Georgia’s ruling party is leading in a pivotal parliamentary election widely seen as a make-or-break vote for the country’s long-held aspiration for EU membership.

Early official results, with 70% of precincts counted, showed the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party had won 53% of the vote, the electoral commission said.

But a united block of pro-western opposition parties have also declared victory, claiming they had clinched a collective majority, setting the stage for a confrontation over the future of the Caucasus country.

Voters in the country of almost 4 million people on Saturday headed to the polls in a watershed election to decide whether the increasingly authoritarian GD party, which has been in power since 2012 and steered the country into a conservative course away from the west and closer to Russia, secures another four-year term.

Bidzina Ivanishvili, the shadowy billionaire founder of GD, claimed victory shortly after polls closed, in what has been called the most consequential election since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

“It is a rare case in the world that the same party achieves such success in such a difficult situation – this is a good indicator of the talent of the Georgian people,” Ivanishvili, widely considered to be the country’s most powerful figure, said.

If the central election projection holds, GD will secure a parliamentary majority, thwarting the opposition’s hopes for a pro-western coalition of four blocs and effectively stalling the country’s aspirations for EU integration.

Rival exit polls offered starkly different projections: three indicated the opposition would secure a majority, while another predicted a comfortable win for the ruling GD party.

Exit polls by the pro-opposition Formula and Mtavari Arkhi channels showed big gains for pro-western opposition parties, which they suggested would be able to form a majority together in the 150-seat parliament. An exit poll by the Georgian Dream-supporting Imedi TV channel said the ruling party would win a majority of 56%.

“The exit polls are showing an impressive 10% margin of victory for the opposition. We believe the Georgian public has voted clearly for a future at the heart of Europe and no amount of posturing will change that,” said Tinatin Bokuchava, leader of the biggest opposition party, United National Movement (UNM), urging the GD party to step down.

For the past three decades, Georgia has maintained strong pro-western aspirations, with polls showing up to 80% of its people favour joining the EU. In recent years, however, the government, led by the populist GD party, has increasingly shifted away from the west in favour of Russia, showing reluctance to condemn Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

Many expected that GD would become the biggest party yet might fall short of a majority and struggle to form a government, with all other blocs refusing to collaborate with it.

The ruling GD was facing an unprecedented union of four pro-western opposition forces which had vowed to form a coalition government to oust it from power and put Georgia back on track to join the EU.

The biggest opposition force is the centre-right UNM, a party founded by Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president who is in prison on charges of abuse of power which his allies say are politically motivated.

Opposition exit polls predicted the UNM party would come second, followed by the Coalition for Change, an alliance that brings together several parties led by former UNM leaders.

The results will be closely monitored in Moscow and Brussels, with the EU saying the vote would shape Tbilisi’s prospects of joining the bloc.

GD has run its campaign on accusations that the pro-western opposition was trying to pull Georgia into a Ukraine-style conflict. In 2008, Georgia fought a war with Russia that lasted five days but left deep scars, and the invasion of Ukraine has left some in the country wary of the possible consequences of provoking Russia by moving closer to the west.

The party has also been accused by critics of plans to move the country in an authoritarian direction after Ivanishvili vowed to ban all the leading opposition parties and remove opposition lawmakers if his party was re-elected.

“The government is openly pledging to transform Georgia into a one-party state – a move unprecedented in modern Georgian history,” said Tina Khidasheli, chair of the non-governmental organisation Civic Idea and a former defence minister.

Outside polling stations in central Tbilisi some voters echoed this sentiment.

“This is the most important day in our modern history. The situation is very dangerous,” said Mariam Khvedelidze, a 23-year-old student who voted for Save Georgia, an opposition bloc centred on UNM.

Support for the pro-western opposition groups generally comes from urban and younger voters, who envision their political future with the EU.

“Our democracy and future in Europe is at stake. We can not become puppets of the Kremlin,” Khvedelidze added.

But other Georgians said they had voted for the ruling party, believing it was the only force that could keep the country out of war with Russia.

“Right now, we need stability and friendly relations with Moscow,” said Elene Kiknadze, a 74-year-old woman. Voting for GD, she said, would also ensure Georgia would keep its “traditions”, referring to its conservative values, including opposition to rights for LGBTQ+ people. “Let Europe have their freedoms. We don’t need gay parades in this country,” she added.

The ruling Georgian government, aligned with the deeply conservative and influential Orthodox church, has sought to galvanise anti-liberal sentiments by campaigning on “family values” and criticising what it portrays as western excesses.

In the summer, the parliament passed legislation imposing sweeping restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights, a move critics say mirrors laws enacted in neighbouring Russia, where authorities have implemented a series of repressive measures against sexual minorities.

Georgia’s notoriously divided opposition has attempted to unite by forming four pro-European blocs, which have all endorsed the Georgian charter, an initiative proposed by the country’s pro-western president, Salome Zourabichvili, urging them to prevent GD from forming a coalition and remaining in power.

Zourabichvili, whose role is largely ceremonial, wrote on X on Saturday: “European Georgian is winning by 52%.”

The EU granted Georgia candidate membership status last year but has put its application on hold in response to a controversial “foreign agents” bill which was passed in May, requiring media and NGOs receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence”.

The bill, which triggered weeks of mass protests in the spring, has been labelled a “Russian law” by critics, who liken it to legislation introduced by the Kremlin a decade earlier to silence political dissent in the media and elsewhere.

Independent NGOs have warned that GD will attempt to undermine the parliamentary elections, relying on their “administrative resources” – an umbrella term that includes pressing state employees to vote and offering cash handouts to mostly rural voters.

On Saturday morning, several videos circulated online appearing to show ballot stuffing and voter intimidation at various polling stations across Georgia.

“Bidzina Ivanishvili’s thugs are desperate to cling on to power and will resort to anything to subvert the election process,” Bokuchava, the UNM leader, said as voting was under way.

The opposition has warned that the ruling party may attempt to manipulate the results, which could trigger mass protests, potentially followed by a harsh police crackdown.

“I certainly don’t expect Georgians to tolerate electoral fraud. People won’t stand by as their future is taken from them,” Bokuchava said.

• A string of Russian attacks killed and injured civilians in widely separated parts of Ukraine, officials said. The number of people killed in the central city of Dnipro after Russian missile attacks rose to five, including a child, local officials said. A Russian glide bomb killed one person and injured three on Saturday in Kostiantynivka, near the frontline in Donetsk region, the regional governor said. Russian shelling also killed two people in a small town west of the southern city of Kherson. And a Russian drone strike killed a teenager in Kyiv during a night-time barrage on the Ukrainian capital that lasted for hours, officials said.

• The latest attacks prompted Volodymyr Zelenskyy to issue a new call to Kyiv’s allies on Saturday to intensify pressure on Moscow. In his nightly video address, he said the assaults showed Russia was “determined to continue its aggression”, adding, “these are conditions in which the lack of stronger decisions from partners to support Ukraine only encourages Putin to invest further in terror,” Zelenskyy said. “The world can stop the escalation of war. Abstractions and words are not enough for this. Concrete steps are needed.”

• Finance ministers of the G7 nations vowed on Saturday to step up efforts to prevent Russia from evading sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine. A December 2022 agreement was intended to limit Russian petroleum sales and revenues without curbing exports so sharply that it would cause global oil prices to soar. But some countries, notably China, have continued to import Russian crude oil without observing the price ceiling. “We remain committed to taking further initiatives in response to oil price cap violations,” the group said in a statement after a meeting in Washington. Those further steps were not spelled out in detail.

• Zelenskyy is warning that Russia is planning to send North Korean troops into battle against his country. In a post on Telegram, he said Ukrainian intelligence had determined that “the first North Korean military will be used by Russia in combat zones” between Sunday and Monday, and that the deployment was “an obvious escalating move by Russia”. He didn’t provide any further details, including where the North Korean soldiers may be sent.

• Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had taken control of the Oleksandropil settlement in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the state-run news agency RIA reported on Saturday, where it has made a string of advances in recent months. The ministry also reported its air defences brought down 17 Ukrainian drones over four regions near the border. But Russia has struggled to push Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk border region after an incursion almost three months ago.

• Georgia’s ruling party is leading in a pivotal parliamentary election that could mean the country is heading for closer ties with neighbouring Russia. The vote is widely seen as a make-or-break vote for the country’s long-held aspiration for EU membership. If the partial results confirm the victory of the Georgian Dream party, the country could be heading for closer ties with neighbouring Russia. Its campaign centred on a conspiracy theory about a “global war party” that controls western institutions and is seeking to drag Georgia into the Russia-Ukraine war.

• Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in seven Italian cities on Saturday calling for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, the Middle East, and all global conflicts. Peaceful rallies were held in Rome, Turin, Milan, Florence, Bari, Palermo and Cagliari, with the support of hundreds of associations committed to peace, disarmament and human rights.

• A string of Russian attacks killed and injured civilians in widely separated parts of Ukraine, officials said. The number of people killed in the central city of Dnipro after Russian missile attacks rose to five, including a child, local officials said. A Russian glide bomb killed one person and injured three on Saturday in Kostiantynivka, near the frontline in Donetsk region, the regional governor said. Russian shelling also killed two people in a small town west of the southern city of Kherson. And a Russian drone strike killed a teenager in Kyiv during a night-time barrage on the Ukrainian capital that lasted for hours, officials said.

• The latest attacks prompted Volodymyr Zelenskyy to issue a new call to Kyiv’s allies on Saturday to intensify pressure on Moscow. In his nightly video address, he said the assaults showed Russia was “determined to continue its aggression”, adding, “these are conditions in which the lack of stronger decisions from partners to support Ukraine only encourages Putin to invest further in terror,” Zelenskyy said. “The world can stop the escalation of war. Abstractions and words are not enough for this. Concrete steps are needed.”

• Finance ministers of the G7 nations vowed on Saturday to step up efforts to prevent Russia from evading sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine. A December 2022 agreement was intended to limit Russian petroleum sales and revenues without curbing exports so sharply that it would cause global oil prices to soar. But some countries, notably China, have continued to import Russian crude oil without observing the price ceiling. “We remain committed to taking further initiatives in response to oil price cap violations,” the group said in a statement after a meeting in Washington. Those further steps were not spelled out in detail.

• Zelenskyy is warning that Russia is planning to send North Korean troops into battle against his country. In a post on Telegram, he said Ukrainian intelligence had determined that “the first North Korean military will be used by Russia in combat zones” between Sunday and Monday, and that the deployment was “an obvious escalating move by Russia”. He didn’t provide any further details, including where the North Korean soldiers may be sent.

• Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had taken control of the Oleksandropil settlement in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the state-run news agency RIA reported on Saturday, where it has made a string of advances in recent months. The ministry also reported its air defences brought down 17 Ukrainian drones over four regions near the border. But Russia has struggled to push Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk border region after an incursion almost three months ago.

• Georgia’s ruling party is leading in a pivotal parliamentary election that could mean the country is heading for closer ties with neighbouring Russia. The vote is widely seen as a make-or-break vote for the country’s long-held aspiration for EU membership. If the partial results confirm the victory of the Georgian Dream party, the country could be heading for closer ties with neighbouring Russia. Its campaign centred on a conspiracy theory about a “global war party” that controls western institutions and is seeking to drag Georgia into the Russia-Ukraine war.

• Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in seven Italian cities on Saturday calling for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, the Middle East, and all global conflicts. Peaceful rallies were held in Rome, Turin, Milan, Florence, Bari, Palermo and Cagliari, with the support of hundreds of associations committed to peace, disarmament and human rights.

Citizens of Japan will be voting in the country’s tightest election in years on Sunday, with new prime minister Shigeru Ishiba and his juggernaut Liberal Democratic party (LDP) facing potentially their worst result since 2009.

Opinion polls suggest the conservative LDP and its junior coalition partner may fall short of a majority, a result that could deal a knockout blow to Ishiba.

The 67-year-old former defence minister took office and called a snap election after being narrowly selected last month to lead the LDP, which has governed Japan for almost all of the past seven decades.

But voters in the world’s fourth-largest economy have been rankled by rising prices and the fallout from a party slush fund scandal that helped sink previous premier Fumio Kishida.

“We want to start afresh as a fair, just and sincere party, and seek your mandate,” Ishiba told supporters at a rally on Saturday.

He has pledged to revitalise depressed rural regions and to address the “quiet emergency” of Japan’s falling population through family-friendly policies such as flexible working hours.

But he has since rowed back his position on issues including allowing married couples to take separate surnames. He also named only two women ministers in his cabinet.

The self-confessed security policy “geek” has backed the creation of a regional military alliance along the lines of Nato to counter China, although he has since cautioned it would “not happen overnight”.

A poll on Friday by the Yomiuri Shimbun daily suggested that the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito might struggle to get the 233 lower house seats needed for a majority.

Ishiba has set this threshold as his objective, and missing it would undermine his position in the LDP and mean finding other coalition partners or leading a minority government.

Local media speculated that Ishiba could even resign immediately to take responsibility, becoming Japan’s shortest-serving prime minister in the postwar period.

The current record is held by Naruhiko Higashikuni who served for 54 days – four days more than British leader Liz Truss in 2022 – just after Japan’s 1945 defeat in the second world war.

“The situation is extremely severe,” Ishiba reportedly said on Friday.

In many districts, LDP candidates are neck-and-neck with those from the Constitutional Democratic party (CDP) – the second-biggest in parliament – led by popular former prime minister Yoshihiko Noda.

“The LDP’s politics is all about quickly implementing policies for those who give them loads of cash,” Noda told his supporters on Saturday.

“But those in vulnerable positions, who can’t offer cash, have been ignored,” he added, accusing the LDP-led government of offering insufficient support for survivors of an earthquake in central Japan.

Noda’s stance “is sort of similar to the LDP’s. He is basically a conservative,” Masato Kamikubo, a political scientist at Ritsumeikan University, told AFP. “The CDP or Noda can be an alternative to the LDP. Many voters think so.”

Ishiba promised to not actively support LDP politicians caught up in the funding scandal and running in the election, although they are still standing.

According to Japanese media, the party has also provided 20m yen (£100,000) each to district offices headed by these figures – reports Ishiba has called “biased” as “those candidates will not use the money”.

Hitomi Hisano, an undecided voter from the central Aichi region, told AFP in Tokyo that the LDP’s funding scandal was a big factor for him.

“The LDP has sat in power for too long. I see hubris in there,” the 69-year-old said. “So part of me wants to punish them.” But there aren’t other parties that are reliable enough to win my vote.”

Michelle Obama laced into Donald Trump in a searing speech in Michigan on Saturday, accusing the former president of “gross incompetence” and having an “amoral character” while challenging hesitant Americans to choose Kamala Harris for US president.

“By every measure, she has demonstrated that she’s ready,” the former first lady told a rapt audience in Kalamazoo. “The real question is, as a country, are we ready for this moment?”

With the race virtually deadlocked, Obama said she was in the Midwestern battleground heeding her own advice to “do something” to support Harris bid to be the country’s first female president. In raw and strikingly personal terms, she asked why Harris was being held to a “higher standard” than her opponent. Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and his failed attempt to cling to power after losing the 2020 election should alone be disqualifying, Obama argued. But now the people who worked closest with him when he was president – his former advisers and cabinet secretaries – had stepped forward with a warning that he should not be allowed to return to power.

“I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m a little frustrated that some of us are choosing to ignore Donald Trump’s gross incompetence while asking Kamala to dazzle us at every turn,” Obama said. “Preach!” a woman shouted.

The event in Kalamazoo, which Obama referred to as “Kamala-zoo”, was her first appearance on the campaign trail since her rousing speech at the Democratic national convention in August. Obama said voters shouldn’t choose Harris because she’s a woman but “because Kamala Harris is a grown-up – and Lord knows we need a grown-up in the White House”.

When Obama finished, Beyoncé’s Freedom thundered from the loudspeakers and Harris emerged on stage. The predominantly female audience erupted as the women embraced.

With 10 days left, Harris delivered her closing argument: she pledged to be a president who listened to the American people, unlike her opponent, whom she accused of “looking in the mirror all the time”.

“Just imagine the Oval Office in three months,” she said. “It is either Donald Trump in there stewing over his enemies’ list – or me working for you, checking off my to-do list.”

Before the event, Harris visited a local doctor’s office in nearby Portage, where she spoke to healthcare providers and medical students about the impact of abortion restrictions. Harris has made protecting “reproductive freedom” and what remains of abortion access a major theme of her campaign, using it to draw a sharp contrast with Trump, who has claimed credit for his role in overturning Roe v Wade but insisted he would allow a nationwide ban as president.

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In Kalamazoo, both Harris and Obama argued that Trump had no credibility on the matter. But Obama went further, describing the full spectrum of women’s reproductive health – from period cramps to pregnancy to menopause. She lamented the lack of research on women’s health and the racial disparities in treatment. Directing her comments to the “men who love us”, Obama asked them to consider the harm that is done when a government “keeps revoking the basic care from its women”.

“I am asking y’all, from the core of my being, to take our lives seriously,” Obama said, her voice swelling with emotion. “If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage.”

Abortion bans, she argued, affected men as well. If something happened during a pregnancy or a delivery and the doctor was prevented from providing care, “you will be the one praying that it’s not too late. You will be the one pleading for somebody, anybody, to do something, and then there is the tragic but very real possibility that in the worst-case scenario, you just might be the one holding flowers at the funeral,” she said.

Obama’s appeal reflected the gaping gender divide between the candidates, with women powering Harris and men turning to Trump. She acknowledged the challenges facing the country, and conceded that progress could be too slow, but she argued that sitting out or voting third-party was not the answer.

“There is too much we stand to lose if we get this one wrong,” she said.

While Barack Obama is known as his party’s great orator, Michelle Obama remains one of its most popular albeit reluctant speakers. Having once encouraged Democrats to “go high” when they “go low”, Obama on Saturday made no effort to conceal her disdain for the man who led a years-long campaign questioning her husband’s birthplace.

“In any other profession or arena, Trump’s criminal track record and amoral character would be embarrassing, shameful and disqualifying,” she said.

The Harris campaign deployed Obama – along with Barack Obama and other leading figures and celebrities, including Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen – in hopes that their star power might deliver an 11th-hour jolt to a presidential contest that has otherwise remained static.

Both Harris and Trump were in Michigan on Saturday, chasing the state’s 15 electoral votes. After Pennsylvania, where Harris will campaign on Sunday, Michigan is perhaps the next most critical state on the Democrat’s path to the White House.

Trump won the state in 2016, when he tore down the trio of “blue wall” battlegrounds. But four years later, Michigan delivered Biden his biggest swing state victory and then Democrats swept the state in the 2022 congressional midterms, after the supreme court ruling overturning Roe v Wade.

Polls show a dead heat. Trump has sought to exacerbate Democratic divisions over the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon, elevating the issue in Michigan, where scores of Muslim and Arab American voters have said they cannot support Harris. On Saturday, Trump was joined on stage in Novi, Michigan, by Bill Bazzi, the current and first Muslim mayor of Dearborn Heights.

“I have never seen the devastation that we’re seeing right now,” Bazzi said. “When President Trump was president, there was no wars.”

The Harris campaign has conducted several outreach attempts to the Arab community, but tensions remain high with little time for a course change and the risk of escalation following Israel’s pre-dawn strikes on Iran. At the event, Harris was interrupted by a pro-Palestinian protester. “We have to end that war,” she responded, as the crowd drowned out the demonstration with “Kamala” chants.

Democrats are focused on juicing turnout in Detroit – which Trump insulted (again) at his Novi event on Saturday – while aggressively courting women, independents and anti-Trump Republicans in the suburbs. Her campaign recently earned the support of Fred Upton, the state’s long-serving Republican representative who left office in 2022. Upton told the Detroit Free Press that he had never supported a Democrat for president but this year cast an absentee ballot for Harris: “He’s just totally unhinged. We don’t need this chaos.”

Speaking before Harris, Michigan senator Gary Peters compared the presidential campaign to the highest-stakes job interview. Extending the metaphor, he suggested that they check Trump’s references. The senator quoted Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff John Kelly, who recently said on the record that his former boss fit the definition of a fascist.

“Would you hire that guy?” Peters asked. “No!” the crowd thundered back.

Fury and shock ripped through liberal America over the weekend after news that the Washington Post, home of the Watergate scandal exposé, the paper that ran the Pentagon Papers, will not now endorse Kamala Harris for president. But angry responses were quickly replaced by two pressing questions: how did it happen, and how could readers best protest?

At the centre of the storm is William Lewis, the British ­newspaperman who became Washington Post publisher and CEO in January. The 55-year-old north Londoner broke the decision to staff on Friday couched in terms that evoked the title’s traditions.

The newspaper, he said, was just moving back to its roots in ­declining to back a presidential candidate. This was a return to the convention of non-endorsement the Post gave up 48 years ago to support the Democrat Jimmy Carter. “We had it right before that, and this is what we are going back to,” said Lewis.

Among early public reactions was a call to unsubscribe that quickly became a social media trend #CancelWaPo, alongside a string of attacks on the failure to take a stand against Donald Trump, including from comedian Steve Martin, actor Mark Hamill and the Watergate ­journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Woodward and Bernstein, whose Watergate ­reporting and subsequent book were the basis for the award-winning film All the President’s Men, said: “This decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial ­evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy.

“Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news ­operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger a second Trump ­presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this ­decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process.”

The newspaper’s editor-at-large, Robert Kagan, resigned on Friday. Last year he wrote a column headlined: “The Trump dictatorship: How to stop it”, and he has also argued that the former president could “destroy” democracy if re-elected.

Cartoon-page editors at the Washington Post got their revenge on Saturday, putting out a dark, streaked image by the Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrator Ann Telnaes. The gloomy picture was called “Democracy dies in darkness”, the paper’s own Trump-era slogan. Bezos, who is understood to have refused the paper’s editorial board the freedom to make a political endorsement, has not commented.

“The timing of the Post endorsement decision looks craven and undermines the very independence it purports to defend,” said Marcus Brauchli, who edited the paper from 2008 to 2012. “This is a terrible own-goal,” Brauchli added. “There are perfectly good reasons a newspaper might give for not endorsing a ­presidential candidate. The Post didn’t offer any, and its timing was awful and looks, whatever the reasoning, gutless or craven.”

An editor at the paper told the Columbia Journalism Review the editorial work around an endorsement was on track as recently as a week ago. “We thought we were dickering over language – not over whether there would be an endorsement,” the Post staffer said.

The decision, the Review noted, “seems to us, is what Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University, calls ‘anticipatory obedience’.” The phrase describes, in Snyder’s words, “already giving over your power to the aspiring authoritarian”.

It follows a decision earlier in the week by the Los Angeles Times, not to endorse a candidate, which caused several editorial board members to step down. Nika Soon-Shiong, the daughter of the owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, a biotech billionaire, said on social media that the decision not to endorse Harris was down to the Democratic candidate’s position on the war in Gaza.

She wrote that her father, a South African transplant surgeon, had worked as an emergency surgeon in Soweto hospital during apartheid. “For my family, Apartheid is not a vague concept.” Maintaining that the decision to endorse was one made by the Los Angeles Times editorial board, Soon-Shiong added: “This is not a vote for Donald Trump. This is a refusal to ENDORSE a candidate that is overseeing a war on children.”.

The tradition of an endorsement goes back to the era when titles were formally attached to political parties, says Bob Thompson, media professor at Syracuse University.

“It does seem odd that newspapers are seemingly ­providing objective reportage then stepping back and having the editorial page and the paper itself make an endorsement. Television doesn’t do it. The question is: why is it this particular election?”

The closing days of this election are marked by increasing bitterness and pre-emptive political recrimination.

This weekend, many American commentators are pointing straight at Bezos, the Amazon billionaire owner of the Washington Post since the summer of 2013.

He, it is argued, now suspects that Trump may win on 5 November and that he might take presidential-scale revenge on Bezos and Amazon’s business ventures.

While Bezos, not Amazon, owns the newspaper, Amazon is a significant government contractor. In 2021, the US government announced the creation of the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract with Amazon Web Services, the most reliably profitable sector of the company.

The defense department deal with AWS, the government said, was “designed to make cloud services and capabilities available at all classification levels and across all security domains” and “key to enabling critical warfighter capabilities.”

Lewis made the paper’s ­position clear in an opinion piece saying that it was “consistent with the values the Post has always stood for”.

He wrote: “Character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects. We also see it as a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds on this, the most consequential of American decisions – whom to vote for as the next president.”

Lewis, who was knighted on the recommendation of his former political boss, Boris Johnson, is a former editor of the Daily Telegraph, and previously spent six years in New York as publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

On arrival at the Post, he ­inherited its first female executive editor, Sally Buzbee, but she stepped down a few months later, in June. She is believed to have objected to her new boss’s attempts to kill a story about his involvement in the aftermath of the newspaper hacking scandal in Britain.

When he was put in charge of the company, Lewis said: “We’re going to expand. We’re going to get our swagger back.”

In an interview in which Donald Trump said that he wants to be “a whale psychologist”, made the case for replacing income tax with tariffs and praised Confederate general Robert E Lee as a “genius”, the most striking thing about the former president’s encounter with podcaster Joe Rogan wasn’t the content as much as the length.

Over three hours, perhaps the longest ever campaign interview with a presidential candidate, Trump said very little that was factual but revealed a surprising amount about his disposition and his thinking should he return to office.

The Republican nominee’s appearance on Rogan makes smart political sense. Rogan, a commentator on Ultimate Fighting Championship broadcasts and comedian, began podcasting in 2009 and is now the most successful host in history. The Joe Rogan Experience is continually atop the global charts on both Apple and Spotify, earning almost half a billion dollars from deals with the latter.

For months now, the Democrats and their nominee, Kamala Harris, have been polling surprisingly poorly with young men compared with previous election cycles, creating consternation among party insiders. Rogan reaches the kind of politically skeptical young men with low trust in Washington DC – and in the news media that both parties believe could help them reach the White House.

That’s why at the start of the week, with polls tightening and Democrats concerned they may be “blowing” the election, the rumours were that it would be Harris who would appear on the podcast. It could have been one of the few media appearances that actually shifts the conversation and could have won over some undecideds. But her team eventually backed out of an appearance, perhaps concerned about the long freewheeling format. So it was announced that it would be Trump who would appear on the show.

Rogan’s initial questioning of Trump was inquisitive and unexpected. He asked about what it felt like entering the White House with no political experience. Trump responded honestly, saying it was more surreal than later being shot in the tip of one of his ears. He said that he “had made his money largely on luxury” and that he was amazed by how beautiful it was inside. He talked about the difficulties of transition for a non-politician who had “no experience and no idea who to appoint”. He sympathised with Mary Todd Lincoln’s “melancholia”. It seemed like Rogan’s inquisitive style might get something new from the former president.

But very quickly the interview descended into a long, rambling and often boring venture through Trump’s greatest hits. He demonised migrants, spoke warmly about Vladimir Putin and falsely claimed the 2020 election had been stolen from him. Rogan tried to push him on nuclear power and the environment. But Trump only wanted to discuss how ugly he finds windfarms – and how their vibrations upset the whales – and the ways in which environmental regulations would stop him getting permits for his buildings in New York.

In May, pollsters for the New York Times/Siena College analysed their data to see what were the key predictors for why a voter who supported Joe Biden when he defeated Trump in 2020 might defect to the Republican against Harris.

They found that the No 1 predictor was whether the voter was born in the Middle East, a reflection of the Democrats’ position on the war in Gaza. The No 2 predictor was whether they had a favorable view of Rogan. For some young male voters, he’s their main source of political information.

Rogan himself is a political riddle. He’s a conspiracy theorist and an anti-vaxxer and so is often painted as rightwing or Trump-supporting – but he’s actually got a complex and often conflicting set of beliefs. He fiercely defends abortion rights, gay marriage and gun rights. He’s gravitated toward outsider candidates like Bernie Sanders and RFK Jr – he voted for the Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen in the previous election. In 2022, Rogan described Trump as an “existential threat to democracy”.

Harris, who has been struggling to define herself with voters, may have found the relaxed atmosphere helpful – especially as Rogan tends to always agree with what his guests say.

He allowed to Trump brazenly lie – about election fraud, the deficit, his tax policy and many other issues – without ever challenging him. He also appeared to agree with him on many positions that he’s previously taken the opposite stance and painted election deniers as an oppressed group, saying: “You get labelled, it’s like being labelled an anti-vaxxer.”

The pair discussed Rogan’s previous support for RFK Jr, who Trump promised could do “whatever” when it came to health policy in his administration, which placated the podcast host but may concern the mainstream scientific and medical community against whom Kennedy has railed.

Rogan had one good moment as an interviewer, asking Trump if he was ever going to “present” his supposed evidence of election tampering. But he let Trump ramble on to a different topic: Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Because of this easy ride, Trump came off sounding old, doddering and unintelligent – but politically unscathed. He was allowed to blame all of America’s ills on Democrats and paint himself as a great leader. He attacked Harris, calling her “low IQ” and that she “couldn’t put two sentences together”. She was one of a number of women whom Trump and Rogan dismissed as “stupid”, perhaps with a nod to the young misogynist voters who could be persuaded to vote for the former president.

For the most part, Rogan – not the smartest cookie himself – simply nodded along. He finished by saying having Trump on was “a lot of fun”.

For anyone else who made it through all three hours, that might have been the biggest lie of all.

China will take “countermeasures” to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the government said, lambasting a $2bn arms sale package by the United States to Taiwan.

The Pentagon on Friday said the United States had approved a potential $2bn arms sale package to Taiwan, including the delivery for the first time to the island of an advanced air defence missile system battle-tested in Ukraine, including advanced surface-to-air missile systems and radar. The deal awaits approval by Congress.

In a statement late on Saturday, China’s foreign ministry said it strongly condemned and firmly opposed the sales and had lodged “solemn representations” with the US.

China urges the US to immediately stop arming Taiwan and stop its dangerous moves that undermine peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, it added.

“China will take resolute countermeasures and take all measures necessary to firmly defend national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity,” the ministry said, without elaborating.

The US is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, to the anger of Beijing.

The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said the new sale consisted of $1.16bn in missile systems, and radar systems worth an estimated $828m.

The missile system sale is for three National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (Nasams) medium-range air defence solutions that includes the advanced AMRAAM Extended Range surface to air missiles, it added.

“This proposed sale serves US national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernise its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability,” it said in a statement. “The proposed sale will help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region.”

Demand for Nasams has increased since the system was employed in Ukraine. Taiwan’s defence ministry welcomed the announcement, noting the “proven” use of Nasams in Ukraine and saying it would help Taiwan’s air defence capabilities in the face of China’s frequent military manoeuvres.

China has over the past five years stepped up its military activities around democratically governed Taiwan, whose government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, including staging a new round of war games earlier this month.

Taiwan’s government welcomed the new arms sale, the 17th of the Biden administration to the island.

“In the face of China’s threats, Taiwan is duty-bound to protect its homeland, and will continue to demonstrate its determination to defend itself,” Taiwan’s foreign ministry said, responding to the arms sale.

Beijing’s foreign ministry hit back in its statement late on Saturday, saying the latest arms package “seriously damages China-US relations, and endangers peace and stability” in the strait.

China has refused to rule out using force to bring Taiwan under its control.

In September, Beijing sanctioned US defence companies in retaliation for Washington’s approval of the sale of military equipment to Taiwan.

China will take “countermeasures” to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the government said, lambasting a $2bn arms sale package by the United States to Taiwan.

The Pentagon on Friday said the United States had approved a potential $2bn arms sale package to Taiwan, including the delivery for the first time to the island of an advanced air defence missile system battle-tested in Ukraine, including advanced surface-to-air missile systems and radar. The deal awaits approval by Congress.

In a statement late on Saturday, China’s foreign ministry said it strongly condemned and firmly opposed the sales and had lodged “solemn representations” with the US.

China urges the US to immediately stop arming Taiwan and stop its dangerous moves that undermine peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, it added.

“China will take resolute countermeasures and take all measures necessary to firmly defend national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity,” the ministry said, without elaborating.

The US is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, to the anger of Beijing.

The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said the new sale consisted of $1.16bn in missile systems, and radar systems worth an estimated $828m.

The missile system sale is for three National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (Nasams) medium-range air defence solutions that includes the advanced AMRAAM Extended Range surface to air missiles, it added.

“This proposed sale serves US national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernise its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability,” it said in a statement. “The proposed sale will help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region.”

Demand for Nasams has increased since the system was employed in Ukraine. Taiwan’s defence ministry welcomed the announcement, noting the “proven” use of Nasams in Ukraine and saying it would help Taiwan’s air defence capabilities in the face of China’s frequent military manoeuvres.

China has over the past five years stepped up its military activities around democratically governed Taiwan, whose government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, including staging a new round of war games earlier this month.

Taiwan’s government welcomed the new arms sale, the 17th of the Biden administration to the island.

“In the face of China’s threats, Taiwan is duty-bound to protect its homeland, and will continue to demonstrate its determination to defend itself,” Taiwan’s foreign ministry said, responding to the arms sale.

Beijing’s foreign ministry hit back in its statement late on Saturday, saying the latest arms package “seriously damages China-US relations, and endangers peace and stability” in the strait.

China has refused to rule out using force to bring Taiwan under its control.

In September, Beijing sanctioned US defence companies in retaliation for Washington’s approval of the sale of military equipment to Taiwan.

Prince William has said criticism about his privileged lifestyle and many residences drives him to try to end homelessness in Britain.

The heir to the throne was challenged to respond to jibes about his three homes and 135,000-acre Duchy of Cornwall estate for a two-part ITV documentary airing this week.

In Prince William: We Can End Homelessness, viewers hear a recording of LBC radio host James O’Brien citing criticism from Graham Smith, the chief executive of Republic, the anti-monarchist group, who says homelessness is about government policy and investment, and won’t be stopped by charity or royal patronage.

Asked how he feels about the criticism of Homewards, his five-year programme designed to show others how homelessness can be ended, William says: “I think if I answered every critic, I’d be here all day. But you know, criticism drives you forward.”

He adds: “I think it’s right to question but I think, ultimately, we are pushing forward to deliver change and hope and optimism into a world that frankly has had very little of it for a long time. I hope I can bring something that’s not been done before.”

The documentary, which airs on Wednesday and Thursday, follows him through the first year after launching Homewards. William is seen touring Nansledan, near Newquay, where the duchy is building 24 homes.

“I’m not sitting here saying I’m going to solve the entire world’s homelessness problems. But I am going to show people how to prevent homelessness,” he says.

More than 350,000 people in Britain lack a permanent home. The number of homeless people, or at risk, aged between 16 and 24 is estimated to have risen to more than 130,000.

The prince tells the documentary team he has discussed homelessness with his three children, George, Charlotte, and Louis on the school run. In Windsor, where they live, the local council was dealing earlier this year with 101 homelessness cases and there were 25 rough sleepers.

“The first few times I thought, do I bring this up? Or should I wait and see if any of them noticed? And sure enough, they did, and they were just sort of in silence after I had said what was going on,” he tells the film-makers. “And I do think it’s really important that you start those conversations when the children are small, so that they understand the world around them and they’re not just living, you know, in their own little worlds.”

A judge in Louisiana has temporarily blocked further efforts by state officials to clear homeless encampments in New Orleans – stalling a push that came before three Taylor Swift concerts in the city this weekend.

The effort to relocate about 75 people living in tents beneath an overpass near the Superdome began in the days leading up to pop star’s shows, which could draw 150,000 visitors to the stadium.

Judge Lori Jupiter granted a temporary restraining order on Friday, directing state law enforcement officials to not “destroy or dispose of the property of unhoused people without judicial process” and to notify people in the “state sanctioned camp” that they are “free to leave”.

The order is in effect until 4 November.

The judge’s ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by unhoused people who were subject to the sweep. In legal filings, they argued that state troopers violated their constitutional rights by illegally searching, seizing and destroying their property, disposing of their prized possessions and “forcibly herding” them away.

According to the lawsuit, a legal observer overheard state troopers saying “the governor wants you to move because of the Taylor Swift concert”.

State officials have said the residents were being moved to a new location about two blocks away, where unhoused people living in the tourist-heavy French Quarter neighborhood would also be moved.

A spokesperson for the governor, Jeff Landry, has said that the effort was meant to address homelessness and safety issues, linking the push to the concerts and February’s Super Bowl, which will take place in the city.

“As we prepare for the city to host Taylor Swift and Super Bowl LIX, we are committed to ensuring New Orleans puts its best foot forward when on the world stage,” Landry’s communications director, Kate Kelly, said in a statement issued to local media.

Advocates argue the effort disrupted the work of local officials to connect unhoused people with social services and help them find more permanent housing solutions.

Martha Kegel, executive director of Unity of Greater New Orleans, a non-profit that seeks permanent housing for unsheltered people, said the sweep was a needless and harmful endeavor and that many of those in the camp have mental illnesses and are distrustful of authorities and those trying to help them.

“Some people were frightened and left, and that’s not good,” she said. “Because then all the work that we did to assess them and document their disabilities and, you know, work with them on their housing plan has now been wasted.”

Among those who made the move Wednesday was Terrence Cobbins. Taking a break from gathering his belongings, he said he was told to move because of the concerts.

“They ain’t never did it before for other people,” he said. “Why Taylor Swift?”

Elon Musk briefly worked illegally in the US after abandoning a graduate studies program in California, according to a Washington Post report that contrasted the episode with the South African multibillionaire’s anti-immigration views.

The boss of Tesla and SpaceX, who has in recent weeks supported Donald Trump’s campaign for a second presidency while promoting the Republican White House nominee’s opposition to “open borders” on his X social media site, has previously maintained that his transition from student to entrepreneur was a “legal grey area”.

But the Washington Post reported Saturday that the world’s wealthiest individual was almost certainly working in the US without correct authorization for a period in 1995 after he dropped out of Stanford University to work on his debut company, Zip2, which sold for about $300m four years later.

Legal experts said foreign students cannot drop out of school to build a company even if they are not getting paid. The Post also noted that – prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks agains the US in 2001 – regulation for student visas was more lax.

“If you do anything that helps to facilitate revenue creation, such as design code or try to make sales in furtherance of revenue creation, then you’re in trouble,” Leon Fresco, a former US justice department immigration litigator, told the outlet.

But the Post also acknowledged: “While overstaying a student visa is somewhat common and officials have at times turned a blind eye to it, it remains illegal.”

Musk has previously said: “I was legally there, but I was meant to be doing student work. I was allowed to do work sort of supporting whatever.”

Musk employs 121,000 people at Tesla, about 13,000 at SpaceX and nearly 3,000 at X. The scrutiny of his immigration status after dropping out of Stanford comes after Trump has touted his desire for Musk to play a high-profile role focused on government efficiency in a second Trump administration if voters return him to office at the expense of Kamala Harris in the 5 November election.

Musk in turn has accused the vice-president and her fellow Democrats of “importing voters” through illegal and temporary protected status immigration. During a recent Trump campaign appearance, he compared the US-Mexico border to a “zombie apocalypse” – even as he had also previously described himself as “extremely pro immigrant, being one myself”.

Bloomberg News recently published an analysis of more than 53,000 posts sent from Musk’s X account, finding that the entrepreneur’s output turned increasingly political this election year.

“In 2024, immigration and voter fraud has become Musk’s most frequently posted and engaged with policy topic, garnering about 10bn views,” the outlet said. “Musk posted more than 1,300 times about the topic overall, with more than 330 posts in the past 2 months alone.”

Bloomberg described Musk – who paid $44bn for X, then Twitter, in 2022 – as the platform’s single most important influencer and has reportedly ordered site engineers to push his posts into users’ feeds. That makes Musk “the most widely read person on the site today”, Bloomberg said.

Elon Musk briefly worked illegally in the US after abandoning a graduate studies program in California, according to a Washington Post report that contrasted the episode with the South African multibillionaire’s anti-immigration views.

The boss of Tesla and SpaceX, who has in recent weeks supported Donald Trump’s campaign for a second presidency while promoting the Republican White House nominee’s opposition to “open borders” on his X social media site, has previously maintained that his transition from student to entrepreneur was a “legal grey area”.

But the Washington Post reported Saturday that the world’s wealthiest individual was almost certainly working in the US without correct authorization for a period in 1995 after he dropped out of Stanford University to work on his debut company, Zip2, which sold for about $300m four years later.

Legal experts said foreign students cannot drop out of school to build a company even if they are not getting paid. The Post also noted that – prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks agains the US in 2001 – regulation for student visas was more lax.

“If you do anything that helps to facilitate revenue creation, such as design code or try to make sales in furtherance of revenue creation, then you’re in trouble,” Leon Fresco, a former US justice department immigration litigator, told the outlet.

But the Post also acknowledged: “While overstaying a student visa is somewhat common and officials have at times turned a blind eye to it, it remains illegal.”

Musk has previously said: “I was legally there, but I was meant to be doing student work. I was allowed to do work sort of supporting whatever.”

Musk employs 121,000 people at Tesla, about 13,000 at SpaceX and nearly 3,000 at X. The scrutiny of his immigration status after dropping out of Stanford comes after Trump has touted his desire for Musk to play a high-profile role focused on government efficiency in a second Trump administration if voters return him to office at the expense of Kamala Harris in the 5 November election.

Musk in turn has accused the vice-president and her fellow Democrats of “importing voters” through illegal and temporary protected status immigration. During a recent Trump campaign appearance, he compared the US-Mexico border to a “zombie apocalypse” – even as he had also previously described himself as “extremely pro immigrant, being one myself”.

Bloomberg News recently published an analysis of more than 53,000 posts sent from Musk’s X account, finding that the entrepreneur’s output turned increasingly political this election year.

“In 2024, immigration and voter fraud has become Musk’s most frequently posted and engaged with policy topic, garnering about 10bn views,” the outlet said. “Musk posted more than 1,300 times about the topic overall, with more than 330 posts in the past 2 months alone.”

Bloomberg described Musk – who paid $44bn for X, then Twitter, in 2022 – as the platform’s single most important influencer and has reportedly ordered site engineers to push his posts into users’ feeds. That makes Musk “the most widely read person on the site today”, Bloomberg said.

The Washington Post’s cartoon team has taken a measure of revenge on the newspaper’s decision to avoid making a formal presidential endorsement with a dark formless image clearly designed to skewer the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” slogan that the outlet adopted during billionaire Jeff Bezos’s ownership.

The image was published hours after it was revealed that Bezos, who has owned the paper since 2012, had pulled the plug on a prepared endorsement of Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in the 5 November election.

The cartoon commentary was created by Pulitzer prize-winning illustrator Ann Telnaes, who is known for her incisive political representations.

In 2000, she contributed an image of the two presidential candidates at the time, Al Gore and George W Bush, as choice between two boring brands of breakfast cereal.

“We’ve got Gore Bran, … and then we have Bush, who, at the time, was thought to be quite a lightweight. I had him as a Frosted Flake,” she later recalled.

The decision by the Post to forego a political endorsement comes days after the Los Angeles Times made a similar decision. In both cases, the decision has caused newsroom uproar, resignations and canceled subscriptions.

Former Washington Post editor Marty Baron criticized Bezos’s decision as “cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty”. Baron said it was an invitation for Trump to “further intimidate” the media after threatening to exact retribution against all who opposed him if he returns to power.

Baron later noted that the paper’s editorial board had expressed opinions of US House and Senate races “but if they think readers can make up their own minds, then sure … maybe they should decide just not to run editorials at all”.

“If their philosophy is that readers can make up their own minds on big issues they face in this democracy, then don’t run any editorials,” Baron said on CNN. “But the fact is they decided not to run editorials in this one instance, 11 days before an election.”

The Associated Press reported that Trump briefly met with executives of Bezos’s space exploration company Blue Origin on Friday after his newspaper had spiked its endorsement of Harris.

The Columbia Journalism Review said the Post’s decision not to make an endorsement amounted to what Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder termed “anticipatory obedience”.

Bezos’s Post adopted the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” slogan in 2017. According to the newspaper, Bezos heard it from the Post’s renowned investigative journalist Bob Woodward, who in turn said he had read it in a judicial opinion involving a case centering on the US constitutional amendment calling for a free press.

Why do people want to see Grindavík? Gunnar Schram, the police chief for Suðurnes, the region of Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula that has erupted six times since last December, laughs at the question.

The allure of getting close to an active volcano is so strong that even the person tasked with ensuring people behave around the eruption site at Grindavík, which opened up to the public on Monday for the first time since the town started cracking open on 10 November last year, cannot deny its majesty.

“Many tourists that come to Iceland have never even seen lava up close,” he says, incredulous.

Although the most dangerous parts are cordoned off, visiting Grindavík is still only possible at travellers’ own risk, and children are advised not to go. The ground is still emitting steam and just one metre down the rock is as hot as 800C. Scientists are closely monitoring the situation, and another eruption is expected in the next month or two.

“If it wasn’t for the barriers around Grindavík, most of the town would be under lava today. It’s not hard to see that people have interest in that,” says Schram.

Even Icelanders, who are used to witnessing the power of nature up close, are changed by close encounters with volcanos. “But for tourists,” he adds, “coming to Iceland and seeing those things in Grindavík up close, that must be something.”

And yet tourists have not exactly rushed to visit what is now a ghost town, after nature forced a thriving, close-knit, multigenerational community of 3,800 to disperse. So far, they have had about 50 visitors a day.

Of course, part of the attraction of Iceland is its status as a volcanic hotspot. In August, I saw the volcano from the air and, despite the destruction it had caused, the sight of the red glow, even from afar, was magnetic.

But compared with previous eruptions – such as that of the Fagradalsfjall volcano near Grindavík in 2021, a so-called “tourist eruption” which went on for six months but did not pose any threat to life – the events of the last year have been far more serious in terms of human impact and have even proved fatal. Lúðvík Pétursson, 50, went missing while filling cracks in the ground in January. The search for him was called off after several days.

When the Observer went to Grindavík in February, visitors were required to have special QR codes that were scanned at a checkpoint to enter. Around the town the only other vehicles were police cars and moving vans, while many of the remaining residents were packing up their livelihoods. There were fences cordoning off unstable buildings, deep cracks in the ground, and in many of the house windows handwritten sings said Farin (gone). People were advised to wear face masks to protect them from the overwhelming stench of sulphur dioxide. But now that is no longer required.

Today, some residents and businesses remain, including fisheries, but with 90% of properties bought up by the government and the likelihood of more eruptions, the future is a huge uncertainty.

Grindavík Guesthouse is among the small number of businesses that has decided to reopen, even though its owners have been forced to move out of the town themselves. In the last year, the owners, who have four children, have moved six times. They are promoting the nearby lava fields “for an up-close experience of the raw Icelandic landscape.” So far they have had some tourists who have come to see the empty town, some who were passing through and others who were going to the Blue Lagoon, the nearby geothermal spa.

The local tourism board says it has seen a steady flow of tourists and locals visiting the town since the reopening, but it has been difficult to develop volcano tourism as an attraction due to the uncertainty of the eruptions. A Grindavík-based tour operator is offering guided tours through the town highlighting the changes before and after evacuation, and more are expected to start up in the future.

Although there was an effect on tourist numbers initially, which the tourism board in part blames on international media reporting of the eruptions, numbers have picked up to slightly higher than previous levels so far this year. Between January and September 2024, more than 1.7 million people visited Iceland.

The new Icelandic president, Halla Tómasdóttir, was keen to emphasise to the Observer in August that the country was open as usual and completely safe for tourism.

But, the Icelandic tourist board warns, anybody who defies official advice to go off-piste in their explorations cannot expect to be rescued.

The board’s safety specialist, Dagbjartur Brynjarsson, says for some disaster tourists, the draw of social media attention has proved too compelling. “We have some people, mostly foreigners, running across fresh lava, so to speak, and going very close to the crater. If something happens, no one will come and get you.”

The celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has encouraged cheese lovers to help police catch scammers who defrauded a London dairy out of more than £300,000 worth of English and Welsh cheddar.

Neal’s Yard Dairy, a distributor and retailer of British artisan cheese, delivered 22 tonnes of award-winning clothbound cheddar to the alleged fraudster posing as a wholesale distributor for a large French retailer before realising it had been duped.

Oliver, 49, described the incident involving more than 950 wheels of cheddar as a “brazen heist of shocking proportions”.

He told followers on Instagram to be alert if they heard anything about “lorryloads of very posh cheese” being offered “for cheap”, adding that the cheddar would have originally been worth about £300,000.

The stolen cheeses were Hafod Welsh organic cheddar, Westcombe cheddar, and Pitchfork cheddar, which have won a number of awards and are among “the most sought-after artisan cheeses in the UK”, Neal’s Yard Dairy has said.

It said it had still paid Hafod, Westcombe and Pitchfork, the small-scale producers of the stolen products, so they would not have to bear the cost.

The three cheeses sell for between £7.15 and £12.90 for a small piece weighing 250-300g.

Neal’s Yard Dairy added it was working with the Metropolitan police to identify the perpetrators.

The dairy is calling on cheesemongers around the world to contact them if they suspect they have been sold the stolen cheese, particularly clothbound cheddars in a 10kg or 24kg format with the tags detached.

On Friday, the Met said in a statement it was investigating a “report of the theft of a large quantity of cheese” from a London outlet.

“Inquiries are ongoing into the circumstances,” it said, adding that no arrests had been made so far since the theft was reported on Monday.