Tim Walz and JD Vance, the US Democratic and Republican candidates for vice-president, will face off on Tuesday in what is likely to be the last debate showdown between the two parties’ election tickets before polling day in exactly five weeks’ time.

The pair – who have had sharp words for each other at a distance – will engage in verbal combat in close quarters at a CBS-hosted event in New York, with the stakes raised by polling evidence that shows the contest between the two presidential nominees, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, poised on a knife edge.

With Trump, the Republican nominee, continuing to refuse demands from Harris, his Democratic opponent, for a second presidential debate, much may ride on how the clash between Walz and Vance unfolds.

The 90-minute duel will have added piquancy after Walz, the 60-year-old governor of Minnesota, memorably described Vance as “weird” while casting him as a key architect of Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for a radical shake-up of American government and society that would crack down intensely on immigration, vanquish LGBTQ+ and abortion rights, diminish environmental protections, overhaul financial policy and take aggressive action against China.

Vance, 40, a senator for Ohio who has reinvented himself as a political attack dog for Trump despite disparaging him before entering politics, has hit back by depicting his opponent as a far-left liberal and accusing him of serially misrepresenting aspects of his military service in the national guard.

He has also thrown the “weird” jibe back at Walz after the Democratic vice-presidential nominee said his children had been born with the help of IVF – which Vance once voted as a senator to oppose – before it emerged that he and his wife had used a different form of fertility treatment.

The potential for fireworks could be further raised by the fact that CBS’s rules of engagement preclude its moderators, Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, from fact-checking the candidates in real time – as happened at last month’s ABC debate between Harris and Trump in Philadelphia. Instead, the two men will be expected to fact-check each other.

Vance enters the debate with arguably more to gain. Since his selection as Trump’s running mate, his approval figures have been consistently in the negatives amid a string of disclosures over derogatory comments about childless women, whom he branded “childless cat ladies”.

He has also drawn fire for his role in promoting a debunked rumour about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets, before later telling CNN – unapologetically – that the story had been “created” for the purpose of calling attention to “the suffering of the American people”.

Amid the opprobrium, the Yale-educated Vance – who has prepared for the debate by holding rehearsals with a small team that includes the House Republican whip, Tom Emmer, playing the role of Walz, and his wife, Usha, as an adviser – has gained a high profile by embracing the role of articulator of Trump’s fiercely anti-immigrant America-first populism.

Walz, by contrast, has achieved more encouraging polling numbers yet has adopted a low-key posture since Harris chose him as her running mate after being promoted to the top of the Democratic ticket following Joe Biden’s decision to step aside in July.

He has given few media interviews and had settled for a lower profile following the acerbic attacks on Vance and other Maga Republicans that were first brought to national attention in the summer – and prompted Harris to select him.

Walz, who projects an image of folksiness, has admitted to nervousness about Tuesday’s debate while preparing with the help of Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary. He has voiced fears to associates that he may let Harris down and reportedly warned her when she chose him that he was a poor debater.

While there is little evidence historically of vice-presidential debates affecting the outcome of presidential elections, past encounters have been notable for producing memorable moments and soundbites.

In 2020, Harris herself was the source of one when she told Mike Pence – Vance’s predecessor as Trump’s running mate and, at the time, the vice president – after he interrupted her. She said: “Mr Vice-President, I’m speaking.”

In the 1988 vice-presidential debate, Lloyd Bentsen, running mate to the Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, had a ready rejoinder when Dan Quayle, the Republican nominee behind George HW Bush, when quizzed, at age 41 – a year older than Vance – about his relative youth, responded by invoking John F Kennedy.

“Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy,” replied Bentsen. “I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

Tim Walz has had a meteoric rise to the national political stage, advancing from state governor to Democratic running mate, bolstering Kamala Harris’s presidential chances, invigorating the party’s base, and re-popularizing the term “weird” along the way.

On Tuesday night, the avuncular Minnesota governor will face his next challenge: taking on Ohio senator JD Vance, in a much-anticipated debate in New York. Both men have long sold their experiences of growing up in rural midwest towns as proof that they represent middle America, and both were recruited to augment their parties’ chances in November.

With Harris and Trump hailing from large coastal cities, Tuesday’s debate will see which of the small-town vice-presidential candidates can best appeal to the sort of blue-collar workers who could swing the vote in November.

So far, Walz seems to be doing the most convincing job. The 60-year-old is more popular among the American public than Harris, Trump or Vance, and has received rousing receptions on the campaign trail, where his rallies and events showcase his ability to act like a regular person. Vance, by contrast, can come across as stiff and awkward, and has managed to alienate large sections of the American public via criticisms of immigrants and women who do not have children.

“The selection of Tim Walz as the vice-presidential nominee was sort of designed to help Kamala Harris reach midwestern voters – and midwestern white voters in particular. He’s the type of midwesterner that people can identify with,” said Emmitt Riley, a professor of politics and African and African American studies at Sewanee University and the chair of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.

“I think Tim Walz has done what he needed to do, because if we think about Kamala Harris’s favorabilities, they’re up, I think poll numbers are shifting – she’s not pulling ahead of Donald Trump with respect to issues on the economy, but voters are now warming to her economic message. So I do believe he’s been able to attract the support he needs.”

An event at a high school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in late September showed Walz’s appeal. Wearing an open-necked blue shirt and a gray suit, the former schoolteacher came out to the song Small Town by John Mellencamp. There’s nothing disingenuous about the music choice: Walz was born and grew up in Valentine, Nebraska, a town of about 2,500 people, a point he makes on the campaign trail.

Then Walz turned to joking about how Pennsylvania’s NFL teams were more successful than the Minnesota Vikings. Walz went on to link the history of Minnesota, where he has been governor since 2019, to Pennsylvania, which has struggled with unemployment as its steel industry fell apart in the 1980s.

“Northern Minnesota has some of the richest iron mine deposits in the world. That iron from the northern Minnesota iron range fuelled the steel mills here, right in the Lehigh Valley. Together it was our people that built the tanks that won world war two and freed the world from Nazi oppression,” Walz said.

“We forged the bridges, we built the highways, we built the skyscrapers, and we are ready to continue to build the future together.”

It was a speech that told people in Pennsylvania – a key swing state – that Walz was one of them, someone who understood the concerns of the working person. Walz certainly isn’t afraid of leaning into his rural midwestern background.

“I had 24 kids in my graduating class. Twelve were cousins,” Walz told the crowd, to laughter.

“But what you learn is your communities, your family, you take care of one another. You look out for them, you lift them up. Kamala Harris does that. We didn’t grow up in the same place, but we grew up around the same people.”

The difference between Walz and Vance is stark in the midwest: a New York Times/Siena College poll found that Walz has a +3% favorability rating in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, while Vance’s rating was -6%. Given the closeness of the vote in Michigan and Wisconsin in 2020 – Joe Biden won Michigan by about 150,000 votes, and Wisconsin by just 20,000 – if Walz’s popularity can persuade even a small percentage of midwesterners to vote Democrat, then his selection will have been worth it.

“I think that if you look at Tim Walz’s favorability compared to JD Vance’s favorability, he’s more likable than JD Vance, he seems more personable than JD Vance, and these are all pluses for the Harris campaign,” Riley said.

But although Walz has won the popularity contest, on Tuesday he needs to sell what a Harris administration would do for Americans. The economy has proved to be a key issue for voters, and for months – first when compared to Joe Biden, and latterly to Harris – Trump has been seen as someone who would be better for America’s financial plight.

In the past 10 days, however, two polls have shown Harris and Trump essentially tied when people are asked who would do a better job of handling the economy. Democratic supporters are keen for Walz to build on those green shoots during the debate, to present how a Harris administration would continue to tackle inflation and improve the cost of living.

“What Walz has to do tomorrow is really let the American people know that he identifies with their struggles with respect to inflation, but at the same time tie Trump policies to why Americans are experiencing such high inflation,” Riley said.

“[Harris and Walz] so far haven’t talked about the Trump tax policies. They haven’t talked about Trump policies with respect to tariffs, and in addition to his mismanagement of the global pandemic. I think when voters think about that it’s clear to them that Donald Trump isn’t going to actually be better for Americans on the economy.”

Vance, who grew up in Middletown, Ohio, before studying at Yale and joining a California-based venture capital firm, is likely to attack Walz as an out-of-touch elite, despite the evidence that suggests that Walz is a pretty normal person, capable of doing normal things – something Democrats will hope comes across on the debate stage.

In recent days, Walz’s team have sought to temper expectations, however, briefing that he is nervous and considers himself a bad debater. Walz told reporters that his preparation was “going great” as he stopped by a pumpkin farm in Harbor Springs, Michigan, on Sunday – where he looked more comfortable inspecting squashes in baseball cap and jacket than he may do pontificating on stage on Tuesday.

“He’s a strong person,” Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic Minnesota senator, told CNN this week.

“He’s just not a lawyer-debater type. It’s not like he was dreaming of debates when he was in first grade.”

Historically, this debate might not have mattered. Vice-presidential candidates have traditionally been seen as relatively unimportant – the debates are “often a sideshow that has little influence on the election outcome”, said Robert Rowland, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas.

But with the election expected to be extremely tight, every little appearance could affect the race.

“Vance is fulfilling a role often played by vice-presidential candidates – attack dog carrying the nationalist populist message of Donald Trump,” Rowland said. “The focus of his campaign has been on activating core Trump supporters.”

“In contrast, Governor Walz has been perhaps the most effective spokesperson for the message of the Kamala Harris campaign – that Trump, Vance and other Maga Republicans are weird.”

On Tuesday the US will be introduced to both men, as Americans look to decide the future of the country.

Tim Walz and JD Vance, the US Democratic and Republican candidates for vice-president, will face off on Tuesday in what is likely to be the last debate showdown between the two parties’ election tickets before polling day in exactly five weeks’ time.

The pair – who have had sharp words for each other at a distance – will engage in verbal combat in close quarters at a CBS-hosted event in New York, with the stakes raised by polling evidence that shows the contest between the two presidential nominees, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, poised on a knife edge.

With Trump, the Republican nominee, continuing to refuse demands from Harris, his Democratic opponent, for a second presidential debate, much may ride on how the clash between Walz and Vance unfolds.

The 90-minute duel will have added piquancy after Walz, the 60-year-old governor of Minnesota, memorably described Vance as “weird” while casting him as a key architect of Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for a radical shake-up of American government and society that would crack down intensely on immigration, vanquish LGBTQ+ and abortion rights, diminish environmental protections, overhaul financial policy and take aggressive action against China.

Vance, 40, a senator for Ohio who has reinvented himself as a political attack dog for Trump despite disparaging him before entering politics, has hit back by depicting his opponent as a far-left liberal and accusing him of serially misrepresenting aspects of his military service in the national guard.

He has also thrown the “weird” jibe back at Walz after the Democratic vice-presidential nominee said his children had been born with the help of IVF – which Vance once voted as a senator to oppose – before it emerged that he and his wife had used a different form of fertility treatment.

The potential for fireworks could be further raised by the fact that CBS’s rules of engagement preclude its moderators, Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, from fact-checking the candidates in real time – as happened at last month’s ABC debate between Harris and Trump in Philadelphia. Instead, the two men will be expected to fact-check each other.

Vance enters the debate with arguably more to gain. Since his selection as Trump’s running mate, his approval figures have been consistently in the negatives amid a string of disclosures over derogatory comments about childless women, whom he branded “childless cat ladies”.

He has also drawn fire for his role in promoting a debunked rumour about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets, before later telling CNN – unapologetically – that the story had been “created” for the purpose of calling attention to “the suffering of the American people”.

Amid the opprobrium, the Yale-educated Vance – who has prepared for the debate by holding rehearsals with a small team that includes the House Republican whip, Tom Emmer, playing the role of Walz, and his wife, Usha, as an adviser – has gained a high profile by embracing the role of articulator of Trump’s fiercely anti-immigrant America-first populism.

Walz, by contrast, has achieved more encouraging polling numbers yet has adopted a low-key posture since Harris chose him as her running mate after being promoted to the top of the Democratic ticket following Joe Biden’s decision to step aside in July.

He has given few media interviews and had settled for a lower profile following the acerbic attacks on Vance and other Maga Republicans that were first brought to national attention in the summer – and prompted Harris to select him.

Walz, who projects an image of folksiness, has admitted to nervousness about Tuesday’s debate while preparing with the help of Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary. He has voiced fears to associates that he may let Harris down and reportedly warned her when she chose him that he was a poor debater.

While there is little evidence historically of vice-presidential debates affecting the outcome of presidential elections, past encounters have been notable for producing memorable moments and soundbites.

In 2020, Harris herself was the source of one when she told Mike Pence – Vance’s predecessor as Trump’s running mate and, at the time, the vice president – after he interrupted her. She said: “Mr Vice-President, I’m speaking.”

In the 1988 vice-presidential debate, Lloyd Bentsen, running mate to the Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, had a ready rejoinder when Dan Quayle, the Republican nominee behind George HW Bush, when quizzed, at age 41 – a year older than Vance – about his relative youth, responded by invoking John F Kennedy.

“Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy,” replied Bentsen. “I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

Tim Walz has had a meteoric rise to the national political stage, advancing from state governor to Democratic running mate, bolstering Kamala Harris’s presidential chances, invigorating the party’s base, and re-popularizing the term “weird” along the way.

On Tuesday night, the avuncular Minnesota governor will face his next challenge: taking on Ohio senator JD Vance, in a much-anticipated debate in New York. Both men have long sold their experiences of growing up in rural midwest towns as proof that they represent middle America, and both were recruited to augment their parties’ chances in November.

With Harris and Trump hailing from large coastal cities, Tuesday’s debate will see which of the small-town vice-presidential candidates can best appeal to the sort of blue-collar workers who could swing the vote in November.

So far, Walz seems to be doing the most convincing job. The 60-year-old is more popular among the American public than Harris, Trump or Vance, and has received rousing receptions on the campaign trail, where his rallies and events showcase his ability to act like a regular person. Vance, by contrast, can come across as stiff and awkward, and has managed to alienate large sections of the American public via criticisms of immigrants and women who do not have children.

“The selection of Tim Walz as the vice-presidential nominee was sort of designed to help Kamala Harris reach midwestern voters – and midwestern white voters in particular. He’s the type of midwesterner that people can identify with,” said Emmitt Riley, a professor of politics and African and African American studies at Sewanee University and the chair of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.

“I think Tim Walz has done what he needed to do, because if we think about Kamala Harris’s favorabilities, they’re up, I think poll numbers are shifting – she’s not pulling ahead of Donald Trump with respect to issues on the economy, but voters are now warming to her economic message. So I do believe he’s been able to attract the support he needs.”

An event at a high school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in late September showed Walz’s appeal. Wearing an open-necked blue shirt and a gray suit, the former schoolteacher came out to the song Small Town by John Mellencamp. There’s nothing disingenuous about the music choice: Walz was born and grew up in Valentine, Nebraska, a town of about 2,500 people, a point he makes on the campaign trail.

Then Walz turned to joking about how Pennsylvania’s NFL teams were more successful than the Minnesota Vikings. Walz went on to link the history of Minnesota, where he has been governor since 2019, to Pennsylvania, which has struggled with unemployment as its steel industry fell apart in the 1980s.

“Northern Minnesota has some of the richest iron mine deposits in the world. That iron from the northern Minnesota iron range fuelled the steel mills here, right in the Lehigh Valley. Together it was our people that built the tanks that won world war two and freed the world from Nazi oppression,” Walz said.

“We forged the bridges, we built the highways, we built the skyscrapers, and we are ready to continue to build the future together.”

It was a speech that told people in Pennsylvania – a key swing state – that Walz was one of them, someone who understood the concerns of the working person. Walz certainly isn’t afraid of leaning into his rural midwestern background.

“I had 24 kids in my graduating class. Twelve were cousins,” Walz told the crowd, to laughter.

“But what you learn is your communities, your family, you take care of one another. You look out for them, you lift them up. Kamala Harris does that. We didn’t grow up in the same place, but we grew up around the same people.”

The difference between Walz and Vance is stark in the midwest: a New York Times/Siena College poll found that Walz has a +3% favorability rating in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, while Vance’s rating was -6%. Given the closeness of the vote in Michigan and Wisconsin in 2020 – Joe Biden won Michigan by about 150,000 votes, and Wisconsin by just 20,000 – if Walz’s popularity can persuade even a small percentage of midwesterners to vote Democrat, then his selection will have been worth it.

“I think that if you look at Tim Walz’s favorability compared to JD Vance’s favorability, he’s more likable than JD Vance, he seems more personable than JD Vance, and these are all pluses for the Harris campaign,” Riley said.

But although Walz has won the popularity contest, on Tuesday he needs to sell what a Harris administration would do for Americans. The economy has proved to be a key issue for voters, and for months – first when compared to Joe Biden, and latterly to Harris – Trump has been seen as someone who would be better for America’s financial plight.

In the past 10 days, however, two polls have shown Harris and Trump essentially tied when people are asked who would do a better job of handling the economy. Democratic supporters are keen for Walz to build on those green shoots during the debate, to present how a Harris administration would continue to tackle inflation and improve the cost of living.

“What Walz has to do tomorrow is really let the American people know that he identifies with their struggles with respect to inflation, but at the same time tie Trump policies to why Americans are experiencing such high inflation,” Riley said.

“[Harris and Walz] so far haven’t talked about the Trump tax policies. They haven’t talked about Trump policies with respect to tariffs, and in addition to his mismanagement of the global pandemic. I think when voters think about that it’s clear to them that Donald Trump isn’t going to actually be better for Americans on the economy.”

Vance, who grew up in Middletown, Ohio, before studying at Yale and joining a California-based venture capital firm, is likely to attack Walz as an out-of-touch elite, despite the evidence that suggests that Walz is a pretty normal person, capable of doing normal things – something Democrats will hope comes across on the debate stage.

In recent days, Walz’s team have sought to temper expectations, however, briefing that he is nervous and considers himself a bad debater. Walz told reporters that his preparation was “going great” as he stopped by a pumpkin farm in Harbor Springs, Michigan, on Sunday – where he looked more comfortable inspecting squashes in baseball cap and jacket than he may do pontificating on stage on Tuesday.

“He’s a strong person,” Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic Minnesota senator, told CNN this week.

“He’s just not a lawyer-debater type. It’s not like he was dreaming of debates when he was in first grade.”

Historically, this debate might not have mattered. Vice-presidential candidates have traditionally been seen as relatively unimportant – the debates are “often a sideshow that has little influence on the election outcome”, said Robert Rowland, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas.

But with the election expected to be extremely tight, every little appearance could affect the race.

“Vance is fulfilling a role often played by vice-presidential candidates – attack dog carrying the nationalist populist message of Donald Trump,” Rowland said. “The focus of his campaign has been on activating core Trump supporters.”

“In contrast, Governor Walz has been perhaps the most effective spokesperson for the message of the Kamala Harris campaign – that Trump, Vance and other Maga Republicans are weird.”

On Tuesday the US will be introduced to both men, as Americans look to decide the future of the country.

More than 23 people, including young children, are feared dead after their school coach caught fire during a field trip on the outskirts of the Thai capital, Bangkok.

The double-decker coach, which was carrying 39 students and six teachers, is reported to have caught fire after a burst tyre caused the vehicle to scrape along a metal crash barrier, creating sparks that ignited the petrol tank.

Sixteen children and three teachers were rushed to hospital, according to the transport minister, Suriya Juangroongruangkit, who said the cause of the fire would be investigated.

Local media reported that the children, from nursery school age to 14 years old, were from Wat Khao Phraya Sangkharam school in Uthai Thani province, and had been on a one-day school trip to Ayutthaya historical park in Ayutthaya and the Electricity Generating Authority learning centre in Nonthaburi province. Their coach was one of three on the trip, and had been due to arrive back at their school at 8pm, according to the broadcaster Thai PBS.

“Some of the bodies we rescued were very, very small. They must have been very young in age,” Piyalak Thinkaew, who is leading the search, told reporters.

“The kids’ instinct was to escape to the back, so the bodies were there,” he said. The bodies were so badly burned that it was hard to identify them, he said.

Footage from the scene showed the coach completely engulfed in flames, with huge plumes of black smoke billowing out.

The incident occurred at about 12.30pm, on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road in Pathum Thani on the northern outskirts of the capital.

The prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, wrote on social media: “As a mother, I would like to express my deepest condolences to the families of the injured and deceased.”

The interior minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, earlier said 25 people were feared dead. However, Piyalak Thinkaew, a rescuer from the Ruamkatanyu Foundation charity, has since told media that two more survivors have been found. Three teachers and 20 students remained missing.

Anutin said the driver had survived but appeared to have fled and could not yet be found.

Thailand has repeatedly been ranked as having one of the world’s worst road-safety records, with road traffic accidents resulting in about 20,000 deaths and 1 million injuries each year, according to the World Health Organization.

Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

A comet that has not been seen from Earth since Neanderthals were alive and kicking has reappeared in the sky, with astronomers saying it might be visible to the naked eye.

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–Atlas) was discovered by astronomers early last year, and is thought to orbit the sun about every 80,000 years on a highly elongated path.

Dr Gregory Brown, the senior public astronomy officer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, said the comet was thought to have originated in the Oort cloud, which lies beyond Neptune’s orbit.

“[This is] the vast, roughly spherical region around the sun, which is has icy remnants of the formation of the solar system,” he said.

But now the comet is in our neck of the woods. Having made its closest approach to the sun at the end of last month, it is expected to do the same to Earth around 13 October.

“The thing about comets is that the closer that they are to us, to the Earth, the brighter they are, but also the closer they are to the sun, the brighter they are. So the closest approach isn’t necessarily going to be the brightest time,” said Brown, noting that may instead fall around 9 October.

At that point, however, the comet will be almost directly between the Earth and the sun. As a result, said Brown, the best time to look for it will be a few days before and after.

“Naked-eye-visible comets are rare enough as it is, and this one has the potential to be amongst the brightest that we’ve seen in the last few decades. So it’s certainly worth a go,” he said.

Brown said it was difficult to be sure how bright the comet would become as it approached.

“By the looks of it, it is already visible to the unaided eye in good conditions, and there is a chance that it will get considerably brighter,” he said. “But how bright? We honestly don’t know.”

Brown said stargazers in the northern and southern hemispheres had a chance of glimpsing the comet.

At present, he added, viewers should look east in the early morning before sunrise, towards the constellation of Sextans.

But, he said: “It’s going to swing by the other side of the sun over the course of the next few days.”

As a result, from 13 October, Brown said the best chance of seeing the comet is in the late evening, after sunset, looking west towards the constellation of Boötes.

Brown said the comet was likely to appear as a smudge in the sky to an unaided eye – although its tail should be visible with a pair of binoculars or a small telescope.

Even if the show is not as spectacular as experts hope, stargazers can enjoy the knowledge that they are among the first to clap eyes on the comet since the stone age.

“And obviously, there’s no way of knowing, all the way back then, how bright the comet would have been and how easy it would have been to see,” said Brown.

A 43ft (13 meters) effigy of an entirely nude Donald Trump on the interstate from Las Vegas to Reno, Nevada, has been dismissed as “deplorable” and “pornographic” by Republicans in the state.

In a statement, the Nevada Republican party said it “strongly condemns” the effigy of the former president, which hangs from a crane, weighs 6,000lbs, is made from foam and rebar, is titled Crooked and Obscene and is expected to be brought to other cities as part of a nationwide tour.

“While families drive through Las Vegas, they are forced to view this offensive marionette, designed intentionally for shock value rather than meaningful dialogue,” said the party’s statement, invoking the name of a city that was essentially founded to capitalize on gambling and sex.

The artists behind the graphic effigy – who want to remain anonymous – told the Wrap that Trump’s nudity was “intentional, serving as a bold statement on transparency, vulnerability and the public personas of political figures”.

Political battles over statuary run hot and have become a feature of the Trump era after he won the presidency in 2016.

For instance, hundreds of statues paying tribute to the white supremacist Confederacy that lost the US civil war have come down in southern states where the Confederacy was based after a spate of police killings victimizing Black Americans.

The Trump effigy and the offense Republicans took over it drew attention days after he boasted at a political rally in Wisconsin of his “beautiful body”. It was taken down Monday with plans to move it to other swing states in November’s presidential election, during which Trump is seeking a return to the White House as the Republican nominee.

The sculpture in Las Vegas came eight years after artist Joshua “Ginger” Monroe created statues of Trump that he told a Cleveland news outlet took four to five months of strenuous labor to create. He described it as a “hate-filled labor to create this monstrosity”.

Monroe told Cleveland Magazine the following year: “The reason we show Trump’s veins [is] to show a visible representation of his thin skin.”

At the same time, a 16ft effigy of Trump’s rival in November’s presidential race, Kamala Harris, has been put up at the United States Funhouse in West Hartford, Connecticut. The display is from Matt Warshauer, a professor and political historian at Central Connecticut State University – and it likens Harris to the Statue of Liberty.

Warshauer says he sees Harris – whose statue is flanked by Halloween skeletons and ghouls – not as “a fundamental threat to the system”.

“I see her as a stable force,” he said.

A statement on the statue suggests it could be the last of Warshauer’s annual political displaying. It declares the piece as “the final year of Political Halloween”.

A prolific Russian cybercriminal gang carried out attacks against Nato countries at the behest of state intelligence services and used family links with Russia’s domestic spy agency to protect its members after being targeted by US authorities, according to the UK’s National Crime Agency.

The dramatically named Evil Corp group had an unusually close relationship with the Russian state, said the NCA.

The UK’s most senior law enforcement agency said in a briefing published on Tuesday: “Evil Corp held a privileged position, and the relationship between the Russian state and this cybercriminal group went far beyond the typical state-criminal relationship of protection, payoffs and racketeering.”

The group, which operated out of locations in Moscow including a pair of cafes, carried out cyber-attacks and espionage operations against undisclosed Nato countries before 2019 – alongside its day-to-day criminal activities such as deploying ransomware. However, when the group was put under sanctions and some of its members indicted by the US in 2019 it turned to the father-in-law of Evil Corp’s founder for protection.

The NCA said Eduard Benderskiy, the father-in-law of Evil Corp’s leader, Maksim Yakubets, was a former high-ranking official in a unit of Russia’s domestic spy agency, the FSB, and used his connections to protect the group after the US moved against it.

“Benderskiy used his extensive influence to protect the group, both by providing senior members with security and by ensuring they were not pursued by internal Russian authorities,” said the NCA.

The NCA briefing describes Evil Corp as a family-centred operation akin to a traditional organised crime gang, with Yakubets joined by his father, brother and cousins in the business.

The group’s influence has declined since 2019, when authorities released pictures to illustrate Yakubets’s multimillionaire lifestyle, including a camouflaged Lamborghini and a personalised registration plate that spelled out “thief”.

Evil Corp also split with a key member around this time and since then it has developed new strains of ransomware, a malicious form of software that is used to lock up targets’ computer systems – which can then be decrypted in exchange for a ransom payment, typically demanded in bitcoin.

The NCA said Yakubets’s right-hand man, Aleksandr Ryzhenkov – named by the NCA on Tuesday – had teamed up with fellow Russian gang LockBit to use its malware in ransomware attacks.

LockBit, whose victims include Royal Mail, runs a so-called ransomware-as-a-service operation in which it leases out its software and support functions in exchange for a cut of any proceeds. The NCA said it had determined that Ryzhenkov was a “LockBit affiliate and has been involved in LockBit ransomware attacks against numerous organisations”.

The NCA and other enforcement agencies have since seized LockBit’s website and the infrastructure behind its attacks, severely affecting the group’s activities in an operation revealed in February.

LockBit has claimed more victims since then, but the NCA believes those are attacks on entities that have been hit by LockBit before – or that the gang is lying in an effort to play down the impact of the NCA operation.

A prolific Russian cybercriminal gang carried out attacks against Nato countries at the behest of state intelligence services and used family links with Russia’s domestic spy agency to protect its members after being targeted by US authorities, according to the UK’s National Crime Agency.

The dramatically named Evil Corp group had an unusually close relationship with the Russian state, said the NCA.

The UK’s most senior law enforcement agency said in a briefing published on Tuesday: “Evil Corp held a privileged position, and the relationship between the Russian state and this cybercriminal group went far beyond the typical state-criminal relationship of protection, payoffs and racketeering.”

The group, which operated out of locations in Moscow including a pair of cafes, carried out cyber-attacks and espionage operations against undisclosed Nato countries before 2019 – alongside its day-to-day criminal activities such as deploying ransomware. However, when the group was put under sanctions and some of its members indicted by the US in 2019 it turned to the father-in-law of Evil Corp’s founder for protection.

The NCA said Eduard Benderskiy, the father-in-law of Evil Corp’s leader, Maksim Yakubets, was a former high-ranking official in a unit of Russia’s domestic spy agency, the FSB, and used his connections to protect the group after the US moved against it.

“Benderskiy used his extensive influence to protect the group, both by providing senior members with security and by ensuring they were not pursued by internal Russian authorities,” said the NCA.

The NCA briefing describes Evil Corp as a family-centred operation akin to a traditional organised crime gang, with Yakubets joined by his father, brother and cousins in the business.

The group’s influence has declined since 2019, when authorities released pictures to illustrate Yakubets’s multimillionaire lifestyle, including a camouflaged Lamborghini and a personalised registration plate that spelled out “thief”.

Evil Corp also split with a key member around this time and since then it has developed new strains of ransomware, a malicious form of software that is used to lock up targets’ computer systems – which can then be decrypted in exchange for a ransom payment, typically demanded in bitcoin.

The NCA said Yakubets’s right-hand man, Aleksandr Ryzhenkov – named by the NCA on Tuesday – had teamed up with fellow Russian gang LockBit to use its malware in ransomware attacks.

LockBit, whose victims include Royal Mail, runs a so-called ransomware-as-a-service operation in which it leases out its software and support functions in exchange for a cut of any proceeds. The NCA said it had determined that Ryzhenkov was a “LockBit affiliate and has been involved in LockBit ransomware attacks against numerous organisations”.

The NCA and other enforcement agencies have since seized LockBit’s website and the infrastructure behind its attacks, severely affecting the group’s activities in an operation revealed in February.

LockBit has claimed more victims since then, but the NCA believes those are attacks on entities that have been hit by LockBit before – or that the gang is lying in an effort to play down the impact of the NCA operation.

The luxury cruise liner stranded in Belfast for four months is to return to port only hours after it set sail to cheers and applause from the 125 passengers who thought when they departed on Monday they were finally on their way around the globe.

The Ville Vie Odyssey only made it a few miles out of Belfast lough, however, before it dropped anchor again for the night. Passengers were told it would finally depart at 11pm on Tuesday.

The BBC reported that the vessel would be returning to port to complete some final paperwork.

Unexpected repairs that began in May kept the liner in port, forcing its passengers, most of them from the US, to while away four months in Airbnb rentals, exploring Europe independently or accepting a holiday in the Canaries courtesy of the ship’s owners.

After a couple of false starts on Monday, the ship was readied for boarding shortly before 9pm to scenes of joy in the cruise terminal where its passengers had spent hours wondering whether they would finally be starting their dream voyage.

Passenger John Frim said on Tuesday that he was a bit confused by the situation but was “happy to be home” and have slept in his “own bed” onboard the vessel for the first time.

Donna Martemucci told the BBC: “Another day to explore a lovely city. All good.”

The Marine Tracker website showed the Ville Vie Odyssey on the move back to port shortly after 1pm. Belfast Harbour’s website showed it scheduled to set sail again at 11pm on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters at the cruise terminal on Monday, the chief executive of Villa Vie Residences, Mike Petterson, said he was “a little stressed” as efforts were made to clear “a few last-minute things”.

“It’s administrative paperwork. We needed the right person to press the button, at the end of the day. It’s been done and we’re putting the vessel in motion right now. The harbour master has been in direct contact with the MD. We’ve been expecting this outcome for hours.”

He said departure was expected just before midnight, when the terminal closes.

“The good news is that we have complete clearance and we will be out of here very, very, very soon.”

Asked how would he remember Belfast, Petterson said “your summer is horrible” and “you can’t cook to save your lives, but you do know how to drink”.

Passenger Andy Garrison, 75, who had arrived later, in August, for his trip, said the passengers had been resilient while waiting for the repairs to be completed.

He said he liked Belfast a lot but was “so happy to be sailing away”.

“I’m ready to go. We stop briefly in Brest, France, and then we go to Spain, we go to Portugal, and we head across the ocean to go to the Bahamas, where we stay for a while in the Bahamas.”

Cyndi Grzybowski, 69, from Appling, Georgia, said she had always wanted to see the world and was excited about the start of the voyage.

Gian Perroni, from Vancouver in Canada, and Angela Harsanyi, from Colorado in the US, got to know each other and became engaged while they waited for the cruise to begin.

“My better half passed away three years ago so this is giving me an opportunity to get off the farm, literally, and see the world, which is something that I have wanted to do,” Harsanyi told reporters on Monday.

The luxury cruise offers rentals from 35 to 120 days, or villas can be purchased ranging from £90,000 to £260,000. Owning a villa onboard guarantees the room for a minimum of 15 years, but the ownership stays valid for the entire operation of the ship.

In his first address to the French parliament, the new prime minister, Michel Barnier, has said “colossal” debt is a financial “sword of Damocles” hanging over the country, requiring cuts in public spending and tax increases.

In an hour-long inaugural address, Barnier was alternately heckled and applauded as he outlined his minority government’s political programme in the national assembly, which remains deeply divided. The lower house is split between three political blocs, none of which emerged with a majority after June’s snap general election.

“The government will not perform miracles … we will overcome each obstacle step by step,” Barnier said.

He said the biggest challenge was France’s public debt, which had reached €3.2tn, meaning repayments were now the government’s second biggest cost behind education and higher than the amount spent on defence.

“The real sword of Damocles is our colossal debt,” Barnier said. “If we’re not careful, it will take our country to the edge of the precipice.”

There were shouts and boos as he said spending cuts would be the government’s priority.

While acknowledging that France’s taxes were “among the highest in the world”, Barnier said his government would be demanding “an exceptional contribution” from profitable medium-sized and large companies and “an effort from the most wealthy”. This would be accompanied by a clampdown on “social and fiscal fraud”, he said. He did not give details of specific cuts.

The EU has urged France to reduce its deficit, which is more than 6% of its gross domestic product (GDP), well above the 5% maximum suggested by Brussels. Barnier promised that the government would reduce the deficit to 5% of GDP in 2025 and to 3% by 2029.

“We cannot spend more; we must spend better,” he told MPs. “Often our citizens think they are not getting enough from their taxes.”

He said a second Damoclean sword was “ecological debt” and he pledged investment in new nuclear reactors and in renewable energy.

He also announced policies to address shortages of housing and of doctors in rural areas, and pledged to toughen immigration laws, clamp down on trafficking of drugs and people, increase the number of police and gendarmes on the streets and speed up the legal system with “short immediate sentences” for certain offences.

Concluding his discourse outlining the general “roadmap” for the next two and half years, he urged political forces to work together. “Take care of the republic, it is fragile. Take care of Europe, it is necessary. Take care of France and the French who demand that we overcome our differences and act in the superior interests of the country,” he said.

Barnier, 73, was appointed as prime minister almost a month ago. He is a member of the rightwing Les Républicains party that won only 47 seats in the 577-seat assembly after a snap election called by Emmanuel Macron in June that resulted in a hung parliament.

Barnier and his new ministers, most of whom come from the conservative right, have been accused of pandering to the far-right National Rally (RN), which won the most seats and is seen as having a sway over the government policy.

His government faces threats of no-confidence motions from opposite ends of the political spectrum: the RN and the left-wing alliance the New Popular Front (NFP) have each threatened to lodge a censure motion, which would be unlikely to pass without the support of the other.

In response to Barnier’s speech, the RN’s Marine Le Pen said the party had its “red lines” and it would oppose tax increases that hit the working class and any failure to address immigration with a new “restrictive” law. She said any public spending cuts should include a reduction in the country’s notorious bureaucracy, particularly in hospitals, schools and government departments.

The parliamentary session opened with a minute’s silence for a student named only as Philippine, 19, allegedly killed by a 22-year-old man of Moroccan nationality who had been previously convicted of rape and was subject to an order to leave France.

Stretchy dairy cheese could now be made without any cows, after the development of yeast strains that produce the crucial milk proteins.

The key to the development, by Israeli company DairyX, is producing casein proteins that are able to self-assemble into the tiny balls that give regular cheese and yoghurt their stretchiness and creaminess. Existing plant-based cheeses often fail to deliver the textures that dairy lovers prize, and the company believes it is the first to report this breakthrough.

Cattle have a major impact on the climate and natural world, owing to the methane gas they burp and the pollution and destruction of nature associated with the global industry. The development of lower-impact alternatives to regular dairy and meat has accelerated in recent years, with the production of plant-based foods and meat grown in vessels.

DairyX’s approach is a third route – precision fermentation. It is now scaling up its operation and aims to seek the regulatory approval needed for consumers to buy the product in 2027. If successful, the caseins could be used by cheese and yoghurt companies as a drop-in replacement for dairy milk, without changes to equipment or ingredients.

Other companies developing fermented caseins include New Culture in the US, which is focusing on mozzarella, and Australia’s Eden Brew, targeting cow-free milk, as well as All G Foods, Fooditive and Standing Ovation.

“People have been trying to take the cow out of making dairy since the late 1970s,” said Dr Arik Ryvkin, DairyX founder and chief executive. Early efforts used plant protein but about a decade ago biotechnology developments opened a new path, pioneered by the company Perfect Day, he said. “We now bring the last step in that line of evolution … helping dairy companies make the exact products consumers desire while helping cows live happier lives.”

Ryvkin previously followed a vegan diet for 10 years, but became frustrated at being unable to include good cheese in what he ate: “So I slipped, and then decided to solve the problem for everyone.”

Many existing plant-based dairy products use additives, such as stabilisers, emulsifiers and thickeners, but still do not fully replicate the stretchiness and creaminess of regular dairy products. DairyX used engineered yeast strains to produce casein that is genetically identical to dairy proteins. But for these proteins to self-assemble into the tiny balls – called micelles – they also had to perfect the addition of other attached molecules which determine the properties of the protein.

Dr Stella Child, at the Good Food Institute Europe, which supports alternative protein development, said: “Producing caseins that can self-assemble into micelles – while not the only method of developing these ‘building blocks of dairy’ – could help to bring affordable and attractive products to the market sooner by reducing production costs and eliminating the need for additives.”

The scientists tested and refined their research by coagulating the proteins in the same way as when making cheese. They have yet to taste the product, as this requires regulatory approval. Galit Kuznets, at DairyX, said. “Our casein also eliminates the need for hormones and antibiotics [used in cows] on dairy farms.”

The company is using evolutionary techniques to select for the yeast strains that produce the largest amount of proteins, aiming to make the product the same price as dairy casein. Price parity and taste are the key to future success, said Ryvkin.

Preliminary analysis indicates that climate-heating greenhouse gases from the production of DairyX’s fermented casein are 90% lower than for regular dairy if the leftover yeast mass is reused, potentially as food ingredients, or 50% lower if not. All precision fermentation products require far less land and water than their animal counterparts.

Other approaches to cow-free dairy proteins are being taken by companies such as Israel’s NewMoo, which is growing casein proteins in plant seeds, and New Zealand’s Daisy Lab, which is making “all yeast, no beast” whey powder.

Indian police have opened an investigation after touts bought up tickets for Coldplay’s upcoming Mumbai shows and put them back on sale for more than £750 each.

India is often missed off global tours by popular western artists and news that Coldplay would be coming to India for the first time in January to perform two nights of their world tour in Mumbai had been greeted with wild excitement by music fans.

However, as more than 700,000 people logged on to BookMyShow in an attempt to buy tickets, the website quickly crashed. Large numbers were disappointed as the tickets sold out in minutes, and many were outraged when tickets began to reappear on unauthorised third-party websites, selling for up to 85,000 rupees [£760, US$1,015].

Local media reports said police questioned the chief operating officer of BookMyShow on Monday after receiving a complaint from a Mumbai lawyer, Amit Vyas, who alleged that the vendor was working with “black marketeers” to make an extra windfall on ticket sales.

“I checked with nearly 100 people who I know are regulars at concerts, none of them had gotten a ticket,” Vyas said, according to the Indian Express newspaper. “This made me suspicious. I then decided to approach the police as I knew that something was amiss.”

BookMyShow issued a statement after the public backlash began last week saying it had “no association” with unauthorised ticket selling. “Scalping and black marketing of tickets is strictly condemned and punishable by law in India and BookMyShow vehemently opposes this practice,” the company said.

While reselling tickets on unauthorised or hidden-market channels in India is illegal, the practice is largely unchecked.

The issue of ticket scalping and unauthorised reselling for inflated prices has become a major problem for the music industry globally. Fans in the UK were recently outraged when tickets for the upcoming Oasis reunion sold out in minutes and then reappeared on secondary sites for thousands of pounds, prompting an inquiry by a regulator.

The ticket website Ticketmaster also faced criticism and political scrutiny over alleged mishandling and unfair practices relating to the sale of tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour.

AFP contributed to this report

The Harry’s Bar culinary empire is as synonymous with Venice as its canals, inventing the bellini cocktail and hosting noted guests including Orson Welles, Ernest Hemingway and Charlie Chaplin during its 93 years in business.

But the lapping of the city’s waters has proved too much for the owner, Arrigo Cipriani, who is suing the city’s council and port master’s office because the feet of his well-heeled customers keep getting soaked by waves from speeding boats.

Cipriani, 92, said he was fed up with the alleged failure by the authorities to take serious action against an issue that has long caused protests from Venice’s residents.

Cipriani owns Harry’s Bar in St Mark’s Square but boats speeding along the Giudecca canal are hampering customers’ enjoyment on the terrace of his other establishment, Harry’s Dolci on the island of Giudecca.

He opted to take legal action, an unprecedented move that is likely to prompt further cases, after a request to erect “splash guards” was rejected by Venice’s heritage superintendent.

“More and more often those sitting at Harry’s Dolci find themselves with wet feet due to the waves from the Giudecca canal, which are caused by boats whizzing by without respecting the speed limits,” he told Corriere della Sera.

Cipriani argued that the waves in the Giudecca canal were becoming “increasingly higher”.

He added: “It’s a serious problem for those who walk along the banks because they are slippery, for those with a small boat because it is difficult to stay on course, and for those who row because rowing has become increasingly dangerous. The wave swell problem has worsened because leaders do not know the city. Those who break the speed limit should be fined.”

Spokespeople for Venice council and the port master’s office were not immediately available for comment.

The authorities in Venice said at the beginning of this year that that speed cameras would be placed along the length of the city’s waterways, which are often crowded with a mix of gondolas, water buses, water taxis and other vessels.

The speed limit – imposed after a series of accidents – is up to 7km/h along the city’s main canals and 5km/h in the small ones but it appears to be having little effect.

Activists from Gruppo Insieme, a collective of associations that for several years has been protesting against speeding boats, said they would meet on Tuesday to prepare a report that will be presented to the judiciary listing every single infringement of the city’s navigation code.

Massimo Brunzin, a spokesperson for the group, told Corriere: “It is no longer possible to navigate safely. We are witnessing a continuous drip of accidents, also because there is a lack of any effective form of control or sanction.”

The accidents have occasionally been deadly. Three people were killed in September 2019 when a high-speed power boat trying to set a speed record crashed into an artificial reef in the Venetian lagoon. In 2013, a German tourist died when the gondola he was travelling in was crushed against a dock by a reversing water bus.

Gondoliers often protest against water taxis and speedboats, arguing that their reckless driving risks lives as they whip up waves that rock the smaller vessels. The waves also cause damage to the building’s lining the city’s canals.