Never in recent US political history has the outcome of a presidential election been so in doubt – this is not a contest for the faint of heart.

While past elections have been narrowly decided – George W Bush’s 2000 victory over Al Gore came down to a few hundred votes in Florida – there’s always been some sense of which direction the race was tilting in the final days.

Sometimes, as in 2016, the sense is wrong. In that year, polls overestimated Hillary Clinton’s strength and failed to detect a late-breaking movement in Donald’s Trump favour.

This time around, however, the arrows are all pointing in different directions. No-one can seriously make a prediction either way.

• Follow live election day updates
• What do final polls tell us about who is winning?
• When will we know who has won?

Most of the final polls are well within the margin of error, both nationally and in the seven key battleground states that will decide the election.

Based on statistics and sample sizes alone, that means either candidate could be ahead.

It is this uncertainty that vexes political pundits and campaign strategists alike.

There have been a smattering of surprises – not least one notable example, a recent respected survey of Republican-leaning Iowa giving Harris a shock lead.

But the major polling averages, and the forecasting models that interpret them, all show this as a coin-toss contest.

Just because the outcome of this election is uncertain, that doesn’t mean the actual result won’t be decisive – a shift of a few percentage points either way, and a candidate could sweep all of the battleground states.

If the voter turnout models are wrong and more women head to the polls, or more rural residents, or more disaffected young voters – that could dramatically shift the final results.

There could also be surprises among key demographic groups.

Will Trump really make the inroads with young black and Latino men that his campaign has predicted? Is Harris winning over a larger proportion of traditionally Republican suburban women, as her team is hoping? Are elderly voters – who reliably vote every election and tend to lean to the right – moving into the Democratic column?

• Americans anxious as two nations collide

Once this election is in the rear-view mirror, we may be able to conclusively point to a reason why the winning candidate came out on top.

Perhaps, in hindsight, the answer will be obvious. But anyone who says they know how things will turn out right now is fooling you – and themselves.

In most US states the outcome of the presidential vote is all but certain. But there are seven key battleground states that will decide this election.

Not all battleground states are created equal, however. Each candidate has a “wall” of three states that offers the most direct path to the White House.

Harris’s so-called “blue” wall, named for the colour of the Democratic Party, stretches across Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in the Great Lakes region. It has been the subject of much political conversation since 2016, when Trump narrowly won all three traditionally Democratic states on his way to victory.

Joe Biden flipped these states back in 2020. If Harris can hold them, she doesn’t need any other battleground, as long as she also wins a congressional district in Nebraska (which has a slightly different system in how it awards its electoral college votes).

That explains why she has spent the bulk of her time in these blue wall states during the campaign’s final stretch, with full days on the ground in each.

• Visual guide – Harris and Trump’s paths to victory
• The moment I decided who to vote for

On Monday night, she held her final rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the top of the 72 steps leading to the city’s Museum of Art, which Sylvester Stallone’s fictional boxer Rocky climbed in the film of the same name – before narrowly losing to his opponent, Apollo Creed.

Trump’s “red wall” sits along the eastern edge of the US. It is less talked about but equally important to his electoral chances. It starts in Pennsylvania but stretches south to North Carolina and Georgia. If he carries these states, he will win by two electoral votes, no matter how the other battlegrounds vote.

That explains why he’s held five events in North Carolina in just in the last week.

The overlapping point on each of these walls, of course, is Pennsylvania – the biggest battleground electoral prize. Its nickname, the Keystone State, has never been more appropriate.

Sometimes lost in all this electoral map strategising and gameplay is the historic significance of this presidential election.

Harris and Trump represent two very different views of the US – on immigration, trade, cultural issues and foreign policy.

The president for the next four years will be able to shape American government – including the federal courts – in a way that could have an impact for generations.

The US political landscape has been changing dramatically over the past four years, reflecting shifts in the demographic make-ups of both parties.

The Republican Party of a decade ago looked very different to the populist one that Trump now leads, which has far more appeal to blue-collar and low-income voters.

• How Trump came back from his darkest hour
• What Harris’s years as prosecutor tell us now

The Democratic Party’s base still rests on young voters and people of colour, but it now relies more on the wealthy and college educated.

Tuesday’s results may offer additional evidence of how these tectonic shifts in American politics, only partially realised over the past eight years, are reshaping the US political map.

And those shifts could give one side or the other an advantage in future races.

It wasn’t too long ago – in the 1970s and 1980s – that Republicans were viewed as having a unassailable lock on the presidency because they consistently won a majority in enough states to prevail in the electoral college.

This election may be a 50-50 contest, but that doesn’t mean this is the new normal in American presidential politics.

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• EXPLAINER: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• GLOBAL: How this election could change the world
• IN PICS: Different lives of Harris and Trump
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

Migrants stranded for years on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia will be offered the right to come to the UK, under a government proposal.

Around 60 Sri Lankan Tamils have spent more than three years in a makeshift camp on the island, which hosts a secretive UK-US military base, after becoming the first people ever to file asylum claims there.

The government has previously opposed bringing the group to the UK and complex legal battles have been fought for years over their fate.

In a letter on Monday, government lawyers said that “following further consideration”, the government had proposed a “change of policy”.

Under this, “all families, children and those of the unaccompanied males who do not have criminal convictions, outstanding charges or investigations would be offered the opportunity to be transferred directly to the UK”.

It added that work on the offer was “ongoing” and a formal decision would be made within 48 hours. “Details will be provided as soon as possible,” it said.

In a phone call with one of the Tamils, an official said the decision to bring them to the UK was due to the “exceptional circumstances” of the island, adding that entry would be for “a short period of time”.

The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesperson told reporters at a daily news briefing in Downing Street that “the government inherited a deeply-troubling situation that remained unresolved under the previous administration when it came to migrants who had arrived at Diego Garcia. Diego Garcia had clearly never been a suitable long-term location for migrants”.

He added “the government has been working to find a solution that protects their welfare and the integrity of British territorial borders”.

Lawyers representing the Tamils described the move as a “very welcome step” in a “long battle for justice”.

“After three years living in inhumane conditions, having to fight various injustices in court on numerous occasions, His Majesty’s Government [HMG] has now decided that our clients should now come directly to the UK. We hope that HMG will now take urgent steps to give effect to this decision,” Simon Robinson of UK law firm Duncan Lewis told the BBC.

“Today’s decision is an enormous relief to our clients and we urge the home secretary to close the camp and bring our clients here without any further delay,” said Leigh Day lawyer Tom Short.

“It looks like a dream. I don’t know what to think,” one Tamil said after receiving a call from an official with the news.

The UK had previously offered some of the group a temporary move to Romania with the possibility of then coming to the UK. Others were offered financial incentives to return to Sri Lanka.

The latest development comes after the UK announced last month that it was handing sovereignty of British Indian Ocean Territory (Biot), which includes Diego Garcia, to Mauritius. The military base, however, will remain on the island.

Under a separate deal last month, future migrants arriving on Biot before the arrangement with Mauritius comes into force will be transferred to the island of St Helena – another UK territory some 5,000 miles away.

In court on Monday, lawyers said three people with criminal convictions may be sent to the island of Montserrat – a British territory in the Caribbean – to serve their sentences.

The BBC was recently granted unprecedented access to Diego Garcia to attend a court hearing, which is set to determine whether the Tamils had been unlawfully detained.

During the visit, the migrants walked the court through military tents they have been living in, pointing out damp, tears in the canvas, droppings, and a rats’ nest above one of the beds.

Over the past three years, there have been multiple hunger strikes on the island, and numerous incidents of self-harm and suicide attempts after which some people have been transferred to Rwanda for medical care.

“For three years I have been caged. Now they are releasing me but I don’t know what to do. I feel a bit blank,” one man in Rwanda said.

“I am very happy because I am coming to the UK. I thought they would send me to some other country.”

The group includes 16 children. Most are awaiting final decisions on claims for international protection – which the United Nations says is akin to refugee status – or appealing against rejections. In total, eight have been granted international protection.

Offices of streaming giant Netflix in Paris and Amsterdam have been raided by the French and Dutch authorities as part of an investigation into tax fraud, French judicial sources say.

Officials from the two countries have been co-operating on the case since the investigation was opened in November 2022.

Netflix has not as yet made any specific comment on the raids, but insists it complies with tax laws wherever it operates.

The Amsterdam office is the headquarters of the company’s operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The French investigation is being carried out by the National Financial Prosecutor’s office (PNF), a special unit used for investigations into high-profile white-collar crime.

It relates to suspicions of “covering up serious tax fraud and off-the-books work”, according to the PNF.

The company is also under investigation for tax filings for 2019, 2020 and 2021.

The French sources said authorities in the Netherlands were conducting simultaneous searches, and that co-operation between the two countries had been going on for “many months”.

Last year, French media outlet La Lettre reported that until 2021, Netflix in France minimised its tax payments by declaring its turnover generated in France to the Netherlands.

After it abandoned this arrangement, La Lettre said, its annual declared turnover in France jumped from €47.1m ($51.3m; £39.6m) in 2020 to €1.2bn in 2021.

However, the outlet says investigators are trying to determine whether Netflix continued to attempt to minimise its profits after 2021.

Netflix arrived in France more than 10 years ago, opening its Paris office in 2020. It has some 10 million subscribers in the country, according to AFP news agency.

A series of parcel fires targeting courier companies in Poland, Germany and the UK were dry runs aimed at sabotaging flights to the US and Canada, Polish prosecutors say.

Katarzyna Calow-Jaszewska revealed late last month that four people had been arrested and authorities across Europe were investigating the incidents.

Western security officials have now told US media they believe the fires – which happened in July – were part of an orchestrated campaign by Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU.

Russia denies being behind acts of sabotage. But it is suspected to have been behind other attacks on warehouses and railway networks in EU member states this year, including in Sweden and in the Czech Republic.

Ms Calow-Jaszewska said in a statement that a group of foreign intelligence saboteurs had been involved in sending parcels containing hidden explosives and dangerous materials via courier companies. The parcels then spontaneously burst into flames or blew up.

Western officials believe the fires originated in electric massage machines containing a “magnesium-based” substance.

Magnesium-based fires are hard to put out, especially on board a plane.

“The group’s goal was also to test the transfer channel for such parcels, which were ultimately to be sent to the United States of America and Canada,” Ms Calow-Jaszewska said.

On three days in July, fires broke out in a container due to be loaded on to a DHL cargo plane in the German city of Leipzig, at a transport company near Warsaw, and at Minworth near Birmingham, UK, involving a package described as an incendiary device.

The incident at Jablonow near Warsaw took two hours to extinguish, according to Polish reports.

UK officials have given few details about the Minworth fire on 22 July. Last month the Guardian newspaper reported that counter-terrorism police were investigating whether Russian spies planted a device in a parcel that later caught fire at a DHL warehouse.

Ken McCallum, head of the UK’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, said last month that Russian secret agents had carried out “arson, sabotage and more. Dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness” after the UK had helped Ukraine in Russia’s war. His allegations were flatly rejected by the Kremlin.

It is important to separate the known facts from the allegations being made and suspicions voiced by Western officials.

What is beyond doubt is that this year has seen a succession of suspicious fires at cargo depots in the UK, Germany and Poland – suspicious enough to trigger investigations by counter terrorism police.

There have been other incidents across Europe and last month a man was convicted at the Old Bailey under the new National Security Act for an arson attack on a Ukrainian-owned business in Leyton, east London in March.

In Germany, the head of the domestic intelligence agency (BfV) has said it was only by a stroke of fortune that the Leipzig device had not ignited in mid-air.

BfV head Thomas Haldenwang has described the device that caught fire at DHL’s logistics hub at Leipzig-Halle airport as suspected Russian sabotage.

Taken together, these events are leading Western governments to conclude there is a strong possibility that Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency has embarked on a systematic campaign of anonymous, covert attacks on those countries helping Ukraine.

The package that burst into flames in Leipzig is thought to have arrived from Lithuania and its onward flight was delayed.

The device that caught fire in Minworth is also understood to have come from Lithuania, where the head of the parliament’s national security and defence committee, Arvydas Pocius, said it was part of an ongoing campaign of hybrid attacks aimed at “causing chaos, panic and mistrust”.

DHL has increased security since the recent freight fires. “DHL Express has taken measures in all European countries to protect its network, its employees and facilities, as well as its customers’ shipments,” a spokeswoman said a few weeks ago.

Poland’s government has already responded to alleged Russian sabotage, with Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski announcing the closure of a Russian consulate in Poznan and threatening to expel the Russian ambassador if it fails to bring an end to its attacks.

Russia’s foreign ministry condemned the move as “a hostile step that will be met with a painful response”.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has criticised the “cowardly attempts to intimidate our diplomats” in a deepening diplomatic row with Canada.

Both countries expelled each other’s top envoys last month after Canadian officials accused India of being involved in violent acts targeting Indian dissidents on Canadian soil, something the country denies.

Modi’s comments came after violence broke out at a Hindu temple in the Canadian city of Brampton on Sunday, which he has called a “deliberate attack”.

“Such acts of violence will never weaken India’s resolve. We expect the Canadian government to ensure justice and uphold the rule of law,” he wrote on X.

Local police said three people have so far been arrested and charged over the incident in Brampton, near Toronto, but did not provide further details.

The force said “several acts of unlawfulness continue to be actively investigated” by its officers.

Unverified video posted online appeared to show people carrying yellow flags of the Khalistan movement – which demands a separate Sikh homeland in India – clashing with others holding Indian flags.

India’s foreign ministry said “extremists and separatists” were behind the violence, calling on the Canadian government to “ensure that all places of worship are protected from such attacks”.

The North America-based activist group Sikhs for Justice, meanwhile, described the incident as an “unprovoked violent attack on peaceful pro-Khalistan demonstrators”.

Justin Trudeau wrote on X that Sunday’s violence was “unacceptable”, adding that “every Canadian has the right to practice their faith freely and safely”.

Relations between India and Canada have soured since Ottawa accused the Indian government of being behind the 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a naturalised Canadian citizen who is labelled a terrorist in India.

India has vehemently denied this and other allegations and maintained that Canada has provided no evidence to support its claims.

Mr Nijjar had been a vocal supporter of the Khalistan movement and publicly campaigned for it.

The rift between Canada and India has raised questions over the impact it could have on the deep trade and immigration ties between both countries.

Bilateral trade is worth billions of dollars, and Canada is home to nearly 1.7 million people of Indian origin.

Neither country has yet imposed tariffs or other economic forms of retaliation, but experts caution that this could change, and that a cooling relationship between India and Canada could hinder further economic growth.

In many countries it’s a teenage rite of passage: a first kiss.

But a new survey of Japanese high school students has revealed that four out of five 15-18-year-old boys have yet to reach the milestone.

And things aren’t looking much different for the girls, with just over one in four female high schoolers having had their first kiss.

These are the lowest figures recorded since Japan first began asking teenagers about their sexual habits back in 1974 – and are likely to be a worry in a country with one of the world’s lowest birth rates.

The study by the Japan Association for Sex Education (Jase) quizzed 12,562 students across junior high schools, high schools and university – asking them about everything from kisses to sexual intercourse.

The survey takes place every six years, and has been recording a fall in first kisses since 2005 – when the figure was closer to one in two.

But this year’s report found kissing was not the only area which had seen a fall in numbers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it also revealed a drop in the numbers of Japanese youth having sexual intercourse.

According to the study, the ratio of high school boys who say they have had sexual intercourse fell 3.5 points from 2017 to 12%. For high school girls, it declined 5.3 points to 14.8%.

Experts have pointed to the impact of the Covid pandemic as one possible reason for the drop.

School closures and restrictions on physical contact during the Covid pandemic had likely impacted many of these students, as it happened “at a sensitive time when [they were] beginning to become interested in sexuality”, according to Yusuke Hayashi, a sociology professor at Musashi University quoted in the Mainichi newspaper.

However, the survey did find one area of increase: the number of teenagers admitting to masturbation across all demographics was at record high levels.

The results come after a separate survey earlier this year found that nearly half of marriages in Japan are sexless.

The results of the surveys come as Japan struggles to arrest its falling birth rate, and provide further cause for concern. In 2023, the then-prime minister warned that the country’s low birth rate was pushing it to the brink of being able to function.

Some researchers have suggested the population – currently at 125 million people – could fall to less than 53 million by the end of the century. A range of other contributing factors have been marked out as possible contributing factors – including rising living costs, more women in education and work, as well as greater access to contraception, leading to women choosing to have fewer children

Japan already has the world’s oldest population, measured by the UN as the proportion of people aged 65 or older.

In late 2023, Japan said that for the first time one in 10 people in the country are aged 80 or older.

In March, diaper-maker Oji Holdings announced it would stop making baby nappies to focus on making adult diapers.

Some of the biggest names in popular culture and politics, from Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama to Sir Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, have remembered Quincy Jones in a succession of personal tributes.

In a lengthy appreciation in Rolling Stone, Wonder said the musician and producer, who died on Sunday at the age of 91, “should be remembered as one of God’s greatest gifts to the world”.

Winfrey said “my life changed forever for the better” after she met him, and described him as “love lived out loud in human form”.

Sir Paul said he was “supremeley talented” and recalled how he “always had a twinkle in his eye and had a very positive, loving spirit which infected everyone who knew him”.

“His long career stretches back to the early days when he was a trumpet player, then a band leader, then a producer of many great records,” Sir Paul wrote.

“But it is as a friend I would like to remember him. We always had fun in his presence and his legend will continue through the years, but it is those private moments we were lucky enough to have with the great man that I will always remember fondly.”

Jones helped create classic recordings with musicians including Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles, and wrote more than 50 film and TV soundtracks.

He also produced movies including 1985’s The Color Purple, which gave Winfrey her big break.

“I had never experienced, nor have since, anyone whose heart was so filled with love,” the presenter and actress said.

“He walked around with his heart wide open, and he treated everybody as if they were the most important person he’d ever met. He was the Light. No shadows.”

She added: “He was the Mightiest of Souls. His life enhanced mine and every life he touched. That will be his global legacy.

“Biggest, fullest, most love-filled life ever. One of One!”

In his tribute, Wonder wrote that “losing Quincy is more than heartbreaking”.

The pair worked together when Jones produced 1985 charity single We Are the World, and on songs with Jackson and Donna Summer.

Jones was motivated by “the idea of giving and getting the best – not for the money of it, just for the art of it”, Wonder wrote. “You can look back and hear all of that when you hear his music.”

The singer added that Jones “should be remembered as a star that we will keep burning for as long as we, as humans, exist, by carrying on the messages and the music that he did”.

“If I could have chosen my last words to Quincy before he made that transition, I would have to borrow something that Duke Ellington would always say: ‘Quincy, I love you madly.'”

The Weeknd, who wrote the foreword to Jones’s book 12 Notes On Life And Creativity and featured him on his album Dawn FM, posted a 900-word tribute to “the man who changed, not only the course of my life, but the course of history”.

“The work that he does when the cameras are turned off have often been the most impactful,” he wrote.

“His humility was beyond me. In this business, it’s common to think you’re the biggest VIP on Earth after earning a hit record and a bit of fame.

“But to see the man who has achieved more than anyone else carry himself without a single ounce of selfishness was the best example of walking the talk.”

Hitmaker Pharrell Williams hailed Jones as “The Greatest Of All Time”.

“I’m honored to have known Quincy and to have shared so many moments with him,” he wrote.

“An unparalleled talent that I will miss deeply.”

Justin Timberlake described Jones as “a once in a lifetime artist”.

He was “the example of excellence at craft” and “a mentor to so many that have followed”, he wrote.

“Growing up listening to so many of his timeless works shaped so much of the music that I wanted to make or be a part of. The maestro behind so many of my favorite artists.”

He added: “There were so many bits of guidance he gave me along the way that I will take with me forever.”

Timberkale ended his message: “RIP, King. Your contribution will live on forever and ever. What a journey you have taken us all on.”

U2 frontman Bono wrote: “Where he is this evening… the music will be a little more melodic, a little more interesting harmonically and certainly more rhythmic… and yes, louder.”

The Fugees rapper and producer Wyclef Jean said: “R.I.P to my mentor #QuincyJones, you’re the reason I became a composer at 16… Long live the musical king.”

Barbra Streisand, who worked with Jones on her 1988 album Till I Loved You, said: “He gave so much to the world. I will miss you so much my dear friend.

“Dearest Quincy, we will always keep you in our hearts.”

Diana Ross, who appeared with Michael Jackson in 1978 film The Wiz, for which Jones produced thesoundtrack, said: “His love and music touched our hearts and souls. His words and legacy will continue to inspire us all forever.”

Jones’ prolific and varied career also included co-producing TV sitcom The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, which launched the career of Will Smith.

“Quincy Jones is the definition of a Mentor, a Father and a Friend,” Smith wrote.

“He pointed me toward the greatest parts of myself. He defended me. He nurtured me. He encouraged me. He inspired me. He checked me when he needed to. He let me use his wings until mine were strong enough to fly.”

Jones also nurtured a new generation of artists, including Grammy-winning British musician Jacob Collier.

He wrote: “More than a legend. A real-life superhero. A master maverick magician. A fierce lover of life. A human being of the highest order. My friend, soul brother, and North Star…

“He lifted me up, giving me the courage to believe in my essence and follow wherever it would lead, in a way that would fundamentally change the course of my life forever.”

He added: “I’ll greatly miss my homie, the ultra coolest ‘grandpa’ figure on the planet – the wry twinkling eye, the crooked pointing finger, the unmatched stories of Picasso, Stravinsky, Sinatra, Bird, Nadia Boulanger, ad infinatum – and the boundless kindness, unconditional support and love, besides the staggering wealth of music we all get to enjoy forever.

“You’ll be in every note I play.”

Meanwhile, Janelle Monae recalled how “musically, he inspired us to dream Wild and Big”.

She said: “He made me and so many artists and musicians feel like we could do anything. Bigger than that, through his contributions, he showed us we could do anything because he did.

“I love you. I’ll miss you. Your spirit lives on forever.”

Oscar-winning actor and rapper Jamie Foxx thanked Jones “for giving the world music” and “for giving the world an example of what a great human being is suppose to be like”.

“You taught us how to live, you taught us how to get every moment out of life,” he said.

“You have no idea the impact you had on a young man from Texas… the impact you had on the entire world will never be forgotten… rest in power KING.”

Rapper Ice T added: “Genius is a discription loosely used but Rarely deserved. Point blank, Quincy was the MAN.

“I won my 1st Grammy with Quincy and I live with his Wisdom daily… This one Hit me. God bless you KING.”

Tributes came from the political world, too, with former US President Obama saying: “His music appealed to listeners of every race and every age.

“And by building a career that took him from the streets of Chicago to the heights of Hollywood, Quincy paved the way for generations of Black executives to leave their mark on the entertainment business.”

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris described him as a “trailblazer”.

“He lived his life unapologetically, using his gifts to lift others up,” she wrote. “He broke down barriers and opened doors for those who came after him, not for praise but because he knew the power of our shared potential.”

She added: “I was honored to call Quincy a friend. I will always remember his generosity of spirit, his selfless support, and his deep kindness. Our world has lost a giant. But in his melodies, and in the lives he touched, Quincy’s legacy will live on forever.”

And President Joe Biden said he was “a musical genius who transformed the soul of America – one beat, one rhythm, and one rhyme at a time”.

Daughter Martina Jones also shared her memories, saying her father had been “my friend, my solid, my guidance and my inspiration of what love looks like”.

She continued: “The hole in my heart will definitely take time to heal. I will hold his humor, his words, his wisdom and love of life close to my heart and move forward with the strength he instilled in me and with every ounce of my being I can only hope to hold up my siblings and love them from the bottom of my heart.

“Secondly, this is about how many lives I know he’s touched just by being who he was and sharing the love of his craft with the world. ‘D’ saying you will be missed is not enough, you will simply never be forgotten.

“Thank you for loving me and being the best Dad.”

Queen Camilla has pulled out of a number of scheduled engagements because of a chest infection, says Buckingham Palace.

Doctors have advised a short period of rest at home, but she hopes to be well enough to attend Remembrance events at the weekend, says the Palace.

The Queen, who is 77, will miss the annual opening of the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey on Thursday, where she will be represented by the Duchess of Gloucester.

The Queen returned to the UK last Wednesday after a trip with the King to Australia and Samoa, which included a stopover in India on the way back.

It is understood there is no cause for alarm – and her plans to attend engagements at the weekend suggest a relatively minor bug, of the type which could have been picked up during her long-haul travels.

The Remembrance events at the weekend will include the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday and the commemorative service on Sunday morning at the Cenotaph in Whitehall.

But the Queen will not be at the Field of Remembrance commemoration on Thursday, where she has been the senior royal in recent years.

This annual event sees people placing memorials outside Westminster Abbey to those who have lost their lives while serving in the armed forces.

The Queen will also miss a Buckingham Palace reception for Olympic and Paralympic athletes, which will be hosted King Charles on Thursday evening.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer wished the Queen a “speed recovery” in a message posted on social media.

A statement from the Palace on the Queen’s health said: “Her Majesty The Queen is currently unwell with a chest infection, for which her doctors have advised a short period of rest.

“With great regret, Her Majesty has therefore had to withdraw from her engagements for this week, but she very much hopes to be recovered in time to attend this weekend’s Remembrance events as normal.”

The Queen previously missed a week of engagements with ill health in February 2023, when she tested positive for Covid. It was the second time she contracted the virus, having previously had it in February 2022.

In recent weeks, the Queen had accompanied the King on a tour of Australia and Samoa, which included a Commonwealth summit. There were reports that she had visited a health spa in India on the way back.

The Queen has also recorded a TV documentary raising awareness about domestic violence, which will be broadcast next week.

King Charles received a cancer diagnosis in February. His treatment was paused during his overseas trip but was expected to begin again on his return to the UK.

An “incredibly rare” female baby hippopotamus has been born at Edinburgh Zoo.

The tiny endangered pygmy hippo calf, named Haggis, arrived on 30 October and zookeepers said her personality was “beginning to shine” already.

Pygmy hippos, otherwise known as dwarf hippos, are native to West Africa and experts believe there are only about 2,500 left in the wild worldwide.

In September, a pygmy hippo in Thailand called Moo Deng went viral and was featured in a series of memes due to her frame and podgy proportions.

Jonny Appleyard, the hoofstock team leader at Edinburgh Zoo, said: “Haggis is doing really well so far and it is amazing to see her personality beginning to shine already.”

He added that the zoo’s pygmy hippo house would now be closed for a month due to the first 30 days after birth being “critical” for Haggis’ development.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) considers the species endangered, due to a number of factors, including loss of habitat and the fact that it is hunted for food in Liberia.

Mr Appleyard added: “While Thailand’s Moo Deng has become a viral global icon, it is important to remember that pygmy hippos are incredibly rare.

“It is great to have our own little ambassador right here in Edinburgh to connect with our visitors and help raise awareness of the challenges the species face in the wild.”

Parents Otto and Gloria previously welcomed a calf, Amara, in 202, who then moved to ZSL London Zoo in 2023 as part of a European breeding programme.

Last month, Khao Kheow Open Zoo had to warn visitors not to try to wake up Moo Deng, after the hippo soared in popularity and sparked a surge in visitors to the zoo.

The Nigerian authorities have dropped treason and other charges against dozens of protesters, including more than 30 children, who were arrested in August after taking part in anti-government demonstrations.

President Bola Tinubu had already called for the release of all the minors – some as young as 14 – after footage of four of them collapsing in court on Friday, apparently due to malnourishment, sparked outrage.

He also said the police and other officials involved in the arrests and subsequent legal processes should be investigated.

The viral videos of the young people writhing in pain led to a renewed debate over their treatment, as well as the length of their detention.

Initial reports had talked of 27 young people being affected, but details of another set of detainees, including more between the ages of 14 and 17, have emerged since.

The suspects had been in custody for nearly three months after participating in the #EndBadGovernance protests which swept the country in August over a deepening cost-of-living crisis.

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The demonstrations turned violent in some places when protesters clashed with security forces.

Police say seven people died – though rights groups put the death toll at 23. Nearly 700 people were arrested.

Some of those in court in the capital, Abuja, on Friday were accused of flying Russian flags and planning to overthrow the Nigerian government.

In a statement on Monday, President Tinubu’s spokesman Bayo Onanuga said the Nigerian humanitarian affairs ministry had been asked “to ensure the safe return of all the minors to their families while an investigation has been opened into the circumstances leading to their prolonged detention”.

When the courtroom footage emerged, Nigerian rights organisation Enough is Enough said they had been subjected to “institutional child abuse”.

Amnesty International described the children’s detention was “one of the deadliest attempts to suppress freedom of assembly” so far.

Observers say the move to drop the charges and release the children was a face-saving measure and that the government would have avoided the embarrassment if it had not engaged in a high-handed approach against protesters demanding better governance.

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A leading Slovak mountain climber has died while descending a 7,234m (23,730ft) peak in Nepal, after completing the rare feat of scaling the mountain’s perilous eastern face.

Ondrej Huserka fell into a crevasse on Thursday, after he and his climbing partner ascended the Langtang Lirung mountain in the Himalayas – the 99th-highest peak in the world.

The 34-year-old mountaineer had previously climbed in the Alps, Patagonia and the Pamir Mountains.

His Czech climbing partner Marek Holecek said the pair were returning to base after becoming the first mountaineers to ascend Langtang Lirung via a “terrifying” eastern route.

While rappelling a mountain wall, Mr Huserka’s rope snapped and he fell into an ice crevasse, his partner said.

He then “hit an angled surface after an 8m drop, then continued down a labyrinth into the depths of the glacier”.

In an emotional Facebook post, Mr Holecek recalled hearing his partner’s cries for help and desperately trying to save him.

“I rappelled down to him and stayed with him for four hours until his light faded,” Mr Holecek said.

After freeing him from the ice, Mr Holecek realised his partner was paralysed.

“His star was fading as he lay in my arms,” he said.

The Slovak climbers’ association, SHS James, said adverse weather in Nepal had prevented rescue action.

“Following a phone call with Marek Holecek and his status published yesterday, and given the weather conditions under Langtang Lirung, the family and friends will have to cope with the fact that Ondrej is not with us any more,” it said in a social media post.

Mr Huserka joined the Slovak national alpinism team in 2011 and won the SHS James best ascent of the year award six times, according to his personal website.

His decade-long mountaineering career took him around the world.

He completed the first ascent of the “Summer Bouquet” on Alexander Block Peak in Kyrgyzstan, and repeated a “legendary route” on the Cerro Torre’s south-east ridge in South America, his website says.

Paying tribute to the late climber, SHS James said Mr Huserka was a “top alpinist” and “world-class”.

The Slovak Spectator said he was “one of the best Slovak mountaineers”.

American voters are going to the polls on Tuesday to choose their next president.

US election results are sometimes declared state-by-state within hours of the polls closing – meaning that we get a running tally as we go – but this year’s tight contest could mean a longer wait.

The first polls close at 18:00 EST (23:00 GMT) on Tuesday evening and the last at 01:00 EST (06:00 GMT) early on Wednesday.

In some presidential races, the victor has been named late on election night, or early the next morning.

This time, the knife-edge race in many states could mean media outlets wait longer before projecting who has won.

Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, the former president, have been running neck-and-neck for weeks.

Narrow victories could also mean recounts.

In the key swing state of Pennsylvania, for example, a recount would be required if there’s a half-percentage-point difference between the votes cast for the winner and loser. In 2020, the margin was just over 1.1 percentage points.

• Follow live election updates
• How to follow the US election on the BBC
• US election polls: Who is winning – Harris or Trump?
• A really simple guide to the presidential vote

Legal challenges are also possible. More than 100 pre-election lawsuits have already been filed, mostly by Republicans challenging voter eligibility and voter roll management.

Other scenarios that could cause delays include any election-related disorder, particularly at polling locations.

On the other hand, vote-counting has sped up in some areas, including the crucial state of Michigan, and fewer votes have been cast by mail than in the last election, which was during the Covid pandemic.

In the 2020 election, US TV networks did not declare Joe Biden the winner until four days after election day, when the result in Pennsylvania became clearer.

In other recent elections, voters have had a much shorter wait.

In 2016, Trump was declared the winner shortly before 03:00 EST (08:00 GMT) a few hours after polls closed.

In 2012, when Barack Obama secured a second term, his victory was projected before midnight the same evening of election day.

However, the 2000 election between George W Bush and Al Gore was a notable exception. The race was not decided for five weeks, when the US Supreme Court voted to end Florida’s recount. That kept Bush in place as winner and handed him the White House.

The race is expected to come down to results from seven swing states, which experts believe Harris and Trump both have a realistic chance of winning.

Turnout has been high in early voting, both in-person and by mail, with records broken in Georgia.

Georgia – Polls close in the Peach State at 19:00 EST (00:00 GMT). Georgia’s top election official estimates that about 75% of votes will be counted within the first two hours.

North Carolina – Polls close 30 minutes after Georgia. North Carolina’s results are expected to be announced before the end of the night.

Pennsylvania – Voting ends at 20:00 EST (01:00 GMT) but experts agree it may take at least 24 hours before enough votes are counted for a winner to emerge.

Michigan – Voting concludes at 21:00 EST (02:00 GMT). A result is not expected until the end of Wednesday.

Wisconsin – Results should come in shortly after polls close at 21:00 EST for smaller counties but experts predict the state won’t have a result until at least Wednesday.

Arizona – Initial results could come as early as 22:00 EST (03:00 GMT) but the state’s largest county says not to expect results until early Wednesday morning. Postal ballots dropped off on election day could take up to 13 days to count.

Nevada – Votes here could also take days to count. The state allows mail-in ballots as long as they were sent on election day and arrive no later than 9 November.

In such a tight race, early vote results may not be the best indication of who will eventually win.

In 2020, Trump was leading in some key states on election night but Biden overtook him as mail ballots, heavily favoured by Democrats at the time, were counted.

Though election experts warned beforehand of such a phenomenon, Trump seized upon it to amplify his unfounded claims that the election was stolen.

There could be another so-called “red mirage” this year – or perhaps a “blue mirage” that initially favours Harris but then shifts toward Trump.

More than 83 million Americans have already voted, according to the University of Florida Election Lab’s nationwide early vote tracker. Women make up 54% of that tally, which could be a good sign for Harris.

But while early voting has typically favoured Democrats, registered Republicans have cast nearly as many early votes this time around.

Typically, the votes cast on election day are tallied first, followed by early and mail ballots, those that have been challenged, and then overseas and military ballots.

Local election officials – sometimes appointed, sometimes elected – verify, process and count individual votes, in a process known as canvassing.

Verifying ballots includes comparing the number cast with the number of active voters; removing, unfolding and examining every single ballot for tears, stains or other damage; and documenting and investigating any inconsistencies.

Counting ballots involves feeding each one into electronic scanners that tabulate their results. Some circumstances require manual counts or double-checked tallies.

Every state and locality has rigorous rules about who can participate in the canvass, the order in which votes are processed and which parts are open to the public, including how partisan observers can monitor and intervene in vote-counting.

• When does vote counting begin and how long will it take?
• Visual guide – Harris and Trump’s paths to victory
• The moment I decided on my vote

Once every valid vote has been included in the final results, a process known as the electoral college comes into play.

In each state a varying number of electoral college votes can be won, and it is securing these – and not just the backing of voters themselves – that ultimately wins the presidency.

• What is the US electoral college, and how does it work?
• How are votes counted in the US election?

Generally, states award all of their electoral college votes to whoever wins the popular vote and this is confirmed after meetings on 17 December.

The new US Congress then meets on 6 January to count the electoral college votes and confirm the new president.

After the 2020 election, Trump refused to concede and rallied supporters to march on the US Capitol as Congress was meeting to certify Biden’s victory.

He urged his Vice-President, Mike Pence, to reject the results – but Pence refused.

Even after the riot was cleared and members of Congress regrouped, 147 Republicans voted unsuccessfully to overturn Trump’s loss.

Electoral reforms since then have made it harder for lawmakers to object to certified results sent to them from individual states. They have also clarified that the vice-president has no power to unilaterally reject electoral votes.

Nevertheless, election watchers expect that efforts to delay certification of the 2024 vote could take place at the local and state level.

Trump, his running mate JD Vance and top Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have refused on several occasions to state unequivocally that they will accept the results if he loses.

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It is possible that the two candidates could end up in a tie because they have the same number of electoral college votes – 269 each.

In that situation, members of the House of Representatives – the lower chamber of the US Congress – would vote to choose the president in a process known as a contingent election.

Meanwhile the Senate – the upper chamber – would vote for the vice-president.

But that hasn’t happened for about 200 years.

The president-elect will begin their term in office after being inaugurated on Monday, 20 January 2025, in the grounds of the US Capitol complex.

It will be the 60th presidential inauguration in US history.

The event will see the new president sworn in on a pledge to uphold the Constitution and then deliver their inaugural address.

Voters in the US go to the polls on Tuesday to elect their next president.

The election was initially a rematch of 2020 but it was upended in July when President Joe Biden ended his campaign and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris.

The big question now is – will America get its first woman president or a second Donald Trump term?

• Follow live election updates
• All you need to know about election night
• When will we know who has won?

Harris has had a small lead over Trump in the national polling averages since she entered the race at the end of July and she remains ahead – as shown in the chart below with the latest figures rounded to the nearest whole number.

Harris saw a bounce in her polling numbers in the first few weeks of her campaign, building a lead of nearly four percentage points towards the end of August.

The polls were relatively stable in September and early October but they have tightened in the last couple of weeks, as shown in the chart below, with trend lines showing the averages and dots for individual poll results for each candidate.

While national polls are a useful guide as to how popular a candidate is across the whole country, they’re not the best way to predict the election result.

That’s because the US uses an electoral college system, in which each state is given a number of votes roughly in line with the size of its population. A total of 538 electoral college votes are up for grabs, so a candidate needs to hit 270 to win.

There are 50 states in the US but because most of them nearly always vote for the same party, in reality there are just a handful where both candidates stand a chance of winning. These are the places where the election will be won and lost and are known as battleground states or swing states.

• What is the electoral college?
• Path to 270: The states Harris and Trump need to win

Right now the leads in the swing states are so small that it’s impossible to know who is really ahead from looking at the polling averages.

Polls are designed to broadly explain how the public feels about a candidate or an issue, not predict the result of an election by less than a percentage point so it’s important to keep that in mind when looking at the numbers below.

It’s also important to remember that the individual polls used to create these averages have a margin of error of around three to four percentage points, so either candidate could be doing better or worse than the numbers currently suggest.

If you look at the trends since Harris joined the race, it does highlight some differences between the states.

In Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, the lead has changed hands a few times since the start of August but Trump has a small lead in all of them at the moment.

In the three other states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – Harris had led since the start of August, sometimes by two or three points, but the polls have tightened significantly.

All three of those states had been Democratic strongholds before Trump turned them red on his path to winning the presidency in 2016. Biden retook them in 2020 and if Harris can do the same then she will be on course to win the election.

In a sign of how the race has changed since Harris became the Democratic nominee, on the day that Biden quit the race he was trailing Trump by nearly five percentage points on average in the seven swing states.

In Pennsylvania, Biden was behind by nearly 4.5 percentage points when he dropped out, as the chart below shows. It is a key state for both campaigns as it has the highest number of electoral votes of the seven and therefore winning it makes it easier to reach the 270 votes needed.

The figures we have used in the graphics above are averages created by polling analysis website 538, which is part of American news network ABC News. To create them, 538 collects the data from individual polls carried out both nationally and in battleground states by lots of polling companies.

As part of its quality control, 538 only includes polls from companies that meet certain criteria, like being transparent about how many people they polled, when the poll was carried out and how the poll was conducted (telephone calls, text message, online, etc).

You can read more about the 538 methodology here.

The polls have underestimated support for Trump in the last two elections and the national polling error in 2020 was the highest in 40 years according to a post-mortem by polling experts – so there’s good reason to be cautious about them going into this year’s election.

The polling miss in 2016 was put down to voters changing their minds in the final days of the campaign and because college-educated voters – who were more likely to support Hillary Clinton – had been over-represented in polling samples.

In 2020, the experts pointed to problems with getting Trump supporters to take part in polls, but said it was “impossible” to know exactly what had caused the polling error, especially as the election was held during a pandemic and had a record turnout.

Pollsters have made lots of changes since then and the polling industry “had one of its most successful election cycles in US history” in the 2022 midterm elections, according to analysts at 538.

But Donald Trump wasn’t on the ballot in the midterms and we won’t know until after election day whether these changes can deal with the influx of irregular voters he tends to attract.

• Listen: How do election polls work?

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• Read more about: Kamala Harris | Donald Trump | US election

American voters will face a clear choice for president on election day, between Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.

Here’s a look at what they stand for and how their policies compare on different issues.

Harris has said her day-one priority would be trying to reduce food and housing costs for working families.

She promises to ban price-gouging on groceries, help first-time home buyers, increase housing supply and raise the minimum wage.

Inflation soared under the Biden presidency, as it did in many western countries, partly due to post-Covid supply issues and the Ukraine war. It has fallen since.

Trump has promised to “end inflation and make America affordable again” and when asked he says more drilling for oil will lower energy costs.

He has promised to deliver lower interest rates, something the president does not control, and he says deporting undocumented immigrants will ease pressure on housing. Economists warn that his vow to impose higher tax on imports could push up prices.

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Harris wants to raise taxes on big businesses and Americans making $400,000 (£305,000) a year.

But she has also unveiled a number of measures that would ease the tax burden on families, including an expansion of child tax credits.

She has broken with Biden over capital gains tax, supporting a more moderate rise from 23.6% to 28% compared with his 44.6%.

Trump proposes a number of tax cuts worth trillions, including an extension of his 2017 cuts which mostly helped the wealthy.

He says he will pay for them through higher growth and tariffs on imports. Analysts say both tax plans will add to the ballooning deficit, but Trump’s by more.

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Harris has made abortion rights central to her campaign, and she continues to advocate for legislation that would enshrine reproductive rights nationwide.

Trump has struggled to find a consistent message on abortion.

The three judges he appointed to the Supreme Court while president were pivotal in overturning the constitutional right to an abortion, a 1973 ruling known as Roe v Wade.

Harris was tasked with tackling the root causes of the southern border crisis and helped raise billions of dollars of private money to make regional investments aimed at stemming the flow north.

Record numbers of people crossed from Mexico at the end of 2023 but the numbers have fallen since to a four-year low. In this campaign, she has toughened her stance and emphasised her experience as a prosecutor in California taking on human traffickers.

Trump has vowed to seal the border by completing the construction of a wall and increasing enforcement. But he urged Republicans to ditch a hardline, cross-party immigration bill, backed by Harris. She says she would revive that deal if elected.

He has also promised the biggest mass deportation of undocumented migrants in US history. Experts told the BBC this would face legal challenges.

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Harris has vowed to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes”. She has pledged, if elected, to ensure the US and not China wins “the competition for the 21st Century”.

She has been a longtime advocate for a two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians, and has called for an end to the war in Gaza.

Trump has an isolationist foreign policy and wants the US to disentangle itself from conflicts elsewhere in the world.

He has said he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours through a negotiated settlement with Russia, a move that Democrats say would embolden Vladimir Putin.

Trump has positioned himself as a staunch supporter of Israel but said little on how he would end the war in Gaza.

Harris has criticised Trump’s sweeping plan to impose tariffs on imports, calling it a national tax on working families which will cost each household $4,000 a year.

She is expected to have a more targeted approach to taxing imports, maintaining the tariffs the Biden-Harris administration introduced on some Chinese imports like electric vehicles.

Trump has made tariffs a central campaign pledge in order to protect US industry. He has proposed new 10-20% tariffs on most imported foreign goods, and much higher ones on those from China.

He has also promised to entice companies to stay in the US to manufacture goods, by giving them a lower rate of corporate tax.

Harris, as vice-president, helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which has funnelled hundreds of billions of dollars to renewable energy, and electric vehicle tax credit and rebate programmes.

But she has dropped her opposition to fracking, a technique for recovering gas and oil opposed by environmentalists.

Trump, while in the White House, rolled back hundreds of environmental protections, including limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and vehicles.

In this campaign he has vowed to expand Arctic drilling and attacked electric cars.

Harris has been part of a White House administration which has reduced prescription drug costs and capped insulin prices at $35.

Trump, who has often vowed to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, has said that if elected he would only improve it, without offering specifics. The Act has been instrumental in getting health insurance to millions more people.

He has called for taxpayer-funded fertility treatment, but that could be opposed by Republicans in Congress.

Harris has tried to contrast her experience as a prosecutor with the fact Trump has been convicted of a crime.

Trump has vowed to demolish drugs cartels, crush gang violence and rebuild Democratic-run cities that he says are overrun with crime.

He has said he would use the military or the National Guard, a reserve force, to tackle opponents he calls “the enemy within” and “radical left lunatics” if they disrupt the election.

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Harris has made preventing gun violence a key pledge, and she and Tim Walz – both gun owners – often advocate for tighter laws. But expanding background checks or banning assault weapons will need the help of Congress.

Trump has positioned himself as a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, the constitutional right to bear arms. Addressing the National Rifle Association in May, he said he was their best friend.

Harris has called for the decriminalisation of marijuana for recreational use. She says too many people have been sent to prison for possession and points to disproportionate arrest numbers for black and Latino men.

Trump has softened his approach and said it’s time to end “needless arrests and incarcerations” of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use.

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On Tuesday, Betsy Linkhorst, 18, will cast her very first vote not just for who should be in the White House, but on the issue of abortion.

Her home state of Florida is one of 10 across the country that will have abortion on the ballot this election.

If passed, Florida’s measure – Amendment 4 – would overturn the six-week abortion ban currently in effect here and expand access to the point of foetal viability, which is about 24 weeks of pregnancy. It could also be later “when necessary to protect the patient’s health”, according to the measure’s wording.

Ms Linkhorst, who said she was “nervous” about living in a state with limited abortion access, told the BBC she was going to vote yes.

“It’s important to vote based on our rights,” she said of her vote both for Kamala Harris and for expanding abortion access in Florida. “I don’t think it’s the government’s right to police women’s bodies.”

Of all the abortion measures on the ballot this week, Florida’s ballot question will be the most closely watched.

• Election polls – is Harris or Trump ahead?

The state was, for over a year, one of the last places that women in the southern part of the country could get a legal abortion, up to 15 weeks. But in May, Florida enacted an even more restrictive law, which banned abortions after six weeks – with few exceptions – which is before most women know they are pregnant.

Polls suggest a majority of Florida voters are backing Amendment 4. But the amendment must reach a 60% threshold to pass – and surveys are indicating that while it has strong support, the campaign might not quite meet that bar in the fairly conservative state.

If it did pass, that would be viewed as a huge victory for the abortion-rights movement.

“It’s the hardest place in the country to win,” said Kelly Hall, a strategist who works on abortion rights ballot measures and executive director of the Fairness Project. “If we overcome that particular barrier, there’s absolutely nothing holding us back from passing ballot measures everywhere it’s legal.”

• Where is abortion illegal in the US?
• 10 US states will have abortion questions on the ballot

This is the first presidential election held since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, giving states the right to regulate abortion themselves. Since then, 17 states have enacted bans that restrict nearly all abortions within their borders.

During the 2022 midterms, held months after the top court’s decision, voters in conservative states Kentucky and Kansas voted against restricting abortion, sending a message that access to the procedure is broadly supported by the American people. The issue is also credited with helping the Democrats do better than expected in congressional races.

Now, Democrats hope again that abortion measures in key battleground states like Arizona and Nevada will drive their voters to the polls to back abortion rights – and while they’re at it, propel Vice-President Harris to the White House and their down-ballot candidates to victory.

In a sign of how salient the issue of abortion has been for voters, Republican White House nominee Donald Trump, a resident of Florida, has tried to back away from his once-hardline stance against abortion. Now, he says he thinks the decision on how it should be regulated ought to be left up to states, and voters.

Last August in an interview with NBC, he seemed to indicate he would vote in favour of Amendment 4. But after outcry from his anti-abortion supporters, he said he would vote against it.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: How to win the electoral college
• EXPLAINER: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• GLOBAL: How this election could change the world
• IN PICS: Different lives of Harris and Trump
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

The issue is divisive in the Republican-leaning state.

Nancy Collins, 88, had voted no on Amendment 4 due to her Catholic faith.

“I’ve always been anti-abortion,” she said. “It’s against my religion.”

Ms Collins supported Trump’s current position that abortion policy should be left to individual states, and she hoped Florida would reject any expansion beyond its current six-week ban.

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis has also marshalled the powers of his state government to beat back the measure.

He says the measure would allow children to get abortions without parental consent, something Amendment 4’s backers reject.

Last month he said the amendment would “make Florida one of the most radical abortion jurisdictions not just in the United States but anywhere in the world”.

The state’s health department also launched a website opposing Amendment 4. And in October, a judge overturned the health department’s attempts to block a television station from airing an ad in support of Amendment 4.

Abortion measures are not guaranteed to deliver Harris, or other Democratic politicians, the boost they hope to see this year in contested races.

In Florida, which Trump won handily in 2016 and 2020, he is widely expected to win another victory.

A New York Times/Siena College poll suggested that 12% of voters in Arizona and Florida would vote for Trump as well as an abortion rights measure.

Jonel Jones, 37, is a former Democrat who decided to vote for Trump this year. She had been looking for a job for months, and felt the former president had a stronger handle on the economy and could potentially improve her prospects.

She personally did not believe in abortion, she said. But she had read stories from other states like Georgia and Texas about pregnant women who became sick or died after being denied abortion or miscarriage treatment, and did not want a similar situation in Florida.

“I don’t think it’s right,” Ms Jones said.

After ticking the box for Donald Trump, she voted “yes” on Amendment 4.

Razor wire. Thick black iron fencing. Metal detectors. Armed security guards. Bomb sweeps.

The security at this centre where workers count ballots mirrors what you might see at an airport – or even a prison. And, if needed, plans are in place to further bolster security to include drones, officers on horseback and police snipers on rooftops.

Maricopa County became the centre of election conspiracy theories during the 2020 presidential contest, after Donald Trump spread unfounded claims of voter fraud when he lost the state to Joe Biden by fewer than 11,000 votes.

Falsehoods went viral, armed protesters flooded the building where ballots were being tallied and a flurry of lawsuits and audits aimed to challenge the results.

The election’s aftermath transformed how officials here handle the typically mundane procedure of counting ballots and ushered in a new era of high security.

“We do treat this like a major event, like the Super Bowl,” Maricopa County Sheriff Russ Skinner told the BBC.

The county, the fourth most populous in the US and home to about 60% of Arizona’s voters, has been planning for the election for more than a year, according to Skinner.

The sheriff’s department handles security at polling stations and the centre where ballots are counted. The deputies have now been trained in election laws, something most law enforcement wouldn’t be well-versed in.

“Our hope is that it doesn’t arise to a level of need for that,” he said when asked about beefed-up security measures like drones and snipers. “But we will be prepared to ensure that we meet the level of need, to ensure the safety and security of that building” and its employees.

The election process here in many ways echoes that in counties across the country. Ballots are cast in voting locations across the county and then taken to a central area in Phoenix where they’re tabulated. If they’re mailed in, the ballots are inspected and signatures are verified. They’re counted in a meticulous process that includes two workers – from differing political parties – sorting them and examining for any errors.

The process is livestreamed 24 hours a day.

While much of this process remains the same, a lot else has shifted. Since the 2020 election, a new law passed making it easier to call a recount in the state. Previously, if a race was decided by the slim margin of 0.1% of votes cast, a recount would take place. That’s now been raised to 0.5%.

The tabulation centre is now bristling with security cameras, armed security and a double layer of fencing.

Thick canvas blankets cover parts of a parking lot fencing to keep prying eyes out. Officials say the canvas was an added measure to protect employees from being harassed and threatened outside the building.

“I think it is sad that we’re having to do these things,” said Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates.

Gates, a Republican who says he was diagnosed with PTSD after the election threats he received in the 2020 election, doesn’t plan to run for office again once this election is over because of the tensions.

“I do want people to understand that when they go to vote centres, these are not militarised zones,” he told the BBC. “You can feel safe to go there with your family, with your kids and participate in democracy.”

The county has invested millions since 2020. It’s not just security, either. They now have a 30-member communications team.

A big focus has been transparency – livestreaming hours of tests for tabulation machines, offering dozens of public tours of their buildings and enlisting staff to dispute online rumours and election conspiracies.

“We kind of flipped a switch,” assistant county manager Zach Schira told the BBC, explaining that after 2020 they decided, “OK, we’re going to communicate about every single part of this process, we’re going to debunk every single theory that is out there.”

It’s all led up to Tuesday’s election.

“We may be over prepared,” Sheriff Skinner said, “but I’d rather prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

Some Maricopa Republicans told the BBC they’ve tracked recent changes and felt there would be fewer problems this election cycle.

“They’ve made steps that I think will help,” said Garrett Ludwick, a 25-year-old attending a recent Scottsdale rally for Trump’s vice-presidential running mate JD Vance.

“More people are also aware of things now and I think there are going to be a lot of people watching everything like a hawk,” he said, wearing a Trump cap that read, “Make liberals cry”.

One Republican voter, Edward, told the BBC the 2020 cycle caused him to get more involved. He’s now signed up for two shifts at polling locations in Maricopa County on Tuesday.

“Going to a rally or being upset isn’t going to fix things,” he said. “I wanted to be part of the solution.”

Not all are convinced.

“I still think it was rigged,” said Maleesa Meyers, 55, who like some Republican voters said her distrust in the process is too deep-rooted to believe the election could be fair. “It’s very hard to trust anyone today.”

Results in Arizona often hinge on Maricopa County, giving the county an outsized role in the outcome. Officials here estimate it could take as long as 13 days to count all ballots – meaning the expected tight race in this swing state might not be called on election night.

“There’s a chance that in 2024, the whole world will be watching for what the result is in Maricopa County,” said Schira, the assistant county manager.

“Truly the world’s confidence in democracy could come down to this.”

As millions of people cast their ballots in the US election, claims have been spreading online questioning the integrity of the vote.

Election officials have been quick to reject some accusations of voting malpractice, as well as clarifying some legitimate problems which have been taken out of context.

BBC Verify is tracking and investigating the most widely shared claims – here’s four.

An image on social media shows a person holding a mail-in ballot paper which already had a mark next to Kamala Harris’s name.

The person who posted it on X claims that voting for anyone else would render the ballot void.

One post, viewed more than 3 million times, said the picture showed “weird ballot shenanigans happening”.

BBC Verify spoke to the Kentucky Board of Elections which rejected the allegation.

It said it had mailed out 130,000 ballots so far and had not been made aware of any complaints about mail-in ballots having pre-printed marks in any candidate selection boxes.

“As no one has presented a pre-marked ballot to election administrators or law enforcement, the claim that at least one ballot may have had a pre-printed mark in Kentucky, currently only exists in the vacuum of social media,” it said.

The election board added that for mail-in ballots in Kentucky if more than one candidate choice is marked in ink, then the ballot will still be counted if the voter circles their preferred choice.

A post on X which claims “the Pentagon reportedly failed to send absentee ballots to active military service members before the election” has been viewed over 28 million times.

It references a letter to Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, written by three Republican members of congress, expressing “grave concern” over “deficiencies” in procedures for overseas military personnel to vote.

However the letter does not accuse the Pentagon of failing to send them absentee ballots.

It is not the Pentagon’s job to do this – military personnel can vote abroad through the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) and ballots are sent to them by election officials where they are registered in the US.

If the ballot is in danger of not arriving before the voting deadline, personnel can vote via what is called a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB).

The letter claims an unspecified number of “service members” had requested a FWAB but were told their base had run out. However, it is possible to download and sign one through the FVAP website.

We asked the Department of Defense for details about how many people had been affected by the issue, but it would not comment. It did say that it had trained 3,000 Voting Assistance Officers to support personnel with voting.

Officials in the US state of Pennsylvania have rejected claims that “illegal voters” were able to apply for ballots and vote at an election office in Allegheny County.

They released a statement after posts on X went viral, claiming to show “illegal voters” being guided past US voters who had been waiting in line.

Allegheny County officials told the BBC the group were there to apply for mail-in ballots. It also reiterated that only US citizens can register to vote.

It is illegal for non-US citizens to vote in federal elections, and studies show that cases of this happening are extremely rare.

A video which appears to show someone repeatedly trying and failing to vote for Donald Trump on a voting machine in Laurel County, Kentucky – before a vote appears next to Kamala Harris’s name – has gone viral.

The person posting it says: “I hit Trump’s name 10 times and it wouldn’t work I then began recording and you can see what happened…. Switched it to Harris.”

Another post, viewed nearly seven million times, features the video with the claim: “Voting machines in Kentucky are literally changing the vote from Donald Trump to Kamala Harris. This is election interference!”

Election officials confirmed the video was authentic and the machine did malfunction, but said it was an isolated incident and the voter was able to cast their ballot as intended.

“After several minutes of attempting to recreate the scenario, it did occur. This was accomplished by hitting some area in between the boxes. After that we tried for several minutes to do it again and could not,” the county clerk said in a statement.

The machine in question was taken out of action until it was inspected, and later in the day the county clerk posted a video on Facebook showing the machine working correctly.

“In an election on this scale there are always going to be some problems,” said Joseph Greaney, a voting expert at US election website Ballotpedia.

“It can be one or two machines but people are extrapolating those out into a bigger problems, but I would say with a good degree of confidence that they are isolated incidents and they are caught,” he added.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

In a small corner of rural Taiwan, set amongst other dye houses and small factories, the start-up Alchemie Technology is in the final phase of rolling out a project it claims will upend the global apparel industry and slash its carbon footprint.

The UK-based start-up has targeted one of the dirtiest parts of the apparel industry – dyeing fabric – with the world’s first digital dyeing process.

“Traditionally in dyeing fabric, you’re steeping the fabric in water at 135 degrees celsius for up to four hours or so – gallons and tons of water. For example, to dye one ton of polyester, you’re generating 30 tons of toxic wastewater,” Alchemie founder Dr Alan Hudd tells me.

“That is the same process that was developed 175 years ago in the northwest of England, in the Lancashire cotton mills and the Yorkshire cotton mills, and we exported it,” he points out, first to the US and then onto the factories in Asia.

The apparel industry uses an estimated five trillion litres of water each year to simply dye fabric, according to the World Resources Institute, a US-based non-profit research centre.

The industry is, in turn, responsible for 20% of the world’s industrial water pollution, while also using up vital resources like groundwater in some countries. It also releases a massive carbon footprint from start to finish – or around 10% of annual global emissions, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Alchemie says its technology can help solve that problem.

Called Endeavour, its machine can compress fabric dyeing, drying, and fixing into a dramatically shorter and water-saving process.

Endeavour uses the same principle as inkjet printing to rapidly and precisely fire dye onto and through the fabric, according to the company. The machine’s 2,800 dispensers fire roughly 1.2 billion droplets per linear meter of fabric.

“What we’re effectively doing is registering and placing a drop, a very small drop precisely and accurately onto the fabric. And we can switch these drops on and off, just like a light switch,” says Dr Hudd.

Alchemie claims big savings through the process: reducing water consumption by 95%, energy consumption up to 85%, and working three to five times faster than traditional processes.

Developed initially in Cambridge, the company is now in Taiwan to see how Endeavour works in a real-world environment.

“The UK, they’re really strong in R&D projects, they’re really strong in inventing new things, but certainly if you want to move to commercialisation you need to go to the real factories,” says Ryan Chen, the new chief of operations at Alchemie, who has a background in textile manufacturing in Taiwan.

Alchemie is not the only company attempting a nearly waterless dye process.

There’s the China-based textile company NTX, which has developed a heatless dye process that can cut down water use by 90% and dye by 40%, according to their website, and the Swedish start-up Imogo, which also uses a “digital spray application” with similar environmental benefits.

NTX and Imogo did not reply to the BBC’s interview request.

Kirsi Niinimäki, a professor in design who researches the future of textiles at Finland’s Aalto University, says the solutions offered by these companies look “quite promising” – although she adds that she would like to see more specific information about issues like the fixing process and long-term studies on fabric durability.

But even though it’s early days, Ms Niinimäki says companies like Alchemie could bring real changes to the industry.

“All these kinds of new technologies, I think that they are improvements. If you’re able to use less water, for example, that of course means less energy, and perhaps even less chemicals – so that of course is a huge improvement.”

Back in Taiwan, there are still some kinks to be ironed out – like how to run the Endeavour machine in a hotter and more humid climate than the UK.

Alchemie service manager, Matthew Avis, who helped rebuild Endeavour in its new factory location, discovered that the machine needs to operate in an air-conditioned environment – an important lesson given how much apparel manufacturing happens in southern Asia.

The company also has some big goals for 2025. After its test run with polyester in Taiwan, Alchemie is heading next to South Asia and Portugal to test their machines and also try it out on cotton.

They will also have to figure out how to scale up Endeavour.

Big fashion companies like Inditex, the owner of Zara, work with thousands of factories. Its suppliers would need hundreds of Endeavours working together to meet its demand for fabric dyeing.

And that’s just one company – there will be many, many more in need.

Quincy Jones lived for 50 years after attending his own memorial service.

When the musician suffered a brain aneurysm in 1974, his chances of survival were said to be so slim, and his stature so high, that his famous friends started planning a tribute concert.

Then aged 41, Jones had already made an indelible mark on American music as a performer, arranger, songwriter, producer, soundtrack composer and record executive.

He started out in the jumping jazz clubs of the 1950s; mastered soul, swing and pop on recordings by Dinah Washington, Frank Sinatra and Lesley Gore; and reached the top 10 in his own right.

Some of the biggest entertainers in America agreed to perform at his memorial.

When he pulled through, the show went ahead anyway.

Jones went along, accompanied by his neurologist, who gave strict instructions not to get too excited.

“That was hard to do with Richard Pryor, Marvin Gaye, Sarah Vaughan and Sidney Poitier singing your praises,” he told Newsweek in 2008.

Even more exciting things were yet to come.

Jones went on to forge an era-defining partnership with Michael Jackson; oversee 1985’s We Are the World, one of the biggest-selling songs of all time; craft hits for acts like Chaka Khan and Donna Summer; and work with the biggest names in hip-hop.

Few branches of American popular music were immune to his influence.

Jones had always been a survivor.

He grew up in the shadow of the Great Depression in the 1930s on the South Side of Chicago. His mother was taken to a psychiatric institution when he was seven and his father worked as a carpenter for notorious gangsters the Jones Boys.

Young Quincy wanted to be a gangster too. “You want to be what you see, and that’s all we ever saw,” he said.

He and his brother were “street rats” and, when he strayed into the wrong neighbourhood at the age of seven, a rival gang member “nailed my hand to a fence”. Another injury came from an ice pick to the face.

His father took the family to Washington state, where one night Quincy and some friends broke into a community centre, looking for food. Inside, there was a piano.

“I touched it and every cell in my body said, this is what you’ll do [for] the rest of your life,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Front Row in 2016.

The encounter “changed my life”, he said in conversation with rapper Kendrick Lamar for a 2018 Netflix documentary, adding that, “I would have been dead or in prison a long time ago” if he hadn’t discovered music.

Quincy immediately began experimenting with instruments at school, settling on the trumpet, and began playing in nightclubs.

At the age of 14, he made friends with another then-unknown musician called Ray Charles, who became a lifelong collaborator.

He also played with Billie Holiday at 14, and got taken under the wings of bandleader Count Basie and trumpeter Clark Terry. He went on to accompany Dizzy Gillespie and appeared in the band during Elvis Presley’s first TV appearance.

After showing a talent for arranging songs while touring the world with Lionel Hampton’s big band, he was soon in demand in that capacity, too.

But after running up a $145,000 debt on a European tour, he took a day job with Mercury Records in 1961, becoming the first African-American vice-president of a major record label.

While there, he discovered and produced the million-selling single It’s My Party by Lesley Gore. He also released the Big Band Bossa Nova compilation album, which included his own infectious track Soul Bossa Nova, which has since become a staple of parties and film soundtracks, including Austin Powers.

Meanwhile, Sinatra had been impressed with Jones’s work and called on him to arrange and conduct two of his albums in the 1960s. The pair formed a fertile partnership, with Sinatra calling him “a giant” and “one of the finest musicians I’ve ever known”.

The pair became firm friends outside the studio, too. “Seven double Jack Daniels in an hour… [Sinatra] invented partying,” Jones recalled.

Jones also worked with many other big names of the age, including Aretha Franklin, Louis Armstrong and Sammy Davis Jr, while his solo album Body Heat reached the US top 10.

Meanwhile, he was forging a career writing soundtracks for TV shows and films including In Cold Blood, The Italian Job and Roots.

In Cold Blood’s author Truman Capote reportedly tried to have Jones removed from the film because he was black. But he remained, and the score earned Jones the first of seven Oscar nominations.

Another soundtrack was The Wiz, the 1978 film musical version of the Wizard of Oz, which starred Diana Ross and a 19-year-old Michael Jackson, who was looking to branch out after finding childhood fame in The Jackson 5.

Jones saw a superstar quality in Jackson and became his producer and mentor, first on 1979’s Off the Wall, which was a major hit, and then 1982’s Thriller, which reached new heights of commercial and critical success, and made Jackson the undisputed King of Pop.

The album was not just the fulfilment of Jackson’s talent, but the culmination of Jones’s career, as he used his peerless musical expertise to define the 1980s with a sleek and polished fusion of R&B and pop.

Jones listened to hundreds of songs to decide which nine should go on the album, and employed a dream team of musicians and songwriters that he had been assembling over the years.

His choice of collaborators was one example of his knack for knowing how to make a good song great. For Beat It, he thought the single needed a rockier edge, so he recruited Eddie Van Halen to contribute a guitar solo. Legend has it that the solo was so explosive that a speaker caught fire in the studio.

And when it came to the title track, Jones didn’t like the original name Starlight, so he asked its writer, Rod Temperton, to come up with something different. Temperton renamed it Thriller and recast it with a spooky theme. Jones topped it off by asking his wife’s friend, horror actor Vincent Price, to record a spoken-word outro.

The album earned Jones and Jackson the Grammy Award for producer of the year, while Thriller was named album of the year and Beat It won record of the year.

Jones used his winning formula in the 1980s with George Benson, Donna Summer and Patti Austin, and produced the decade’s best-selling single when Jackson and Lionel Richie assembled 35 of America’s biggest names for the 1985 charity song We Are the World.

Jones famously posted a message on the studio entrance telling the stars: “Check your egos at the door”.

He had further success under his own name with his albums The Dude and Back on the Block. The latter, released in 1989, featured an all-star cast including many friends from his early career like Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Ray Charles.

But as well as revisiting his past, he was also firmly in the present, enlisting rappers like Ice-T and Grandmaster Melle Mel to appear on the title track.

It earned Jones another album of the year award at the Grammys.

Although he was in his 50s, he embraced rap music because he saw similarities with the energy of bebop jazz, and because may of its stars had risen out of hardship on the streets.

“I feel a kinship there because we went through a lot of the same stuff,” he said.

And rap stars reciprocated his affection, looking on Jones as an inspirational elder statesman of black American music. Even Kendrick and Dr Dre were awestruck when meeting him for the Netflix documentary, which was titled Quincy and directed by his daughter, actress Rashida Jones.

Jones used his status to try to stem the violence in the hip-hop world, convening the Quincy Jones Hip-Hop Symposium in 1995, where he addressed a room full of the nation’s rap stars.

“I want to see you guys live at least to my age,” he told them.

For Jones, social activism went hand-in-hand with his music.

He met Martin Luther King in 1955, and “from then on, my life was never the same”, he said.

“Civil rights work and political involvement was no longer an activity to do on the side. It became an essential part of life and humanity.”

He set up the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation and launched the We Are the Future project, among support for other causes.

Elsewhere, his redoubtable work ethic saw him launch a record label and hip-hop magazine Vibe, as well as producing films like The Color Purple and TV shows including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

With that workload, and an accompanying longstanding drink problem, his family life and his health both suffered.

He married and divorced three times, having a nervous breakdown after splitting from third wife Peggy Lipton. To recover, he went to stay on the Pacific island owned by actor Marlon Brando, whom he first met in a jazz club at the age of 18.

Jones was also in a relationship with actress and model Nastassja Kinski in the 1990s, and he had seven children in total.

In 2015, he went into a diabetic coma for four days, and the following year went to hospital with a blood clot.

His death on Sunday at the age of 91 has left the music world in mourning.

If there’s to be a second Quincy Jones memorial concert, stars will be queuing up to celebrate the full achievements of a singular talent.

“We can turn this around in one term.”

So said the new Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, to staff at Conservative Campaign Headquarters – in other words, she can win the next general election.

Psychologically, she has to say that and she has to believe it, for why else would someone take on the job of Leader of the Opposition?

Granted, candidates for leader run when they think it is their time – the opportunity may never come around again – but they also have to believe the often thankless slog of opposition is worth it, because turfing out the government is possible.

The arithmetic of doing so – recovering from the Conservatives’ worst ever election defeat and overturning a Himalayan Labour majority – looks a tall order, but so volatile is the electorate you never know.

And so, next for Badenoch, the business of making senior appointments.

Reshuffles are always something of a nightmare for leaders as they are guaranteed deliverers of disappointment and deflated egos as well as sources of smiles and preferment.

But three factors make this one particularly tricky for the new Tory leader.

Firstly, numbers.

There are only 121 Conservative MPs and almost as many shadow ministerial roles to fill, if she wants to man-mark every single minister in government with their own shadow.

One potential solution to this is to ask some junior shadow ministers to shadow more than one brief, but that involves asking them to take on even more work.

And the number is not really 121 because there are those MPs who have said they want to be backbenchers, such as former leader Rishi Sunak, former deputy leader Sir Oliver Dowden, former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and former Home Secretary and leadership contender James Cleverly for a start.

Then there are those who are chairing select committees and so cannot serve on their party’s frontbench.

And then there are those the leadership would not want to appoint in a million years.

Suddenly, the numbers are getting tight and that is before you offer someone a job and they turn it down and so, implicitly at least, threaten not to serve at all – and that has happened too.

Secondly, the power of patronage.

When you are prime minister, you can pick up the phone and offer real power.

Doing stuff, taking decisions, being in government.

When you are leader of the opposition, you pick up the phone and offer the worthy, democratically vital but ultimately much less appealing role of being a shadow minister.

And thirdly, there is Kemi Badenoch’s authority over her parliamentary party.

She was the first choice for leader of just 35% of Conservative MPs and 57% of party members who voted in the leadership race.

A win is a win, but neither endorsement was emphatic.

All three of these factors swirl as she picks her top team.

What to do with the guy who came second is a perennial challenge for new leaders.

In this instance, what to offer Robert Jenrick and what might he accept?

Word reaches me that there was quite the back-and-forth between Badenoch and Jenrick.

He was offered shadow health secretary, shadow housing secretary, shadow work and pensions secretary, and shadow justice secretary, I am told.

He was not offered shadow foreign secretary.

For a little while on Monday, he did not say yes to any of the jobs he was offered, stewing over whether they were appealing, senior enough or might box him in too much politically.

One Tory source, not close to the leadership, told me: “Kemi just doesn’t like Rob. She thinks his whole schtick about her and whether she has any policies has done her lasting damage with the Right and with Reform voters. This is only likely to further unravel.”

Half an hour or so later, those around Jenrick made it known he had accepted becoming shadow justice secretary, that “the party needs to come together” and that “unity could not be more important”.

But they are not exactly a nest of birds singing in perfect harmony.

Perhaps the biggest appointment of all is shadow chancellor, particularly in the aftermath of a budget that has done much to define how Labour appears to want to approach its early years in office.

Mel Stride is a former cabinet minister, a former minister in the Treasury and a former chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, so it is a brief he is familiar with.

And then there is the decision to make Dame Priti Patel the shadow foreign secretary.

Dame Priti is a long-standing and pretty well-known senior Conservative who has served in government at the highest level as home secretary.

But she is also someone who found herself prematurely out of government back in 2017 after it emerged, extraordinarily, that she had run a freelance foreign policy operation while on holiday in Israel.

Baroness May, who was then prime minister, was furious and Dame Priti resigned before she was fired.

One senior Conservative got in touch with me to claim that Badenoch, in appointing Patel, had “destroyed within 48 hours any chance she had of having a respectable foreign policy”.

Ouch.

No one said opposition was easy.

And these are just the criticisms from Badenoch’s own side.

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German police have arrested eight suspected members of a far-right group, which was allegedly plotting to mount a Nazi-inspired coup.

Prosecutors said the group – known as the Saechsische Separatisten or “Saxony Separatists” – was undertaking military training for the collapse of the German government and society, which it believed would come on an unspecified “Day X”.

After that date, the group allegedly planned to seize control over areas of eastern Germany by force and establish a far-right regime.

More than 450 officers carried out searches and arrests across Germany, Austria and Poland in an effort to dismantle the group.

Prosecutors said the group planned to create a government “inspired by National Socialism” – the far-right totalitarian ideology associated with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party.

The eight suspects have been partially named as Kurt H, Karl K, Kevin M, Hans-Georg P, Kevin R, Jörg S, Jörn S and Norman T.

Seven of them were arrested Germany, while Jörg S – the group’s suspected ringleader – was arrested in Poland.

Further searches were carried out in Vienna and the Krems-Land District of Austria.

All eight have been arrested on suspicion of being members of a domestic terrorist organisation.

The Saxon Separatists was formed in 2020 and has between 15 to 20 members, according to German prosecutors.

The group’s ideology is characterised by “racist, anti-Semitic and partially apocalyptic ideas”, prosecutors said.

“The organisation believes beyond doubt that Germany is nearing ‘collapse’ and that the government and society will implode on ‘Day X’,” they added.

After overtaking parts of the country via urban warfare, the group allegedly plans to remove “unwanted groups of people” from these areas by means of “ethnic cleansing”.

Members of the group, including the eight arrested suspects, “repeatedly completed paramilitary training in combat gear”, prosecutors said.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser thanked the security services who she said had broken up “another suspected terrorist group of militant right-wing extremists”.

It comes after a separate alleged coup plot, led by the so-called Reichsbuerger movement, was exposed in 2022.

That group, once dismissed as crackpots, allegedly planned to arrest MPs in Berlin on a day it also dubbed “Day X”.

The plot would have seen 72-year-old aristocrat Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss installed as “head of state”, prosecutors alleged at the time. Prince Reuss has denied involvement.

When nine members of the group, including Prince Reuss, went on trial in May this year, their defence lawyer said: “They’re not terrorists. They’re slightly crazy.”

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the suspected members of the Saxony Separatists will appear before a judge, who will read out arrest warrants and make decisions about their pre-trial detention.

Scientists believe they have found a quirky way to fight mosquito-spread diseases such as dengue, yellow fever and Zika – by turning male insects deaf so they struggle to mate and breed.

Mosquitoes have sex while flying in mid-air and the males rely on hearing to chase down a female, based on her attractive wingbeats.

The researchers did an experiment, altering a genetic pathway that male mosquitoes use for this hearing. The result – they made no physical contact with females, even after three days in the same cage.

Female mosquitoes are the ones that spread diseases to people, and so trying to prevent them having babies would help reduce overall numbers.

The team from the University of California, Irvine studied Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread viruses to around 400 million people a year.

They closely observed the insects’ aerial mating habits – that can last between a few seconds to just under a minute – and then figured out how to disrupt it using genetics.

They targeted a protein called trpVa that appears to be essential for hearing.

In the mutated mosquitoes, neurons normally involved in detecting sound showed no response to the flight tones or wingbeats of potential mates.

The alluring noise fell on deaf ears.

In contrast, wild (non-mutant) males were quick to copulate, multiple times, and fertilised nearly all the females in their cage.

The researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, who have published their work in the journal PNAS, said the effect of the gene knock-out was “absolute”, as mating by deaf males was entirely eliminated.

Dr Joerg Albert, from the University of Oldenburg in Germany, is an expert on mosquito mating and I asked him what he made of the research.

He said attacking sense of sound was a promising route for mosquito control, but it needed to be studied and managed.

“The study provides a first direct molecular test, which suggests that hearing is indeed not only important for mosquito reproduction but essential.

“Without the ability of males to hear – and acoustically chase – female mosquitoes might become extinct.”

Another method being explored is releasing sterile males in areas where there are pockets of mosquito-spread diseases, he added.

Although mosquitoes can carry diseases, they are an important part of the food chain – as nourishment for fish, birds, bats and frogs, for example – and some are important pollinators.

Human rights activists have called on authorities in Iran to release a woman who was detained after removing her clothes at a university, in what they said was a protest against the compulsory hijab laws.

A video surfaced on social media on Saturday showing the woman in her underwear sitting on some steps and then walking calmly along a pavement at the Science and Research Branch of Islamic Azad University in Tehran.

In a second video, the woman appears to remove her underwear. Shortly afterwards, plainclothes agents are seen forcibly detaining her and pushing her into a car.

Azad University said the woman suffered from a “mental disorder” and had been taken to a “psychiatric hospital”.

Many Iranians on social media questioned the claim and portrayed her actions as part of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement that has seen many women publicly defy the laws requiring them to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothing.

More than 500 people were reportedly killed during nationwide protests that erupted two years ago after a Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died in police custody after being detained for not wearing hijab “properly”.

The Amirkabir Newsletter Telegram channel – which describes itself as “Iranian student movement media” and was the first to publish the story – reported that the woman had an altercation with security agents over not wearing a headscarf, leading to her undressing during the scuffle.

It said the woman’s head hit the door or frame of the plainclothes agents’ car while she was being detained, causing it to bleed, and that she was taken to an undisclosed location.

Witness told BBC Persian that the woman entered their class at Azad University and began filming students. When the lecturer objected, she left, yelling, they said.

According to witnesses, the woman told the students: “I’ve come to save you.”

Iranian media meanwhile released a video of a man with his face blurred who claimed to be the woman’s ex-husband and asked the public not to share the video for the sake of her two children. BBC Persian has not been able to verify the man’s claims.

“When I protested against mandatory hijab, after security forces arrested me, my family was pressured to declare me mentally ill,” said Canada-based women’s rights activist Azam Jangravi, who fled Iran after being sentenced to three years in prison for removing her headscarf during a protest in 2018.

“My family didn’t do it, but many families under pressure do, thinking it’s the best way to protect their loved ones. This is how the Islamic Republic tries to discredit women, by questioning their mental health,” she added.

Amnesty International said Iran “must immediately and unconditionally release the university student who was violently arrested”.

“Pending her release, authorities must protect her from torture and other ill-treatment, and ensure access to family and lawyer. Allegations of beatings and sexual violence against her during arrest need independent and impartial investigations. Those responsible must held to account,” it added.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, Mai Sato, posted the footage on X and wrote that she would be “monitoring this incident closely, including the authorities’ response”.

Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate who is currently imprisoned in Iran, issued a statement saying she was gravely concerned about the case.

“Women pay the price for defiance, but we do not bow down to force,” she said.

“The student who protested at the university turned her body – long weaponized as a tool of repression – into a symbol of dissent. I call for her freedom and an end to the harassment of women.”

A “very rare” slice of wedding cake from the marriage of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip has sold at auction for £2,200.

The fruit cake was found under a bed in a suitcase, 77 years after the original 9ft (2.7m) cake was dished out to 2,000 guests.

It was gifted by the then-Princess Elizabeth to Marion Polson, the housekeeper at The Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh from 1931 to 1969.

“It’s a real little find, a little time capsule of glorious cake,” said James Grinter, of Colchester-based auction house Reeman Dansie.

The cake, initially expected to fetch £500, was sold to a bidder from China who purchased it over the phone.

Ms Polson was given a slice as a token of thanks for purchasing the newlyweds a “delightful” dessert service.

She kept hold of it until her death in the 1980s, when it was stashed away under a bed with some of her belongings.

The cake was still in its original presentation box and came with a letter from the Queen, dated November 1947.

It read: “My husband and I are deeply touched to know that you shared in giving us such a delightful wedding present.

“We are both enchanted with the dessert service; the different flowers and the beautiful colouring will, I know, be greatly admired by all who see it.”

Ms Polson’s Scottish family contacted the auctioneers earlier this year as they sought to sell it under the hammer.

The royal couple’s lavish cake consisted of four tiers and was laced with alcohol for the wedding on 20 November 1947.

Mr Grinter, Reeman Dansie’s royal expert, said Ms Polson’s slice was the first piece ever sold “in its completeness”.

He told BBC Essex: “This one actually has its original contents which is very, very rare.

“Bear in mind it was produced at a time of rationing… They had the most magnificent cake made for them.

“I’ve seen photographs of it – it would fill half a room, it was absolutely enormous.”

Mr Grinter said the cake was no longer in the best condition, adding: “I don’t think I’d particularly want to eat it, I must admit.”

Zimbabwe’s government has banned “with immediate effect” police officers from using mobile phones while working.

The ban is contained in a memo, ordering police officers to abandon their private communication gadgets while on duty.

All officers are required to surrender their mobile phones to their supervisors once they get to their stations and only use them during their break time.

No reasons were cited for the ban in the memo but it is widely believed this could be part of efforts to curb police corruption.

It comes a few days after two traffic enforcement officers were arrested in the capital, Harare, after a viral social media video exposed them taking bribes from public transport vehicles.

• I cannot forgive Mugabe’s soldiers – massacre survivor

Police spokesperson Paul Nyathi described the two detained officers as “bad apples who do not deserve to be serving in the police service”.

The new mobile policy seeks to reinforce what appears to have been a previous order addressed to all stations late last month.

It said “despite numerous instructions given forbidding use of cell phones whilst on duty by members of the police service, commanders are not enforcing this”.

“No member is allowed to be in possession of a cell phone whilst on duty. Cell phones should only be used during break and lunch times,” reads the circular.

Officers in charge of police stations have been ordered to enforce the ban, with threats issued against those who do not comply.

“Once a member is found with a cell phone whilst on duty, the officer in-charge of the said member will be put to task,” the memo adds.

Police are perceived to be among the most corrupt institutions in Zimbabwe because of low salaries and poor working conditions.

• ‘Beaten and shot by Zimbabwe’s police’
• Emmerson Mnangagwa – Zimbabwe’s ‘crocodile’
• The bones that haunt Zimbabwe

Eight people have gone on trial in Paris accused of encouraging the killer of Samuel Paty, the teacher who was beheaded on the street outside his school four years ago.

Abdoullakh Anzorov, the young man of Chechen origin who wielded the knife, is dead – shot by police in the minutes after his attack.

So the trial is less about the murder itself, and more about the circumstances that led to it.

Over seven weeks, the court will hear how a 13-year-old schoolgirl’s lie span out of control thanks to social media, triggering an international hate campaign, and inspiring a lone mission of vengeance from a self-styled defender of Islam.

On trial are two men accused of identifying Mr Paty as a “blasphemer” over the Internet, two friends of Anzorov who allegedly gave him logistical help, and four others who offered support on chatlines.

Mr Paty’s murder horrified – and petrified – France.

He was a conscientious and much-liked history teacher in a secondary school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, in the prosperous western suburbs of Paris.

On 6 October 2020 he gave a lesson on freedom of speech – the same lesson he had given several times before – to a class of young teenagers.

Drawing on the tragically famous episode of Charlie Hebdo magazine – how publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad had led to the 2015 murder of most of its staff – he briefly showed an example of the cartoons.

Before doing so he recommended that those who feared being offended avert their eyes.

The next day one of his pupils – the 13-year-old girl – was asked by her father why she was not going to school.

She told him she had been disciplined because she dared to stand up to Mr Paty when he told Muslims to leave the class so he could show a naked picture of the prophet.

It was a triple lie.

Mr Paty had not told Muslims to leave the class. The girl had been disciplined, but not for the reason she said. She had not even been in the room on the day Mr Paty gave the lesson on freedom of speech.

But with the Internet to send it on its way, the lie spread… and spread.

First the girl’s father – Brahim Chnina – made her repeat the claim on videos, which he posted on Facebook, naming the teacher.

Then, a local Islamist – Abdelhakim Sefrioui – created a 10-minute online video entitled “Islam and the prophet insulted in a public college.”

Within a couple of days the school was inundated with threats and messages of hate from around the world. Paty told colleagues that he was living through a difficult time because of the campaign against him.

Meanwhile, the denunciation had reached the attention of an 18-year-old Chechen refugee living in Rouen, 80km (50 miles) to the west.

Anzorov made an initial note on his telephone that read: “A teacher has shown his class a picture of the messenger of Allah naked.”

Anzorov then sought the help of two friends, who are now on trial.

One of them was allegedly present when he bought a knife in a Rouen shop. The other helped him buy two replica pistols on 16 October, the day of the attack, and then drove him to the school.

The four last defendants – including one woman – are people with whom Anzorov conversed on Snapchat and Twitter and who allegedly offered him encouragement.

The defendants admit their connection to the case, but they contest the charges of “terrorist association” or “complicity to commit terrorist murder”.

Lawyers for the girl’s father and the Islamist preacher will argue that though they publicly condemned Mr Paty, they never called for his murder.

In a similar vein, lawyers for Anzorov’s friends – actual and online – will say they had no notion he planned a killing.

For the prosecution, context is key. Samuel Paty’s murder took place at a time of heightened awareness of the jihadist threat. In October 2020, Charlie Hebdo had just re-published some of the cartoons, to mark the start of a trial resulting from the original attack.

The internet was full of new Islamist threats against France, and in late September a Pakistani man had wounded two people with a machete at Charlie Hebdo’s former offices.

In that climate, publicly denouncing a man for blasphemy was tantamount to designating a terrorist target, prosecutors will argue.

A year ago the girl at the heart of the case was convicted in a minors’ court of making false accusations and given a suspended prison term.

Five other pupils were also convicted of identifying Mr Paty for Anzarov in return for money.

The trial is set to run until late December.

New buyers were renovating their house in eastern France when they discovered something strange in the attic – the previous owner’s body, prosecutors said on Monday.

Regional newspaper Le Republicain Lorrain identified the remains as Aloïs Iffly, the homeowner who disappeared in 2009 at the age of 81.

Iffly’s wife continued to live in the house until her death in 2020, prompting its sale.

Prosecutor Olivier Glady said the scene “hints at suicide”, with a rope found still hanging in the attic when the body was discovered on 2 November.

The property is in Erstroff, a small village less than an hour’s drive from the German city of Saarbrücken.

It was sold in 2023 and the new owners had begun renovations.

They were looking for the source of a leak in the roof, but tucked inside a cubbyhole were the “skeletal remains”, Mr Glady said.

Police are now investigating the cause of death and the body has been sent to Strasbourg for an autopsy.

The results could put an end to the mystery surrounding Aloïs Iffly’s disappearance, which has remained unsolved for 15 years despite extensive search attempts, Le Republicain Lorrain reported.

American voters are going to the polls on Tuesday to choose their next president.

US election results are sometimes declared state-by-state within hours of the polls closing – meaning that we get a running tally as we go – but this year’s tight contest could mean a longer wait.

The first polls close at 18:00 EST (23:00 GMT) on Tuesday evening and the last at 01:00 EST (06:00 GMT) early on Wednesday.

In some presidential races, the victor has been named late on election night, or early the next morning.

This time, the knife-edge race in many states could mean media outlets wait longer before projecting who has won.

Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, the former president, have been running neck-and-neck for weeks.

Narrow victories could also mean recounts.

In the key swing state of Pennsylvania, for example, a recount would be required if there’s a half-percentage-point difference between the votes cast for the winner and loser. In 2020, the margin was just over 1.1 percentage points.

• Follow live election updates
• How to follow the US election on the BBC
• US election polls: Who is winning – Harris or Trump?
• A really simple guide to the presidential vote

Legal challenges are also possible. More than 100 pre-election lawsuits have already been filed, mostly by Republicans challenging voter eligibility and voter roll management.

Other scenarios that could cause delays include any election-related disorder, particularly at polling locations.

On the other hand, vote-counting has sped up in some areas, including the crucial state of Michigan, and fewer votes have been cast by mail than in the last election, which was during the Covid pandemic.

In the 2020 election, US TV networks did not declare Joe Biden the winner until four days after election day, when the result in Pennsylvania became clearer.

In other recent elections, voters have had a much shorter wait.

In 2016, Trump was declared the winner shortly before 03:00 EST (08:00 GMT) a few hours after polls closed.

In 2012, when Barack Obama secured a second term, his victory was projected before midnight the same evening of election day.

However, the 2000 election between George W Bush and Al Gore was a notable exception. The race was not decided for five weeks, when the US Supreme Court voted to end Florida’s recount. That kept Bush in place as winner and handed him the White House.

The race is expected to come down to results from seven swing states, which experts believe Harris and Trump both have a realistic chance of winning.

Turnout has been high in early voting, both in-person and by mail, with records broken in Georgia.

Georgia – Polls close in the Peach State at 19:00 EST (00:00 GMT). Georgia’s top election official estimates that about 75% of votes will be counted within the first two hours.

North Carolina – Polls close 30 minutes after Georgia. North Carolina’s results are expected to be announced before the end of the night.

Pennsylvania – Voting ends at 20:00 EST (01:00 GMT) but experts agree it may take at least 24 hours before enough votes are counted for a winner to emerge.

Michigan – Voting concludes at 21:00 EST (02:00 GMT). A result is not expected until the end of Wednesday.

Wisconsin – Results should come in shortly after polls close at 21:00 EST for smaller counties but experts predict the state won’t have a result until at least Wednesday.

Arizona – Initial results could come as early as 22:00 EST (03:00 GMT) but the state’s largest county says not to expect results until early Wednesday morning. Postal ballots dropped off on election day could take up to 13 days to count.

Nevada – Votes here could also take days to count. The state allows mail-in ballots as long as they were sent on election day and arrive no later than 9 November.

In such a tight race, early vote results may not be the best indication of who will eventually win.

In 2020, Trump was leading in some key states on election night but Biden overtook him as mail ballots, heavily favoured by Democrats at the time, were counted.

Though election experts warned beforehand of such a phenomenon, Trump seized upon it to amplify his unfounded claims that the election was stolen.

There could be another so-called “red mirage” this year – or perhaps a “blue mirage” that initially favours Harris but then shifts toward Trump.

More than 83 million Americans have already voted, according to the University of Florida Election Lab’s nationwide early vote tracker. Women make up 54% of that tally, which could be a good sign for Harris.

But while early voting has typically favoured Democrats, registered Republicans have cast nearly as many early votes this time around.

Typically, the votes cast on election day are tallied first, followed by early and mail ballots, those that have been challenged, and then overseas and military ballots.

Local election officials – sometimes appointed, sometimes elected – verify, process and count individual votes, in a process known as canvassing.

Verifying ballots includes comparing the number cast with the number of active voters; removing, unfolding and examining every single ballot for tears, stains or other damage; and documenting and investigating any inconsistencies.

Counting ballots involves feeding each one into electronic scanners that tabulate their results. Some circumstances require manual counts or double-checked tallies.

Every state and locality has rigorous rules about who can participate in the canvass, the order in which votes are processed and which parts are open to the public, including how partisan observers can monitor and intervene in vote-counting.

• When does vote counting begin and how long will it take?
• Visual guide – Harris and Trump’s paths to victory
• The moment I decided on my vote

Once every valid vote has been included in the final results, a process known as the electoral college comes into play.

In each state a varying number of electoral college votes can be won, and it is securing these – and not just the backing of voters themselves – that ultimately wins the presidency.

• What is the US electoral college, and how does it work?
• How are votes counted in the US election?

Generally, states award all of their electoral college votes to whoever wins the popular vote and this is confirmed after meetings on 17 December.

The new US Congress then meets on 6 January to count the electoral college votes and confirm the new president.

After the 2020 election, Trump refused to concede and rallied supporters to march on the US Capitol as Congress was meeting to certify Biden’s victory.

He urged his Vice-President, Mike Pence, to reject the results – but Pence refused.

Even after the riot was cleared and members of Congress regrouped, 147 Republicans voted unsuccessfully to overturn Trump’s loss.

Electoral reforms since then have made it harder for lawmakers to object to certified results sent to them from individual states. They have also clarified that the vice-president has no power to unilaterally reject electoral votes.

Nevertheless, election watchers expect that efforts to delay certification of the 2024 vote could take place at the local and state level.

Trump, his running mate JD Vance and top Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have refused on several occasions to state unequivocally that they will accept the results if he loses.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: How to win the electoral college
• EXPLAINER: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• GLOBAL: How this election could change the world
• IN PICS: Different lives of Harris and Trump
• IN FULL: All our election coverage in one place

It is possible that the two candidates could end up in a tie because they have the same number of electoral college votes – 269 each.

In that situation, members of the House of Representatives – the lower chamber of the US Congress – would vote to choose the president in a process known as a contingent election.

Meanwhile the Senate – the upper chamber – would vote for the vice-president.

But that hasn’t happened for about 200 years.

The president-elect will begin their term in office after being inaugurated on Monday, 20 January 2025, in the grounds of the US Capitol complex.

It will be the 60th presidential inauguration in US history.

The event will see the new president sworn in on a pledge to uphold the Constitution and then deliver their inaugural address.

Voters in the US go to the polls on Tuesday to elect their next president.

The election was initially a rematch of 2020 but it was upended in July when President Joe Biden ended his campaign and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris.

The big question now is – will America get its first woman president or a second Donald Trump term?

• Follow live election updates
• All you need to know about election night
• When will we know who has won?

Harris has had a small lead over Trump in the national polling averages since she entered the race at the end of July and she remains ahead – as shown in the chart below with the latest figures rounded to the nearest whole number.

Harris saw a bounce in her polling numbers in the first few weeks of her campaign, building a lead of nearly four percentage points towards the end of August.

The polls were relatively stable in September and early October but they have tightened in the last couple of weeks, as shown in the chart below, with trend lines showing the averages and dots for individual poll results for each candidate.

While national polls are a useful guide as to how popular a candidate is across the whole country, they’re not the best way to predict the election result.

That’s because the US uses an electoral college system, in which each state is given a number of votes roughly in line with the size of its population. A total of 538 electoral college votes are up for grabs, so a candidate needs to hit 270 to win.

There are 50 states in the US but because most of them nearly always vote for the same party, in reality there are just a handful where both candidates stand a chance of winning. These are the places where the election will be won and lost and are known as battleground states or swing states.

• What is the electoral college?
• Path to 270: The states Harris and Trump need to win

Right now the leads in the swing states are so small that it’s impossible to know who is really ahead from looking at the polling averages.

Polls are designed to broadly explain how the public feels about a candidate or an issue, not predict the result of an election by less than a percentage point so it’s important to keep that in mind when looking at the numbers below.

It’s also important to remember that the individual polls used to create these averages have a margin of error of around three to four percentage points, so either candidate could be doing better or worse than the numbers currently suggest.

If you look at the trends since Harris joined the race, it does highlight some differences between the states.

In Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, the lead has changed hands a few times since the start of August but Trump has a small lead in all of them at the moment.

In the three other states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – Harris had led since the start of August, sometimes by two or three points, but the polls have tightened significantly.

All three of those states had been Democratic strongholds before Trump turned them red on his path to winning the presidency in 2016. Biden retook them in 2020 and if Harris can do the same then she will be on course to win the election.

In a sign of how the race has changed since Harris became the Democratic nominee, on the day that Biden quit the race he was trailing Trump by nearly five percentage points on average in the seven swing states.

In Pennsylvania, Biden was behind by nearly 4.5 percentage points when he dropped out, as the chart below shows. It is a key state for both campaigns as it has the highest number of electoral votes of the seven and therefore winning it makes it easier to reach the 270 votes needed.

The figures we have used in the graphics above are averages created by polling analysis website 538, which is part of American news network ABC News. To create them, 538 collects the data from individual polls carried out both nationally and in battleground states by lots of polling companies.

As part of its quality control, 538 only includes polls from companies that meet certain criteria, like being transparent about how many people they polled, when the poll was carried out and how the poll was conducted (telephone calls, text message, online, etc).

You can read more about the 538 methodology here.

The polls have underestimated support for Trump in the last two elections and the national polling error in 2020 was the highest in 40 years according to a post-mortem by polling experts – so there’s good reason to be cautious about them going into this year’s election.

The polling miss in 2016 was put down to voters changing their minds in the final days of the campaign and because college-educated voters – who were more likely to support Hillary Clinton – had been over-represented in polling samples.

In 2020, the experts pointed to problems with getting Trump supporters to take part in polls, but said it was “impossible” to know exactly what had caused the polling error, especially as the election was held during a pandemic and had a record turnout.

Pollsters have made lots of changes since then and the polling industry “had one of its most successful election cycles in US history” in the 2022 midterm elections, according to analysts at 538.

But Donald Trump wasn’t on the ballot in the midterms and we won’t know until after election day whether these changes can deal with the influx of irregular voters he tends to attract.

• Listen: How do election polls work?

• PATH TO 270: The states they need to win – and why
• IN PICS: Different lives of Harris and Trump
• SIMPLE GUIDE: How you can get most votes but lose
• EXPLAINER: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• FACT-CHECK: What the numbers really say about crime
• Read more about: Kamala Harris | Donald Trump | US election

Americans cast their ballots in the presidential race between Republican nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Vice-President Kamala Harris.

A series of parcel fires targeting courier companies in Poland, Germany and the UK were dry runs aimed at sabotaging flights to the US and Canada, Polish prosecutors say.

Katarzyna Calow-Jaszewska revealed late last month that four people had been arrested and authorities across Europe were investigating the incidents.

Western security officials have now told US media they believe the fires – which happened in July – were part of an orchestrated campaign by Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU.

Russia denies being behind acts of sabotage. But it is suspected to have been behind other attacks on warehouses and railway networks in EU member states this year, including in Sweden and in the Czech Republic.

Ms Calow-Jaszewska said in a statement that a group of foreign intelligence saboteurs had been involved in sending parcels containing hidden explosives and dangerous materials via courier companies. The parcels then spontaneously burst into flames or blew up.

Western officials believe the fires originated in electric massage machines containing a “magnesium-based” substance.

Magnesium-based fires are hard to put out, especially on board a plane.

“The group’s goal was also to test the transfer channel for such parcels, which were ultimately to be sent to the United States of America and Canada,” Ms Calow-Jaszewska said.

On three days in July, fires broke out in a container due to be loaded on to a DHL cargo plane in the German city of Leipzig, at a transport company near Warsaw, and at Minworth near Birmingham, UK, involving a package described as an incendiary device.

The incident at Jablonow near Warsaw took two hours to extinguish, according to Polish reports.

UK officials have given few details about the Minworth fire on 22 July. Last month the Guardian newspaper reported that counter-terrorism police were investigating whether Russian spies planted a device in a parcel that later caught fire at a DHL warehouse.

Ken McCallum, head of the UK’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, said last month that Russian secret agents had carried out “arson, sabotage and more. Dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness” after the UK had helped Ukraine in Russia’s war. His allegations were flatly rejected by the Kremlin.

It is important to separate the known facts from the allegations being made and suspicions voiced by Western officials.

What is beyond doubt is that this year has seen a succession of suspicious fires at cargo depots in the UK, Germany and Poland – suspicious enough to trigger investigations by counter terrorism police.

There have been other incidents across Europe and last month a man was convicted at the Old Bailey under the new National Security Act for an arson attack on a Ukrainian-owned business in Leyton, east London in March.

In Germany, the head of the domestic intelligence agency (BfV) has said it was only by a stroke of fortune that the Leipzig device had not ignited in mid-air.

BfV head Thomas Haldenwang has described the device that caught fire at DHL’s logistics hub at Leipzig-Halle airport as suspected Russian sabotage.

Taken together, these events are leading Western governments to conclude there is a strong possibility that Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency has embarked on a systematic campaign of anonymous, covert attacks on those countries helping Ukraine.

The package that burst into flames in Leipzig is thought to have arrived from Lithuania and its onward flight was delayed.

The device that caught fire in Minworth is also understood to have come from Lithuania, where the head of the parliament’s national security and defence committee, Arvydas Pocius, said it was part of an ongoing campaign of hybrid attacks aimed at “causing chaos, panic and mistrust”.

DHL has increased security since the recent freight fires. “DHL Express has taken measures in all European countries to protect its network, its employees and facilities, as well as its customers’ shipments,” a spokeswoman said a few weeks ago.

Poland’s government has already responded to alleged Russian sabotage, with Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski announcing the closure of a Russian consulate in Poznan and threatening to expel the Russian ambassador if it fails to bring an end to its attacks.

Russia’s foreign ministry condemned the move as “a hostile step that will be met with a painful response”.

Never in recent US political history has the outcome of a presidential election been so in doubt – this is not a contest for the faint of heart.

While past elections have been narrowly decided – George W Bush’s 2000 victory over Al Gore came down to a few hundred votes in Florida – there’s always been some sense of which direction the race was tilting in the final days.

Sometimes, as in 2016, the sense is wrong. In that year, polls overestimated Hillary Clinton’s strength and failed to detect a late-breaking movement in Donald’s Trump favour.

This time around, however, the arrows are all pointing in different directions. No-one can seriously make a prediction either way.

• Follow live election day updates
• What do final polls tell us about who is winning?
• When will we know who has won?

Most of the final polls are well within the margin of error, both nationally and in the seven key battleground states that will decide the election.

Based on statistics and sample sizes alone, that means either candidate could be ahead.

It is this uncertainty that vexes political pundits and campaign strategists alike.

There have been a smattering of surprises – not least one notable example, a recent respected survey of Republican-leaning Iowa giving Harris a shock lead.

But the major polling averages, and the forecasting models that interpret them, all show this as a coin-toss contest.

Just because the outcome of this election is uncertain, that doesn’t mean the actual result won’t be decisive – a shift of a few percentage points either way, and a candidate could sweep all of the battleground states.

If the voter turnout models are wrong and more women head to the polls, or more rural residents, or more disaffected young voters – that could dramatically shift the final results.

There could also be surprises among key demographic groups.

Will Trump really make the inroads with young black and Latino men that his campaign has predicted? Is Harris winning over a larger proportion of traditionally Republican suburban women, as her team is hoping? Are elderly voters – who reliably vote every election and tend to lean to the right – moving into the Democratic column?

• Americans anxious as two nations collide

Once this election is in the rear-view mirror, we may be able to conclusively point to a reason why the winning candidate came out on top.

Perhaps, in hindsight, the answer will be obvious. But anyone who says they know how things will turn out right now is fooling you – and themselves.

In most US states the outcome of the presidential vote is all but certain. But there are seven key battleground states that will decide this election.

Not all battleground states are created equal, however. Each candidate has a “wall” of three states that offers the most direct path to the White House.

Harris’s so-called “blue” wall, named for the colour of the Democratic Party, stretches across Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in the Great Lakes region. It has been the subject of much political conversation since 2016, when Trump narrowly won all three traditionally Democratic states on his way to victory.

Joe Biden flipped these states back in 2020. If Harris can hold them, she doesn’t need any other battleground, as long as she also wins a congressional district in Nebraska (which has a slightly different system in how it awards its electoral college votes).

That explains why she has spent the bulk of her time in these blue wall states during the campaign’s final stretch, with full days on the ground in each.

• Visual guide – Harris and Trump’s paths to victory
• The moment I decided who to vote for

On Monday night, she held her final rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the top of the 72 steps leading to the city’s Museum of Art, which Sylvester Stallone’s fictional boxer Rocky climbed in the film of the same name – before narrowly losing to his opponent, Apollo Creed.

Trump’s “red wall” sits along the eastern edge of the US. It is less talked about but equally important to his electoral chances. It starts in Pennsylvania but stretches south to North Carolina and Georgia. If he carries these states, he will win by two electoral votes, no matter how the other battlegrounds vote.

That explains why he’s held five events in North Carolina in just in the last week.

The overlapping point on each of these walls, of course, is Pennsylvania – the biggest battleground electoral prize. Its nickname, the Keystone State, has never been more appropriate.

Sometimes lost in all this electoral map strategising and gameplay is the historic significance of this presidential election.

Harris and Trump represent two very different views of the US – on immigration, trade, cultural issues and foreign policy.

The president for the next four years will be able to shape American government – including the federal courts – in a way that could have an impact for generations.

The US political landscape has been changing dramatically over the past four years, reflecting shifts in the demographic make-ups of both parties.

The Republican Party of a decade ago looked very different to the populist one that Trump now leads, which has far more appeal to blue-collar and low-income voters.

• How Trump came back from his darkest hour
• What Harris’s years as prosecutor tell us now

The Democratic Party’s base still rests on young voters and people of colour, but it now relies more on the wealthy and college educated.

Tuesday’s results may offer additional evidence of how these tectonic shifts in American politics, only partially realised over the past eight years, are reshaping the US political map.

And those shifts could give one side or the other an advantage in future races.

It wasn’t too long ago – in the 1970s and 1980s – that Republicans were viewed as having a unassailable lock on the presidency because they consistently won a majority in enough states to prevail in the electoral college.

This election may be a 50-50 contest, but that doesn’t mean this is the new normal in American presidential politics.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: How to win the electoral college
• EXPLAINER: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• GLOBAL: How this election could change the world
• IN PICS: Different lives of Harris and Trump
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

Civil servants caught having sex in their offices will face “severe measures”, the vice-president of Equatorial Guinea has warned after hundreds of allegedly pornographic videos were leaked to the public.

The videos reportedly involve high-ranking civil servant Baltasar Ebang Engonga having sex with various women – including the wives of prominent officials – in his office.

Mr Engonga is head of the country’s National Financial Investigation Agency and also a relative of the country’s president.

The BBC has asked him for comment.

On his Facebook page, Mr Engonga has posted that he is feeling sad, along with a photo of him with a woman and children captioned: “Family is everything”.

Vice-President Teodoro Obiang Mangue said any officials found engaging in sex acts at work would be suspended as this was a “flagrant violation of the code of conduct”.

He has also ordered the installation of surveillance cameras in courts and ministries to combat “indecent and illicit acts”.

A statement from the vice-president’s office said the decision had been taken in the wake of the widely circulated videos which had “denigrated the image of the country”.

It added that he had recommended opening an investigation.

The videos in question were leaked after Mr Engonga was arrested on separate corruption charges, state television TVGE said.

Last week, Vice-President Obiang said “pornographic videos” had been “flooding” social media and ordered telecoms companies to curb the spread.

Since then, the flow of internet traffic – particularly the downloading of images – has been severely disrupted in the country, people in Equatorial Guinea told the AFP news agency.

As head of the National Financial Investigation Agency, Mr Engonga works on tackling financial crimes such as money laundering.

Following the furore over the videos, Equatorial Guinea’s chief prosecutor Anatolio Nzang Nguema told state TV that if Mr Engonga was found to have been “infected with a sexually transmitted disease” he would be prosecuted for an offence against “public health”.

He is reportedly nicknamed “Bello” – Spanish for beautiful – on account of his good looks.

• Equatorial Guinea vice-president’s superyacht and homes seized in South Africa
• A quick guide to Equatorial Guinea

A leading Slovak mountain climber has died while descending a 7,234m (23,730ft) peak in Nepal, after completing the rare feat of scaling the mountain’s perilous eastern face.

Ondrej Huserka fell into a crevasse on Thursday, after he and his climbing partner ascended the Langtang Lirung mountain in the Himalayas – the 99th-highest peak in the world.

The 34-year-old mountaineer had previously climbed in the Alps, Patagonia and the Pamir Mountains.

His Czech climbing partner Marek Holecek said the pair were returning to base after becoming the first mountaineers to ascend Langtang Lirung via a “terrifying” eastern route.

While rappelling a mountain wall, Mr Huserka’s rope snapped and he fell into an ice crevasse, his partner said.

He then “hit an angled surface after an 8m drop, then continued down a labyrinth into the depths of the glacier”.

In an emotional Facebook post, Mr Holecek recalled hearing his partner’s cries for help and desperately trying to save him.

“I rappelled down to him and stayed with him for four hours until his light faded,” Mr Holecek said.

After freeing him from the ice, Mr Holecek realised his partner was paralysed.

“His star was fading as he lay in my arms,” he said.

The Slovak climbers’ association, SHS James, said adverse weather in Nepal had prevented rescue action.

“Following a phone call with Marek Holecek and his status published yesterday, and given the weather conditions under Langtang Lirung, the family and friends will have to cope with the fact that Ondrej is not with us any more,” it said in a social media post.

Mr Huserka joined the Slovak national alpinism team in 2011 and won the SHS James best ascent of the year award six times, according to his personal website.

His decade-long mountaineering career took him around the world.

He completed the first ascent of the “Summer Bouquet” on Alexander Block Peak in Kyrgyzstan, and repeated a “legendary route” on the Cerro Torre’s south-east ridge in South America, his website says.

Paying tribute to the late climber, SHS James said Mr Huserka was a “top alpinist” and “world-class”.

The Slovak Spectator said he was “one of the best Slovak mountaineers”.

Joe Rogan has given his endorsement to Donald Trump as Americans head to the polls in Tuesday’s presidential election.

The podcaster said he was giving the Republican his backing after being convinced in one of his interviews by tech billionaire Elon Musk, another high-profile supporter of Trump.

Rogan’s backing could carry significant weight with his young, male listenership – which is also a demographic that Trump has been working hard to court ahead of the 2024 vote. Trump welcomed the endorsement as “great” news.

Trump’s rival, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, has received endorsements from numerous other top celebrities, including musicians Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.

Ahead of polling day, Tuesday, both campaigns have been working to win over undecided voters in an extremely close race.

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Rogan’s endorsement could reach a wide audience, since he enjoys more than 18 million subscribers on YouTube and more than 14 million followers on Spotify.

Trump himself appeared on the podcast last month – speaking about topics from the “biggest mistake” of his time in the White House to whether alien life exists. Harris, too, has featured on podcasts during her campaign – but to a lesser extent.

Almost 80% of Rogan’s audience are men, while half are between the ages of 18 and 34, according to the firm Edison Research. Trump’s 2024 campaign has focused on podcasts popular with younger men over traditional media outlets.

The race has been characterised by pundits as a story of men v women – with Donald Trump enjoying a huge polling lead among men, and women telling pollsters they prefer Kamala Harris by a similarly large margin.

Katy Perry and Lady Gaga were among the stars who lent their support to Harris on the eve of the election. And at a rally in swing state Pennsylvania, TV host Oprah Winfrey issued an appeal to voters to protect women’s reproductive rights.

Meanwhile, explaining his endorsement for Trump, Rogan wrote that Mr Musk “makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way”.

Writing on X to introduce his interview with Musk, Rogan praised “the great and powerful” Mr Musk himself. Tesla founder Mr Musk has appeared at recent Trump rallies and has been giving away prizes of $1m (£770,000) a day to registered voters in battleground states.

Trump, who has previously suggested he could reward Elon Musk with a job if he wins the vote, said at a rally that Rogan’s backing was “great” and “so nice”.

The endorsement appears to mark a significant shift in politics for Rogan. He once said he would “probably” vote for Sen Bernie Sanders – a progressive who previously competed for the Democratic presidential nomination himself.

As recently as 2022, the podcaster said he did not want to “help” Trump electorally because he was “an existential threat to democracy”. He previously lent his support to Robert F Kennedy Jr, then running as an independent presidential candidate.

Rogan, who ventured into podcasting after a career as a stand-up comedian, is known for hosting an ideologically diverse mix of guests.

Occasionally, this editorial approach has landed him in controversy – for example during the Covid pandemic, when he was accused of spreading vaccine misinformation.

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India recently announced a host of ambitious space projects and approved 227bn rupees ($2.7bn; £2.1bn) for them.

The plans include the next phase of India’s historic mission to the Moon, sending an orbiter to Venus, building of the first phase of the country’s maiden space station and development of a new reusable heavy-lifting rocket to launch satellites.

It’s the single largest allocation of funds ever for space projects in India, but considering the scale and complexity of the projects, they are far from lavish and have once again brought into focus the cost-effectiveness of India’s space programme.

Experts around the world have marvelled at how little Indian Space Research Organisation’s (Isro) Moon, Mars and solar missions have cost. India spent $74m on the Mars orbiter Mangalyaan and $75m on last year’s historic Chandrayaan-3 – less than the $100m spent on the sci-fi thriller Gravity.

Nasa’s Maven orbiter had cost $582m and Russia’s Luna-25, which crashed on to the Moon’s surface two days before Chandrayaan-3’s landing, had cost 12.6bn roubles ($133m).

Despite the low cost, scientists say India is punching much above its weight by aiming to do valuable work.

Chandrayaan-1 was the first to confirm the presence of water in lunar soil and Mangalyaan carried a payload to study methane in the atmosphere of Mars. Images and data sent by Chandrayaan-3 are being looked at with great interest by space enthusiasts around the world.

So how does India keep the costs so low?

Retired civil servant Sisir Kumar Das, who looked after Isro’s finances for more than two decades, says the frugality can be traced back to the 1960s, when scientists first pitched a space programme to the government.

India had gained independence from British colonial rule only in 1947 and the country was struggling to feed its population and build enough schools and hospitals.

“Isro’s founder and scientist Vikram Sarabhai had to convince the government that a space programme was not just a sophisticated luxury that had no place in a poor country like India. He explained that satellites could help India serve its citizens better,” Mr Das told the BBC.

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But India’s space programme has always had to work with a tight budget in a country with conflicting needs and demands. Photographs from the 1960s and 70s show scientists carrying rockets and satellites on cycles or even a bullock cart.

Decades later and after several successful interplanetary missions, Isro’s budget remains modest. This year, India’s budgetary allocation for its space programme is 130bn rupees ($1.55bn) – Nasa’s budget for the year is $25bn.

Mr Das says one of the main reasons why Isro’s missions are so cheap is the fact that all its technology is home-grown and machines are manufactured in India.

In 1974, after Delhi conducted its first nuclear test and the West imposed an embargo, banning transfer of technology to India, the restrictions were “turned into a blessing in disguise” for the space programme, he adds.

“Our scientists used it as an incentive to develop their own technology. All the equipment they needed was manufactured indigenously – and the salaries and cost of labour were decidedly less here than in the US or Europe.”

Science writer Pallava Bagla says that unlike Isro, Nasa outsources satellite manufacturing to private companies and also takes out insurance for its missions, which add to their costs.

“Also, unlike Nasa, India doesn’t do engineering models which are used for testing a project before the actual launch. We do only a single model and it’s meant to fly. It’s risky, there are chances of crash, but that’s the risk we take. And we are able to take it because it’s a government programme.”

Mylswamy Annadurai, chief of India’s first and second Moon missions and Mars mission, told the BBC that Isro employs far fewer people and pays lower salaries, which makes Indian projects competitive.

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He says he “led small dedicated teams of less than 10 and people often worked extended hours without any overtime payments” because they were so passionate about what they did.

The tight budget for the projects, he said, sometimes sent them back to the drawing board, allowed them to think out of the box and led to new innovations.

“For Chandrayaan-1, the allocated budget was $89m and that was okay for the original configuration. But subsequently, it was decided that the spacecraft would carry a Moon impact probe which meant an additional 35kg.”

Scientists had two choices – use a heavier rocket to carry the mission, but that would cost more, or remove some of the hardware to lighten the load.

“We chose the second option. We reduced the number of thrusters from 16 to eight and pressure tanks and batteries were reduced from two to one.”

Reducing the number of batteries, Mr Annadurai says, meant the launch had to take place before the end of 2008.

“That would give the spacecraft two years while it went around the Moon without encountering a long solar eclipse, which would impact its ability to recharge. So we had to maintain a strict work schedule to meet the launch deadline.”

Mangalyaan cost so little, Mr Annadurai says, “because we used most of the hardware we had already designed for Chandrayaan-2 after the second Moon mission got delayed”.

Mr Bagla says India’s space programme coming at such low cost is “an amazing feat”. But as India scales up, the cost could rise.

At the moment, he says, India uses small rocket launchers because they don’t have anything stronger. But that means India’s spacecraft take much longer to reach their destination.

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So, when Chandrayaan-3 was launched, it orbited the Earth several times before it was sling-shot into the lunar orbit, where it went around the Moon a few times before landing. On the other hand, Russia’s Luna-25 escaped the Earth’s gravity quickly riding a powerful Soyuz rocket.

“We used Mother Earth’s gravity to nudge us to the Moon. It took us weeks and a lot of resourceful planning. Isro has mastered this and done it successfully so many times.”

But, Mr Bagla says, India has announced plans to send a manned mission to the Moon by 2040 and it would need a more powerful rocket to fly the astronauts there quicker.

The government recently said work on this new rocket had already been approved and it would be ready by 2032. This Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV) will be able to carry more weight but also cost more.

Also, Mr Bagla says, India is in the process of opening up the space sector to private players and it’s unlikely that costs will remain so low once that happens.

Queen Camilla has pulled out of a number of scheduled engagements because of a chest infection, says Buckingham Palace.

Doctors have advised a short period of rest at home, but she hopes to be well enough to attend Remembrance events at the weekend, says the Palace.

The Queen, who is 77, will miss the annual opening of the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey on Thursday, where she will be represented by the Duchess of Gloucester.

The Queen returned to the UK last Wednesday after a trip with the King to Australia and Samoa, which included a stopover in India on the way back.

It is understood there is no cause for alarm – and her plans to attend engagements at the weekend suggest a relatively minor bug, of the type which could have been picked up during her long-haul travels.

The Remembrance events at the weekend will include the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday and the commemorative service on Sunday morning at the Cenotaph in Whitehall.

But the Queen will not be at the Field of Remembrance commemoration on Thursday, where she has been the senior royal in recent years.

This annual event sees people placing memorials outside Westminster Abbey to those who have lost their lives while serving in the armed forces.

The Queen will also miss a Buckingham Palace reception for Olympic and Paralympic athletes, which will be hosted King Charles on Thursday evening.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer wished the Queen a “speed recovery” in a message posted on social media.

A statement from the Palace on the Queen’s health said: “Her Majesty The Queen is currently unwell with a chest infection, for which her doctors have advised a short period of rest.

“With great regret, Her Majesty has therefore had to withdraw from her engagements for this week, but she very much hopes to be recovered in time to attend this weekend’s Remembrance events as normal.”

The Queen previously missed a week of engagements with ill health in February 2023, when she tested positive for Covid. It was the second time she contracted the virus, having previously had it in February 2022.

In recent weeks, the Queen had accompanied the King on a tour of Australia and Samoa, which included a Commonwealth summit. There were reports that she had visited a health spa in India on the way back.

The Queen has also recorded a TV documentary raising awareness about domestic violence, which will be broadcast next week.

King Charles received a cancer diagnosis in February. His treatment was paused during his overseas trip but was expected to begin again on his return to the UK.