A ceasefire has been agreed to end 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, US President Joe Biden has announced.

“Effective at 04:00 tomorrow local time (02:00 GMT on Wednesday), the fighting across the Lebanese-Israeli border will end,” Biden said, adding that it aimed to be a “permanent cessation of hostilities”.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will not hesitate to strike if Hezbollah breaks any part of the agreed deal.

There has been no response from the Iran-backed armed group which had been trading fire with Israel since October 2023. Fighting escalated in late September when Israel intensified bombardments and launched a limited ground invasion.

It has been Lebanon’s deadliest conflict in decades, killing more than 3,823 people say local officials.

The ceasefire started overnight on Wednesday as planned.

Attacks by both sides were recorded until shortly before the deal came into effect.

Israel issued evacuation orders for parts of Beirut four hours before the ceasefire deadline, striking shortly before the deadline. Hezbollah also fired drones into Israel in the hours before fighting stopped.

Under the deal announced on Tuesday and brokered by the US, there will be a 60-day period during which Israel will gradually withdraw its troops from Lebanon’s south as Lebanese government forces regain control of an area currently held by Hezbollah.

It is expected that Hezbollah fighters and weapons will be removed from the area south of the Litani River, a boundary established at the end of the last Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006.

“This announcement will create the conditions to restore lasting calm and allow residents in both countries to return safely to their homes,” said a joint statement from the US and France – which will be involved in monitoring the implementation of the deal.

Israel has claimed the right to respond with military action if Hezbollah breaches the ceasefire. President Biden has echoed this saying Israel “retains the right to self defence consistent with international law”.

“If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to arm itself, we will attack. If it tries to rebuild terrorist infrastructure near the border, we will attack,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu also said ending the fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel’s northern neighbour, would allow the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to focus on “the Iranian threat”.

Hezbollah in Lebanon had long been seen as Iran’s first line of defence. But with much of the group’s missile arsenal now destroyed, the military balance between Iran and Israel appears to have tilted in Israel’s favour.

Israel and Hezbollah had long been enemies but the past 13 months of fighting were triggered by the war in the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah started firing rockets into Israel a day after its Gaza ally Hamas carried out a wide-ranging attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed about 1,200 people.

Netanyahu said ending the fighting in Lebanon would also isolate and increase pressure on Hamas.

“From day two of the war, Hamas was counting on Hezbollah to fight by its side. With Hezbollah out of the picture, Hamas is left on its own,” Netanyahu said.

He said ending fighting in Lebanon would also give the IDF space to resupply weapons, munitions and troops.

Israeli commentators had noted that the country’s military was not ready nor equipped to fight two wars on two fronts over an extended period of time.

Ending the conflict in Lebanon thus could also free up more Israeli forces to serve in Gaza, a conflict which shows no sign of ending.

At the White House on Tuesday, Biden was asked about a ceasefire in Gaza and said his government was working with other negotiators Turkey, Egypt and Qatar to “make another push” on a deal.

The US, Israel’s key backer, had led the charge with France in negotiating the deal in Lebanon.

France, which administered Lebanon for more than 20 years in the last century, is also a long-term ally and is expected to be involved through the monitoring of the truce. Biden confirmed that no US troops would be deployed to managing the ceasefire.

The war has been devastating for Lebanon, where, in addition to the 3,823 people killed and 15,859 injured, one million residents have been displaced in areas where Hezbollah holds sway.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed the ceasefire deal, calling it a “fundamental step towards restoring calm and stability” in the country and allowing citizens to return home.

But he also demanded that Israel “fully comply” with the deal, withdraw from the sites it currently occupies and to respect the UN resolution previously set at the end of the last Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006.

Israel went on the offensive against Hezbollah – which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel and many Western countries – after almost a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza.

It has said it wants to ensure the safe return of about 60,000 residents of northern Israeli areas displaced by rocket attacks, which Hezbollah launched in support of Palestinians.

Hezbollah attacks on Israel and the occupied Golan Heights have killed at least 75 people, more than half of them civilians, while more than 50 soldiers have been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli authorities.

The World Bank estimates $8.5bn (£6.8bn) in economic losses and damage in Lebanon. Recovery will take time, and it is unknown how this will be funded.

Hezbollah, too, has been devastated. Many of its leaders have been killed, including long-time chief Hassan Nasrallah, in an IDF strike on Beirut on 27 September. A week later Israel also killed his presumed successor, Hashem Safieddine, in another strike.

With much of its infrastructure also damaged, how Hezbollah will look after the war remains unclear. The group has been severely weakened but it has not been destroyed.

In Lebanon, it is also more than a militia: it is a political party with representation in parliament, and a social organisation, with significant support among Shia Muslims.

Hezbollah’s opponents could see it as an opportunity to limit its influence – it was often described as “a state within a state” in Lebanon before the conflict – and many fear this could lead to internal violence.

Since intensifying the fighting in September, Israel has carried out hundreds of daily strikes in Lebanon, targeting what it said were Hezbollah areas in the south, east and in the capital Beirut.

As reports emerged that Netanyahu was discussing a ceasefire deal with his cabinet on Tuesday, the IDF continued its strikes – targeting Beirut with strikes that killed at least 10 people.

US President Joe Biden has announced a ceasefire deal to end 13 months of fighting between Israel and with Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia supported by Iran.

In a joint statement, the US and France said the agreement would cease fighting in Lebanon and “secure Israel from the threat of Hezbollah and other terrorist organisations”.

This is what we know about the ceasefire deal from official briefings and media reports.

US President Joe Biden told reporters that the agreement was “designed to be a permanent ceasefire”.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, over 60 days Hezbollah will remove its fighters and weapons from the area between the Blue Line – the unofficial border between Lebanon and Israel – and the Litani river, about 30km (20 miles) to the north.

Hezbollah fighters will be replaced by Lebanese army forces in that area, who will ensure that infrastructure or weaponry is removed and that it cannot be rebuilt, according to a senior US official.

Over the same 60 days, Israel will gradually withdraw its remaining forces and civilians, Biden said, adding that it would enable civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes.

The Lebanese army is expected to deploy 5,000 troops to the south under the agreement, according to a US official.

However, questions remain about their role in enforcing the ceasefire, and whether they would confront Hezbollah if needed, which would have the potential to exacerbate tensions in a country where sectarian divisions run deep.

The Lebanese army has also said it does not have the resources – money, manpower and equipment – to fulfil its obligations under the deal, although that could be alleviated by contributions from some of Lebanon’s international allies.

But many Western officials say Hezbollah has been weakened and that this is the moment for the Lebanese government to re-establish control over all the country’s territory.

The agreement largely tracks UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Under resolution 1701, areas south of the Litani should be free of any armed personnel or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state and the UN peacekeeping force (Unifil).

But both sides claimed violations of the resolution.

Israel says Hezbollah was allowed to build extensive infrastructure in the area, while Lebanon says Israel’s violations included military flights over its territory.

This time, the US and France will join the existing tripartite mechanism, which involves Unifil, Lebanon and Israel, which will be charged with monitoring violations, the senior US official said.

“There will be no US combat troops in the area, but there will be military support for the Lebanese Armed Forces, as we’ve done in the past. But in this case, it’ll be typically done with the Lebanese army and in conjunction with the French military as well,” the official said.

Alluding to Israeli concerns, Biden said: “Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon will not be allowed to be rebuilt.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Israel would “maintain full freedom of military action” in Lebanon “with the United States’ full understanding”.

“If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to arm itself, we will attack. If it tries to rebuild terrorist infrastructure near the border, we will attack. If it launches a rocket, if it digs a tunnel, if it brings in a truck carrying rockets, we will attack,” he asserted.

Biden supported that view, telling reporters: “If Hezbollah or anyone else breaks the deal and poses a direct threat to Israel, then Israel retains the right to self-defence consistent with international law.”

But he also said the deal upholds Lebanon’s sovereignty.

The Israeli demand for the right to strike back is not believed to be part of the ceasefire agreement because it was rejected by Lebanon. To get around the issue, media reports had suggested that the US would issue a letter supporting Israel’s right to act.

Benjamin Netanyahu presented the ceasefire deal in the context of what he said were Israel’s “unprecedented achievements” over the past year of a seven-front war.

He said Israel had set Hezbollah back “tens of years” and that it was not the same group it had been before.

There was a lot of focus on Israel’s strength in doing what it believed needed to be done – in Gaza, in Lebanon and elsewhere – despite international opposition.

And there was a lot of justification for the ceasefire too – it would allow Israel to “concentrate on the Iranian threat”, Netanyahu said, emphasising that his country would retain full military freedom to counter any new Hezbollah threat.

Israel’s army said on Tuesday it had hit 180 targets in Lebanon in the past 24 hours. Here on the Israeli side of the border, there have been constant warnings of rocket barrages and drone attacks from Lebanon.

Neither side wants this ceasefire deal to be seen as surrender.

But surrender is exactly what Netanyahu is being accused of by his political rivals – and some of his political allies too.

One poll yesterday suggested that more than 80% of Netanyahu’s support base opposed a deal, and residents in the north of Israel – large numbers of whom have been evacuated from their homes – are angry too.

Nationally, the picture was more split, however. One poll showed 37% of Israelis in favour of the ceasefire, 32% against and 31% saying they didn’t know.

Shelly, an English teacher in Shlomi, said a ceasefire was an “irresponsible and hasty political decision”.

Rona Valency, evacuated from kibbutz Kfar Giladi on 8 October last year, told me she wanted to go home, and that a ceasefire was needed, but that the idea of Lebanese residents returning to these villages gave her “a real sense of unease and fright”.

From Kfar Giladi there are clear views of the Lebanese village of Odaisseh just across the valley.

“The only thing I can hope for is that Hezbollah will not infiltrate these villages and build a new network,” Rona told me. “Apart from completely erasing these villages, and having no people there, there is no real physical thing that can make me feel safe. It’s just, you know, hope.”

Her husband, Onn, said the key to security lay, not in the terms of the ceasefire agreement, but in people “understand[ing] again, where we live; understand[ing] some things that a lot of us forgot”.

He said he didn’t trust the Lebanese army, nor the Americans, to restore security along the border.

“I trust only our army,” he said. “I think if the army won’t be there, it will be very, very hard to get the citizens back.”

This war has delivered a lot of military achievements for Israel – Hezbollah is weakened, its arsenals and infrastructure depleted, and its solidarity with Hamas broken.

But Israel’s armed forces are tired, its economy is suffering, and tens of thousands of its residents are displaced.

Still, many here are urging Benjamin Netanyahu to continue the war in Lebanon – asking why the prime minister who has vowed to continue fighting in Gaza until “total victory” is signing a ceasefire in the north?

The streets were dark and cars packed. People, who moved on foot, carried bags with their belongings, unsure about where they were going but certain that they could not stay.

This was the scene on Tuesday in Nuweiri, central Beirut, moments after the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings, the first for these areas.

We were trying to visit the site of an Israeli air strike hours earlier, in the afternoon, that came without warning, flattened one building and killed at least seven people. But we could not get there.

Crowds were leaving, and men on motorbikes stopped us from moving, saying it was not safe.

Minutes later, we heard several explosions, from more attacks. And for hours, that was how the night unfolded in Beirut. Multiple blasts. Some in the distance; others closer.

Gunshots announced more warnings, urging people to seek safety. All of this, with the constant sound of an Israeli drone flying overhead.

This dramatic escalation came as the country waited for an Israeli decision on a ceasefire deal, the main hope to end over a year of conflict with Hezbollah, the powerful Iranian-backed movement.

During that wait, Israel unleashed its most intense bombardment of Beirut in the conflict.

Within two minutes, shortly after the attack on Nuweiri, fighter jets hit 20 targets in the city’s southern suburbs, known as Dahieh, where Hezbollah is based in the city.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the targets hit were facilities used by Hezbollah, and the wave of attacks was heard across the city.

Now, a ceasefire has been officially announced, but questions remain.

The war has been devastating for Lebanon, where more than 3,700 people have been killed since the start of the hostilities in October 2023, and one million residents have been displaced in areas where Hezbollah has strong presence.

The World Bank estimates $8.5bn (£6.8bn) in economic losses and damage. Recovery will take time, and no-one seems to know who will pay for it.

Under the deal, thousands of Lebanese soldiers will be deployed to the south, after the withdrawal of Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters. How they will be deployed remains unclear.

The military has complained that they do not have the resources – money, manpower and equipment – to fulfil their obligations.

But it is not only about funding, which will probably come from some of Lebanon’s international allies. Will the Lebanese military confront Hezbollah if needed?

That would put Lebanese against Lebanese, which is always a risk in a country where sectarian divisions run deep.

Lebanese authorities seem to have accepted that things must change, a diplomat told me. It appears there is political will to do so.

Hezbollah, too, has been devastated. Many of its leaders have been killed, including long-time chief Hassan Nasrallah, while its infrastructure has been heavily damaged. How it will look like after the war is another unknown.

The group has been severely weakened, some would say humiliated, but it has not been destroyed. In Lebanon, it is more than a militia: it is a political party with representation in Parliament, and a social organisation, with significant support among Shia Muslims.

Its opponents will probably see it as an opportunity to limit its influence. Before the conflict, Hezbollah was often described as a state within a state in Lebanon.

And for months, people outside Hezbollah’s support base said the group had dragged the country into a war that was not in its interests.

This deal may bring the conflict with Israel to an end. But many in Lebanon fear a new internal conflict could follow.

Egyptian rescuers found four bodies and five survivors on Tuesday during a Red Sea search operation after a tourist boat carrying 44 people sank on Monday.

A total of 33 people have been rescued so far but seven were still missing as of Tuesday evening.

The victims’ identities have not yet been disclosed by authorities. The BBC understands two of the missing are British nationals.

The four-deck modern vessel had been carrying 31 passengers and 13 crew when it is understood to have been hit by a large wave near Marsa Alam, causing it to capsize.

The boat sent distress calls at 05:30 local time (03:30 GMT), local authorities said.

The vessel sank within five to seven minutes, according to Red Sea governor Maj-Gen Amr Hanafi. He said some people had been unable to escape from their cabins.

A total of 28 people were rescued by military personnel and a passing tourist boat in the hours after the vessel capsized.

The governor had earlier said other survivors were found in the Wadi el-Gemal area, south of Marsa Alam.

The 44m (144ft) Sea Story yacht had departed a port near Marsa Alam on Sunday for a five-day diving trip that was supposed to finish further north at the town of Hurghada.

It is believed to have been hit by rough winds overnight on Sunday. The Egyptian Meteorological Authority warned of high waves on the Red Sea and advised against maritime activity on Sunday and Monday.

Wind speeds were between 37-43 mph (60-70 kmph) and wave heights were three to four metres (10-13ft) high.

According to the local council in Marsa Alam, the crew of the Sea Story are Egyptian while the tourists on board were from Belgium, Britain, China, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland and the US.

Among the missing are two Polish tourists and one from Finland, according to those nations’ foreign ministries.

A UK Foreign Office spokesperson said they were providing “support to a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Egypt”.

The Chinese embassy in Egypt said two of its nationals were “in good health” after being rescued.

Marsa Alam is a popular destination for tourists on Egypt’s southern Red Sea coast. It is surrounded by diving spots, including renowned coral reefs.

The Red Sea governorate said the boat was owned by an Egyptian national, and had received a one-year validity certificate in March 2024 when it was inspected by maritime safety.

Hanafi said there were no technical faults at the time of the incident.

He also visited Marsa Alam to see the people rescued, and said they were all in good health, and no-one had needed admission to hospital. The passengers are being taken to a tourist hotel in the area, he added.

The BBC has contacted Sea Story’s Egypt-based owner and operator, Dive Pro Liveaboard.

Its website says the vessel was built in 2022. It has four decks and 18 cabins that can accommodate up to 36 passengers.

Last year, three Britons died off the coast of Marsa Alam after their dive boat caught fire.

The families of two Australian teenagers killed in a suspected methanol poisoning in Laos have welcomed news that eight people have been detained during a police investigation into the incident.

Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, both 19, were among six foreign tourists who died after apparently consuming the toxic substance, which is commonly added to bootleg alcohol.

The bodies of the Australians were flown home to Melbourne late on Tuesday, accompanied by their relatives.

“We miss our daughters desperately. I was happy to hear that there’s been some movement over in Laos – we cannot have our girls passing and this continuing to happen,” Ms Jones’s father Mark told reporters.

The eight people detained for questioning on Tuesday were staff at the Nana Backpackers hostel where all the victims had been staying, according to local media.

The owners of the hostel, which is now closed, have previously denied serving illicit alcohol.

Speaking at Melbourne Airport, Mr Jones urged the government in Laos to “continue to pursue” the case, adding that the families involved would try to “raise awareness of methanol poisoning”.

The other four victims have been named as Simone White, a 28-year-old lawyer from the UK; James Louis Hutson, a 57-year-old American; and Danish citizens Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, and Freja Vennervald Sorensen, 21.

Mr Hutson was found dead in his bedroom at the hostel on 13 November with several empty glasses nearby. On the same morning Ms Orkild Coyman and Ms Vennervald Sorensen were also found unconscious in their rooms and rushed to the local hospital.

It is unclear how many other people may have fallen ill from the suspected poisoning and an investigation into the deaths is continuing.

The hostel’s manager was among several people questioned by police last week. Earlier, he told the Associated Press that Ms Jones and Ms Bowles had been the only tourists staying at the venue to have become unwell after drinking free shots there before heading out for the night.

Methanol – which is commonly found in industrial and household products such as paint thinners – is a colourless chemical substance sometimes used in bootleg alcohol.

Consuming just 25ml – which amounts to roughly half a shot – can be lethal, but it can take up to 24 hours for victims to start showing signs of illness, via symptoms such as vomiting and abdominal pain.

Methanol poisoning has long been an issue across South East Asia, particularly in the poorer countries along the Mekong river, and the broader region has the highest prevalence of incidents worldwide.

The recent spate of deaths has cast a spotlight on Vang Vieng – which is a notorious party town – and prompted renewed warnings from governments around the world about drinking spirits in Laos.

Donald Trump says he will hit China, Mexico and Canada with new tariffs on day one of his presidency, in an effort to force them to crack down on illegal immigration and drug smuggling into the US.

The US president-elect said he would sign an executive order imposing a 25% tariff on all goods coming from Mexico and Canada, after being inaugurated on 20 January 2025.

He also said “we will be charging China an additional 10% tariff, above any additional tariffs” until it cracked down on fentanyl smuggling.

The threat could mark a major escalation in tensions with the US’s three top trading partners. It could also lead to higher prices for Americans, since tariffs work as a form of tax on imports.

The US is the world’s largest importer. China, Mexico and Canada account for about 40% of the $3.2tn (£2.6tn) of goods it imports each year, according to official data.

China has defended its efforts to stop the flow of illegal drugs, and has warned that there can be no winner in a trade war between the two.

After Trump made his tariff threat, he spoke to Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for about 10 minutes, discussing trade and border security, a Canadian government official told the BBC. They had a “good discussion”, the source said.

During the call, Trudeau pointed out that the number of migrants crossing the Canadian border was much smaller compared to the US-Mexico border, the official said.

Mexico’s finance ministry said: “Mexico is the United States’ top trade partner, and the USMCA provides a framework of certainty for national and international investors.”

The measures have the potential to cause disruptions to the global supply chain and would hit the three countries targeted by the tariffs hard.

The tariffs on Mexico and Canada will remain in place until the two countries clamp down on drugs, particularly fentanyl, and migrants illegally crossing the border, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“Both Mexico and Canada have the absolute right and power to easily solve this long simmering problem,” he wrote. “It is time for them to pay a very big price!”

In a follow-up Truth Social post, Trump attacked Beijing for failing to follow through on promises that he said Chinese officials made to carry out the death penalty for people caught dealing fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington told the BBC “the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality”.

“China believes that China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature. No one will win a trade war or a tariff war,” he added.

The Biden administration has been calling on Beijing to do more to stop the production of ingredients used in fentanyl, which Washington estimates killed almost 75,000 Americans last year.

During his election campaign, Trump threatened Mexico and China with tariffs of up to 100%, if he deemed them necessary, much higher than those he put in place during his first term in office.

Trump has also said he will end China’s most-favoured-nation trading status with the US – the most advantageous terms Washington offers on tariffs and other restrictions.

Last year, more than 80% of Mexico’s exports went to the US, while around 75% of Canada’s went to its southern neighbour.

Even after years of a bitter trade dispute between the world’s two biggest economies, the US still accounts for about 15% of China’s exports.

A tariff is a domestic tax levied on goods as they enter the country, proportional to the value of the import. So a car imported to the US with a value of $50,000 subject to a 25% tariff, would face a $12,500 charge.

Tariffs are a central part of Trump’s economic vision – he sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue.

He has previously claimed that these taxes are “not going to be a cost to you, it’s a cost to another country”.

This is almost universally regarded by economists as misleading.

The charge is physically paid by the domestic company that imports the goods, not the foreign company that exports them.

So, in that sense, it is a straightforward tax paid by domestic US firms to the US government.

Trump imposed a number of tariffs in his first term of office, many of which have been kept in place by his successor, President Joe Biden. Economic studies suggest most of the economic burden was ultimately borne by US consumers.

It was not immediately clear whether Trump’s “additional 10% tariff, above any additional tariffs” earmarked for China were on top of the 25% he was planning for Canada and Mexico.

The move is “clearly consistent with his promise that he made during the campaign to utilise tariffs as a weapon to accomplish many of his policy initiatives,” Stephen Roach, Senior Fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School, told the BBC’s Business Today programme.

Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, has previously suggested that the president-elect’s threats to impose major tariff hikes were part of his negotiating strategy.

“My general view is that at the end of the day, he’s a free trader,” Bessent said of Trump in an interview with the Financial Times before he was nominated for the role.

“It’s escalate to de-escalate.”

It comes as the Chinese economy is in a significantly more vulnerable position than it was during the previous Trump presidency.

The country has been struggling with a number of serious issues, including an ongoing property market crisis, weak domestic demand and growing local government debt.

The new tariffs appear to break the terms of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on trade.

The deal, which Trump signed into law, took effect in 2020. It continued a largely duty-free trading relationship between the three neighbouring countries.

Outside the official reaction from the three countries affected, the response has been critical.

Doug Ford, the premier of the Canadian province of Ontario, said Trump’s planned tariff would be “devastating to workers and jobs in both Canada and the US”.

Leader of the Mexican senate, Gerardo Fernández, asked: “What tariffs should we impose on their [America’s] goods until they stop consuming drugs and illegally exporting weapons to our homeland?”

• Who’s joined Trump’s top team?
• What Trump can and can’t do on day one
• How undocumented migrants feel about deportations
• Can RFK Jr make America healthy again?
• The rise and fall of Matt Gaetz, in eight wild days

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the presidential election in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Downing Street has denied allegations that a British diplomat expelled from Russia was a spy.

Russian state-run news agencies reported that the country’s security service FSB accused the diplomat – whose photo was shared on Russian TV bulletins – of providing false information on his documents and carrying out espionage activities.

When asked if a tit-for-tat expulsion would occur, a No 10 spokesman said they were “considering” their response.

“To be clear, we refute these allegations” he said, calling them “baseless.”

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the ministry had also summoned the British ambassador, Tass news agency reported.

Footage shows the British ambassador’s car pulling up to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow.

According to Tass, the FSB says that the diplomat was a replacement for one of six UK diplomats expelled in August, also on espionage charges.

“This is not the first time that [Vladimir] Putin’s government has made malicious, baseless accusations against our staff,” Downing Street said.

“The UK government is unapologetic about protecting our national interests and will now respond in due course, and our embassy in Moscow will continue its important work in Russia to support UK interests.”

It comes amid worsening relations between the UK and Russia since the latter’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Last week it emerged the UK lifted restrictions on Ukraine using British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles on targets inside Russia for the first time.

President Vladimir Putin cited the move, alongside the launching of US-supplied longer-range missiles at Russian territory, as being behind Russia’s decision to launch a new hypersonic missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday.

Expulsions of diplomats have become increasingly common since the war began.

Earlier this year, British diplomat Capt Adrian Coghill was given a week to leave Russia, days after the Russian defence attaché was expelled from London for alleged espionage as an “undeclared military intelligence officer”.

More British politicians and press have also been barred from entering the country.

On Tuesday, Russia added 30 more to their “stop list” for what it called “hostile actions”.

Included in the list are: Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood.

Russia has previously banned British politicians and journalists, including from the BBC, Sky News and Channel 4.

In 2022, it banned now Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Minister David Lammy, among other senior government officials. Leader of the Conservative party Kemi Badenoch was also banned in the same year.

Supporters of jailed former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan have been pushed back by security forces after reaching the heart of the heavily-barricaded capital earlier on Tuesday.

The convoy of opposition protesters has been marching towards Islamabad’s D Chowk – or Democracy Square – since the weekend, demanding Khan’s release, among other things.

At least six people were killed – four paramilitary soldiers, and two protesters – as the march moved through the city, clashing with security forces at points.

A number of protesters did make it as far as D Chowk however, and were seen scrambling over shipping containers placed to block their way.

But hours after protesters reached the square, security forces successfully cleared the area. As darkness fell, the lights were switched off – only police officers and paramilitary soldiers left behind.

A police officer nearby said that some protesters had made it beyond the three-tier stack of shipping containers, but only a few hundred metres before they were pushed back.

However, thousands of Khan supporters remain in the area – to keep warm in the biting cold, protesters have started burning paper and other materials inside rubbish bins. Many have even resorted to burning grass and bushes on the footpaths and greenbelts, where people are gathered.

Muhammad Shahid, who came with his family all the way from Punjab province, says they’re here because of Imran Khan’s message: “He says we must fight for our rights.”

He adds: “We’re here to stand up for our fundamental rights. Imran Khan has been illegally arrested, and we will fight to make our voices heard.”

Khan, who has been in prison for more than a year on charges he says are politically motivated, has urged his supporters not to give up – encouraging people to continue towards D Chowk.

“My message to my team is to fight till the end, we will not back down,” the former prime minister said on X.

Even from behind bars, the former cricket star has proved a powerful player in Pakistan politics. During elections in February, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which had been banned from standing and was forced to run candidates as independents, emerged as the single largest bloc.

However, they fell short of the majority and their rivals united to form a new government.

As a result, protesters are also calling for the overturning of election results they say were rigged – a claim disputed by the government.

It was Khan who called on his supporters to take to the streets at the weekend, issuing a “final call” and asking them to stay in the capital until their demands are met.

The government – which had already introduced a ban on public gatherings -responded by blocking Islamabad’s streets with shipping containers, and bussing in police from across the country.

Restrictions also appear to have been brought in on some internet services, while schools and colleges have been shut because of fears of violence.

Pakistan’s interior minister said the protesters had been offered an alternative venue for their protest but had refused.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who blamed the protesters for the deaths of four soldiers on Tuesday, dismissed the march as “extremism”.

“These disruptive elements do not seek revolution but bloodshed,” he said in a statement.

Zulfikar Bukhari, spokesman for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party, told news agency Reuters at least two protesters had been killed – one shot, and one run over by a vehicle.

At least 50 people have been injured.

Additional reporting by Farhat Javed, Malik Mudassir and Fakhir Munir in Islamabad

A police officer who Tasered a 95-year-old woman with dementia symptoms at an Australian care home has been found guilty of her manslaughter.

Kristian White, 34, used his weapon on Clare Nowland after the great-grandmother was found wandering with a small kitchen knife in the early hours of 17 May 2023.

Her death a week later caused public outcry, but White – a senior constable – argued at trial that his use of force was a reasonable and proportionate response to the threat.

Prosecutors, however, alleged Mrs Nowland – who relied on a walker to get around and weighed under 48kg (105lb) – was not a danger and the “impatient” officer had neglected his duty of care to her.

Police and paramedics were called to Yallambee Lodge – in the town of Cooma about 114km (71 miles) south of Canberra – around 04:00 on the day of the incident, after Mrs Nowland had been seen roaming the care home with two serrated steak knives.

The trial in the New South Wales Supreme Court heard evidence that Mrs Nowland, while not formally diagnosed with dementia, had been displaying signs of cognitive decline in the months leading up to her death and had at times behaved aggressively towards health care workers.

At one point that night she had entered the room of another resident and had later thrown one of the blades at a staff member.

When emergency services found Mrs Nowland, they repeatedly asked her to drop the knife in her right hand, and – using thick gloves – had tried to disarm her themselves, the court was told.

In the moments before she was hit by the Taser, footage played to the jury showed the elderly woman using her walker to slowly shuffle forward – 1m (3.3ft) over the course of a minute – before stopping and raising the blade.

White warned Mrs Nowland his weapon was aimed at her, before saying “bugger it” and firing it, while she was still 1.5m-2m away. She fell and hit her head, triggering a fatal brain bleed.

“Who could she have injured at that moment? No one,” Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield said, summing up his case for the jury last week.

He said White had used his weapon only three minutes after finding the woman: “He was fed up, impatient, not prepared to wait any longer”.

However in a written incident report, the officer – who had been stood down from the police force while facing court – said he deployed his Taser because he felt a “violent confrontation was imminent”.

In court he added that he didn’t think Ms Nowland would be “significantly injured” and that he was “devastated” by her death.

The defence pointed to evidence from one of the paramedics and White’s police partner, who both said Mrs Nowland had made them feel scared for their safety.

“I thought that I was going to be stabbed,” Jessica Pank, also a senior constable, said.

However, both agreed they could have easily moved to safety, given Mrs Nowland’s limited mobility.

The court also heard from another resident – who found Mrs Nowland in his room holding two steak knives that morning – who said in a written statement that he did not feel threatened or scared because she was using a walker.

White, who remains on bail, will be sentenced at a later date.

Scientists in India have reported the “first significant result” from Aditya-L1, the country’s first solar observation mission in space.

On 16 July, the most important of the seven scientific instruments Aditya-L1 was carrying – Visible Emission Line Coronagraph, or Velc – captured data that helped scientists estimate the precise time a coronal mass ejection (CME) began.

Studying CMEs – massive fireballs that blow out of the Sun’s outermost corona layer – is one of the most important scientific objectives of India’s maiden solar mission.

“Made up of energy particles, a CME could weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km [1,864 miles] per second while travelling. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth,” says Prof R Ramesh of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics that designed Velc.

“Now imagine this huge fireball hurtling towards Earth. At its top speed, it would take just about 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.”

The coronal ejection that Velc captured on 16 July had started at 13:08 GMT. Prof Ramesh, Velc’s Principal Investigator who has published a paper on this CME in the prestigious Astrophysical Journal Letters, said it originated on the side of the Earth.

“But within half an hour of its journey, it got deflected and went in a different direction, going behind the Sun. As it was too far away, it did not impact Earth’s weather.”

But solar storms, solar flares and coronal mass ejections routinely impact Earth’s weather. They also impact the space weather where nearly 7,800 satellites, including more than 50 from India, are stationed.

According to Space.com, they rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they can cause mayhem on Earth by interfering with the Earth’s magnetic field.

Their most benign impact is causing beautiful auroras in places close to the North and South Pole. A stronger coronal mass ejection can cause auroras to show up in skies further away such as in London or France – as it did in May and October.

But the impact is much more serious in space where the charged particles of a coronal mass ejection can make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction. They can knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites.

“Today our lives fully depend on communication satellites and CMEs can trip the internet, phone lines and radio communication,” Prof Ramesh says. “That can lead to absolute chaos.”

The most powerful solar storm in recorded history occurred in 1859. Called the Carrington Event, it triggered intense auroral light shows and knocked out telegraph lines across the globe.

Scientists at Nasa say an equally strong storm was headed at Earth in 2012 and we had “a close shave just as perilous”. They say a powerful coronal mass ejection tore through Earth’s orbit on 23 July but that we were “incredibly fortunate” that instead of hitting our planet, the storm cloud hit Nasa’s solar observatory STEREO-A in space.

• Aditya-L1: India’s Sun mission reaches final destination
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In 1989, a coronal mass ejection was knocked out part of Quebec’s power grid for nine hours, leaving six million people without power.

And on 4 November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control at Sweden and some other European airports, leading to travel chaos for hours.

Scientists say that if we are able to see what happens on the Sun and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time and watch its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites and keep them out of harm’s way.

US space agency Nasa, the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan and China have been watching the Sun through their space-based solar missions for decades. With Aditya-L1 – named after the Hindu god of Sun – Indian space agency Isro joined that select group earlier this year.

From its vantage point in space, Aditya-L1 is able to watch the Sun constantly, even during eclipses and occultations, and carry out scientific studies.

Prof Ramesh says when we look at the Sun from the Earth, we see an orange ball of fire which is the photosphere – the Sun’s surface or the brightest part of the star.

It’s only during a total eclipse, when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun and covers the photosphere that we are able to see the solar corona, the Sun’s outermost layer.

• How important are India’s Moon mission findings?
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India’s coronagraph, Prof Ramesh says, has a slight advantage over the coronagraph in Nasa-ESA’s joint Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.

“Ours is of a size that it’s able to mimic the role of the Moon and artificially hide the Sun’s photosphere, providing Aditya-L1 an uninterrupted view of the corona 24 hours a day 365 days a year.”

The coronagraph on Nasa-ESA’s mission, he says, is bigger which means it hides not only the photosphere but also parts of corona – so it cannot see the genesis of a CME if it originates in the hidden region.

“But with Velc, we can precisely estimate the time a coronal mass ejection begins and in which direction it’s headed.”

India also has three ground based observatories – in Kodaikanal, Gauribidanur in the south and Udaipur in the northwest – to look at the Sun. So if we add up their findings with that of Aditya-L1, we can greatly improve our understanding of the Sun, he adds.

Russia has made a rare admission, saying that a key air defence system and an air base in the Kursk region were hit by Ukraine with US-supplied Atacms missiles.

The defence ministry statement, which threatened retaliation, came a day after Ukraine said it had hit targets in the region.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched a record 188 drones in a single attack on Monday night, damaging critical infrastructure.

Tensions have been high since the US reportedly allowed Ukraine to use Atacms missiles on targets inside Russia last week, in response to Russia deploying North Korean troops.

The week culminated with Russia’s use of the powerful new intermediate-range Oreshnik ballistic missile on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

The first reported strikes by Atacms on Russian territory were reported on Tuesday, when Russia said falling fragments caused a fire at a military facility.

But Monday’s strike on an S-400 air-defence missile battalion at Lotarevka northwest of Kursk on Saturday could be seen as more serious. The S-400 is considered the closest Russian equivalent of the US Patriot missile system.

The Defence Ministry said three of the five Atacms missiles were shot down but two reached the target, damaging a radar system and causing casualties.

It also said a second strike on Monday on the Khalino (Kursk East) air base caused “insignificant damage” after one of the eight missiles fired by Ukraine got through air defences.

“The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation is in control of the situation and retaliatory measures are being prepared,” the statement added.

It shared photos of what it said was debris from the air base attack.

Russian military bloggers reported the Khalino attack on Monday.

Also footage posted to social media on Monday – which documented bright flashes in the sky above the border region – claimed to show the moment Atacms missiles were intercepted by Russian air defences elsewhere in the Kursk region.

BBC Verify corroborated that the footage was genuine and filmed in Kursk city, but could not establish whether the US-supplied missiles were the source of the flashes.

A record 188 drones and four Iskander missiles attacked Ukraine overnight, the country’s air force said on Tuesday.

It said 76 of them had been shot down while another 95 had been “lost track of”, and that critical infrastructure and residential buildings had been hit.

Some 70% of the power of the western Ternopil region was cut, its governor said.

Meanwhile the exiled Russian investigative news website Agentstvo has claimed that Ukraine is now losing territory at the fastest rate since the early days of the full-scale invasion.

However, Russian gains in eastern Ukraine are still extremely slow compared to the rapid advances of February and March 2022, when its forces came close to the capital Kyiv.

The number of single women and female couples undergoing IVF or artificial insemination in the UK has risen over the past decade, a report from the fertility regulator shows.

The number of single women having treatment, including in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), has increased from 1,400 in 2012 to 4,800 in 2022, while the number of female couples treated has doubled to 3,300 over the same period.

Heterosexual couples still account for nearly 90% of all IVF treatments.

A fertility charity said many female couples and single women still faced enormous financial hurdles to prove their infertility before being able to access NHS-funded IVF.

Growing numbers of different family groups are seeking fertility treatment.

Heterosexual couples had 47,000 IVF or donor insemination (DI) treatments in 2022, up from 45,300 in 2012.

But one in six of all private and NHS fertility treatments in the UK is now accessed by single women and female same-sex couples, according to The Human and Fertilisation Embryology Authority (HFEA) report.

Laura-Rose Thorogood and her female partner have spent £50-60,000 on having their four children, over the past 13 years.

“It’s been a tumultuous journey – we knew we had to pay for it ourselves and we’ve had to sacrifice lots of things to do it,” she says.

Laura-Rose says they feel very lucky to have more than one child and know many other LGBT couples who had to stop trying for children because of the cost.

She set up LGBT Mummies, an organisation which gives advice to people on becoming parents and campaigns for equal access to fertility treatment.

“The whole system needs to be reviewed,” she adds.

Many heterosexual couples also describe the challenges of multiple rounds of IVF and the rollercoaster of emotions going through years of treatment.

NHS funding for fertility treatment continues to fall.

It now pays for just 27% of IVF cycles, down from 40% in 2012.

Among 18-39 year olds having their first treatment, heterosexual couples receive 52% of NHS-funded cycles, with female couples accounting for 16% and single women 18% – both a slight rise.

The HFEA report says IVF is “one of the most invasive and expensive treatments per cycle”.

But more female couples and single women are choosing it, for several reasons, including the:

• higher birth rates per cycle
• reduced risk of a twin pregnancy
• possibility of storing embryos for future treatments

Reciprocal IVF, where one partner provides the eggs (to be fertilised by donor sperm) and the other carries the baby, is also becoming more popular.

Overall, one in four IVF treatments resulted in a birth, the report found.

IVF birth rates are higher among single women and female couples, who are less likely than heterosexual couples to be having the treatment because of infertility problems – and who may also be waiting for other treatment.

The chances of qualifying for NHS funding depends on where the patients live.

In England, NHS funding depends on criteria set by local integrated-care boards, which vary widely – whereas in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there is a national policy.

In Scotland, 78% of IVF cycles are NHS funded, compared with 53% in Wales and 45% in England.

But, currently, Scotland does not fund fertility treatment for single women.

The previous government said it would remove barriers to treatment for female couples in England, who, in most areas, have to pay for at least six cycles of artificial insemination before being accepted for NHS-funded IVF.

But the charity Fertility Network UK said: “This has not yet happened, leaving female same-sex couples and single women who want to become parents having to pay, if they are able to, for their own medical treatment.”

Stonewall, which advocates for the rights of LGBTQ+ people, said urgent change was needed so everyone who wanted children had the same access to services

The HFEA said it encouraged healthcare providers “to make sure the information they provide represents the diversity of families and patients accessing treatment”.

An official from the Department of Health and Social Care in England said: “There are clear clinical guidelines making sure there is equal access across the country and we fully expect these to be followed.”

The world’s oldest living man has died at the age of 112, his family have confirmed.

John Alfred Tinniswood died on Monday at the Southport care home where he lived.

The lifelong Liverpool football fan became the world’s oldest living man in April this year, when Juan Vicente Pérez Mora died at the age of 114.

His family said Mr Tinniswood’s final day was “surrounded by music and love”.

Mr Tinniswood, who was born on 26 August 1912, the same year the Titanic sank, became the UK’s oldest man in 2020.

He was recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s oldest man in April 2024.

Born to Ada and John Bernard Tinniswood, Mr Tinniswood, a widower, leaves behind a daughter, Susan, grandchildren Annouchka, Marisa, Toby and Rupert, and great-grandchildren Tabitha, Callum and Nieve.

In a statement, his family said he “had many fine qualities”.

“He was intelligent, decisive, brave, calm in any crisis, talented at maths, and a great conversationalist.”

They added, these qualities served him well during his military service in the Royal Army Pays Corps during World War Two, where – in addition to accounts and auditing – his work involved logistical tasks, such as locating stranded soldiers and organising food supplies.

He met his wife, Blodwen, at a dance in Liverpool, and they married in 1942.

Susan was born in 1943, and the couple enjoyed 44 years together before Mrs Tinniswood died in 1986.

After World War Two, he worked for Royal Mail and, later, as an accountant for Shell and BP, before retiring in 1972.

His family said he had an ” active retirement”, volunteering as a church elder in Blundellsands United Reform Church where he also gave sermons.

Mr Tinniswood previously told the BBC he been “quite active as a youngster” and did “a lot of walking”, but said he had no idea why he was blessed with such longevity. He insisted he was “no different” to anyone else, adding: “You either live long or you live short – and you can’t do much about it.”

His beloved Liverpool Football Club was founded just 20 years before he was born, and he lived through all but two of the Reds’ 66 top flight trophies – having missed the first two league titles in 1901 and 1906.

He moved to the Hollies Rest care home in Southport just before his 100th birthday, where his kindness and enthusiasm for life were an inspiration to the care home staff and his fellow residents, his family said.

Since turning 100 in 2012, he had received an annual birthday card from the monarch – first from the late Queen Elizabeth II, who was his junior by almost 14 years, and, more recently, from King Charles III.

The family added: “We would like to thank the many people in the UK and across the world who sent well wishes to John on his recent birthdays.

“He really appreciated these birthday greetings and other messages of support.”

“John always liked to say thank you. So on his behalf , [we] thank all those who cared for him over the years, including his carers at the Hollies care home, his GPs, district nurses, occupational therapist and other NHS staff.”

The family have requested any donations in his memory be made to Age UK, or to a charity of their own choice.

The oldest living man on record was Jiroemon Kimura, from Japan, who lived to the age of 116 years and 54 days. He died in 2013.

The world’s oldest living woman, and oldest living person, is Japan’s Tomiko Itooka, who is currently 116.

The husband of Harshita Brella was arrested by police in September after she made a report of domestic abuse, a police watchdog has confirmed.

An international manhunt has been launched for Pankaj Lamba after Ms Brella’s body was found in the boot of a car in Ilford, east London, on 14 November.

Police believe Ms Brella, 24, was fatally strangled in Corby, Northamptonshire, on 10 November and have named Mr Lamba, 23, as the prime suspect in the investigation.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said it was investigating Northamptonshire Police after Ms Brella made a report of domestic abuse in August.

Mr Lamba was arrested on 3 September and released with bail conditions and a domestic violence protection notice, the IOPC added.

IOPC regional director Derrick Campbell said its investigation followed a self-referral from the police force.

“We will be examining the police response to Ms Brella’s report of domestic abuse made at the end of August this year,” he said.

“We will look into further contact Northamptonshire Police had with Ms Brella concerning the case.”

Mr Campbell said the investigation would consider the actions and decisions taken by Northamptonshire Police in relation to its dealings with Ms Brella.

He added: “We will be contacting Ms Brella’s family to explain our role and express our sincere condolences.”

Detectives investigating the killing released a CCTV image of Ms Brella and Mr Lamba on Friday.

A photo showed the pair walking together near the Corby’s boating lake on Sunday, 10 November.

Police appealed for anyone who was in the Cottingham Road area that evening to contact them.

A US court has dismissed the last remaining federal criminal case against Donald Trump, which alleged that the president-elect illegally retained classified documents.

The appeals court approved a dismissal request from Special Prosecutor Jack Smith on Tuesday.

Earlier, on Monday, a separate case alleging that Trump illegally sought to overturn the 2020 election was also dismissed.

Smith, who was appointed by attorney general Merrick Garland to investigate Trump, said in court filings that he requested the dismissals because the Justice Department is banned from prosecuting a sitting president, and not because of anything having to do with the substance of the cases.

The cases were dismissed “without prejudice”, meaning charges could be refiled after Trump finishes his second term as president.

In his request to drop the election case, Smith wrote: “This outcome is not based on the merits or strength of the case against the defendant.”

Trump had pleaded not guilty in both cases.

After leaving office, Trump crossed into unprecedented legal territory for a former president, becoming the first to face a criminal trial and later conviction, in a case tied to a payment made to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

At the beginning of the year, he faced nearly 100 criminal charges connected to the two federal cases and others.

The Supreme Court ruled this summer that a former president could not be prosecuted for “official acts” taken while in office, and Trump went on to win the election a few months later. Now almost all those charges have been dropped, with a case brought by prosecutors in Georgia currently on pause.

Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social that the federal cases were “empty and lawless, and should never have been brought”.

“It was a political hijacking, and a low point in the History of our Country that such a thing could have happened, and yet, I persevered, against all odds,” he wrote.

Vice-President-elect JD Vance said the prosecutions were “always political”.

“If Donald J. Trump had lost an election, he may very well have spent the rest of his life in prison,” he wrote.

Trump has pledged to sack Smith as soon as he takes office in January. Smith has reportedly said he plans to step down next year.

The dismissal of the cases marks an end to a lengthy legal saga.

Smith had to refile the election-subversion charges against the former president based on the Supreme Court ruling that Trump was immune from some prosecution.

The special counsel had argued in a revised indictment that Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results were related to his campaign and therefore not official acts.

In the classified documents case, Trump was accused of storing dozens of sensitive files in his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.

Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, dismissed the charges after ruling Smith was improperly appointed to lead the case.

Smith, however, appealed her decision, and the case was pending before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals before Tuesday’s dismissal.

The special prosecutor is continuing to pursue charges related to classified documents against two Trump employees, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira. Both have also pleaded not guilty.

In a filing on Tuesday, Smith said he was continuing to appeal partly to fight Judge Cannon’s controversial ruling that the Attorney General did not have the legal power to appoint a special prosecutor. If he succeeds, the question may ultimately be settled by the Supreme Court.

In a statement, John Irving, an attorney for Mr De Oliveira, said: “The Special Counsel’s decision to proceed in this case even after dismissing it against President Trump is an unsurprising tribute to the poor judgment that led to the indictment against Mr. De Oliveira in the first place.

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. If they prefer a slow acquittal, that’s fine with us,” Mr Irving said.

Trump’s eminent return to the White House has left the state-level criminal cases against him in limbo, too.

His sentencing for his criminal conviction in the state of New York, related to the Stormy Daniels payment, has been indefinitely delayed.

In the Georgia case, where Trump also faces election subversion charges, an appeals court is considering whether to overturn a previous ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case despite a relationship she had with a prosecutor she hired.

Since Trump won the 2024 presidency, “his criminal problems go away”, said former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani.

“It’s well established that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted,” he said.

If things work out as Namibia’s long-time governing party hopes, the country will be electing its first female head of state this week.

But a mood of disillusionment with liberation movements in southern Africa, coupled with the anti-incumbency feeling in many parts of the world, may pose a threat to what would be an historic achievement.

Vice-President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, 72, is the flag-bearer for Swapo, which has led the country since independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990.

Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu Hassan is currently Africa’s only female president, so Nandi-Ndaitwah would be joining an exclusive club if she is victorious.

Her party, totally dominant for three decades, saw a large drop in its support in the last general election. It goes into Wednesday’s vote amid an unemployment rate of 19% – almost the same as it was 30 years ago – troubled government finances, questions about corruption and high levels of inequality.

Standing in Nandi-Ndaitwah’s way is her main challenger among the 14 other candidates – Panduleni Itula of the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) party.

She is also up against a traditional and male-dominated political culture in the country.

But she is a trusted leader of this sparsely populated and peaceful country having served in high government office for a quarter of a century.

“I have always believed in teamwork, that is what made me achieve what I have achieved,” she has said.

Known for her hands-on and pragmatic style of leadership, the vice-president is also fiercely loyal to the party, which she joined as a teenager.

At 14 she became part of the movement resisting rule from South Africa, which had governed the country – then known as South West Africa – since the end of World War One and later introduced the racist system of apartheid.

She was recognised for her tenacity and organisational talent as leader of Swapo’s Youth League, which became a stepping stone to her political career, which has included ministerial roles in foreign affairs, tourism, child welfare and information.

She has garnered a wealth of knowledge and experience that could stand her in good stead should she get into the driving seat.

“She seems so wise and sweet and kind, even in the way she tries to say everything in such a way that even like me will understand,” Laimi, a potential voter, told the BBC in the capital, Windhoek.

Her friend Maria said: “Itula is like a new piece of jewellery with his glasses, his smart suit and his confident walk, but maybe he blinds you with his shine.”

Both are young adults who have been unable to find jobs.

A trained dentist, Itula, 67, was himself once a Swapo stalwart but was expelled from the party in 2020 after running as an independent candidate against then-President Hage Geingob in the 2019 poll.

He had also been a youth leader and spent some time in prison before going into exile in the UK in the early 1980s. He returned to Namibia in 2013.

Six years later, he charismatically came crashing into the front row of Namibian politics, challenging Geingob in the presidential election after saying the Swapo process for choosing its candidate was flawed.

Itula’s intervention in that election led to Swapo getting its lowest ever share – 56% – in the presidential election and also losing its two-thirds majority in parliament.

As someone who had a professional life outside politics, he has an appeal to the 50% of the 1.5 million voters who are under the age of 35, many of whom want economic change, a job or a measurable boost to their incomes.

His bold and at times brash style, rejecting the more staid political rhetoric of Nandi-Ndaitwah, has seen him win support among business people and the growing urban intelligentsia.

But while Itula is quick off the mark and eloquent, the vice-president chooses her words wisely, and speaks slowly and deliberately.

Nandi-Ndaitwah seeks harmony and teamwork, emphasising community, passion and care, and as such, reaches right down to the grass roots.

And as the first woman with a chance of becoming the country’s president, she carries the hope of some women who want a change from the patriarchal society.

However, Nandi-Ndaitwah represents the “tried and trusted” old school of Namibia’s liberation struggle, while Itula represents the possible “wind of change” in a political landscape needing a facelift.

According to political analyst Henning Melber, the close rivalry between the two leading candidates could mean that the presidential election will go into an unprecedented second round run-off, which is required if no-one gets more than half of the votes cast.

In neighbouring South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC), in power since 1994, was forced into a coalition following May’s general election. While in Botswana – just to the east – the Botswana Democratic Party, dominant for nearly six decades, crashed to a humiliating defeat at the end of last month.

Swapo wants to avoid the same fate.

The winner on Wednesday will be the candidate who can be most trusted on issues such as youth unemployment, corruption, health care, education and infrastructure improvement, while also being able to bolster the economy.

This will need to happen without having to sell off the country’s vast natural resources to foreign bidders – such as off-shore gas as well as lithium and other essential metals.

Itula’s IPC was not part of the elections in 2019, but has performed strongly in local elections since then and has the appearance of a credible political alternative. It has won praise for the way it has run some local governments.

Nandi-Ndaitwah’s biggest asset may be that she is, as Namibian diplomat Tuliameni Kalomoh once stated, seen as “incorruptible, both morally and materially”.

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• Why voters fall out of love with liberation movements
• Namibia blocks ship over Israel war-crime concerns
• A quick guide to Namibia

Is Donald Trump serious about tariffs? This has been the question hanging over not just world markets but the whole world of economics.

The popular wisdom had become that he wasn’t really that serious, and the key bit of evidence for that was his nomination of hedge fund investor Scott Bessent as his Treasury Secretary, someone seen as a moderate when it came to tariffs compared with others whose names were floated for the role.

The answer overnight, though, was pretty brutal. Yes, he is serious, and in the most unexpected way. By choosing to target Mexico and Canada as well as China, he is confirming threats made on the campaign trail that appeared the most fanciful.

For starters he is willing to blow up the Mexico-Canada-America trade deal that he signed in his first term on day one of his second term.

What does a Trump free trade deal even mean now, if the new White House is willing to put tariffs on your country anyway?

And importantly, the rationale for these moves is not mainly or even much about trade or economic policy. These tariffs are about getting Mexico, Canada and China to alter their policies on crackdowns over migration and illicit drugs.

Trump is using tariffs as a weapon of diplomacy, even coercion, on topics entirely unrelated to global trade.

Are the leaders of G20 nations with their own domestic audiences really going to roll over in order to give the new president a win?

They could choose to wait out the inevitable impact of Trump applying a 25% increase on the cost of two-fifths of US imports on US consumers and inflation.

The cost of washing machines in the US rose 12% or by about $86, after Trump hit foreign-made machines with a 50% tariff during his first term. Such increases, no matter how modest, run counter to Trump’s promises during the campaign to bring down the cost of living.

But though Americans might be more sensitive to price rises now than they were in 2018, the political appetite for tariffs should not be underestimated.

Joe Biden criticised the tariffs Trump put in place on Chinese imports during his first term. But once in office himself, President Biden left the measures in place, even expanding them in targeted ways.

What is also clear is that Trump’s selection of Bessent as Treasury Secretary will not temper the tariff push.

Amid the battle for his nomination he went out of his way to acknowledge the power of tariffs as a tool that had been pioneered by Alexander Hamilton himself, the first ever US Treasury Secretary.

But earlier this year he had also suggested that while tariffs might be used tactically, the main tool for the US rejuvenation of manufacturing would be a cheaper dollar.

Europe and the UK have been spared for now. But it is important to reiterate that these moves are not even the real bulk of the tariff policy outlined by Trump.

He wants to fundamentally change the global economic map, and reduce China and Europe’s trade surplus with the US, which he views as “ripping off America”.

The world is far more complicated now, however, than these binary economic relationships. The US is undoubtedly powerful enough to start rebalancing world trade.

Push things too far though, especially with G7 and G20 allies, and the US might find itself rather too isolated.

On the day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Anton says the nuclear weapons base he was serving at was put on full combat alert.

“Before that, we had only exercises. But on the day the war started, the weapons were fully in place,” says the former officer in the Russian nuclear forces. “We were ready to launch the forces into the sea and air and, in theory, carry out a nuclear strike.”

I met Anton in a secret location outside Russia. For his own protection, the BBC will not reveal where. We have also changed his name and are not showing his face.

Anton was an officer at a top-secret nuclear weapons facility in Russia.

He has shown us documents confirming his unit, rank and base.

The BBC is unable to independently verify all the events he described, although they do chime with Russian statements at the time.

Three days after troops poured over Ukraine’s borders, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces had been ordered into a “special mode of combat service”.

Anton says that combat alert was in place on day one of the war and claims his unit was “shut inside the base”.

“All we had was Russian state TV,” says the former officer, “I didn’t really know what it all meant. I automatically carried out my duties. We weren’t fighting in the war, we were just guarding the nuclear weapons.”

The state of alert was cancelled, he adds, after two to three weeks.

Anton’s testimony offers an insight into the top-secret inner workings of the nuclear forces in Russia. It is extremely rare for service members to talk to journalists.

“There is a very strict selection process there. Everyone is a professional soldier – no conscripts,” he explains.

“There are constant checks and lie-detector tests for everyone. The pay is much higher, and the troops aren’t sent to war. They’re there to either repel, or carry out, a nuclear strike.”

The former officer says life was tightly controlled.

“It was my responsibility to ensure the soldiers under me didn’t take any phones on to the nuclear base,” he explains.

“It’s a closed society, there are no strangers there. If you want your parents to visit, you need to submit a request to the FSB Security Service three months in advance.”

Anton was part of the base’s security unit – a rapid-reaction force that guarded the nuclear weapons.

“We had constant training exercises. Our reaction time was two minutes,” he says, with a hint of pride.

Russia has around 4,380 operational nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists, but only 1,700 are “deployed” or ready for use. All the Nato member states combined possess a similar number.

There are also concerns about whether Putin could choose to deploy “non-strategic”, often called tactical, nuclear weapons. These are smaller missiles that generally don’t cause widespread radioactive fallout.

Their use would nevertheless lead to a dangerous escalation in the war.

The Kremlin has been doing all it can to test the West’s nerves.

Only last week Putin ratified changes to the nuclear doctrine – the official rules dictating how and when Russia can launch nuclear weapons.

The doctrine now says Russia can launch if it comes under “massive attack” from conventional missiles by a non-nuclear state but “with the participation or support of a nuclear state”.

Russian officials say the updated doctrine “effectively eliminates” the possibility of its defeat on the battlefield.

But is Russia’s nuclear arsenal fully functional?

Some Western experts have suggested its weapons mostly date from the Soviet era, and might not even work.

The former nuclear forces officer rejected that opinion as a “very simplified view from so-called experts”.

“There might be some old-fashioned types of weapons in some areas, but the country has an enormous nuclear arsenal, a huge amount of warheads, including constant combat patrol on land, sea and air.”

Russia’s nuclear weapons were fully operational and battle-ready, he maintained. “The work to maintain the nuclear weapons is carried out constantly, it never stops even for one minute.”

Shortly after the full-scale war began, Anton said he was given what he describes as a “criminal order” – to hold lectures with his troops using very specific written guidelines.

“They said that Ukrainian civilians are combatants and should be destroyed!” he exclaims. “That’s a red line for me – it’s a war crime. I said I won’t spread this propaganda.”

Senior officers reprimanded Anton by transferring him to a regular assault brigade in another part of the country. He was told he would be sent to war.

These units are often sent in to battle as the “first wave” and a number of Russian deserters have told the BBC that “troublemakers” who object to the war have been used as “cannon fodder”.

The Russian embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment.

Before he could be sent to the front line, Anton signed a statement refusing to take part in the war and a criminal case was opened against him. He showed us documents confirming his transfer to the assault brigade and details of the criminal case.

He then decided to flee the country with the help of a volunteer organisation for deserters.

“If I had run away from the nuclear forces base, then the local FSB Security Service would’ve reacted decisively and I probably wouldn’t have been able to leave the country,” he said.

But he believes that, because he had been transferred to an ordinary assault brigade, the system of top-level security clearance failed.

Anton said he wanted the world to know that many Russian soldiers were against the war.

The volunteer organisation that helps deserters, “Idite Lesom” [‘Go by the Forest’, in English, or ‘Get Lost’] has told the BBC that the number of deserters seeking help has risen to 350 a month.

The risks to those fleeing are growing, too. At least one deserter has been killed after fleeing abroad, and there have been several cases of men being forcibly returned to Russia and put on trial.

Although Anton has left Russia, he says security services are still looking for him there: “I take precautions here, I work off the books and I don’t show up in any official systems.”

He says he has stopped speaking to his friends at the nuclear base because he could put them in danger: “They must take lie-detector tests, and any contact with me could lead to a criminal case.”

But he is under no illusion about the risk he is himself in by helping other soldiers to flee.

“I understand the more I do that, the higher the chances they could try and kill me.”

Amid severe food shortages in Gaza, increasingly violent thefts by criminal gangs are now the main obstacle to distributing supplies in the south, aid workers and locals say.

They allege that armed men operate within plain sight of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a restricted zone by the border.

The BBC has learnt that Hamas – sensing an opportunity to regain its faltering control – has reactivated a special security force to combat theft and banditry.

After gangsters robbed nearly 100 UN lorries, injuring many of the Palestinian drivers, on 16 November – one of the worst single losses of aid during the war – a number of alleged looters were then killed in an ambush.

A notorious Gazan criminal family then blocked the main Salah al-Din Road leading from Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing point for two days last week.

Witnesses said iron barriers were erected and lorries trying to access the aid distribution point were fired at.

“Law and order have broken down in the area around the Kerem Shalom crossing, which remains the main entry point of goods, and gangs are filling the power vacuum,” says Sam Rose, deputy director of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in Gaza.

“It’s inevitable after 13 months of intense conflict – things fall apart.”

As the rainy winter weather begins, humanitarian officials say solving the worsening situation is critical to meet the huge, deepening needs of most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population – now displaced to the centre and south.

“It is tactical, systematic, criminal looting,” says Georgios Petropoulos, head of the UN’s humanitarian office, Ocha, in Gaza.

He says this is leading to “ultra-violence” in all directions – “from the looters towards the truckers, from the IDF towards the police, and from the police towards the looters”.

There has been increased lawlessness in Gaza since Israel began targeting police officers early this year, citing their role in Hamas governance.

“Hamas’s security control dropped to under 20%,” the former head of Hamas police investigations told the BBC, adding: “We are working on a plan to restore control to 60% within a month.”

Some displaced Gazans in the south welcome the new Hamas efforts against criminal gangs.

“Killing the thieves who stole aid is a step in the right direction,” exclaims one man, Mohammed Abu Jared.

However, others see them as a cynical attempt to take control of lucrative black markets.

“Hamas is killing its competitors in stealing aid,” says Mohammed Diab, an activist in Deir al-Balah. “A big mafia has finished off a small mafia.”

Many see Hamas’s attempts to take a lead against the criminality as the direct consequence of Israels’ failure to agree on a post-war plan in Gaza.

There are currently no alternatives to replace the Islamist movement and armed group which Israeli leaders pledged to destroy after last year’s deadly 7 October attacks.

The chaos comes at a time when aid entering the Palestinian territory has dropped to some of the lowest levels since the start of the war.

While the threat of famine is greatest in besieged parts of the north where Israel is conducting a new, intense military offensive, in the south there are also major shortages of food, medicines and other goods.

“Prices of basic commodities are sky-rocketing – a bag of flour costs more than $200 (£160), a single egg $15 – or else goods are simply not available,” Sam Rose of Unrwa says.

Every day in the past week, Umm Ahmed has stood with her children in a huge queue outside a bakery in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where ultimately some loaves are given out.

“My children are very hungry every day. We can’t afford the basics. It’s constant suffering. No food, no water, no cleaning products, nothing,” she says.

“We don’t want much, just to live a decent life. We need food. We need goods to come in and be distributed fairly. That’s all we’re asking for.”

The US has been pressing for Israel to allow more aid lorries into Gaza.

However, Israeli officials say that the main reason that their goal of 350 a day has not been reached is the inability of the UN and other international aid agencies to bring enough lorries to the crossings.

Aid workers reject that. They are urgently calling for many entry restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities to be lifted, and for more crossing points to be opened and secured so they can collect and distribute supplies.

They say the breakdown in public order needs to be addressed and that Israel, as an occupying power, is obliged to provide protection and security.

The BBC was told that thefts often happen in clear sight of Israeli soldiers or surveillance drones – but that the army fails to intervene.

Stolen goods are apparently being stored outside or in warehouses in areas under Israeli military control.

The IDF did not respond to BBC requests for comment on how it combats organised looting and smuggling. It has previously insisted that it takes countermeasures and works to facilitate the entry of aid.

Early in the war, as food became increasingly scarce, desperate Gazans were sometimes seen stealing from incoming aid lorries.

Soon, cigarette smuggling became a huge business with gangs holding up convoys at gunpoint after they arrived from Egypt’s Rafah crossing and, after this shut in May, Kerem Shalom.

A cigarette packet can sell for exorbitant amounts in Gaza: while a packet of 20 cost about 20 shekels ($5.40) before the war, now a single cigarette can cost 180 shekels ($48.60).

Cigarettes are being found within the frames of wooden aid pallets and inside closed food cans, indicating that there is a regional racket involved in smuggling.

For the past six weeks, the Israeli authorities have banned commercial imports, arguing that these benefit Hamas.

This has added to the decrease in the supply of food, which is in turn driving the rise in armed looting.

Stolen goods, from flour to winter shelters, sent as international donations and meant to be given as free handouts to needy people can only be bought at extortionate prices on Gaza’s black market.

Meanwhile, months’ worth of donated supplies are being held back in Egypt due to hold-ups in aid delivery.

In recent days, local media reports are suggesting that Israel is now studying the option of delivering aid to Gaza by means of a private, armed American security contractor.

While nothing has yet been officially announced, aid workers are worried.

Georgios Petropoulos of Ocha questions which donor countries would want supplies distributed this way.

“How safe is it really going to be?” he asks: “I think it will be a vector for more bloodshed and violence.”

The Erik and Lyle Menendez case has turned a nondescript Los Angeles courthouse into the hottest ticket in Tinseltown – sparking the kind of frenzy usually seen at red-carpet Hollywood premieres.

The brothers – who shot and killed their wealthy parents in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989 – could win freedom after more than 30 years in prison.

On Monday the duo appeared in court via teleconference – the first time they’ve attended a hearing in years – to find out next steps in their bid for release.

Trial-watchers began queuing outside at 05:15 local time – more than five hours before the proceedings were due to start.

A heady mix of new evidence, a popular Netflix docuseries, and a dash of politics have turbocharged public interest in the case.

Several members of the Menendez family testified during Monday’s hearing, arguing for the brothers’ release.

But the judge overseeing the case postponed a hearing on whether they should be resentenced until January, after the county’s newly elected district attorney is sworn in and has time to review the case.

MORE: Menendez brothers’ resentencing hearing delayed until January

Only 16 seats were available on Monday for the several dozen members of the public who waited outside.

Officials handed out red raffle tickets and hosted a lottery on the steps of the courthouse to determine who those lucky individuals would be.

Peggy Savani, 60, was on holiday in nearby Venice Beach with her family from Ohio and decided she had to go. Her husband was working, and her daughter wasn’t interested in tagging along.

“I told them, ‘I’m going. I don’t care,'” she told the BBC after grabbing her red raffle ticket.

Ms Savani remembered all the hype surrounding the case when she watched the brothers’ two criminal trials in the late 1990s – one ended in a mistrial and the second with their conviction and sentence to life in prison.

She noted the new evidence into their claims of sexual abuse by their father – a key element to their defence – and how society had changed in its understanding of sexual violence against both males and females.

“I think that what happened to them is not right and so I’m really glad that this is happening,” Ms Savani said.

“I just thought I’d come down and see what it’s all about and maybe be part of it.”

As she took a photo of her red raffle ticket, she laughed and said it was almost “like a golden ticket” – a reference to the Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The crowd was filled with a mix of local residents who remembered watching the original trials, students who were studying law or criminal justice and those who simply wanted a ringside seat to one of the most notorious criminal cases in US history.

“I think this might be a once-in-a-lifetime event for us to experience,” Elena Gordon, 43, told the BBC. “I feel like this is a historical moment for southern California.”

A lifelong resident of nearby Orange County, she said she remembered watching the case when she was young and “to see it just ripped back open is pretty incredible”.

“It’s not about gawking at the brothers,” she added. “It’s about witnessing history.”

Greta and Anna, international students from Italy and the United Kingdom who are studying at the University of California, Los Angeles, said they both watched the Netflix drama series about the case, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Anna, who is from Notting Hill, west London. “It will be interesting to see what happens behind the scenes.”

The group of hopefuls huddled in the Van Nuys courthouse square, which was littered with autumn leaves, to find out if they won. A hush fell over the boisterous crowd – including dozens of journalists – as officials drew tickets from a manila envelope.

As numbers were read, each person peered intently at their ticket and then glanced around at the crowd to see who was called.

Bursts of excited screams cut through the silence.

Some jolted forwards while others tried to scurry past the throngs of cameras and media equipment to grab one of the lucky yellow badges – their key to enter the court.

Christian Garcia won the last ticket.

“It was very emotional,” the social media influencer said after the hearing.

“Honestly, today’s been a rollercoaster, but I had a gut feeling I was going to enter,” he added.

“I told my followers I’m going to enter into that room and God opened the door.”

As the sun slowly dips behind the jagged peaks of Mount Nam Xay, a group of brightly coloured hot air balloons drift across the Vang Vieng valley.

In the river below, young tourists laugh and splash each other from their kayaks.

It’s not hard to see what draws so many travellers here to this little town in central Laos. The scenery is stunning, the fun cheap and plentiful.

But the town has found itself at the centre of an international scandal after six tourists died last week following suspected methanol poisoning.

It is believed their alcoholic drinks may have contained methanol, an industrial chemical often used in bootleg alcohol.

For the throngs of young western travellers on South East Asia’s backpacker trail, Vang Vieng has become famous for what is called “tubing.” One described it to me as a water borne pub crawl.

Groups of friends in swimsuits and bikinis clamber aboard huge inner tubes that would normally be used on trucks and drift downstream, pulling in from time to time at river side bars where vodka shots are liberally administered, before plunging back into the water.

By the time they reach Vang Vieng everyone is fairly merry.

“I think we’re going to give the tubing a miss” two 27-year-old women from Hertfordshire in the UK tell me (they didn’t want to give their names).

“The vodka shots are part of the package, but no one wants to drink the local vodka right now.”

The pair arrived here from Vietnam, just as news of the deaths from methanol poisoning was spreading across the world.

“In Vietnam we got free drinks, particularly when you’re playing games in the evening,” one of them tells me. “And we just never thought about it, you just presume what they are giving you is safe. We’ve drunk buckets before, but we are not going to take the risk again, and a lot of people here feel the same.”

“Buckets” are exactly what they sound like – small plastic buckets filled with cheap vodka and other liquor. Groups of friends share the mixture through long plastic straws.

“Now this has happened it really makes you think about it,” the woman’s friend says. “You wonder why are the drinks free? At the hostel associated with the deaths we heard they were giving free vodka and whisky shots for an hour each evening. I think if that happened in the UK you would definitely think it was dodgy.”

Both women said they are now sticking to drinking bottled or canned beer.

The deaths of six tourists has sent shock waves through the backpacker scene. Young female travellers feel most vulnerable. The dead include Briton Simone White, 28, two young Australians, Holly Bowles and her best friend Bianca Jones, and two young Danish women, Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman and Freja Vennervald Sorensen.

Only one of the dead, a 57-year-old American, James Louis Hutson, was male. On the travellers’ chat-groups many have been questioning whether only women’s drinks had been spiked with methanol. The truth is, it’s still a mystery.

What we do know is all the victims stayed at the same place, The Nana Backpackers hostel. It’s now been confirmed the American victim was found dead in his bedroom there on 13 November. On the same morning the two Danish victims were found unconscious in their rooms and rushed to the local hospital.

Today, the Nana hostel is closed, the swimming pool that until a few days ago was hosting pool parties, is empty. A short walk away beside the river a bar called “JaiDees” has also been raided. The owners of both have forcefully denied serving any illegal or homemade alcohol.

Out on the river there is little sign that the poisonings are stopping people coming to Vang Vieng. Late November is peak tourist season. The rainy season is over, the skies are clear and the temperature is a relatively cool 28C (82F).

Along the main drag hostel owners told me they are fully booked. The young travellers from Europe and Australia are actually the minority. By far the largest groups are from neighbouring Thailand and China, the latter shuttling south on the newly finished Chinese-built Laos high-speed rail line.

Vang Vieng is still a dusty rural town. But it’s booming. Local business owners glide past in big black land cruisers and range rovers. As I walked back to my hotel on Saturday night, I was taken aback by the loud bark from the exhaust pipes of a Lamborghini cruising along Vang Vieng’s single main street.

Twenty years ago this was a sleepy little town surrounded by rice fields. Now it is being transformed by Thai and Chinese money. Fancy new hotels are springing up with riverside cocktail bars and infinity pools.

But the young western backpackers are not here for the five-star experience, they come for the friendly anything-goes atmosphere.

At a local motorbike rental I meet two fresh graduates from Sussex University.

Ned from Somerset says he has no intention of cancelling plans because of what happened. “People are scared for sure,” he says, “but I don’t get the impression anyone is leaving. Everyone is still here having a good time.”

He adds: “But everyone is also saying the same thing, don’t drink the spirits, so people are being careful, there’s definitely that feeling in the air, but I think it’s actually quite safe now because all the bars are on edge, no-one wants to go to jail”.

His friend Jack is equally unflustered. “We’ve come here to meet up with some friends and have some fun, and we’re still going to do that,” he says. “I’ve been here a week now and I can tell you the people here are absolutely lovely. They are some of the nicest people we’ve met in all of South East Asia. So whatever happened, I don’t think there’s anything malicious about it.”

Malicious or not, six people are dead, five of them young women.

The shock waves from what happened here has rippled out around the world to suburban homes from London to Melbourne, where worried parents with children on the backpacker trail are frantically messaging, checking where they are, and trying to persuade them not to go to Vang Vieng.

The field outside the royal palace in the Ghanaian city of Kumasi was filled with an exuberant crowd, celebrating the return 100 years ago of an exiled king.

Prempeh was the Asante king, or “Asantehene”, of the late 19th Century who resisted British demands that his territory be swallowed up into the expanding Gold Coast protectorate.

A British army from the coast marched about 200km (124 miles) to Kumasi in 1896, and took Prempeh as well as about 50 relatives, chiefs and servants as prisoners, and then looted his palace.

The prisoners were taken to the coastal fort at Elmina, before being shipped to Sierra Leone, and, in 1900, on to the distant Indian Ocean islands of Seychelles.

It was not until 1924 that the British allowed Prempeh to return home, by which time he was an elderly man who arrived in Kumasi wearing a European suit and hat.

It is a tragic story, but also one of pride and resistance.

“The British did all they could but they couldn’t break the spirit of Asante,” shouted the master of ceremonies. The current Asantehene, Osei Tutu II, was paraded on his palanquin through the crowd, weighed down by magnificent gold jewellery, amid a glorious cacophony of musket explosions, drum beats and the blare of horns made from elephant tusks.

Asante culture is alive and well.

But Prempeh’s exile did have a lasting impact on both the Asante kingdom and Seychelles, although perhaps not in ways intended by British officials at the time.

The guest of honour at the centenary celebrations, held in Kumasi at the weekend, was Seychelles’ President Wavel Ramkalawan, who said “it was an honour, though sad, for us to receive your great king”.

“He showed respect to our people, and in return received the full love of the Seychelles,” Ramkalawan added.

The proof of that is in family ties cherished to this day.

Princess Mary Prempeh Marimba is Prempeh’s great-grand-daughter. Her grandfather, James, the son of Prempeh, married a Seychellois woman, and initially stayed on the islands after his father left.

Mary is a nursing supervisor in Seychelles’ capital, Victoria, and travelled to Kumasi with her daughter Suzy, to re-unite with dozens of long-lost relatives and discover more about her Asante heritage.

“There are so many mixed emotions, my great-grandfather had so many difficulties, and this is a sad history, but I also come here and celebrate with my family,” she said.

The Asante exiles in Seychelles lived in “Ashanti Town”, on an old sugar plantation, Le Rocher, on the main island Mahé, overlooking the ocean and surrounded by coconut, mango, breadfruit, orange and jackfruit trees.

Prempeh lived in the estate’s villa, and was given “every respect and dignity”, according to Dr Penda Choppy, a Seychellois academic who also travelled to Kumasi for the centenary events.

In 1901, the Asante community grew, as Yaa Asantewaa, a queen who led the final resistance to the British, and some 20 chiefs and attendants, were also sent to Seychelles following their surrender.

The long years of exile changed Prempeh. He learnt to read and write, and urged the Asante children to attend school.

He embraced Christianity, and, in the words of Asante historian and politician Albert Adu Boahen, “rigidly and uncompromisingly imposed that religion on his fellow political prisoners and their children”.

In the Anglican Church of St Paul’s, the Asante were not the only exiles in the congregation, for they often sat with King Mwanga of Buganda and King Kabalega of Bunyoro, both from modern-day Uganda.

Indeed, at various times, the British also sent political prisoners from Egypt, Palestine, Zanzibar, the Maldives, Malaysia and Cyprus to Seychelles, which was known as a “prison without bars”, as its isolation made the perfect location, from the British point of view, to put troublesome opponents.

The years went by, and Prempeh dreamt of home.

In 1918, he wrote to King George V and pleaded to be allowed to return.

“Consider how wretched I am for I was being taken prisoner… for now 22 years, and now how miserable to see that father, mother, brother and nearly three quarters of the chiefs are dead. The remaining quarter, some are blind, some worn out with old age and the rest being attacked of diverse diseases,” Prempeh wrote.

A few years later, the British, perhaps aware that Prempeh’s potential death in exile could bring political problems in Asante, finally relented.

In November 1924 Prempeh travelled by ship back to West Africa with some 50 Asante companions, most of whom had been born in Seychelles.

“We who do not know him are more than anxious to see his face,” wrote a prominent local newspaper, The Gold Coast Leader.

In Kumasi, many slept by the train station to greet him and, according to a British official, “the scene presented by the huge assembly…. with their white head bands signifying rejoicing or victory, some laughing and cheering, while others wept with emotion, was a most moving and never-to-be-forgotten sight”.

In theory “Mr Edward Prempeh” was now a private citizen, but his people treated him as a king, and presented him with royal regalia, including the Golden Stool, said to contain the soul of the Asante nation.

Prempeh died in 1931, and his successor, Prempeh II, was restored to the position of Asantehene in 1935.

Ivor Agyeman-Duah, an Asante scholar and director of the palace museum, helped organise the centenary celebrations.

They were of added personal significance, as his great grandfather, Kwame Boatin, was one of the chiefs exiled alongside Prempeh.

But as Mr Agyeman-Duah acknowledges, exile, for all its pain, also brought opportunities for those who suffered it.

Kwame Boatin’s children went on to be ambassadors and leading civil servants, able to adapt to the dramatic changes that Asante, the Gold Coast and later an independent Ghana, underwent in the 20th Century.

“The exiles had been exposed to the world, and they had something to contribute,” he said. “What they brought back still inspires us, their dedication to scholarship and public service.”

In a village one hour’s drive from Kumasi, I met Princess Molly Prempeh, an animated lady in her 80s, and also a great-granddaughter of Prempeh.

“I’m the only remaining person here who was born in Seychelles,” she told me.

“I’m Seychellois and Ghanaian – I was five years old when I came back.”

In her old age, Molly has reconnected with the beautiful islands of her birth, and visited twice.

The Seychellois are delighted by the “Old Creole”, which includes more French words, she remembers from childhood.

“When I walk down the streets they shout ‘Heh Princess, how are you?’ ‘Princess, venez, venez, tu bien?’ (come, come here, you good?) they are lovely people. They love the Prempehs in Sesel (Seychelles).”

But Molly’s visits are also tinged with sadness. She goes to the grave of her mother, Hugette, who brought Molly as a young girl to the Gold Coast in 1948.

Hugette later returned to Seychelles, where she eventually died.

Even in her old age, the story goes, she loved to speak the Twi language she had been taught as a little girl by Prempeh herself.

One family’s story of loss, exile and endurance.

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A 13-year-old has become the youngest player to get a deal in the Indian Premier League (IPL), the world’s richest cricket tournament.

Vaibhav Suryavanshi from the eastern state of Bihar was bought by Rajasthan Royals (RR) for 11m rupees ($130,500; £103,789) in the recently-concluded auctions in Saudi Arabia.

The left-handed batter has represented his state in national championships, such as Ranji and Mushtaq Ali trophies, and India in the Under-19 internationals.

Delhi Capitals and RR bid for him starting from 3m rupees but RR, where he had trained previously, managed to seal the deal.

Indian cricket was traditionally dominated by urban centres such as Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru but IPL has managed to attract a wider pool of cricketers from far-off villages and small towns of India.

Suryavanshi, who is in Dubai to play India Under-19 Asia Cup, made his Ranji debut at the age of 12 in January with Bihar against Mumbai.

In his five Ranji matches, he has scored a highest of 41. But the highlight of his career has been his 58-ball century as an opener in an Under-19 unofficial Test against Australia a few weeks ago – which also made him the youngest to score a century in youth cricket.

He has also made an unbeaten 332 in an Under-19 tournament in Bihar.

RR saw raw potential in the youngster as he impressed their coaching staff during a training session.

“He’s an incredible talent and, of course, you got to have the confidence so he can step up to the IPL level,” the team’s CEO Jake Lush McCrum told ESPN Cricinfo after the auction ended.

He said that Suryavanshi’s development would require work, but “he is a hell of a talent and we’re really excited to have him as part of the franchise”.

Though Indian laws ban child labour below 14, experts say no such guidelines exist for sports, where players below 14 regularly compete in national and international events.

But to play an international match organised by International Cricket Council (ICC), Suryavanshi may have to wait until he is 15 since that’s the minimum age limit set by cricket’s governing body.

The news of Suryavanshi’s auction and the size of his contract has brought a lot of joy to his family who had to sell their land to finance his cricketing dreams.

His father Sanjiv Suryavanshi told PTI news agency that “he is not just my son now but is Bihar’s son”.

Mr Suryavanshi, a farmer from Bihar who had migrated to Mumbai for employment, worked as a bouncer in a nightclub and at a public toilet, he told Indian Express newspaper.

His biggest concern now is to ensure that his son remains grounded. “I will talk to him and make sure that this IPL auction doesn’t go to his head. He still has a long way to go,” he said.

Drake has launched legal action against Universal Music accusing the label of artificially boosting streams of Kendrick Lamar’s diss track against him, Not Like Us.

In papers filed in New York, Drake’s company, Frozen Moments LLC, accused Universal and the streaming giant Spotify of engaging in an illegal ”scheme” involving bots, payola and other methods to promote Lamar’s song.

Universal Music ”did not rely on chance,” Drake’s lawyers alleged. “It instead launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves.”

A spokesperson for Universal called the claims “offensive and untrue”, adding that “fans choose the music they want to hear”.

Spotify and Lamar have yet to respond.

The petition is not a full lawsuit but a so-called “pre-action petition”, under which Drake’s lawyers can ask the court to order Universal and Spotify to preserve all relevant documents and information, ahead of future legal action.

The BBC understands the action is principally aimed at Universal, with Spotify named in the belief it may have information that would be relevant to a lawsuit.

Not Like Us was widely seen as the decisive blow in an escalating rap beef between Drake and Lamar earlier this year.

Drake’s court filing highlights the song’s runaway success – 96 million streams in seven days, number one in the US charts, and a top 10 radio hit – but suggests those achievements were artificially inflated.

His lawyers claim that Universal “conspired with and paid currently unknown parties” to “artificially” boost the prominence of Not Like Us.

They allege that the label cut its royalty rates for the song by 30%, in exchange for Spotify recommending it to users.

The filing also cites supposed claims from a “whistleblower” on a podcast, who said they were paid $2,500 to set up software ”bots” that would stream the song on repeat, turning it into “a crazy hit”.

The effort spread to other streaming services, Drake’s lawyers allege, referencing online reports that fans who asked Apple’s voice assistant to play Drake’s album Certified Loverboy were instead delivered Not Like Us.

The legal filing is a surprising coda to the musicians’ feud, but it also represents a rift between Drake and Universal – the label that has represented him for his entire career.

In court documents, the star’s lawyers say he tried to address these allegations in private but that the label has “no interest in taking responsibility for its misconduct.”

Furthermore, they claim Universal made “an apparent effort to conceal its schemes”, which included firing staff “perceived as having loyalty to Drake”.

“Streaming is a zero-sum game,” they argue. “Every time a song breaks through, it means another artist does not.” As a result, they claim, Drake suffered “economic harm” at Lamar’s expense.

A spokesperson for Universal rejected the claims.

“The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue,” they said in a statement.

“We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”

The legal filing came days after Lamar released a surprise album, GNX, which is widely seen as a follow-up to Not Like Us.

His diss track was recently nominated for four Grammy awards, including song of the year, and he has been booked to play next year’s Super Bowl halftime show.

However, he lags behind Drake in terms of popularity. On Spotify, the rapper is the 23rd most-streamed artist in the world, while Drake places 13th.

A pod of more than 30 pilot whales were rescued after being stranded on Ruakākā Beach near Whangārei in northern New Zealand on Sunday, officials say.

The Department of Conservation (DOC) says most were refloated and swam out to sea, but three adults and one calf died. There were no re-strandings overnight.

The rescue effort was spearheaded by the local Māori group, Patuharakeke, who were joined by authorities and other members of the public.

Whale stranding is an unexplained natural phenomenon, with New Zealand holding one of the world’s highest rates of the event.

The whales were refloated by lifting them on sheets.

Patuharakeke remained on the beach through the night to make sure none of the rescued whales were re-stranded.

DOC – which is responsible with managing stranded marine rescues – called the rescue effort “incredible, with everyone coming together for the whales”.

“It’s amazing to witness the genuine care and compassion people have shown toward these magnificent animals,” the department’s operations manager Joel Lauterbach said.

He also thanked all involved parties including Patuharakeke and Project Jonah, which delivers aid to stranded marine mammals, and the “hundreds of members of the public who have assisted so far”.

Whale and dolphin strandings are common in the country. The DOC responds to around 85 incidences a year on average, mostly consisting of single animals.

French prosecutors have demanded a 20-year jail sentence for Dominique Pelicot, who is accused of drugging his former wife Gisèle for a decade and inviting 50 men recruited online to rape her.

Mr Pelicot, who has admitted to the charges, should also undergo medical treatment for 10 years, prosecutors said.

Twenty years – the maximum sentence for rape under French law – “is both a lot… and too little given the gravity of the acts that were committed and repeated,” said prosecutor Laure Chabaud.

Referring to an assessment of Mr Pelicot made by a psychiatrist earlier in the trial, Ms Chabaud said that the defendant presented “multiple sexual deviances”.

Verdicts and sentences are expected next month.

“He sought pleasure through a desire to submit, humiliate and debase his wife – the person he claimed to cherish the most in the world,” Ms Chabaud told the court, saying that Mr Pelicot, 72, should be re-examined at the end of his sentence before being released.

Another prosecutor, Jean-François Mayet, said the trial had shaken up society and that what is at stake “was not a conviction or an acquittal” but “to fundamentally change the relations between men and women”.

Mr Mayet paid tribute to the “courage and dignity” of Gisèle Pelicot, who was in court as she has been most days since the trial began in September.

Her decision to waive anonymity and have an open trial has led to a huge amount of interest in the case, which has in turn sparked a nationwide conversation on rape culture, consent and chemical submission – drugging someone for the purposes of coercion or assault.

On Monday morning posters reading “20 years for everyone” had appeared on the walls around the Avignon courthouse where the trial is taking place.

However, it is unlikely the 50 defendants in this extraordinary case will be handed sentences this long.

The longest jail term requested by prosecutors today – excluding the 20-year demand made for Mr Pelicot – was for Jean-Pierre Marechal, a co-defendant who is not accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot, but who has admitted to drugging and raping his own ex-wife on Mr Pelicot’s advice and instruction.

He is facing 17 years in prison.

Prosecutors also demanded 10 years for most of the other 19 defendants whose cases were examined today.

The majority of the 50 accused deny the charges of rape, arguing that they cannot be guilty because they did not realise Ms Pelicot was unconscious when they were invited to the family’s home by her husband, and therefore did not “know” they were raping her.

But prosecutor Ms Chabaud said that “in 2024 we can no longer maintain that because she didn’t say anything, she consented.”

She added that neither the circumstances nor the behaviour of Gisèle Pelicot “could have led these men to believe that she agreed to be subjected to these sexual acts in her lethargic state.”

In an address to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Prime Minister Michel Barnier said this trial was a watershed moment for the country’s efforts to combat violence against women.

“I’m convinced that the Mazan trial will mark a before and after,” he said.

Mazan is the name of the village where the Pelicots lived and where Dominque Pelicot filmed the local men he had contacted online.

The prime minister also announced a series of government measures to combat violence against women, including funding for pharmacies to dispense home drug test kits under a pilot scheme to fight chemical submission.

Earlier on Monday, Equality Minister Salima Saa said the government was “fully mobilised” and announced the expansion of a system which allows victims of sexual violence to file complaints in hospitals and not just police stations.

The system is currently used in 236 hospitals and will be extended to 377 by the end of next year.

A new awareness campaign was also announced.

The trial, which opened in early September, is now in its final stretch.

Lawyers for the 50 defendants will make their closing arguments over the next three weeks, and a verdict is expected by 20 December.

Career-networking site LinkedIn has told Australian lawmakers it is too dull for kids to warrant its inclusion in a proposed ban on social media for under 16 year olds.

“LinkedIn simply does not have content interesting and appealing to minors,” the Microsoft-owned company said in a submission to an Australian senate committee.

The Australian government has said it will introduce “world-leading” legislation to stop children accessing social media platforms.

But companies behind some of the most popular platforms with young people – Meta, Google, Snapchat-owner Snap Inc and TikTok – have all challenged the planned law in submissions made to lawmakers.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the proposed law is to address the harm social media was inflicting on Australian children.

He said it was for “the mums and dads” who like him were “worried sick about the safety of our kids online.”

Other countries are closely watching what happens with the legislation with some – including the UK – saying they are open to following suit.

Australia’s Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee gave respondents one day to comment on the bill, which would amend its existing Online Safety Act.

Its report to the Senate concludes the bill should pass – providing its recommendations, such as engaging young people in the legislation’s implementation, are considered.

However, in their responses, the world’s biggest tech firms have been setting out why they are unhappy with the proposed law.

Google – which owns YouTube – and Instagram-parent Meta have said they needed more time to consider the legislation.

Meta said its current form “will fail to achieve its goal of reducing the burden on parents to manage the safety of young people on social media”.

It also claimed it “ignores the evidence” presented by child safety and mental health experts – a view shared by Snapchat in its own submission.

X (formerly Twitter), meanwhile questioned the legality of the bill’s proposals.

TikTok Australia said it had “significant concerns” with the bill as proposed.

Like other platforms commenting on the legislation, it said it “hinges” on an ongoing age assurance trial looking at technologies that can effectively check user age.

Ella Woods-Joyce, director of public policy for TikTok Australia and New Zealand, wrote in the company’s submission that the bill’s “rushed passage poses a serious risk of further unintended consequences”.

But LinkedIn has adopted a different approach – arguing in its submission that is a platform which is simply not of any interest to children.

Its minimum age requirement of 16 means they cannot access it, the company said, adding it removes child accounts when found.

If LinkedIn can successfully argue it should not be included in the legislation it will potentially avoid the cost and disruption involved it introducing additional age verification processes to the site.

“Subjecting LinkedIn’s platform to regulation under the proposed legislation would create unnecessary barriers and costs for LinkedIn’s members in Australia to undertake age assurance,” it said.

The Australian government has said it wants to bring in the legislation before the end of the parliamentary year.

But experts have said the bill’s timeframe and current composition fails to provide an opportunity for adequate scrutiny.

Carly Kind, the country’s privacy commissioner, said in a LinkedIn post on Monday after appearing at a public Senate hearing that she was concerned by “the widespread privacy implications of a social media ban”.

Human rights commissioner Lorraine Findlay called the one-day window for submissions of responses to the legislation “entirely inadequate” in a LinkedIn post on Thursday.

“We need actual consultation, not just the appearance of it,” she said.

Nonetheless, the Australian government’s plans have sparked interest elsewhere.

In the UK, the technology secretary, Peter Kyle, told the BBC this month that similar legislation was “on the table.”

France has already introduced legislation requiring social media platforms to block access to children under 15 without parental consent- though research indicates almost half of users were able to circumvent the ban using a simple VPN.

A Russian court has confirmed a British man who was allegedly fighting for Ukraine has been captured in Russia’s Kursk region.

Video had been circulating online in recent days showing a man dressed in military clothing who identifies himself as James Scott Rhys Anderson, 22, and says he formerly served in the British Army.

A Russian court said it had ordered Mr Anderson be held in custody, alleging he had “participated in hostilities in the territory of the Kursk region”.

Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into the Russian region on 6 August and still holds territory there.

Mr Anderson was identified in court on Monday as being a British citizen from Banbury, Oxfordshire.

Russian investigators have accused him of committing a terrorist act and being a mercenary. That means that instead of treating him as a prisoner-of-war, he faces criminal prosecution.

The charges he is facing carry maximum sentences of 20 and 15 years in prison respectively.

The closed-door session heard he is “suspected of committing a set of particularly serious crimes that pose a particular public danger to the public”.

The court added that the decision could be appealed.

While Britons have been captured in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, Mr Anderson is the first fighter to be captured in Russian territory.

Earlier this week, Scott Anderson, Mr Anderson’s father, said he had begged his son not to go to Ukraine.

“He wanted to go out there because he thought he was doing what was right,” Mr Anderson told the Daily Mail.

“I’m hoping he’ll be used as a bargaining chip, but my son told me they torture their prisoners and I’m so frightened he’ll be tortured.”

Mr Anderson said he was sent the video by his son’s commander and was left “in complete shock and tears”.

“I could see straight away it was him. He looks frightened, scared and worried,” he added.

In the video of Mr Anderson first posted to the Telegram messaging platform, he tells a man questioning him from behind a camera that he served as a private in the British Army from 2019 to 2023.

He says he joined the Ukraine’s International Legion – a military unit made up of foreign volunteers – after losing his job and seeing reports on television about the war.

He says he flew to Krakow in Poland from Luton and travelled from there by bus to the Ukrainian border.

The International Legion was formed by the Ukrainian government following Russia’s invasion in 2022, with the aim of recruiting foreigners to fight.

Recruits are offered three year contracts, and paid between £440 ($550 USD) and £3,800 ($4,800 USD) per month depending on the level of combat they are engaged in.

Asked about Mr Anderson’s case earlier this week, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: “We will do all we can to offer this UK national all the support we can.”

The detention follows a period of deteriorating relations between the UK and Russia.

Last week it emerged that Britain had lifted restrictions on Ukraine’s use of longer-range Storm Shadow missiles, allowing them to be fired at Russian territory.

President Putin responded with a warning: “We believe we have the right to use our weapons against the military facilities of countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities.”

Two days after deadly violence in Sambhal left four people dead and many others injured, the city in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh remains gripped by tension.

The violence broke out on Sunday during a court-ordered survey of the centuries-old Shahi Jama Masjid (mosque) that some Hindu groups claim was built at the site of a destroyed temple.

Police said the protesters, most of them Muslims, pelted them with stones and that they fired teargas shells and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds. They said 20 policemen were injured.

But family members of the four Muslim men who died on Sunday alleged that they were shot dead by police – a charge the police have denied.

Officials say the situation is now under control but a large number of police and paramilitaries are deployed around the mosque and the rest of the city.

The streets are eerily silent, littered with stones and dotted with ash marks where vehicles were set on fire.

Local authorities have imposed a ban on entry of outsiders, social activists and politicians to the city until 1 December. Internet services have been suspended and schools have been shut.

Police have registered seven cases in connection with the violence and at least 25 people have been arrested.

On Monday, BBC Hindi met the grief-stricken families of the men killed during the violence.

In the Tabela Kot area, Idro Ghazi continues to grieve inconsolably. Her 34-year-old son, Naeem Ghazi, was among the dead.

Her son, she said, was not a part of the protest and had gone to the market to purchase oil. He was surrounded and shot near the mosque, she alleged.

Despite her grief, the devastated mother has decided not to lodge a case against the police.

“We do not have the courage to fight the police and the government,” she said, her voice heavy with sorrow.

About two kilometres away, in the Baghicha Sarayatrin colony, a silent crowd had gathered outside a mosque. Nafees, who lost his 22-year-old son Bilal in the violence, sat on the steps with his head bowed.

His son, he said, had gone to buy clothes when he was killed. “The police shot him in the chest,” he alleged.

The police have denied these allegations. Senior police official Muniraj G told BBC Hindi that the police did not open fire on the crowd during the violence.

The Sambhal police have filed charges against more than 2,700 people – including the local member of parliament Zia-ur-Rehman Barq, who is from the regional opposition Samajwadi Party. They accuse him of provoking the protesters.

Barq strongly denied any involvement and said he was in Bengaluru to attend a meeting at the time of the violence. As evidence, he showed the BBC Hindi team his flight tickets.

Opposition parties in the state have criticised the state’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government for trying to polarise people along religious lines.

A politician from India’s main opposition Congress party, Tauqeer Ahmed, said people were so afraid that they were unwilling to even speak out about how the four men had died.

Akhilesh Yadav, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and leader of Barq’s party, accused the state officials of “orchestrating the riot” – a charge they deny.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Yadav also questioned the urgency of conducting the survey at the mosque.

The controversy surrounding the Shahi Jama Masjid is the latest in a series of disputes involving mosques across India, where Hindu groups have claimed that Muslim rulers destroyed temples to build over them.

Tensions in the city first flared on 19 November, when a local court ordered a survey of the mosque site after a petition claimed that the 16th-century mosque had been built on the ruins of a Hindu temple. Hours after the court order, authorities in Uttar Pradesh began the survey.

Sunday’s survey, which took place five days after the first one, turned violent when a large group of protesters gathered near the mosque and began shouting slogans at the survey team.

Russia has made a rare admission, saying that a key air defence system and an air base in the Kursk region were hit by Ukraine with US-supplied Atacms missiles.

The defence ministry statement, which threatened retaliation, came a day after Ukraine said it had hit targets in the region.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched a record 188 drones in a single attack on Monday night, damaging critical infrastructure.

Tensions have been high since the US reportedly allowed Ukraine to use Atacms missiles on targets inside Russia last week, in response to Russia deploying North Korean troops.

The week culminated with Russia’s use of the powerful new intermediate-range Oreshnik ballistic missile on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

The first reported strikes by Atacms on Russian territory were reported on Tuesday, when Russia said falling fragments caused a fire at a military facility.

But Monday’s strike on an S-400 air-defence missile battalion at Lotarevka northwest of Kursk on Saturday could be seen as more serious. The S-400 is considered the closest Russian equivalent of the US Patriot missile system.

The Defence Ministry said three of the five Atacms missiles were shot down but two reached the target, damaging a radar system and causing casualties.

It also said a second strike on Monday on the Khalino (Kursk East) air base caused “insignificant damage” after one of the eight missiles fired by Ukraine got through air defences.

“The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation is in control of the situation and retaliatory measures are being prepared,” the statement added.

It shared photos of what it said was debris from the air base attack.

Russian military bloggers reported the Khalino attack on Monday.

Also footage posted to social media on Monday – which documented bright flashes in the sky above the border region – claimed to show the moment Atacms missiles were intercepted by Russian air defences elsewhere in the Kursk region.

BBC Verify corroborated that the footage was genuine and filmed in Kursk city, but could not establish whether the US-supplied missiles were the source of the flashes.

A record 188 drones and four Iskander missiles attacked Ukraine overnight, the country’s air force said on Tuesday.

It said 76 of them had been shot down while another 95 had been “lost track of”, and that critical infrastructure and residential buildings had been hit.

Some 70% of the power of the western Ternopil region was cut, its governor said.

Meanwhile the exiled Russian investigative news website Agentstvo has claimed that Ukraine is now losing territory at the fastest rate since the early days of the full-scale invasion.

However, Russian gains in eastern Ukraine are still extremely slow compared to the rapid advances of February and March 2022, when its forces came close to the capital Kyiv.

Scientists in India have reported the “first significant result” from Aditya-L1, the country’s first solar observation mission in space.

On 16 July, the most important of the seven scientific instruments Aditya-L1 was carrying – Visible Emission Line Coronagraph, or Velc – captured data that helped scientists estimate the precise time a coronal mass ejection (CME) began.

Studying CMEs – massive fireballs that blow out of the Sun’s outermost corona layer – is one of the most important scientific objectives of India’s maiden solar mission.

“Made up of energy particles, a CME could weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km [1,864 miles] per second while travelling. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth,” says Prof R Ramesh of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics that designed Velc.

“Now imagine this huge fireball hurtling towards Earth. At its top speed, it would take just about 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.”

The coronal ejection that Velc captured on 16 July had started at 13:08 GMT. Prof Ramesh, Velc’s Principal Investigator who has published a paper on this CME in the prestigious Astrophysical Journal Letters, said it originated on the side of the Earth.

“But within half an hour of its journey, it got deflected and went in a different direction, going behind the Sun. As it was too far away, it did not impact Earth’s weather.”

But solar storms, solar flares and coronal mass ejections routinely impact Earth’s weather. They also impact the space weather where nearly 7,800 satellites, including more than 50 from India, are stationed.

According to Space.com, they rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they can cause mayhem on Earth by interfering with the Earth’s magnetic field.

Their most benign impact is causing beautiful auroras in places close to the North and South Pole. A stronger coronal mass ejection can cause auroras to show up in skies further away such as in London or France – as it did in May and October.

But the impact is much more serious in space where the charged particles of a coronal mass ejection can make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction. They can knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites.

“Today our lives fully depend on communication satellites and CMEs can trip the internet, phone lines and radio communication,” Prof Ramesh says. “That can lead to absolute chaos.”

The most powerful solar storm in recorded history occurred in 1859. Called the Carrington Event, it triggered intense auroral light shows and knocked out telegraph lines across the globe.

Scientists at Nasa say an equally strong storm was headed at Earth in 2012 and we had “a close shave just as perilous”. They say a powerful coronal mass ejection tore through Earth’s orbit on 23 July but that we were “incredibly fortunate” that instead of hitting our planet, the storm cloud hit Nasa’s solar observatory STEREO-A in space.

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In 1989, a coronal mass ejection was knocked out part of Quebec’s power grid for nine hours, leaving six million people without power.

And on 4 November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control at Sweden and some other European airports, leading to travel chaos for hours.

Scientists say that if we are able to see what happens on the Sun and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time and watch its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites and keep them out of harm’s way.

US space agency Nasa, the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan and China have been watching the Sun through their space-based solar missions for decades. With Aditya-L1 – named after the Hindu god of Sun – Indian space agency Isro joined that select group earlier this year.

From its vantage point in space, Aditya-L1 is able to watch the Sun constantly, even during eclipses and occultations, and carry out scientific studies.

Prof Ramesh says when we look at the Sun from the Earth, we see an orange ball of fire which is the photosphere – the Sun’s surface or the brightest part of the star.

It’s only during a total eclipse, when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun and covers the photosphere that we are able to see the solar corona, the Sun’s outermost layer.

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India’s coronagraph, Prof Ramesh says, has a slight advantage over the coronagraph in Nasa-ESA’s joint Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.

“Ours is of a size that it’s able to mimic the role of the Moon and artificially hide the Sun’s photosphere, providing Aditya-L1 an uninterrupted view of the corona 24 hours a day 365 days a year.”

The coronagraph on Nasa-ESA’s mission, he says, is bigger which means it hides not only the photosphere but also parts of corona – so it cannot see the genesis of a CME if it originates in the hidden region.

“But with Velc, we can precisely estimate the time a coronal mass ejection begins and in which direction it’s headed.”

India also has three ground based observatories – in Kodaikanal, Gauribidanur in the south and Udaipur in the northwest – to look at the Sun. So if we add up their findings with that of Aditya-L1, we can greatly improve our understanding of the Sun, he adds.

Benjamin Netanyahu presented the ceasefire deal in the context of what he said were Israel’s “unprecedented achievements” over the past year of a seven-front war.

He said Israel had set Hezbollah back “tens of years” and that it was not the same group it had been before.

There was a lot of focus on Israel’s strength in doing what it believed needed to be done – in Gaza, in Lebanon and elsewhere – despite international opposition.

And there was a lot of justification for the ceasefire too – it would allow Israel to “concentrate on the Iranian threat”, Netanyahu said, emphasising that his country would retain full military freedom to counter any new Hezbollah threat.

Israel’s army said on Tuesday it had hit 180 targets in Lebanon in the past 24 hours. Here on the Israeli side of the border, there have been constant warnings of rocket barrages and drone attacks from Lebanon.

Neither side wants this ceasefire deal to be seen as surrender.

But surrender is exactly what Netanyahu is being accused of by his political rivals – and some of his political allies too.

One poll yesterday suggested that more than 80% of Netanyahu’s support base opposed a deal, and residents in the north of Israel – large numbers of whom have been evacuated from their homes – are angry too.

Nationally, the picture was more split, however. One poll showed 37% of Israelis in favour of the ceasefire, 32% against and 31% saying they didn’t know.

Shelly, an English teacher in Shlomi, said a ceasefire was an “irresponsible and hasty political decision”.

Rona Valency, evacuated from kibbutz Kfar Giladi on 8 October last year, told me she wanted to go home, and that a ceasefire was needed, but that the idea of Lebanese residents returning to these villages gave her “a real sense of unease and fright”.

From Kfar Giladi there are clear views of the Lebanese village of Odaisseh just across the valley.

“The only thing I can hope for is that Hezbollah will not infiltrate these villages and build a new network,” Rona told me. “Apart from completely erasing these villages, and having no people there, there is no real physical thing that can make me feel safe. It’s just, you know, hope.”

Her husband, Onn, said the key to security lay, not in the terms of the ceasefire agreement, but in people “understand[ing] again, where we live; understand[ing] some things that a lot of us forgot”.

He said he didn’t trust the Lebanese army, nor the Americans, to restore security along the border.

“I trust only our army,” he said. “I think if the army won’t be there, it will be very, very hard to get the citizens back.”

This war has delivered a lot of military achievements for Israel – Hezbollah is weakened, its arsenals and infrastructure depleted, and its solidarity with Hamas broken.

But Israel’s armed forces are tired, its economy is suffering, and tens of thousands of its residents are displaced.

Still, many here are urging Benjamin Netanyahu to continue the war in Lebanon – asking why the prime minister who has vowed to continue fighting in Gaza until “total victory” is signing a ceasefire in the north?

US President Joe Biden has announced a ceasefire deal to end 13 months of fighting between Israel and with Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia supported by Iran.

In a joint statement, the US and France said the agreement would cease fighting in Lebanon and “secure Israel from the threat of Hezbollah and other terrorist organisations”.

This is what we know about the ceasefire deal from official briefings and media reports.

US President Joe Biden told reporters that the agreement was “designed to be a permanent ceasefire”.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, over 60 days Hezbollah will remove its fighters and weapons from the area between the Blue Line – the unofficial border between Lebanon and Israel – and the Litani river, about 30km (20 miles) to the north.

Hezbollah fighters will be replaced by Lebanese army forces in that area, who will ensure that infrastructure or weaponry is removed and that it cannot be rebuilt, according to a senior US official.

Over the same 60 days, Israel will gradually withdraw its remaining forces and civilians, Biden said, adding that it would enable civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes.

The Lebanese army is expected to deploy 5,000 troops to the south under the agreement, according to a US official.

However, questions remain about their role in enforcing the ceasefire, and whether they would confront Hezbollah if needed, which would have the potential to exacerbate tensions in a country where sectarian divisions run deep.

The Lebanese army has also said it does not have the resources – money, manpower and equipment – to fulfil its obligations under the deal, although that could be alleviated by contributions from some of Lebanon’s international allies.

But many Western officials say Hezbollah has been weakened and that this is the moment for the Lebanese government to re-establish control over all the country’s territory.

The agreement largely tracks UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Under resolution 1701, areas south of the Litani should be free of any armed personnel or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state and the UN peacekeeping force (Unifil).

But both sides claimed violations of the resolution.

Israel says Hezbollah was allowed to build extensive infrastructure in the area, while Lebanon says Israel’s violations included military flights over its territory.

This time, the US and France will join the existing tripartite mechanism, which involves Unifil, Lebanon and Israel, which will be charged with monitoring violations, the senior US official said.

“There will be no US combat troops in the area, but there will be military support for the Lebanese Armed Forces, as we’ve done in the past. But in this case, it’ll be typically done with the Lebanese army and in conjunction with the French military as well,” the official said.

Alluding to Israeli concerns, Biden said: “Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon will not be allowed to be rebuilt.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Israel would “maintain full freedom of military action” in Lebanon “with the United States’ full understanding”.

“If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to arm itself, we will attack. If it tries to rebuild terrorist infrastructure near the border, we will attack. If it launches a rocket, if it digs a tunnel, if it brings in a truck carrying rockets, we will attack,” he asserted.

Biden supported that view, telling reporters: “If Hezbollah or anyone else breaks the deal and poses a direct threat to Israel, then Israel retains the right to self-defence consistent with international law.”

But he also said the deal upholds Lebanon’s sovereignty.

The Israeli demand for the right to strike back is not believed to be part of the ceasefire agreement because it was rejected by Lebanon. To get around the issue, media reports had suggested that the US would issue a letter supporting Israel’s right to act.

A police officer who Tasered a 95-year-old woman with dementia symptoms at an Australian care home has been found guilty of her manslaughter.

Kristian White, 34, used his weapon on Clare Nowland after the great-grandmother was found wandering with a small kitchen knife in the early hours of 17 May 2023.

Her death a week later caused public outcry, but White – a senior constable – argued at trial that his use of force was a reasonable and proportionate response to the threat.

Prosecutors, however, alleged Mrs Nowland – who relied on a walker to get around and weighed under 48kg (105lb) – was not a danger and the “impatient” officer had neglected his duty of care to her.

Police and paramedics were called to Yallambee Lodge – in the town of Cooma about 114km (71 miles) south of Canberra – around 04:00 on the day of the incident, after Mrs Nowland had been seen roaming the care home with two serrated steak knives.

The trial in the New South Wales Supreme Court heard evidence that Mrs Nowland, while not formally diagnosed with dementia, had been displaying signs of cognitive decline in the months leading up to her death and had at times behaved aggressively towards health care workers.

At one point that night she had entered the room of another resident and had later thrown one of the blades at a staff member.

When emergency services found Mrs Nowland, they repeatedly asked her to drop the knife in her right hand, and – using thick gloves – had tried to disarm her themselves, the court was told.

In the moments before she was hit by the Taser, footage played to the jury showed the elderly woman using her walker to slowly shuffle forward – 1m (3.3ft) over the course of a minute – before stopping and raising the blade.

White warned Mrs Nowland his weapon was aimed at her, before saying “bugger it” and firing it, while she was still 1.5m-2m away. She fell and hit her head, triggering a fatal brain bleed.

“Who could she have injured at that moment? No one,” Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield said, summing up his case for the jury last week.

He said White had used his weapon only three minutes after finding the woman: “He was fed up, impatient, not prepared to wait any longer”.

However in a written incident report, the officer – who had been stood down from the police force while facing court – said he deployed his Taser because he felt a “violent confrontation was imminent”.

In court he added that he didn’t think Ms Nowland would be “significantly injured” and that he was “devastated” by her death.

The defence pointed to evidence from one of the paramedics and White’s police partner, who both said Mrs Nowland had made them feel scared for their safety.

“I thought that I was going to be stabbed,” Jessica Pank, also a senior constable, said.

However, both agreed they could have easily moved to safety, given Mrs Nowland’s limited mobility.

The court also heard from another resident – who found Mrs Nowland in his room holding two steak knives that morning – who said in a written statement that he did not feel threatened or scared because she was using a walker.

White, who remains on bail, will be sentenced at a later date.

The families of two Australian teenagers killed in a suspected methanol poisoning in Laos have welcomed news that eight people have been detained during a police investigation into the incident.

Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, both 19, were among six foreign tourists who died after apparently consuming the toxic substance, which is commonly added to bootleg alcohol.

The bodies of the Australians were flown home to Melbourne late on Tuesday, accompanied by their relatives.

“We miss our daughters desperately. I was happy to hear that there’s been some movement over in Laos – we cannot have our girls passing and this continuing to happen,” Ms Jones’s father Mark told reporters.

The eight people detained for questioning on Tuesday were staff at the Nana Backpackers hostel where all the victims had been staying, according to local media.

The owners of the hostel, which is now closed, have previously denied serving illicit alcohol.

Speaking at Melbourne Airport, Mr Jones urged the government in Laos to “continue to pursue” the case, adding that the families involved would try to “raise awareness of methanol poisoning”.

The other four victims have been named as Simone White, a 28-year-old lawyer from the UK; James Louis Hutson, a 57-year-old American; and Danish citizens Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, and Freja Vennervald Sorensen, 21.

Mr Hutson was found dead in his bedroom at the hostel on 13 November with several empty glasses nearby. On the same morning Ms Orkild Coyman and Ms Vennervald Sorensen were also found unconscious in their rooms and rushed to the local hospital.

It is unclear how many other people may have fallen ill from the suspected poisoning and an investigation into the deaths is continuing.

The hostel’s manager was among several people questioned by police last week. Earlier, he told the Associated Press that Ms Jones and Ms Bowles had been the only tourists staying at the venue to have become unwell after drinking free shots there before heading out for the night.

Methanol – which is commonly found in industrial and household products such as paint thinners – is a colourless chemical substance sometimes used in bootleg alcohol.

Consuming just 25ml – which amounts to roughly half a shot – can be lethal, but it can take up to 24 hours for victims to start showing signs of illness, via symptoms such as vomiting and abdominal pain.

Methanol poisoning has long been an issue across South East Asia, particularly in the poorer countries along the Mekong river, and the broader region has the highest prevalence of incidents worldwide.

The recent spate of deaths has cast a spotlight on Vang Vieng – which is a notorious party town – and prompted renewed warnings from governments around the world about drinking spirits in Laos.

The streets were dark and cars packed. People, who moved on foot, carried bags with their belongings, unsure about where they were going but certain that they could not stay.

This was the scene on Tuesday in Nuweiri, central Beirut, moments after the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings, the first for these areas.

We were trying to visit the site of an Israeli air strike hours earlier, in the afternoon, that came without warning, flattened one building and killed at least seven people. But we could not get there.

Crowds were leaving, and men on motorbikes stopped us from moving, saying it was not safe.

Minutes later, we heard several explosions, from more attacks. And for hours, that was how the night unfolded in Beirut. Multiple blasts. Some in the distance; others closer.

Gunshots announced more warnings, urging people to seek safety. All of this, with the constant sound of an Israeli drone flying overhead.

This dramatic escalation came as the country waited for an Israeli decision on a ceasefire deal, the main hope to end over a year of conflict with Hezbollah, the powerful Iranian-backed movement.

During that wait, Israel unleashed its most intense bombardment of Beirut in the conflict.

Within two minutes, shortly after the attack on Nuweiri, fighter jets hit 20 targets in the city’s southern suburbs, known as Dahieh, where Hezbollah is based in the city.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the targets hit were facilities used by Hezbollah, and the wave of attacks was heard across the city.

Now, a ceasefire has been officially announced, but questions remain.

The war has been devastating for Lebanon, where more than 3,700 people have been killed since the start of the hostilities in October 2023, and one million residents have been displaced in areas where Hezbollah has strong presence.

The World Bank estimates $8.5bn (£6.8bn) in economic losses and damage. Recovery will take time, and no-one seems to know who will pay for it.

Under the deal, thousands of Lebanese soldiers will be deployed to the south, after the withdrawal of Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters. How they will be deployed remains unclear.

The military has complained that they do not have the resources – money, manpower and equipment – to fulfil their obligations.

But it is not only about funding, which will probably come from some of Lebanon’s international allies. Will the Lebanese military confront Hezbollah if needed?

That would put Lebanese against Lebanese, which is always a risk in a country where sectarian divisions run deep.

Lebanese authorities seem to have accepted that things must change, a diplomat told me. It appears there is political will to do so.

Hezbollah, too, has been devastated. Many of its leaders have been killed, including long-time chief Hassan Nasrallah, while its infrastructure has been heavily damaged. How it will look like after the war is another unknown.

The group has been severely weakened, some would say humiliated, but it has not been destroyed. In Lebanon, it is more than a militia: it is a political party with representation in Parliament, and a social organisation, with significant support among Shia Muslims.

Its opponents will probably see it as an opportunity to limit its influence. Before the conflict, Hezbollah was often described as a state within a state in Lebanon.

And for months, people outside Hezbollah’s support base said the group had dragged the country into a war that was not in its interests.

This deal may bring the conflict with Israel to an end. But many in Lebanon fear a new internal conflict could follow.

Egyptian rescuers found four bodies and five survivors on Tuesday during a Red Sea search operation after a tourist boat carrying 44 people sank on Monday.

A total of 33 people have been rescued so far but seven were still missing as of Tuesday evening.

The victims’ identities have not yet been disclosed by authorities. The BBC understands two of the missing are British nationals.

The four-deck modern vessel had been carrying 31 passengers and 13 crew when it is understood to have been hit by a large wave near Marsa Alam, causing it to capsize.

The boat sent distress calls at 05:30 local time (03:30 GMT), local authorities said.

The vessel sank within five to seven minutes, according to Red Sea governor Maj-Gen Amr Hanafi. He said some people had been unable to escape from their cabins.

A total of 28 people were rescued by military personnel and a passing tourist boat in the hours after the vessel capsized.

The governor had earlier said other survivors were found in the Wadi el-Gemal area, south of Marsa Alam.

The 44m (144ft) Sea Story yacht had departed a port near Marsa Alam on Sunday for a five-day diving trip that was supposed to finish further north at the town of Hurghada.

It is believed to have been hit by rough winds overnight on Sunday. The Egyptian Meteorological Authority warned of high waves on the Red Sea and advised against maritime activity on Sunday and Monday.

Wind speeds were between 37-43 mph (60-70 kmph) and wave heights were three to four metres (10-13ft) high.

According to the local council in Marsa Alam, the crew of the Sea Story are Egyptian while the tourists on board were from Belgium, Britain, China, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland and the US.

Among the missing are two Polish tourists and one from Finland, according to those nations’ foreign ministries.

A UK Foreign Office spokesperson said they were providing “support to a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Egypt”.

The Chinese embassy in Egypt said two of its nationals were “in good health” after being rescued.

Marsa Alam is a popular destination for tourists on Egypt’s southern Red Sea coast. It is surrounded by diving spots, including renowned coral reefs.

The Red Sea governorate said the boat was owned by an Egyptian national, and had received a one-year validity certificate in March 2024 when it was inspected by maritime safety.

Hanafi said there were no technical faults at the time of the incident.

He also visited Marsa Alam to see the people rescued, and said they were all in good health, and no-one had needed admission to hospital. The passengers are being taken to a tourist hotel in the area, he added.

The BBC has contacted Sea Story’s Egypt-based owner and operator, Dive Pro Liveaboard.

Its website says the vessel was built in 2022. It has four decks and 18 cabins that can accommodate up to 36 passengers.

Last year, three Britons died off the coast of Marsa Alam after their dive boat caught fire.

A father of a missing Hawaii woman was found dead on Sunday in California after he travelled there to search for her.

Ryan Kobayashi had recently journeyed to Los Angeles to help search for his daughter, Hannah Kobayashi, 30. She went missing earlier this month after a stopover at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on her way to New York City.

Officials in LA confirmed that Mr Kobayashi, who was 58, has since been found dead in a car park near the airport.

The LA county coroner’s office gave the cause of death as suicide caused by multiple blunt force traumatic injuries.

Ms Kobayashi, a photographer who lived in Maui, went missing shortly after landing in LAX on 8 November. It remains unclear what has happened to her, and the LAPD has launched a search.

She was set to visit her aunt Geordan Montalvo in New York to attend a concert, in what was described as a “bucket list” trip.

Since her disappearance, family and friends have said that they received odd text messages from her mobile phone, in which she said she had been “tricked pretty much into giving away all my funds” to “someone I thought I loved”.

She has been spotted a few times, they said – once at a Los Angeles mall on 10 November, and again the following day in surveillance video around a downtown metro train station with an unknown person.

On Monday, a non-profit group aiding in the search confirmed that Mr Kobayashi had died by suicide.

“After tirelessly searching throughout Los Angeles for 13 days, Hannah’s father, Ryan Kobayashi, tragically took his own life,” the group, known as the RAD Movement, said in a Facebook post.

“This loss has compounded the family’s suffering immeasurably.”

The group called for the search for Ms Kobayashi to continue, while the family takes “space to grieve and process this significant loss”.

“Hannah IS still actively missing and is believed to be in imminent danger,” the group wrote. “It is crucial for everyone to remain vigilant in their efforts to locate Hannah.”

Citing police sources, People Magazine said officers were called to the car park near the airport after a phone call from someone reporting that a person had fallen or jumped from a parking garage.

Speaking to the media at a rally before his death, Mr Kobayashi said: “We’re just trying to get us as much information as we can.”

He added that he had been worried and confused since his daughter’s disappearance.

“Everything is just a blur it seems, because I haven’t slept well since I’ve heard the news,” he said.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised you can visit the BBC’s Action Line pages, or contact Samaritans in the UK.

If you’re in the US, call 988, or contact Lifeline.

Is Donald Trump serious about tariffs? This has been the question hanging over not just world markets but the whole world of economics.

The popular wisdom had become that he wasn’t really that serious, and the key bit of evidence for that was his nomination of hedge fund investor Scott Bessent as his Treasury Secretary, someone seen as a moderate when it came to tariffs compared with others whose names were floated for the role.

The answer overnight, though, was pretty brutal. Yes, he is serious, and in the most unexpected way. By choosing to target Mexico and Canada as well as China, he is confirming threats made on the campaign trail that appeared the most fanciful.

For starters he is willing to blow up the Mexico-Canada-America trade deal that he signed in his first term on day one of his second term.

What does a Trump free trade deal even mean now, if the new White House is willing to put tariffs on your country anyway?

And importantly, the rationale for these moves is not mainly or even much about trade or economic policy. These tariffs are about getting Mexico, Canada and China to alter their policies on crackdowns over migration and illicit drugs.

Trump is using tariffs as a weapon of diplomacy, even coercion, on topics entirely unrelated to global trade.

Are the leaders of G20 nations with their own domestic audiences really going to roll over in order to give the new president a win?

They could choose to wait out the inevitable impact of Trump applying a 25% increase on the cost of two-fifths of US imports on US consumers and inflation.

The cost of washing machines in the US rose 12% or by about $86, after Trump hit foreign-made machines with a 50% tariff during his first term. Such increases, no matter how modest, run counter to Trump’s promises during the campaign to bring down the cost of living.

But though Americans might be more sensitive to price rises now than they were in 2018, the political appetite for tariffs should not be underestimated.

Joe Biden criticised the tariffs Trump put in place on Chinese imports during his first term. But once in office himself, President Biden left the measures in place, even expanding them in targeted ways.

What is also clear is that Trump’s selection of Bessent as Treasury Secretary will not temper the tariff push.

Amid the battle for his nomination he went out of his way to acknowledge the power of tariffs as a tool that had been pioneered by Alexander Hamilton himself, the first ever US Treasury Secretary.

But earlier this year he had also suggested that while tariffs might be used tactically, the main tool for the US rejuvenation of manufacturing would be a cheaper dollar.

Europe and the UK have been spared for now. But it is important to reiterate that these moves are not even the real bulk of the tariff policy outlined by Trump.

He wants to fundamentally change the global economic map, and reduce China and Europe’s trade surplus with the US, which he views as “ripping off America”.

The world is far more complicated now, however, than these binary economic relationships. The US is undoubtedly powerful enough to start rebalancing world trade.

Push things too far though, especially with G7 and G20 allies, and the US might find itself rather too isolated.

Two months after NFL star Tyreek Hill was pulled from his car and handcuffed outside his home stadium during a traffic stop, the citations a police officer gave him have been dropped.

Police bodycam footage shows the Miami Dolphins wide receiver lying face down on the road while an officer kneels on his back. Hill has repeatedly called for the officer to be fired.

Hill was accused of careless driving and not wearing a seatbelt after police said they pulled him over for speeding.

The two citations were dismissed after the officer who wrote the ticket failed to show up for a court appearance on Monday, due to “an oversight on his behalf”, according to the Miami-Dade Police Department.

“A citation dismissed due to this reason does not indicate that the citation held no merit,” the police statement said, noting the citations were “non-criminal”.

Hill, reacting to the news, posted on X: “Where all the internet cops now”.

Lawyers for Hill told ESPN that the “absence” of the officers involved “evidences their knowledge of wrongdoing”.

“Mr Hill was entitled to have his day in court,” the lawyers said, calling for officers to be “disciplined” for not attending.

Police spokesman Andre Martin denied that the officer was told by his superiors to skip the appearance and said numerous other cases were also dismissed due to the absence.

Officer Batista “either forgot or was doing something else related to his duties that prevented him from attending”, Detective Martin told the BBC.

An administrative probe is being conducted into the failure to appear, Detective Martin said.

Results from a separate internal affairs investigation that was launched after the release of the bodycam footage have yet to be shared.

The traffic stop happened blocks away from the Dolphin’s home field, the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, hours before Hill’s first game of the season.

The body camera footage showed Hill at times being terse with police, telling an officer “don’t knock on my window like that”.

Hill rolled his window down to speak to police, then rolled it up, prompting an officer to tell him to roll it back down.

Seconds later, the officer said: “As a matter of fact, get out of the car.”

Multiple officers were on the scene. Hill was pulled out of his car by two and placed face down on the pavement. One officer then knelt on his back to restrain him and put him in handcuffs.

He and two teammates who were also detained were released and went on to play that night against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The Dolphins won that game and Hill scored a touchdown, which he celebrated by pretending to be placed in handcuffs with his teammates.