the box after learning of the apparent assassination attempt.

Routh has been held in jail since his arrest on 15 September.

A Secret Service agent spotted his face in foliage while securing the sixth hole of Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach before noticing a rifle, prosecutors say.

The agent then jumped out of his golf cart, drew his gun and fired after seeing Routh allegedly move his gun, the court filing says. Routh did not fire his gun at any point during the incident, police have said.

The suspect managed to flee and left the weapon and some other items at the scene. He was arrested shortly afterwards after a witness spotted him on the Interstate 95, a major highway.

Court documents indicate he had 11 rounds of ammunition, one of which was chambered in the rifle.

Investigators also found a handwritten list in his vehicle of dates where Trump had public appearances scheduled between August and October.

Phone records show that Routh had been in the vicinity of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort for nearly a month between 18 August and 15 September.

Routh is originally from North Carolina and spent much of his life there, although he most recently lived in Hawaii. He has had numerous legal issues in the past, including multiple charges for stolen goods between 1997 and 2010.

In 2022, Routh went to Ukraine in a failed bid to recruit foreign soldiers for Ukraine’s military following the country’s invasion by Russian forces.

The American reportedly contacted the legion on a regular basis with ideas described by one Ukrainian soldier as “nonsensical” and “delusional”.

The suspect had also admitted to being turned down himself, claiming it was down to his age and lack of fighting experience.

Monday’s hearing is set to determine whether he should remain in custody. Prosecutors say he is a flight risk and a danger to the community.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged top tech companies in the US to explore India as a destination for manufacturing and innovation.

He met CEOs of tech companies in New York a day after attending the annual meeting of Quad countries, which also includes the US, Australia and Japan.

India has been positioning itself as an alternative to China to attract global firms looking at diversifying their supply chains.

The country has been particularly focusing on manufacturing of semiconductors in the past few years but it still lags far behind major suppliers like China and Taiwan.

Modi’s meeting with the tech leaders on Monday was attended by 15 top CEOs, including Google’s Sundar Pichai, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, IBM’s Arvind Krishna and NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang.

Addressing the gathering, Modi said, “they can co-develop, co-design, and co-produce in India for the world”.

India’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the roundtable meeting touched upon technology’s use in innovations, “which have the potential to revolutionise the global economy and human development”.

Modi also addressed a rally of Indian-Americans whom he called “brand ambassadors” of the country and told the crowd of 15,000 in New York that India was key to “global development, global peace, global climate action, global innovations, global supply chains”.

On Saturday, Modi met US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the Quad summit and the two countries signed several agreements.

The India-US semiconductor pact – which they have described as a “watershed arrangement” – aims to establish a fabrication plant which will produce chips for national security, next-generation telecommunications and green energy applications, said a joint release.

This is India’s first such project with the US in which the country will provide chips to the US armed forces, allied militaries and Indian military.

Previous attempts at building homegrown semiconductor manufacturing industry in India have not seen desired results. But as the US aims to build resilience against China’s semiconductor industry – vital for modern technology – the deal gives a renewed fillip to India.

The Indian Express newspaper reported that the plant will focus on “three essential pillars for modern war fighting: advanced sensing, advanced communications and high voltage power electronics”.

The two leaders or the joint statement didn’t make any mention of the ongoing tensions over the targeting of Sikh leaders in the US and Canada. Sikh separatist leaders, who have been demanding a separate homeland to be carved out of India for decades, say they have faced threats and assassination attempts by groups backed by India. India denies the allegations.

This was Modi’s first US visit since he won his third term in June and it came weeks before the US presidential elections, where the Democrats are vying for re-election against former President Donald Trump of the Republican party.

Last week, Trump had announced that Modi was “a fantastic man” and he was going to meet him. But Indian diplomats were quiet about this meeting and it hasn’t happened so far.

On Saturday, the Quad leaders issued a joint communique which focused largely on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region.

“We strongly oppose any destabilising or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion…We seek a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated – one where all countries are free from coercion, and can exercise their agency to determine their futures,” the statement read.

Analysts say the statement didn’t name China but a large part of the message was aimed at the country. They also noticed that the language appeared to be much stronger.

“The language in the joint statement on provocations in the South China Sea, while not directly referring to China, is stronger than it’s ever been before. And that’s because all four Quad states are increasingly concerned about the escalation in Chinese activities there,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Centre think-tank in Washington.

The Quad partners also announced the expansion of maritime surveillance, a pilot logistics network for natural disasters and a project to combat cervical cancer.

In Latino exile communities across the country, a question is being asked: is Kamala Harris really a communist?

The vice-president has been the subject of numerous misleading claims that she is a socialist or communist since becoming the Democratic candidate for president, according to the US’s largest Spanish-language fact-checker Factchequeado.

Experts say these claims capitalise on genuine fears held by some voters who fled repression in countries like Cuba and Venezuela.

In one viral video, Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz appear to pose for a selfie in front of a sign for Revolutionary Communists of America, a far-left group.

The video is fake. The background was doctored by a group of Donald Trump’s supporters known as the Dilley Meme Team.

Their original post had more than 420,000 views, but it was shared by many Spanish accounts – and repeated offline.

“It’s everywhere, this doubt: ‘Is this person a communist?’” Evelyn Pérez-Verdía, a cultural context strategist from south Florida, told the BBC.

She was listening to the Spanish-language radio station La Nueva Poderosa in Miami when she heard the hosts discussing the false meme.

“Did you see them standing in front of that picture? They have no shame in who they are,” the hosts said.

She contacted the station to point out it was a fake video. The hosts later said on air that they wanted to clarify the story was “not true” but that “doesn’t take away from the reality that Kamala is a Marxist”.

There are nearly 36.2 million eligible Latino voters in America, about 14.7% of the US electorate, and many live in key swing states like Nevada and Arizona, which makes them a coveted demographic for both campaigns.

They are by no means a homogeneous voting demographic, but historically, Latinos have tended to favour the Democrats. In 2020, 44% voted for Joe Biden, with only 16% voting for Trump. But polls suggest Republicans have gained ground this election cycle, with many factors cited including the economy, immigration, and abortion rights.

And for some immigrants, concerns about America today reflect their past experiences in their home countries.

Political messages warning about “socialism” or “communism” have been particularly prevalent in communities with large Cuban and Venezuelan populations, like in south Florida, experts noted.

These expats are especially vulnerable to misinformation about communism because of the trauma they experienced fleeing repression, said Samantha Barrios, a Venezuelan-American based in Miami, Florida, who votes Democrat.

She accused right-leaning Spanish media of using these terms to “scare Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans” because of “the main reason that we left our countries, trying to leave these regimes”.

For some, their criticism of the Democrats is grounded in opinions that the US government has not provided a tough enough response to political repression in Cuba or Venezuela.

But Ms Barrio is wary of the way these legitimate concerns are being weaponised through false claims that Kamala Harris herself is a communist.

Ms Pérez-Verdía agrees, but she also criticised the Democrat campaign for not doing enough to address their concerns.

“Don’t laugh off people’s fears. It’s really disrespectful. People have genuine fears, they came to the United States, they left everything behind. If they have doubts you should address their doubts.”

Not all claims exclusively target Latinos, said the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas (DDIA), which monitors more than 1,300 WhatsApp groups and more than 200 Telegram channels in Spanish and Portuguese.

And notable right-wing and pro-Trump actors and influencers have pushed a “fear of socialism” since 2020, the organisation found.

But while Joe Biden was accused of being a communist when he ran for president, Factchequeado’s founder, Laura Zommer, said their fact checkers had “never” seen this volume of AI and doctored images before.

Some of this misinformation has been spread by Trump himself, or his high-profile supporters.

Elon Musk, who has endorsed Trump, posted a faked image of Kamala Harris in a red uniform emblazoned with the communist hammer and sickle, captioned “Kamala vows to be a communist dictator on day one. Can you believe she wears that outfit!?”

It had more than 83.9 million views. A reverse image search suggests this was the earliest posting of the image on X.

• Trump makes pitch to black and Latino voters in New York
• Major labour union declines to endorse Harris or Trump
• The political brawl brewing on Florida’s airwaves

Donald Trump shared an AI image of Harris addressing a communist crowd that had at least 81.5 million views on X, but it was not the first posting of this image.

Posts linking Harris to communism really took off online after the presidential debate, according a report by the DDIA prepared for the BBC.

During the debate, Donald Trump called Kamala Harris and her father a “Marxist” and suggested she would turn the US into “Venezuela on steroids” through her immigration policies.

After the debate, “Marxista” trended on social media and searches for “Marxist” on Google in the US jumped 1000% in 17 hours.

Factchequeado said the most searched question in Spanish after the debate was: “Who is Kamala Harris’s father?”

The DDIA said two claims especially gained traction in the week after the presidential debate. In one, a fabricated document falsely claiming Kamala Harris is a member of the Russian communist party went viral, according to Meta’s own metrics. Another claim, that Harris is “Kamarada [Comrade] Kamala”, arose from a Trump speech in which he portrays her as a “communist comrade”.

BBC Verify traced the membership card image to a website which allows people to make fake communist party documents.

The membership number, stamp and other details on the card were identical to a template on the site for making a party membership card.

Posts sharing the fake image, which was first shared in August, have been viewed more than half a million times.

The Democratic Party is not a socialist party, nor does it claim to support communist regimes. But some high-profile members like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have described their political views as “democratic socialist”.

When she was a California senator, Harris co-sponsored Sanders’ Medicare for All bill, which would have brought a single-payer health care system to the US. She has since said she no longer supports a single-payer health-care system, which would have abolished private insurers.

She has never advocated for communist policies, such as the abolition or seizure of private property.

Kamala Harris’s plan to crackdown on “price gouging” at supermarkets has been cited in Spanish social media posts as “communist”. Mr Musk claimed it would mean “empty shelves, just like in Venezuela”.

Her proposal, which would involve asking the trade commission to investigate price spikes far above the increase in the cost of production, is a far cry from the widespread price controls seen in Cuba and Venezuela that were in part blamed for severe food shortages.

But for some voters who fled those countries, their fear lies in anything they feel remotely resembles policies from the countries they came from.

Duke Machado, who runs a Latino Republican Facebook page from Texas called Latino Strikeforce, said he fears that if the Democrats win, the country would be on a slippery slope to communism.

“If we’re not careful, we’ll slide into Cuba and Venezuela. Their ultimate goal is to destroy capitalism.”

When asked if it was responsible to share fears that the Democrats could turn the US into a communist country with his followers, including Latino exiles who had fled repression, he said: “It’s not irresponsible at all. I see it as a duty.”

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• EXPLAINER: Seven swing states that could decide election
• FACT CHECK: Was US economy stronger under Biden or Trump?
• POLICIES: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Sri Lanka’s new president Anura Kumara Dissanayake has been sworn into office, promising “clean” politics as the country recovers from its worst economic crisis.

The left-leaning Dissanayake has cast himself as a disruptor of the status quo, and analysts see his victory as a rejection of corruption and cronyism that has long plagued the country.

Saturday’s election was the first since 2022, when discontent over the economy fuelled mass protests and chased former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa from power.

“We need to establish a new clean political culture,” he said. “I commit to achieving this. We will do the utmost to win back the people’s respect and trust in the political system.”

The 55-year-old, who is familiarly known as AKD, told Sri Lankans that “democracy doesn’t end with voting in a leader”.

“We need to strengthen democracy. I pledge to do my utmost to safeguard democracy,” he said.

“I have said before that I am not a magician – I am an ordinary citizen. There are things I know and don’t know. My aim is to gather those with the knowledge and skills to help lift this country.”

Dissanayake received a Buddhist blessing at the end of his speech. Representatives of Sri Lanka’s other main religions – Islam, Hinduism and Christianity – were also present during the oath-taking, highlighting the new president’s emphasis on diversity.

In a statement on the eve of the ceremony, Dissanayake said the “unity of Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and all Sri Lankans is the bedrock of this new beginning”.

During the campaign, Dissanayake promised voters good governance and tough anti-corruption measures.

He has promised to develop Sri Lanka’s manufacturing, agriculture and IT sectors. He has also committed to continuing the deal struck with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail Sri Lanka out of the economic crisis while reducing the impact of its austerity measures on the country’s poorest.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena resigned before Dissanayake was sworn in, paving the way for the dissolution of parliament.

In an earlier interview with BBC Sinhala, Dissanayake signalled that he would dissolve parliament soon after being elected.

“There is no point continuing with a parliament that is not in line with what the people want,” he said at the time.

Dissanayake won after the counting stretched into a second round on Sunday, as no candidate was able to win more than 50% of the total votes in the first round.

Once the second and third-choice votes for president had been tallied, the Election Commission said Dissanayake had won with a total of 5,740,179 votes.

Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa came in second at 4,530,902. Outgoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe got 2,299,767 during the first round of counting and was excluded from the second round.

Wickremesinghe congratulated his successor, saying: “With much love and respect for this beloved nation, I hand over its future to the new president”.

Until this weekend’s vote, all of Sri Lanka’s eight presidential elections since 1982 had seen the winner emerge during the first round of counting. This poll has been described as one of the closest in the country’s history.

Dissanayake’s anti-corruption platform resonated strongly with voters who have been clamouring for systemic change since the crisis.

This enabled him to overcome trepidation over the violent past of his political party, the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which carried out two armed insurrections against the Sri Lankan state in the 1970s and 80s.

Dissanayake’s alliance, the National People’s Power – of which the JVP is a part – rose to prominence during the 2022 protests, known as the Aragalaya – Sinhala for struggle.

Dissanayake has also sought to moderate the hard-left stance of his party in more recent years.

The country’s new president will be faced with the twin tasks of reviving the economy and lifting millions from crushing poverty.

An economic meltdown fuelled the Aragalaya uprising that unseated Rajapaksa from the presidential palace in 2022.

At that time, Sri Lanka’s foreign currency reserves had dried up, leaving the country unable to import essentials such as fuel. Public debt ballooned to $83bn while inflation soared to 70%.

This made basics such as food and medicine unaffordable to ordinary people.

The country’s economic misery has been blamed on major policy errors, weak exports and years of under-taxation. This was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which choked tourism, a key economic driver.

Many people have also blamed corruption and mismanagement, however, stoking anger against Rajapaksa and his family, who collectively ruled Sri Lanka for more than 10 years.

“The most serious challenge is how to restore this economy,” Dr Athulasiri Samarakoon, a political scientist at the Open University of Sri Lanka, told the BBC Sinhala Service.

During his term Wickremesinghe secured a $2.9bn lifeline from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is crucial to opening additional funding channels but comes with strict economic and governance policy reforms.

Sri Lanka is restructuring the terms of its debt payments with foreign and domestic lenders, as mandated by the IMF. The main focus has been the country’s $36bn worth of foreign debt, of which $7bn is owed to China, its largest bilateral creditor.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has congratulated Dissanayake and said he hoped to broaden co-operation with Sri Lanka under his Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

Like Dissanayake, Premadasa also pushed for IT development, as well as the establishment of 25 new industrial zones. He said tourism should be supported so that it becomes the country’s top foreign currency earner.

Wickremesinghe said during the campaign that he would double tourist arrivals and establish a national wealth fund, as well as new economic zones to increase growth.

A transcript from a key meeting at the firm behind the ill-fated Titan submersible has revealed the CEO said in 2018: “No-one is dying under my watch – period.”

It captures a heated exchange between OceanGate chief Stockton Rush and his former director of marine operations, David Lochridge, plus three other staff.

The log shows Mr Lochridge raised safety concerns, to which Rush responded: “I have no desire to die… I think this is one of the safest things I will ever do.”

The document was released by the US Coast Guard as part of its inquiry into the June 2023 disaster when the sub imploded while journeying to the Titanic shipwreck. All five passengers were killed, including Rush.

OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations following the incident, which led to questions about the submersible’s safety and design.

During two weeks of hearings, investigators are seeking to uncover what led to the tragedy, and to make recommendations to avoid repeat incidents.

• Watch and follow live updates from hearing
• Key takeaways from first week of Titan sub hearings
• Whistleblower testifies Titan sub tragedy was ‘inevitable’

The transcript was uploaded to the inquiry website on Friday, but sections of the document were redacted.

The US Coast Guard has now confirmed to BBC News who was speaking in this key exchange during the two-hour meeting.

Mr Lochridge – who gave evidence at the public inquiry last week as a former OceanGate employee – was called to the meeting on 19 January 2018.

He had compiled a “quality inspection report”, which raised serious problems with the sub’s design.

These included concerns about the poor quality of the sub’s hull, which was made of carbon fibre, and issues with the way Titan was being constructed and tested.

He told the inquiry last week: “That meeting turned out to be a two-hour, 10-minute discussion… on my termination and how my disagreements with the organisation, with regards to safety, didn’t matter.”

The 2018 meeting was recorded, and the transcript captures Mr Lochridge saying: “I am addressing what I view as safety concerns, concerns I have mentioned verbally… which have been dismissed by everybody.”

Stockton Rush was recorded replying: “I’ve listened to them, and I have given you my response to them, and you think my response is inadequate.”

Rush went on to say: “Everything I’ve done on this project is people telling me it won’t work – you can’t do that.”

After telling the meeting attendees that he had no desire to die and that he believed his sub was safe, Rush continued by saying: “I’ve got a nice granddaughter. I am going to be around. I understand this kind of risk, and I’m going into it with eyes open and I think this is one of the safest things I will ever do.”

He then added: “I can come up with 50 reasons why we have to call it off and we fail as a company. I’m not dying. No one is dying under my watch – period.”

Mr Lochridge was fired after the meeting and then took his concerns to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha).

But he said the US government agency was slow and failed to act. After increasing pressure from OceanGate’s lawyers, he dropped the case and signed a non-disclosure agreement.

At the end of his evidence to the Titan inquiry last week, he said that if the authorities had properly investigated OceanGate, the tragedy would have been averted.

In other developments related to the case, the US Coast Guard has also released an image of Titan showing how its dome fell off as the submersible was lifted out of the sea following a dive in 2021.

A paying passenger who was on that particular Titan mission described the incident during his own testimony on Friday.

Fred Hagen said: “The force of the platform hitting the deck… it basically sheared off several bolts and they shot off like bullets. And the titanium dome fell off.”

This was one of 118 technical incidents listed by the US Coast Guard with Titan dives to the Titanic that took place before the 2023 disaster.

The public hearings continue this week.

Monday’s evidence comes from OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein, the company’s former engineering director Phil Brooks and Roy Thomas from the American Bureau of Shipping.

Former President Donald Trump has said he does not expect to run for election again in 2028 if he is defeated in this November’s US presidential poll.

Trump, 78, has been the Republican candidate for three national elections in a row and has reshaped the party greatly over the last eight years.

In an interview with Sinclair Media Group, he was asked if he could foresee another run in the event that he loses to Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris. “No, I don’t. I think… that will be it,” Trump said. “I don’t see that at all.”

But he added that “hopefully, we’re going to be very successful”.

US law bars presidents from serving more than two terms, and so Trump is not expected to run in 2028 if he wins, either.

In the past, the real estate mogul has rarely acknowledged the possibility of losing the election, more often firing up supporters with speeches and social media posts pledging victory at the polls.

But this is the second time in four days he has mentioned a chance of defeat.

During an event held by the Israeli-American Council on Thursday, he brought up losing, and suggested that any such loss would partly be the fault of Jewish voters.

“Do they know what the hell is happening if I don’t win this election?” he said, according to various media reports. “And the Jewish people would have to do a lot with that if that happens because at 40% [support] that means 60% of the people are voting for the enemy.”

The comments were condemned by the Harris campaign and by the nonpartisan American Jewish Committee and Anti-Defamation League.

Trump’s acknowledgments of a possible loss may reflect how the Democratic Party’s prospects have changed since Harris became its nominee following President Joe Biden’s decision to quit the race.

Her campaign raised more than $190m (£142m) in August, compared to $130m brought in by the Trump campaign and affiliated organisations.

In national polling averages tracked by the BBC she is ahead of Trump, and a poll released on Sunday by CBS indicated she leads Trump 52% to 48% nationally.

In key US battleground states which look set to prove decisive to the overall result, Harris has a narrower lead of 51% to 49%, which is a slight improvement from the even 50% in a similar poll conducted last month by CBS, the BBC’s news partner.

• Who won the Harris-Trump presidential debate?
• Watch key moments from Harris-Trump clash

Another poll released on Sunday by NBC indicated Harris had a five percentage point lead over Trump across the US.

It also found that 48% of registered voters see her positively compared to 32% in July – the largest jump since then-President George W Bush’s favourability surged after the 11 September 2001 attacks.

But like other surveys, the NBC poll suggested Trump held a clear advantage with voters on some of the election’s biggest issues, including the economy, the cost of living and immigration.

The BBC has contacted the Trump campaign for comment on the polling data.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• EXPLAINER: Seven swing states that could decide election
• FACT CHECK: Was US economy stronger under Biden or Trump?
• POLICIES: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

North Korea secured a record-equalling third victory in the Fifa Under-20 Women’s World Cup on Sunday, beating Japan 1-0 in Bogota.

They became the joint most successful side in the football tournament’s history, equalling powerhouse nations Germany and the United States.

Choe Il-son’s 15th minute winner capped a superb tournament for North Korea, who won every single game in Colombia.

The 17-year-old forward finished as the competition’s overall top scorer, winning the Golden Boot with six goals.

“It’s so hard to express ourselves right now – this has been a dream of so many of us for so long,” said North Korea’s captain, Chae Un-yong.

“The final match was tough, as we expected, and we had to remain calm and play according to the coach’s tactical instructions.”

North Korea stormed their way through the tournament, despatching the likes of Argentina, the Netherlands and Brazil en route to the semis.

A 1-0 victory over the United States set up an all-Asian final against Japan – who finished as runners-up in the previous tournament in 2022.

Choe’s goal – a slightly deflected left foot strike – was enough to secure a historic win for North Korea in the El Camin Stadium

She was named player of the match and won both the Golden Boot and the Golden Ball, the latter being awarded to the World Cup’s best overall player.

North Korea’s triumph is even more notable given the country withdrew from global sporting competition for several years due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Having not played a match since 2018, the North Korean Women’s U20 returned to the international stage in March this year to compete in the Asian Cup in Uzbekistan.

Despite the six-year-break, they won that tournament, beating Japan 2-1 to secure their second title.

“To firstly win the Asian Cup and now follow that with this success means that I’m so proud of the team,” said the team coach, Ri Song-ho, following their World Cup triumph.

“We have shown that we are very dangerous in the way that we build up attacks, it’s all about the speed of how we go forward.”

Unlike their male counterparts – who are ranked 111th in the world – North Korea’s women are a genuine force in world football.

The senior side is currently ninth in the Fifa world rankings, higher than countries such as France and Australia.

To date, they have won three Asian Cups, three Asian Games and three East Asian Championships.

North Koreans rarely get to see their national sides play at home, though.

The country’s limited transport connections with the outside world – as well as its poor diplomatic relations with many governments – mean that the vast majority of North Korea’s “home” matches are played at a neutral venue, often in China or the Middle East.

Half a billion fans, a multi-million dollar personal fortune and a global business empire.

It would take a lot to dethrone YouTube’s biggest influencer Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast.

But a 54-page court document could be his toughest test yet.

Five female contestants on upcoming Prime Video show Beast Games are launching legal action against his production company MrB2024 and Amazon in Los Angeles.

Billed as the largest ever reality competition series, 1,000 contestants are set to compete for a $5m (£3.7m) prize when the show airs – or if it airs. The lawsuit has plunged the show into crisis.

Among many redacted pages, the legal document includes allegations that they “particularly and collectively suffered” in an environment that “systematically fostered a culture of misogyny and sexism”.

It cuts to the core of MrBeast’s image as one of the nicest guys on the internet.

I flicked through the document, which includes suggestions that participants were “underfed and overtired”. Meals were provided “sporadically and sparsely” which “endangered the health and welfare” of the contestants, it is claimed.

In one section where almost all of the claims are redacted from public view, it says the defendants “created, permitted to exist, and fostered a culture and pattern and practice of sexual harassment including in the form of a hostile work environment”.

Back in August, the New York Times spoke to more than a dozen of the (yet unreleased) show’s participants, and reported there were “several hospitalisations” on the set, with one person telling the paper they had gone over 20 hours without being fed.

Contestants also alleged they had not received their medication on time.

The BBC has approached MrBeast and Amazon – he has not yet publicly commented.

So will these latest allegations hurt the king of YouTube’s popularity?

MrBeast is no stranger to controversy this year – and has managed to come out unscathed each time.

In July, the 26-year-old American said he had hired investigators after his former co-host Ava Kris Tyson was accused of grooming a teenager.

Ava denied the allegations, but has apologised for “past behaviour” which was “not acceptable”.

MrBeast said he was “disgusted” by the “serious allegations”.

Later, further allegations about business practices surfaced on an anonymous YouTube channel, claiming to be a former employee. The BBC has not been able to independently verify the claims or this person’s identity.

Some of his philanthropic efforts – such as building wells in Africa, and paying for surgery for people with reduced sight and hearing – have drawn criticisms around exploitation.

“Deaf people like me deserve better than MrBeast’s latest piece of inspiration porn,” one person told the Independent last year.

But his empire continues to grow. The day before the lawsuit emerged on Wednesday, he revealed a team-up with fellow famous faces KSI and Logan Paul – a new food line designed to challenge Lunchables.

And as I wrote in an article about his meteoric rise last year, he has made his millions through hard work.

His videos are big budget experiences, with his most popular – viewed 652 million times – recreating the Netflix hit Squid Game in real life with a $456,000 (£342,000) prize.

Most of his philanthropy is less controversial – including giving away houses, cash and cars – which has worked to create an image of him being one of the internet’s good guys.

According to his website, he has delivered more than 25 million meals to the needy around the world.

People continue to flock to his social channels. In June, he gained enough subscribers to make his YouTube channel the largest in the world.

According to stats-checker Socialblade, MrBeast picked up an extra five million subscribers in the last 30 days alone.

That’s just one metric – we can’t tell how many people unsubscribed from his channel, for example.

What is certain is that the number of people who’ve actively decided to stop watching his videos has been eclipsed by those who’ve decided to subscribe.

He wouldn’t be the only YouTuber whose popularity holds through controversy – others have faced far more significant storms than MrBeast, with few facing many consequences outside of a public apology.

Logan Paul faced a massive backlash in 2018 after he uploaded a video to his 15 million subscribers which showed the body of a person who had apparently taken their own life.

After removing the original video, he shared a less than two-minute apology titled simply: “So sorry.”

Now, he has 23 million subscribers, owns an incredibly popular sports drink, and up until August was the WWE United States champion. He’s had quite a few pay-per-view boxing bouts, too.

Other high-profile YouTubers, including Pewdiepie, James Charles, and Jeffree Star have all had their own controversies, and got on with their careers after uploading apology videos.

A more modern example is Herschel “Guy” Beahm, known online as Dr Disrespect, who admitted he sent messages to “an individual minor” in 2017.

He stressed that “nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed” and went offline for two months after posting the statement.

His comeback livestream earlier this month attracted more than three million views, despite criticism from other high-profile streamers.

Dr Disrespect remains the second-most watched streamer in the US this year, according to Streams Charts.

The point is: YouTubers tend to be forgiven quickly.

While MrBeast’s fanbase has continued growing, controversy is swirling once again – and his next move could determine his long-term success.

James Lunn, chief strategy officer at Savvy Marketing, says the star is “in an incredibly unique position” with a “multi-faceted” brand spanning many industries.

“We are indeed in uncharted waters,” he says, and “a proactive approach, addressing the issues transparently and ensuring accountability, could protect his brand”.

Brand expert Catherine Shuttleworth says the “sheer scale” of MrBeast’s fame may act as a buffer against backlash, but the latest lawsuit could be difficult.

“When it comes to his business ventures, particularly those targeting families and children – like Feastables chocolate bars or Lunchly – it’s a different story,” she says.

“Parents, who often hold the purchasing power, tend to be less tolerant of controversies involving safety, fairness, and ethics.”

Back in August 2023, when writing about MrBeast, I predicted he would soon take the YouTube crown despite him having half as many subscribers then.

He is now facing extra challenges as his fame rises, and a lot of the internet is eagerly awaiting his reply to what is, so far, one side of a complex story.

Human rights in Russia have “severely deteriorated” since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, culminating in a “systematic crackdown” on civil society, a UN report has found.

The investigation details police brutality, widespread repression of independent media and persistent attempts to silence Kremlin critics using punitive new laws.

Mariana Katzarova, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Russia, was denied entry into the country and compiled the report by speaking to political groups, activists and lawyers.

She found “credible reports” of torture and allegations of sexual violence, rape and threats of sexual abuse by police.

The Kremlin has not commented publicly since its release.

Human rights abuses in Russia have been well documented during the Vladimir Putin era, but the latest UN report pays particular attention to how the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has accelerated what it says was previously a “steady decline”.

It details how laws passed in recent years targeting the spread of so-called fake news, and individuals or organisations deemed to have received foreign support, have sought to “muzzle” any opposition, both physically and online.

The new laws have led to “mass arbitrary arrests” and long prison sentences, it adds.

Among the cases the report highlights is that of Artyom Kamardin, who was jailed for seven years for reading an anti-war poem in public – an act authorities deemed to be “inciting hatred”.

Ms Katzarova told the BBC: “Russians are getting shockingly long prison sentences.

“It’s seven years for reading an anti war-poem, or saying a prayer by a priest which was against the war, or producing a play perceived to be anti-war. Two women are still in prison for that in Russia.”

She praised those who continue to organise despite threats and said she believes opposition to the war is quietly widespread.

“As in any totalitarian, authoritarian state, people don’t want to get in trouble – it doesn’t mean that they are supportive of some madness, an aggressive war against their neighbour,” she added.

The report accuses the government of seeking to propagate its views on the Ukraine conflict among children via the introduction of mandatory school lessons, officially labelled as “important conversations”.

“Children refusing to attend such classes and their parents are subject to pressure and harassment,” it adds. The report highlights the case of a fifth-grader from Moscow who was interrogated by police after skipping the class, before their mother was charged with “failing to fulfil parental duties”.

• Fined for yellow and blue shoes: How Russian laws smother dissent

It found that many men sent to Ukraine “have been mobilised by deception, the use of force, or by taking advantage of their vulnerability”, while those who have refused to fight have been held in detention centres in occupied areas and “threatened with execution, violence or a prison sentence if they did not return to the front lines”.

Men from indigenous communities make up a disproportionate number of those drafted into the army, it found, and there is evidence “authorities have imposed travel restrictions, blocking exit routes from towns and villages during mobilisation sweeps”.

Ms Katzarova said: “Indigenous people… are really facing extinction if this continues.

“I think, partly my guess and the trends that indigenous leaders are painting, is that this is part of the Russian authorities really wanting to send to the front line ‘disposable people’, not the Slavs from St Petersburg or Moscow.”

Elsewhere in the report:

• It accuses judges of acting as a “mouthpiece” for the government because of the depth of political interference
• It describes Russia as an “increasingly homophobic society”, pointing to recent laws curtailing the freedoms of LGBT+ people
• It says female anti-war activists have been disproportionately affected by the crackdown on dissent and are “even more vulnerable in custody”
• It describes a “climate of fear and repression” amid widespread police brutality in Chechnya, adding that the southern republic should serve as a “warning” for what could happen elsewhere in Russia

The report deals with human rights in Russia’s internationally recognised borders, so does not comment on reported abuses in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.