The US embassy in Beirut has urged its citizens to leave Lebanon on “any ticket available”, amid soaring tensions in the Middle East.

The advisory follows a similar warning from UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who said the regional situation “could deteriorate rapidly”.

Iran has vowed “severe” retaliation against Israel, which it blames for the death of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday. His assassination came hours after Israel killed Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut.

It is feared that Lebanon-based Hezbollah, an Iran-backed group, could play a heavy role in any such retaliation, which in turn could spark a serious Israeli response.

• Rocket strike puts Israel and Hezbollah on brink of all-out war
• Hezbollah leader says conflict with Israel in ‘new phase’ after killings
• US to send jets and warships as Iran threatens Israel

Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets at the town of Beit Hillel in northern Israel at around 00:25 local time on Sunday (22:25 BST Saturday) .

Footage posted on social media showed Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system intercepting the rockets. There have been no reports of casualties.

Jordan’s Foreign Ministry has also issued advice to its citizens, telling those in Lebanon to leave immediately and warning others not to travel there.

Canada has warned its nationals to avoid travel to Israel, on top of existing advice against going to Lebanon, because the “situation can deteriorate further without warning” in the region.

The US embassy stated on Saturday that those who choose to stay in Lebanon should “prepare contingency plans” and be prepared to “shelter in place for an extended period of time”.

It said that several airlines have suspended and cancelled flights, and many have sold out, but “commercial transportation options to leave Lebanon remain available”.

The Pentagon said it was deploying additional warships and fighter jets to the region to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies.

The UK said it was sending extra military personnel, consular staff and border force officials to help with any evacuations – but urged UK citizens to leave Lebanon “while commercial flights are running”.

Two British military ships are already in the region and the Royal Air Force has put transport helicopters on standby.

Mr Lammy said it was “in no-one’s interest for this conflict to spread across the region”.

Meanwhile in Gaza, at least 17 people in a school sheltering displaced persons were killed by an Israeli strike, the Hamas-run authorities said on Saturday.

The Israeli military says the Hamama school in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood was being used as a command centre for militants. Hamas has denied it operates from civilian facilities.

Israeli ministers were sent home this weekend with satellite phones in case of an attack on the country’s communication infrastructure.

In April, Iran launched an air attack on Israel using 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and at least 110 ballistic missiles.

That was in retaliation for the Israeli bombing of an Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria.

Many fear Iran’s retaliation on this occasion could take a similar form.

In a phone call with EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell on Friday, Iran’s Acting Foreign Minister Ali Baqeri Kani said Iran would “undoubtedly use its inherent and legitimate right” to “punish” Israel.

On Friday, an announcer on Iran’s state TV warned “the world would witness extraordinary scenes”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Israelis that “challenging days lie ahead… We have heard threats from all sides. We are prepared for any scenario”.

Tensions between Israel and Iran initially escalated with the killing of 12 children and teenagers in a strike on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Israel accused Hezbollah and vowed “severe” retaliation, though Hezbollah denied it was involved.

Days later, senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was killed in a targeted Israeli air strike in Beirut. Four others, including two children, were also killed.

Hours after that, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran, Hamas’s main backer. He was visiting to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

At a funeral ceremony for Haniyeh in Tehran on Thursday, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, led the prayers. He had earlier vowed that Israel would suffer a “harsh punishment” for the killing.

Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed with a “short-range projectile” fired from outside his guesthouse in Tehran, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says.

The paramilitary organisation said the projectile weighed about 7kg (16lbs) and caused a “strong blast”, killing Haniyeh and his bodyguard last Wednesday. The Hamas leader had been visiting the Iranian capital for the inauguration of President Massoud Pezeshkian.

The IRGC accused Israel of designing and implementing the operation – supported by the US. Israel has not commented on Haniyeh’s death.

The IRGC account is at odds with reports in Western media, which have suggested that explosives were planted in the guesthouse by Israeli operatives.

The failures surrounding Haniyeh’s death, especially on a day marked by intense security, have caused embarrassment for Iran and the IRGC.

Dozens of IRGC officers have been arrested or dismissed in the days since Haniyeh’s death, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The paper said the organisation’s intelligence agency had taken over the investigation. Staff members at Haniyeh’s guesthouse have been interrogated and their phones and other electronics have been seized, it added.

Meanwhile, the security details of Iranian politicians have been overhauled. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh on Thursday, but was whisked away soon after the ceremony by his security detail.

The IRGC’s statement on Saturday came after Britain’s Daily Telegraph said Haniyeh was killed by bombs planted in his room by agents of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency

Citing Iranian officials, the paper said two Mossad agents had entered the guesthouse and planted explosives in three rooms. The Iranians, who had viewed CCTV footage of the operatives, said the two subsequently left the country before detonating the bombs from outside Iran.

The New York Times also reported that Haniyeh was killed by explosives detonated in his room, saying they could have been planted up to two months earlier. The BBC has not been able to verify these claims.

But Hamas officials told the BBC earlier this week that Haniyeh had stayed at the same guesthouse before. He had made up to 15 visits to Iran since becoming the head of the political bureau in 2017.

The papers’ reports – if true – would represent an even bigger failure for the IRGC, who have long controlled internal security in the country. Experts also said it would highlight the degree to which Mossad can operate with impunity in Iran.

Regardless of the manner of Haniyeh’s death, both Iran and Hamas have vowed to retaliate.

The IRGC said on Saturday that Israel would receive “a severe punishment at the appropriate time, place and manner”.

Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia and political group in Lebanon, has also vowed reprisals. One of their top commanders, Fuad Shukr, was killed in an Israeli strike last Tuesday.

After an Israeli operation killed IRGC Brig Gen Mohammad Reza Zahedi in Damascus earlier this year, Iran fired 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and at least 110 ballistic missiles towards Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Israelis that “challenging days lie ahead… We have heard threats from all sides. We are prepared for any scenario”.

His ministers were sent home this weekend with satellite phones in case of an attack on the country’s communication infrastructure.

Despite the government’s warnings, the mood appeared relaxed on Tel Aviv’s seafront, with bronzed bodies lazing under beach umbrellas.

But few are in any doubt that the Middle East stands perilously close to full-scale war.

Israel is on high alert and several international airlines have suspended flights to the country.

The US has also deployed additional warships and fighter jets to the Middle East to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies, the Pentagon said.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has warned that the risk that “the situation on the ground could deteriorate rapidly is rising”.

Meanwhile, at least 10 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, the Hamas-run government media office has said.

It comes as Israel said an airstrike it conducted in the occupied West Bank killed a Hamas commander and four senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters on Saturday.

The Israeli military said the air strike hit a vehicle as the men were on the way to carry out an attack.

Elsewhere, Israeli officials – including the directors of Mossad and the internal security agency Shin Bet – have arrived in Cairo for fresh ceasefire talks.

They will meet Egyptian intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel, and other senior military officials in a bid to rescue a potential truce. But US President Joe Biden admitted on Friday that Haniyeh’s death had damaged the talks.

Haniyeh was heavily involved in negotiations and Mr Biden said his death “doesn’t help” efforts to end the ten-month old conflict.

The war began in October when Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.

The attack triggered a massive Israeli military response, which has killed at least 39,550 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Two plain-clothed police officers were waiting for Dmitry Gudkov as he arrived at London’s Luton Airport last summer. The Russian opposition politician, who lives in exile in an EU country, was flying to the UK to attend a friend’s birthday.

“They were there to intercept me immediately after I exited the plane,” Dmitry says. “That had never happened to me before.”

But the police weren’t arresting him – instead, they wanted to warn him.

“They told me I’m on a list of people who are in danger. They asked where I’ll be staying and what phone I’ll be using.”

Dmitry Gudkov is the co-founder of the Anti-War Committee, an organisation that co-ordinates efforts to oppose the war in Ukraine. He is wanted in Russia for “spreading fakes” about the Russian army.

The start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to a wide-ranging crackdown against opponents inside Russia. Almost all activists and independent journalists fled the country.

Now, a number of Kremlin critics living in Europe have told the BBC that Russia is stepping up its efforts to silence, threaten and persecute opponents abroad. Some were unwilling to share their stories publicly. The Russian embassy in London didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Analyst Mark Galeotti, who studies the Russian security services, agrees that the campaign against Russia’s “enemies” abroad is intensifying. “I think it reflects the growing paranoia of the Kremlin,” he says, “that it is involved in an existential political struggle.”

With all dissent snuffed out at home, Russia is turning its attention to opponents who have sought refuge in the West. Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who is now deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, described them as “traitors who have gone over to the enemy and want their Fatherland to perish”.

Another anti-Kremlin activist was also contacted by British police. “They said they needed to discuss the safety of me and my family,” Ksenia Maximova tells me.

The founder of the Russian Democratic Society in London says the police advised her not to travel to certain countries where Russian agents operate more freely.

“[The Kremlin is] stepping up the campaign against ‘enemies’, that’s absolutely true,” she says, “They’re tightening the screws.”

She and her fellow campaigners have noticed an uptick in cyber attacks and attempts to infiltrate the group online.

In a statement to the BBC, a spokesperson for UK Counter Terrorism Policing said, “We have been open for some time now about the growing demand within our casework relating to countering state threats… We have been actively increasing resources dedicated to countering the activity of hostile states.”

In December, new UK legislation came into effect, giving police more powers to tackle threats from hostile states such as Russia.

“Parasites can’t sleep in peace…” was one of the messages that investigative journalist Alesya Marokhovskaya received last year.

The threats were accompanied by the name of the street in Prague where she lived. “I moved house to make it harder for them,” says Alesya.

“We thought it may just be some crazy Czech guy who was pro-Putin and had recognised me on the street.”

But then the messages became more sinister – calling her a “scumbag” and promising to find her “wherever she walks her wheezing dog”.

Alesya’s dog really does wheeze when it walks. She informed the Czech police.

Later, Alesya was due to fly to Sweden to attend a conference. The sender then sent even more specific threats: details of her flight, seat number and the hotel she had booked. “It was clear they had high-level access to documents,” Alesya says. “It looks like the behaviour of the Russian state.”

Alesya had been branded a ‘foreign agent’ years before by the Russian government, due to her work at independent Russian news website iStories.

“When I left Russia and came to Prague, I had this illusion of security,” says Alesya. “Now I realise that [Russian intelligence services] can get their hands on people almost anywhere in Europe. I can’t say I’m not afraid, because I am.”

But why is this happening now? Experts suggest the Russian security services are beginning to activate operations abroad after a period of turmoil. Hundreds of Russian diplomats believed to be intelligence agents operating under diplomatic cover were expelled from Western countries following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“There was a period of confusion after 2022,” says Andrei Soldatov, a Russian journalist who writes about the intelligence services. “In 2023, the agencies regrouped and found a new sense of purpose. They got resources and began increasing pressure.”

Mark Galeotti says the authorities are increasingly turning to proxies to do their dirty work – criminal gangs: “If you want someone beaten up or even killed, they’re a lot easier to engage,” says Mr Galeotti, who has been writing about the links between the Russian state and organised crime for years.

“They’re going to be some thug – maybe someone whom the Russian-based organised crime groups have at some point dealt with.”

The Polish government believes that’s what happened in the case of Leonid Volkov, a prominent activist and associate of the late Alexei Navalny. He was brutally attacked with a hammer in Lithuania four months ago, but survived.

The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, said a Belarusian man working for Russian intelligence had paid two Polish football hooligans to carry out the assault. All three have been arrested.

“Intimidation is the intent,” suggests Mark Galeotti. “The idea that you’d better keep your head down. It’s a way of deterring the emergence of some kind of coherent political opposition [to the Kremlin].”

The Russian authorities also try to make day-to-day life as difficult as possible for opponents abroad.

Activist Olesya Krivtsova, 21, escaped from Russia after being arrested and threatened with jail for anti-war posts on social media. She now lives in Norway, but recently discovered her Russian passport had been cancelled, meaning she can’t apply for travel documents.

“I think this is a new [method] of repression,” Olesya says. “They’re always thinking, how can we do more, how can we pressure them?”

Several other activists living abroad have also had their passports cancelled without warning. Many have criminal cases open against them in Russia – without a valid passport, they cannot hire lawyers or make payments back home. The only way to resolve the issue is to return to Russia.

For Olesya, returning would mean arrest and prison. She has now applied for a temporary Norwegian ID for refugees.

“In Russia, now I only have one right – the right to go to prison. My passport is cancelled. This shows the essence of their cruelty,” says the young activist.

“They’ve already completely destroyed my life and the life of my family…They’re never going to stop.”

More than 90 people were arrested after far-right demonstrations descended into riots in towns and cities across the UK on Saturday.

Bottles were thrown, shops looted, and police officers attacked in areas including Hull, Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester, Blackpool and Belfast – but not all demonstrations turned violent.

The prime minister has pledged to give police forces the government’s “full support” to take action against “extremists” attempting to “sow hate”.

Tensions have been high after the killing of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party in Southport, Merseyside, on Monday.

In Liverpool, bricks, bottles and a flare were thrown at police, one officer was hit in the head when a chair was thrown, and another was kicked and knocked off his motorbike.

A few hundred anti-fascist demonstrators gathered across from Liverpool’s Lime Street station at lunchtime, calling for unity and tolerance, chanting “refugees are welcome here” and “Nazi scum, off our streets”.

They marched down to the city’s riverside to confront around one thousand anti-immigration protestors – some of whom were shouting Islamophobic slurs.

Police in riot gear with dogs struggled to keep the two sides apart and reinforcements were called to try and maintain order.

The unrest continued into the early hours of Sunday morning, with fireworks launched towards police officers wearing riot gear.

A library was set on fire in the Walton area of the city and rioters tried to prevent firefighters from putting it out, Merseyside Police said.

Shops were broken into and a number of wheelie bins were set on fire, it added.

The force confirmed a number of officers had been injured in what they described as “serious disorder”, adding that two had been taken to hospital – one with a suspected broken nose and one with a suspected broken jaw.

It said 23 people had been arrested.

Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Simms said: “The disorder, violence and destruction has no place here in Merseyside, least of all after the tragic events that took place in Southport on Monday”.

“Those who engaged in this behaviour bring nothing but shame to themselves and this city. “

At a meeting of government ministers earlier on Saturday, a spokesperson for Sir Keir Starmer said the PM told those assembled that “the right to freedom of expression and the violent disorder we have seen are two very different things.”

He added: “there is no excuse for violence of any kind and reiterated that the government backs the police to take all necessary action to keep our streets safe”.

On Saturday, the home secretary also warned that anyone engaging in “unacceptable disorder” would face imprisonment and travel bans amongst other punishments, adding that “sufficient” prison places had been made available.

“Criminal violence and disorder has no place on Britain’s streets,” Yvette Cooper said.

Police have the government’s full backing in taking action against those engaging in “thuggery”, she added.

In Bristol, protesters and counter-protests were engaged in a standoff.

One group could be heard singing Rule Britannia, “England ’til I die” and “we want our country back”, while the other side chanted “refugees are welcome here”.

Beer cans were been thrown at the anti-racism group, and some of the rival protesters were baton-charged by officers.

Avon and Somerset Police said 14 people in the city had been arrested, with Chief Inspector Vicks Hayward-Melen anticipating there would be “further arrests over the coming days”.

In Manchester, there were scuffles with police, and at least two arrests.

While in Belfast, two people were arrested as protesters outside a mosque threw objects at members of the media and earlier smashed windows in a cafe.

In Hull, protesters smashed a window at a hotel used to house asylum seekers, and bottles and eggs were thrown at police.

City Hall was placed on lockdown as the British Chess Championships took place inside.

Humberside Police said three police officers had been injured and 20 people arrested after disorder in the city centre also saw shops ransacked and items set on fire.

In Blackpool, protesters faced off against punks attending Rebellion Festival. There was little police presence as skirmishes broke out between the two groups, with bottles and chairs thrown.

Lancashire Police said it had arrested more than 20 people. The force said its focus had been on Blackpool but there had also been “minor disruption” in Blackburn and Preston.

In Stoke-on-Trent, bricks were thrown at officers. Staffordshire Police said that two men at the centre of online claims they had been stabbed had actually been hit by an object that was thrown, and were not seriously injured.

The force said 10 people had been arrested and three officers suffered minor injuries.

Elsewhere Leicestershire Police arrested two people in Leicester city centre. And West Yorkshire Police said a protest on the Headrow in Leeds “passed off largely without incident”, despite one arrest being made.

Not all demonstrations held across the UK descended into violence on Saturday, and in some places protesters dispersed by the evening.

Saturday’s protests follow a night of violence in Sunderland on Friday, which saw four police officers hospitalised and 10 people arrested.

Hundreds of people rioted, beer cans and bricks were thrown at riot police outside a mosque and a Citizens Advice office was torched.

Twelve people have been arrested in connection with the violence.

The BBC has identified at least 30 demonstrations being planned by far-right activists around the UK over the weekend, including a new protest in Southport.

An extra 70 prosecutors are on standby this weekend to charge people arrested in connection with violent disorder.

Shadow home secretary James Cleverly called on Sir Keir and home secretary to “do more” to restore public order and “send a clear message to the thugs”.

Earlier this week, the prime minister announced a new national violent disorder programme to help clamp down on violent groups by allowing police forces to share intelligence.

Bangladesh is tense as both anti-government protesters and the governing Awami League are set to hold rallies across the country on Sunday.

The demonstrations are happening in the aftermath of deadly violence during protests last month over quotas in civil service jobs, in which more than 200 people were killed.

Around 10,000 people have been reportedly detained in a major crackdown by security forces in the past two weeks. Those arrested included opposition supporters and students.

Students Against Discrimination, a group behind the anti-government demonstrations, has called on prime minister Sheikh Hasina to step down.

The group has announced a nationwide disobedience movement starting from Sunday, urging citizens not to pay taxes or any utility bills. The students have also called for a shutdown of all factories and public transport.

The Awami League, the party of Ms Hasina, is also holding marches across the country on Sunday.

With both sides set to hold rallies there are concerns that there could be further violence.

The next few days are seen as crucial for both camps.

“Sheikh Hasina should not only resign, there should be a trial for the killings, looting and corruption,” Nahid Islam, one of the student movement’s leaders, told thousands of people at a gathering on Saturday in Dhaka.

The protests pose a momentous challenge to Ms Hasina, who was elected for a fourth consecutive term in January elections, boycotted by the main opposition.

Students took to the streets last month over the reservation of many civil service jobs for relatives of the veterans of Bangladesh’s independence war with Pakistan in 1971.

Most of the quota has now been scaled back by the government following a government ruling, but students have continued to protest, demanding justice for those killed and injured. Now they want Ms Hasina to step down.

Supporters of Ms Hasina have ruled out her resignation.

Earlier, Ms Hasina offered unconditional dialogue with the student leaders, saying she wanted the violence to end.

“I want to sit with the agitating students of the movement and listen to them. I want no conflict,” she said.

But the student protesters have rejected her offer.

Ms Hasina called in the military last month to restore order after several police stations and state buildings were set on fire during the protests.

The Bangladeshi army chief, General Waker-Uz-Zaman, held a meeting with junior officers in Dhaka to assess the security situation.

“Bangladesh Army has always stood by the people and will continue to do so for the interest of people and in any need of the state,” Gen Zaman said, according to a release by the Inter Services Public Relation Directorate.

The protests have restarted in several cities and the government is struggling to control the rising tide of anger over how it initially responded to the demonstrations.

Bangladeshi media says most of those killed in last month’s protests were shot dead by police. Thousands were injured.

The government argues that police opened fire only in self-defence and to protect state properties.

Ukraine’s military says it attacked and destroyed a Russian submarine while it was anchored at a port in the occupied Crimean peninsula.

The Rostov-on-Don, a kilo-class attack submarine launched in 2014, sank after it was struck in a missile attack on the port city of Sevastopol on Friday, Ukraine’s general staff said in a statement.

It was reportedly one of four submarines operated by Russia’s Black Sea fleet capable of launching Kalibr cruise missiles. The Russian defence ministry has not commented.

Officials in Kyiv said the attack also destroyed four S-400 air defence systems protecting the peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.

Intelligence officials in the UK noted last September that the Rostov-on-Don “likely suffered catastrophic damage” in a missile strike while undergoing maintenance at a Sevastopol shipyard.

Ukraine’s military said Russia subsequently repaired the vessel and it was recently testing its capabilities near Sevastopol. The vessel was worth $300m (£233m), they added.

“The destruction of Rostov-on-Don once again proves that there is no safe place for the Russian fleet in the Ukrainian territorial waters of the Black Sea,” the general staff in Kyiv said in a statement on Saturday.

It marks the latest attack on Russian naval forces in Sevastopol in recent months. In March alone, Ukraine said it hit two landing ships and a patrol vessel in the port city.

Since Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 it has suffered several major naval setbacks. Ukraine says it has seriously damaged or sunk at least 15 warships, including the Black Sea fleet’s flagship, the Moskva.

Last week Ukraine’s military said Moscow had been forced to withdraw all of its naval assets from the Sea of Azov – a body of water connected to the Black Sea – due to repeated strikes on its vessels.

And Russia’s internal security service, the FSB, recently said it foiled a Ukrainian plot to destroy its last remaining aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov. The ship, launched in 1985, has been undergoing repairs since 2018.

Meanwhile, officials in Kyiv said Ukrainian drones targeted a major airfield and oil depots in Russia.

The attack targeted the Morozovsk airfield, where guided bombs which have recently wrecked havoc on Ukrainian cities, are stored.

Online footage said to be from the base showed powerful explosions and huge fires, after what appears to be several hits on fuel or ammunition depots. Russia said many of the drones used were shot down, but local authorities have declared a state of emergency around the air base.

Oil storage facilities were also targeted in the Rostov, Kursk and Belgorod regions.

The attacks come after Russia launched more than 600 guided air bombs towards Ukraine in a week, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

He said that it was crucial that Ukraine stopped Russian aircraft from launching the munitions and said that attacking airfields in Russia to do so was “quite fair”.

Ukraine’s allies have previously been reluctant to allow it to strike within Russia using Western weapons, though the US has recently granted Kyiv permission to attack some targets along the border.

Earlier this week Lithuania’s foreign minister said the first deliveries of F-16 fighter jets had arrived in Ukraine. Long promised by Kyiv’s Nato allies, President Zelenky views the planes as central to his country’s air defence plans.

The Times newspaper reported that six jets donated by the Netherlands had arrived in the country, but Dutch defence officials declined to comment when approached by the BBC earlier this week.

Officials in Kyiv will also hope that the jets can help arrest Russian momentum on the frontlines. Moscow’s forces have been making incremental gains in the east of the country for several weeks.

Something remarkable has happened to A23a, the world’s biggest iceberg.

For months now it has been spinning on the spot just north of Antarctica when really it should be racing along with Earth’s most powerful ocean current.

Scientists say the frozen block, which is more than twice the size of Greater London, has been captured on top of a huge rotating cylinder of water.

It’s a phenomenon oceanographers call a Taylor Column – and it’s possible A23a might not escape its jailer for years.

“Usually you think of icebergs as being transient things; they fragment and melt away. But not this one,” observed polar expert Prof Mark Brandon.

“A23a is the iceberg that just refuses to die,” the Open University researcher told BBC News.

The berg’s longevity is well documented. It broke free from the Antarctic coastline way back in 1986, but then almost immediately got stuck in the bottom-muds of the Weddell Sea.

For three decades it was a static “ice island”. It didn’t budge. It wasn’t until 2020 that it re-floated and started to drift again, slowly at first, before then charging north towards warmer air and waters.

In early April this year, A23a stepped into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) – a juggernaut that moves a hundred times as much water around the globe as all Earth’s rivers combined.

This was meant to put boosters on the near-trillion-tonne berg, rifling it up into the South Atlantic and certain oblivion.

Instead, A23a went precisely nowhere. It remains in place just north of South Orkney Islands, turning in an anti-clockwise direction by about 15 degrees a day. And as long as it does this, its decay and eventual demise will be delayed.

A23a has not grounded again; there is at least a thousand metres of water between its underside and the seafloor.

It’s been stopped in its tracks by a type of vortex first described in the 1920s by a brilliant physicist, Sir G.I. (Geoffrey Ingram) Taylor.

The Cambridge academic was a pioneer in the field of fluid dynamics, and was even brought into the Manhattan Project to model the likely stability of the world’s first atomic bomb test.

Prof Taylor showed how a current that meets an obstruction on the seafloor can – under the right circumstances – separate into two distinct flows, generating a full-depth mass of rotating water between them.

In this instance, the obstruction is a 100km-wide bump on the ocean bottom known as Pirie Bank. The vortex sits on top of the bank, and for now A23a is its prisoner.

“The ocean is full of surprises, and this dynamical feature is one of the cutest you’ll ever see,” said Prof Mike Meredith from the British Antarctic Survey.

“Taylor Columns can also form in the air; you see them in the movement of clouds above mountains. They can be just a few centimetres across in an experimental laboratory tank or absolutely enormous as in this case where the column has a giant iceberg slap-bang in the middle of it.”

How long might A23a continue to perform its spinning-top routine?

Who knows, but when Prof Meredith placed a scientific buoy in a Taylor Column above another bump to the east of Pirie Bank, the floating instrument was still rotating in place four years later.

A23a is a perfect illustration once again of the importance of understanding the shape of the seafloor.

Submarine mountains, canyons and slopes have a profound influence on the direction and mixing of waters, and on the distribution of the nutrients that drive biological activity in the ocean.

And this influence extends also to the climate system: it’s the mass movement of water that helps disperse heat energy around the globe.

A23a’s behaviour can be explained because the ocean bottom just north of South Orkney is reasonably well surveyed.

That’s not the case for much of the rest of the world.

Currently, only a quarter of Earth’s seafloor has been mapped to the best modern standard.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has addressed a mass rally in the capital Caracas, defying government calls for her arrest.

Ms Machado went into hiding earlier this week after accusing President Nicolás Maduro of defrauding the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, of a clear victory in the presidential election.

The president in turn has promised “maximum punishment” for anti-government demonstrators who say his re-election was rigged.

The electoral commission – controlled by allies of Mr Maduro – has insisted he won with 52% of last Sunday’s vote, but independent observers have said it lacked transparency.

The commission has not published the full breakdown of results. The opposition has said its own vote tally shows it won the election by a wide margin. Opinion polls ahead of the election had suggested a clear victory for the challenger.

On Saturday Ms Machado addressed thousands of her supporters in Caracas from a truck bearing a banner reading “Venezuela has won”.

“We have never been so strong as today,” she told the crowd, adding that “the regime has never been weaker… It has lost all legitimacy”.

The opposition leader, who was blocked from running in the election, has spent days in hiding.

Earlier this week, Ms Machado wrote in The Wall Street Journal that she had been left “fearing for my life,” along with other opposition leaders.

She was greeted by cheers of “freedom, freedom” and was accompanied by several other opposition leaders – but not Mr Gonzales.

In a separate a video message he urged supporters to “respond to the regime’s attacks with hope, harmony, and peace”.

Security forces in Venezuela have spent the past several days trying to contain mass protests. At least 11 people have died in clashes with police.

Speaking to supporters in Caracas on Saturday, Mr Maduro said around “2,000 prisoners” had been detained since the election a week ago.

He promised “maximum punishment” for them, adding: “This time there will be no forgiveness.”

The government is coming under increasing international pressure. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that there was “overwhelming evidence” that Mr Gonzalez had won the election.

His intervention comes as the presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia all called on Venezuela to release detailed election results.

Other regional governments, including Argentine, Costa Rica, Panama and Uruguay have all raised concern over the vote.

But Mr Maduro has been backed by his allies in Russia, China and Cuba.

He has asked Venezuela’s top court to audit the voting tallies with a view to confirming the results, which handed him another six-year term in power.

The opposition says the court is in the hands of government loyalists who will delay the publication of the tallies. Mr Gonzalez boycotted court proceedings on Friday.

Rick Pero was working in southern Mexico when the evacuation alerts started going off on his phone.

A wildfire was threatening his California neighbourhood. Again.

Back home – roughly 2,800 miles (4,500km) away – a man at a popular swimming hole shoved a burning car down into a dry, grassy ravine. Almost instantly, the area ignited and those enjoying the summer day started to panic. The flames, about 15 miles (24km) from Mr Pero’s home, were spreading fast in the tinder dry brush.

“Uh oh, this is not looking good,” Mr Pero thought as he watched the blaze’s growth from his phone.

Within hours, the Park Fire had consumed more than 6,000 acres and residents in the area were forced to evacuate. With them, the suspected arsonist who police say blended into the worried crowd and fled the area.

Mr Pero, glued to his phone, packed his bags. He told his cat sitter to get his two felines and leave before it was too late. He knew the danger after surviving the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history in 2018 – which razed the town of Paradise and took 85 lives. His home was incinerated.

Mr Pero rebuilt his life in Forest Ranch, another small community about nine miles (14km) north of Paradise. He thought he was safe – his new “silver lining” home had stunning views and was much more fire resistant. But once again, a fire tore through his home and everything inside of it – possibly also stealing one of his cats that couldn’t be lured out of the house.

The metal disfigured shells of two vehicles remain where his garage once stood. Piles of charred metal debris lay in piles. The foundations of the home aren’t even apparent anymore but some bricks from what appears to be a fireplace are stacked. The colourful sunset views over the wooded area behind his home now looks out on hundreds of scorched – and still smoking – pine trees.

“The big sadness is we have a very close-knit neighbourhood,” he said. “I’m again, so, so grateful that they were able to save all of my neighbours, almost all my neighbours, houses.”

• ‘Fire devils’ spotted as California fire doubles in size
• California suspect in court accused of starting huge wildfire

Wildfires are becoming more intense and more frequent.

The Park Fire, which started 24 July in a park in Chico, grew to more than 71,000 acres in just 24 hours. It’s now the fourth largest wildfire in California history after tearing through more than 400,000 acres and like Paradise, it spread at a shockingly fast and hot pace.

About 12 hours after the blaze started, the person authorities say is responsible was arrested. Police say Ronnie Dean Stout II was spotted starting the fire and blending into the crowd as people rushed to flee. Witnesses said he acted erratically and may have been intoxicated.

Authorities found him at a nearby mobile home park and charged him with arson. He has not entered a plea but reportedly told authorities his burning car rolled down the 60-foot embankment and it was an accident. He fled the area afterwards because he was afraid, Butte County District Attorney Michael Ramsey said.

The blaze has consumed land in four counties, scorching an area larger than the size of greater Los Angeles or London. Although most of the land is uninhabited by humans, hundreds of homes have been lost in the blaze and experts worry it could take months before it’s fully extinguished.

The area is a frequent target of destructive wildfires. The region in northern California “has had four of the largest 10 fires” in the state’s history, Cal Fire Incident Commander Billy See said at a news conference

Eight of the 10 largest wildfires in California history have happened in the last five years. Scientists say the impacts from wildfires and other extreme weather events have worsened due to climate change. And undoubtedly, this new fire will reinvigorate debates about where and how we live and rebuild in an increasingly hot and dry Western United States.

Last time he evacuated, in 2018, Mr Pero was home with his wife in Paradise. They had just 20 minutes to flee – but it was enough time to grab their photo albums, phones, computers, cars and cats.

That fire ripped through Paradise at a truly unprecedented speed and heat – catching everyone off guard with its ferocity. Of the 85 people who perished, many died in their cars, trying to escape on the rural town’s windy, mountain roads.

Paradise Police Sgt Rob Nichols was one of the many quick-thinking heroes that day. As fire engulfed the town, propane tanks exploded and power lines and burned-out cars blocked the road. His wife and young children got out safely, but Sgt Nichols stayed to help.

Along with firefighters and volunteers, they smashed the windows of an empty building that had a large parking lot – a barrier that could prevent the building from burning – and hustled about 200 people inside as they watched in horror as their beloved mountain town burned. Sgt Nichols lost everything he owned.

He still works in Paradise but he resettled with his family in Chico, about a mile from where the Park Fire ignited. Chico was where many of the Paradise evacuees headed in 2018 – many sleeping in tents around a Walmart or in camper vans until they could resettle elsewhere.

Sgt Nichols was on vacation – 135 miles (217km) away in Lake Siskiyou – when he started hearing news that a wildfire was threatening his home. Again.

“On our last evening up there, we couldn’t rest not knowing what was going on and how close it was to the home,” he said. “So we came home.”

Sgt Nichols didn’t anticipate how scary it would be for his children, ages 12 and 13, as they arrived home and saw flames taking over an area on the ridge above their neighbourhood.

“That was kind of a big trigger for them,” he said.

Fortunately, their house was spared. The wind sent the blaze in the opposite direction.

But it was close. He sometimes thinks about moving to a less fire prone area.

“My wife has a lot of family here,” he said, noting the ties that have kept them in the area. “And, you know, we lost seven homes. Her family lost seven homes in the Camp Fire. And so we don’t want to go too far.”

Paradise is likely safer now than most places, he argues, because there just isn’t much left to burn. He’d like to rebuild there, but building costs have skyrocketed and insurance is prohibitively expensive due to wildfires.

Now Sgt Nichols is patrolling around Chico – on loan from Paradise police – to help deter looters or opportunists who attempt to raid communities after an evacuation order.

Mr Pero saw his Forest Ranch house as a paradise away from Paradise because of its natural beauty and how close it kept him and his wife to the community they’d grown to love.

He became serious, maybe obsessed, about fire safety and was in charge of his neighbourhood’s fire mitigation. He says it’s “ironic” his home burned. He had about 50 yards of cleared space behind his house, a barrier he hoped would stop any potential blaze from continuing toward his oasis.

“It had 60,000-gallon water tanks. It also had fire hydrants on the street,” he said. “And the big part, it was also about a one-minute route to get evacuated out on Highway 32 versus nine hours in Paradise.”

Every year, they brought in hundreds of goats to clear brush, which can be like kindling for any fire, throughout the community. He urged his neighbours to make their homes fire safe by trimming trees and clearing brush.

He’s hoping his lost cat – a striped grey and black feline named CatMandu – made it out alive. Mr Pero has been leaving out food and searching for him around the wreckage.

But the charred remains of his home are still too toxic to walk around – he needs a special mask and suit to search for any sign of the cat or any belongings that survived the blaze.

“I tried to look from the edges,” he said. “Didn’t see anything.”

Three other homes on his street also burned to the ground. They were owned by Paradise fire survivors, he says.

He and his wife loved their time in Forest Ranch. But he doubts they will rebuild there. He says he doesn’t know if they can start over again in such a fire-prone area. They’re thinking maybe somewhere coastal – near water. Somewhere less dry. Somewhere safer.

He knows people who have relocated to the rain-prone state of Oregon and the often-rainy Ireland.

“We’re kind of wide open now.”

US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are at odds over their first head-to-head debate, with each in favour of a different broadcaster and date.

The Harris campaign is pushing for a debate to take place on ABC News on 10 September, in a slot previously scheduled for a debate between President Joe Biden and Mr Trump.

But Mr Trump says the ABC debate has been “terminated” by Mr Biden leaving the race – and has instead pushed for himself and Ms Harris to debate on Fox News on 4 September.

The pair will face off for the presidency when the US goes to the polls on 5 November.

The disagreement began after President Biden dropped out of the race on 21 July, with Ms Harris immediately becoming favourite to secure the Democratic nomination.

• Project 2025 – a wishlist for a Trump presidency
• A guide to Donald Trump’s four criminal cases
• Who could be Harris’s running mate?

Since then, Mr Trump has been non-committal about whether he will still take part in the previously scheduled ABC News debate.

US TV networks have been negotiating with both campaigns to arrange new dates.

On Friday night, Mr Trump wrote on his social network Truth Social that he had accepted Fox News’ proposal for a debate on 4 September, which is pencilled to take place in Pennsylvania – a key battleground state.

He wrote that the moderators would be Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum – and that the rules would be similar to his debate with Mr Biden.

“If for any reason Kamala is unwilling or unable to debate on that date, I have agreed with Fox to do a major Town Hall on the same September 4th evening,” he wrote.

Mr Trump added that the prior agreement has been terminated because Joe Biden is no longer taking part and because his defamation case against the broadcaster would mean there is a conflict of interest.

The Harris campaign has responded saying the former president is “running scared” and is trying to back out of the agreed debate. They said he’s looking to Fox News – a conservative cable network – to “bail him out”.

“He needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to on Sept 10,” Michael Tyler, Harris Campaign communications director said.

Ms Harris followed up on social media, saying it is interesting how “any time, any place” becomes “one specific time, one specific safe space”.

“I’ll be there on September 10th, like he agreed to,” she wrote.

Ms Harris’ team said they are open to discussing further debates but only after the agreed one takes place.

If and when the next debate does happen it will be keenly watched to see how the two contenders match up.

Ms Harris secured enough pledges to become the Democratic nominee on Friday.

During a campaign rally in Atlanta on Wednesday, Ms Harris challenged Mr Trump to debate her, saying “if you got something to say, say it to my face”.

The debate news comes just hours after a report by the Homeland Security Department revealed that the US Secret Service made mistakes in their response to the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

Ms Harris, who was then vice-president-elect, came within 20ft (6m) of a “viable” pipe bomb planted outside the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington.

That bomb – and a similar one found at the Republican National Committee headquarters – were placed near the buildings the night before Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol. It remains unclear who planted both pipe bombs.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• ANALYSIS: Three ways Trump will try to end Harris honeymoon
• SWING STATES: Where the election could be won and lost
• EXPLAINER: RFK Jr and others running for president
• VOTERS: US workers in debt to buy groceries

Donald Trump returning to the White House would be “a once-in-a-thousand-year opportunity” for North Korea, according to a man in a unique position to know.

Ri Il Kyu is the highest-ranking defector to escape North Korea since 2016 and has been face to face with Kim Jong Un on seven separate occasions.

The former diplomat, who was working in Cuba when he fled with his family to South Korea last November, admits to “shivering with nerves” the first time he met Kim Jong Un.

But during each meeting, he found the leader to be “smiling and in a good mood”.

“He praised people often and laughed. He seems like an ordinary person,” Mr Ri tells the BBC. But he is in no doubt Mr Kim would do anything to guarantee his survival, even if it meant killing all 25 million of his people: “He could have been a wonderful person and father, but turning him into a god has made him a monstrous being.”

In his first interview with an international broadcaster, Mr Ri provides a rare understanding of what one of the world’s most secretive and repressive states is hoping to achieve.

He says that North Korea still views Mr Trump as someone it can negotiate with over its nuclear weapons programme, despite talks between him and Kim Jong Un breaking down in 2019.

Mr Trump has previously hailed the relationship with Kim as a key achievement of his presidency. He famously said the two “fell in love” exchanging letters. Just last month, he told a rally Mr Kim would like to see him back in office: “I think he misses me, if you want to know the truth.”

North Korea is hoping it can use this close personal relationship to its advantage, says Mr Ri, contradicting an official statement from Pyongyang last month that it “did not care” who became president.

The nuclear state will never get rid of its weapons, Mr Ri says, and would probably seek a deal to freeze its nuclear programme in return for the US lifting sanctions.

But he says Pyongyang would not negotiate in good faith. Agreeing to freeze its nuclear programme “would be a ploy, 100% deception”, he says, adding that this was therefore a “dangerous approach” which would “only lead to the strengthening of North Korea”.

Eight months after his defection, Ri Il Kyu is living with his family in South Korea. Accompanied by a police bodyguard and two intelligence agents, he explains his decision to abandon his government.

After years of being ground down by the corruption, bribery and lack of freedom he faced, Mr Ri says he was finally tipped over the edge when his request to travel to Mexico to get an operation on a slipped disc in his neck was denied. “I lived the life of the top 1% in North Korea, but that is still worse than a middle-class family in the South.”

As a diplomat in Cuba, Mr Ri made just $500 (£294) a month and so would sell Cuban cigars illegally in China to make enough to support his family.

When he first told his wife about his desire to defect, she was so disturbed she ended up in hospital with heart problems. After that, he kept his plans secret, only sharing them with her and his child six hours before their plane was due to depart.

He describes it as a “life-or-death gamble”. Regular North Koreans who are caught defecting would typically be tortured for a few months, then released, he says. “But for elites like us, there are only two outcomes – life in a political prison camp or being executed by a firing squad.”

“The fear and terror were overwhelming. I could accept my own death, but I could not bear the thought of my family being dragged to a gulag,” he says. Although Mr Ri had never believed in God, as he waited nervously at the airport gate in the middle of the night, he began to pray.

The last known high-profile defection to the South was that of Tae Yong-ho in 2016. A former deputy ambassador to the UK, he was recently named the new leader of South Korea’s presidential advisory council on unification.

Turning to North Korea’s recent closer ties with Russia, Mr Ri says the Ukraine war had been a stroke of luck for Pyongyang. The US and South Korea estimate the North has sold Moscow millions of rounds of ammunition to support its invasion, in return for food, fuel and possibly even military technology.

Mr Ri says the main benefit of this deal for Pyongyang was the ability to continue developing its nuclear weapons.

With the deal, Russia created a “loophole” in the stringent international sanctions on North Korea, he says, which has allowed it “to freely develop its nuclear weapons and missiles and strengthen its defence, while bypassing the need to appeal to the US for sanctions relief”.

But Mr Ri says Kim Jong Un understands this relationship is temporary and that after the war, Russia is likely to sever relations. For this reason, Mr Kim has not given up on the US, Mr Ri says.

“North Korea understands that the only path to its survival, the only way to eliminate the threat of invasion and develop its economy, is to normalise relations with the United States.”

While Russia might have given North Korea a temporary respite from its economic pain, Mr Ri says the complete closure of North Korea’s borders during the pandemic “severely devastated the country’s economy and people’s lives”.

When the borders reopened in 2023 and diplomats were preparing to return, Mr Ri says families back home had asked them to “bring anything and everything you have, even your used toothbrushes, because there is nothing left in North Korea”.

The North Korean leader demands total loyalty from his citizens and the mere whiff of dissent can result in imprisonment. But Mr Ri says years of hardship had eroded people’s loyalty, as no-one now expected to receive anything from their “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong Un.

“There is no genuine loyalty to the regime or to Kim Jong Un anymore, it is a forced loyalty, where one must be loyal or face death,” he says.

Recent change has largely been driven by an influx of South Korean films, dramas and music, which have been smuggled into the North and are illegal to watch and listen to.

“People don’t watch South Korean content because they have capitalist beliefs, they are simply trying to pass the time in their monotonous and bleak lives,” Mr Ri says, but then they begin to ask, “Why do those in the South live the life of a first-world country while we are impoverished?”

But Mr Ri says that although South Korean content was changing North Korea, it would not bring about its collapse, because of the systems of control in place. “Kim Jong Un is very aware that loyalty is waning, that people are evolving, and that’s why he is intensifying his reign of terror,” he says.

The government has introduced laws to harshly punish those who consume and distribute South Korean content. The BBC spoke to one defector last year who said he had witnessed someone be executed after sharing South Korean music and TV shows.

North Korea’s decision, at the end of last year, to abandon a decades-old policy of eventually reunifying with the South, was a further attempt to isolate people from the South, Mr Ri says.

He describes this as Kim Jong Un’s “most evil act”, because all North Koreans dream of reunification. He says that while North Korea’s past leaders had “stolen people’s freedom, money and human rights, Kim Jong Un has robbed what was left of them: hope”.

Outside North Korea, much attention is paid to Kim Jong Un’s health, with some believing that his premature death could trigger the collapse of the regime. Earlier this week, South Korea’s intelligence agency estimated that Mr Kim weighed 140kg, putting him at risk of cardiovascular disease.

But Mr Ri believes the system of surveillance and control is now too well established for Kim’s death to threaten the dictatorship. “Another evil leader will merely take his place,” he says.

It has been widely speculated that Mr Kim is grooming his young daughter, thought to be called Ju Ae, to be his successor, but Mr Ri dismisses the notion.

Ju Ae, he says, lacks the legitimacy and popularity to become the leader of North Korea, especially as the sacred Paektu bloodline, which the Kims use to justify their rule, is believed to run only through the men of the family.

At first, people were fascinated by Ju Ae, Mr Ri says, but not any more. They question why she was attending missile tests rather than going to school, and wearing luxury, designer clothes instead of her school uniform, like other children.

Rather than waiting for Mr Kim to become ill or die, Mr Ri says the international community has to come together, including North Korea’s allies China and Russia, to “persistently persuade it to change”.

“This is the only thing that will bring about the end of the North Korean dictatorship,” he adds.

Mr Ri is hoping that his defection inspires his peers, not to defect themselves, but to push for small changes from the inside. He does not have lofty ambitions, that North Koreans will be able to vote or travel, merely that they can choose what jobs to work, have enough food to eat and be able to share their opinions freely among friends.

For now, though, his priority is helping his family settle into their new life in South Korea and for his child to assimilate into society.

At the end of our interview, he poses a scenario. “Imagine I offer you a venture and tell you, if we succeed we win big, but if we fail it means death.

“You wouldn’t agree, would you? Well that is the choice I forced upon my family, and they silently agreed and followed me,” he says.

“This is now a debt I must repay for the rest of my life.”

“Mercury retrograde is coming back, my darlings.”

Sadicka, an astrologer and spiritual life coach, is telling her 5,000 Instagram followers to watch out for technology issues, trouble communicating with people and even car accidents, ahead of the planet Mercury going into retrograde from 5 August.

A few times a year, Instagram and TikTok are flooded with cautionary posts like this one – as well as more tongue-in-cheek content (think: “POV: you blame all of your problems on Mercury being in retrograde instead of actually dealing with them”).

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and Mercury retrograde is an optical illusion which occurs three or four times a year, making the planet appear to move in the opposite direction than it usually does.

It is a similar effect to when one car overtakes another and, to those in the faster car, the slower vehicle appears to be moving backwards. All planets appear this way from Earth at various points, as they orbit the Sun at different speeds.

People have observed Mercury going into retrograde for thousands of years, and many believers in astrology (the influence of stars and planets on interpersonal events) link it to an increase in personal problems.

• Why is astrology so popular now?
• ‘My astrology obsession stopped me leaving the house’

Lina Sahhab, a 42-year-old who works for a non-profit, tells the BBC that she once believed superstitions surrounding Mercury were just that.

“Then I started noticing that the obstacles in my life really happen when there is a Mercury retrograde,” she says.

“My laptop would suddenly stop working, or I would buy something that has to do with technology that would not function properly.”

The lack of evidence for astrology doesn’t harm its popularity, especially on social media.

In an era where we can both predict the weather and find answers to most of our questions on Google, astrology enthusiasts often look to horoscopes for guidance on things most humans still feel they have little control over – like romance, friendship or even technology.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that, according to Google Trends, searches for “birth chart” and “astrology” both hit five-year peaks in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, a time of immense uncertainty.

While astrology is now considered a pseudoscience, in the ancient civilisations in which it was first conceived, people needed ways to help them predict things like the timing of rainfall, temperature, wind and sunlight – and doing so was a survival skill.

Astrology can be traced back to between 3000BC and 2001BC to a region of West Asia then known as Mesopotamia. From there, it spread to India, and it eventually started to look more like it does now during the Hellenistic period (323BC to 31BC) in Ancient Greece.

According to Dr Nicholas Campion, professor of cosmology and culture at University of Wales Trinity Saint David, the Mercury retrograde phenomenon was discovered during the final century BC – but it wasn’t always interpreted as it is today.

Dr Campion says that in medieval times, if someone was trying to answer a question by plotting an astrological chart, Mercury being in retrograde was taken as a sign the answer was negative, or that something was “unlikely to happen”.

“It is only in the 20th century, in the astrology of the English-speaking world, that it came to mean ‘delays’ in particular,” says the astrology expert, adding that this interpretation took over in the 1980s.

Dr Campion says modern astrologists who subscribe to the influence of Mercury retrograde believe it means plans are going to be put on hold, or it is a bad time to start a new job or begin something new.

“It is very much a feature of a particular strand of western astrology,” he says. “Western astrology now spreads all over the world through social media and apps, so it is becoming global.”

Dr Campion says Mercury retrograde didn’t always have the same prominence that is does today: “It was always a very minor phenomenon in astrology.”

“Whilst astronomy and astrology may have been more closely rooted in the past, the general scientific consensus at present is that astronomical phenomena like retrogrades don’t have any predictable effect on people’s lives,” says Dhara Patel, of the National Space Centre in Leicester.

If science suggests Mercury retrograde may not have any bearing on our lives, why do so many people still turn to the stars for answers?

Some studies have linked belief in horoscopes and zodiac signs to “confirmation bias”, the tendency to believe or remember information that aligns with our pre-existing beliefs, and interpret it selectively to support them.

Zeinab Ajami, a clinical psychologist undertaking humanitarian mental health work in Ukraine, tells the BBC that “people tend to believe things that make them feel relieved or comfortable, and that do not require the brain to constantly analyse and reassess”.

She says astrology may provide a “fast and easy explanation” for difficult events, without the need for people to look at the “multiple layers to their problems”.

But many find star signs a gateway to inspiration, entertainment or some spiritual solace.

Mireille Hammal, a Beirut-based specialist in Reiki (a complementary therapy and form of energy healing), says clients who believe in the influence of the Mercury retrograde “usually avoid purchasing electronics during that period, or postpone signing contracts, moving to a new home or taking the step of getting married or engaged”.

Ms Hammal acknowledges that “a lot of people consider astrology to be just nonsense” but believes that it can be helpful to people as long as they avoid “reaching the point of obsession”.

Dr Campion, who runs an MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology, believes Mercury retrograde found popularity due to its simplicity – but says this can undermine how professional astrology is perceived.

“[Mercury retrograde] almost does not need any interpretation,” he says. “It’s not complicated or complex, and it applies to everybody.

“This idea that this is either a good or bad time for making plans really undermines the idea that astrology can be complex and nuanced,” he continues. “Because the fact is lots of things happen very well when Mercury is in retrograde.”

At the age of 23, Nigerian musician Udoh Ebaide Joy survived a traumatic car accident.

It damaged her spinal cord and for months she could not get around without a wheelchair.

But alongside the pain, Ms Joy felt an overwhelming sense of clarity.

“It made me decide that I will live my life to the fullest,” she told the BBC’s Africa Daily podcast.

In the time since she recovered, Ms Joy has put her energy – and all her savings – into travelling, even converting a 1980s Nissan van into a home on wheels.

But Ms Joy’s greatest adventure took place this year when, at the age of 32, she became the first documented black African woman to travel solo from East to West Africa on a motorcycle.

The Afrobeats singer did a 9,000km (5,600 miles) trip from the Kenyan city of Mombasa to Lagos in Nigeria, and she spent more than three months travelling.

Along the way she experienced gorgeous scenery, visa problems, an underground community of African bikers, lone rides through “scary” forests and an epic, tear-jerking homecoming celebration.

“Being alone and travelling on those roads, not understanding the language, I was always travelling with fear, which was good because my fears keep me alive,” she says.

The journey began earlier this year when Ms Joy flew to Kenya and bought a 250cc motorbike, which she named Rory.

Having never even ridden a standard bicycle, let alone a motorbike, she took a one-week training course in the capital, Nairobi, to prepare for her adventure.

Then, on 8 March, Ms Joy embarked on her odyssey through Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, the Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Nigeria.

She opted to avoid the Democratic Republic of Congo because of conflict in the east and other safety issues, as well as the poor condition of the roads.

Kenya was the perfect starting point – “the people, the friendliness” were second to none, she says.

The “crazy” roads of Kampala, Uganda’s capital, naturally threw her a few challenges.

However after this experience, she rode to her next destination – Rwanda, and was very impressed by its “seamless” border crossing.

When entering numerous other countries Ms Joy faced extra costs, bureaucracy and hours-long delays.

But Rwanda is one of the few nations on the continent with visa-free travel for all Africans.

It was also “a motorcyclist’s dream” – its mountainous terrain was perfect for practising how to lean from side to side while riding. This was something Ms Joy truly embraced and enjoyed.

Tanzania provided the most memorable meal of Ms Joy’s trip.

After riding for several hours without seeing a single person, she encountered a village in the middle of a forest. Local women at an eatery served a hungry Ms Joy some soup, a huge platter of roasted chicken, and a bowl of fluffy white rice.

“They were fascinated by a girl on a motorcycle and interested in my bad Swahili,” she laughs. “The conversation was so sweet, it just felt good to eat and to see people.”

Along with curious locals, Ms Joy encountered many sites of cultural significance and natural beauty on her trip. She was enthralled by the Victoria Falls on the Zambia-Zimbabwe border.

“It felt great! I’d heard about Victoria Falls forever – for heaven’s sake, it’s one of the seven [natural] wonders in our own universe,” she says.

She met bikers from various countries on her trip, and they joined her for short legs of her journey, recommending where to stay or eat.

An app for bikers also proved invaluable, allowing her to get tips and other advice.

When she started out Ms Joy had intended to camp at night by the roadsides, but soon gave up on the idea as unsafe – and half-way through her journey sent her tent and other camping equipment back home to reduce her baggage.

From Kampala onwards she stayed in cheap hotels – sometimes staying a few days in one place to explore.

“On days I rode, I did at least 300km,” she said, explaining she would often ride overnight.

In Angola, bikers threw her a party – to celebrate the journey she had taken so far.

“It’s a small community,” she says. “No matter where you are, if you get the right connection, you can meet any biker anywhere.”

Those without the ability – or inclination – to jump on a bike and ride alongside Ms Joy, were able to travel with her virtually.

She posted dozens of slick mini-vlogs on social media, captivating viewers across the world with her humour and honesty.

When she had an internet connection, she would send her recordings to someone back home, who would edit the footage and post videos for her.

By the end of the trip, she had reached more than 100,000 followers on Instagram.

Many of these supporters were women, who were proud to see Ms Joy overcoming gender-based stereotypes.

She showed the world she was a woman on a bike, fulfilling her own adventure, doing something for herself.

“Thank you for showing the WORLD how amazing women can be!” one commented.

Ms Joy did not face any discrimination whilst meeting people on her journey.

“People ask about the negativities, but I have not experienced the negatives,” she says.

“Yes, people are fascinated about a girl on a bike, but I’ve not had any bad experiences.”

The positivity she encountered throughout the journey peaked when she reached her final destination – Lagos, the main city in Nigeria.

Fellow bikers and other members of the public crowded the street to give her a hero’s welcome in an event organised by Nigeria’s arts and culture ministry.

“When I arrived, I couldn’t hold back my tears. People were dancing and cheering. I couldn’t contain my excitement,” Ms Joy remembers.

After sleeping “non-stop for three days”, she concludes that the trek changed her outlook on life.

“The trip taught me that I am resilient and tenacious enough to overcome any challenge that life throws at me,” she says.

“I had the best time of my life.”

She has no plans to hang up her leathers though. In just over a month, she will set off on a journey from Nigeria to Morocco.

Biking is a “lifetime lesson”, she explains – it has taken her to the most sublime places and introduced her to the most wonderful people.

• LISTEN: Udoh Ebaide Joy talks to Africa Daily
• Trekking 10,000km across Africa for a football match
• ‘Born to be wild’: Kenya’s female biker gang

Mystery surrounds an American woman who was found chained to a tree “screaming” in a forest in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

Lalita Kayi, 50, was discovered a week ago in the dense forests of Sindhudurg district after her cries for help were heard by shepherds. They alerted the police who sawed off the chain and rescued her.

Ms Kayi, who appeared completely emaciated, was taken to hospital. Her physical health has since improved and, on Friday, she was moved to a psychiatric facility for further treatment, doctors treating her told the BBC.

In a written statement to the police, she has alleged that her husband “chained her and left her in the forest to die without food or water”.

Police say they are looking for her husband in the southern state of Tamil Nadu on the basis of information she provided them.

But seven days after Ms Kayi was rescued, many questions remain unanswered.

Pandurang Gawkar, a cow herder who found her last Saturday, told BBC Marathi that he had taken his cattle to graze in the forest when he heard “a woman screaming loudly”.

“The sound was coming from the forest on the side of the mountain. When I went there, I saw that one of her legs was tied to a tree. She was screaming like an animal. I called other villagers and the local police.”

Police said that on her they found a copy of her passport, which stated that she was an American citizen, and her Aadhaar card – a unique ID for Indians – with her home address in Tamil Nadu.

They said she also had a mobile phone, a tablet and 31,000 rupees ($370; £290) in her possession – which allowed them to rule out theft as a motive.

Locals say that it was the woman’s good fortune that the shepherd picked a spot near her to graze his flock that day. The forest she was discovered in is vast and she otherwise could have gone for days without anyone hearing her cries for help.

Police initially took her to a local hospital before moving her to a hospital in the neighbouring state of Goa.

Dr Shivanand Bandekar, dean of Goa Medical College, told The Indian Express newspaper that she had some wounds on her leg and that she appeared to be suffering from a mental health condition.

“We do not know for how long she did not eat, but her vital signs are stable,” Dr Bandekar said.

On Friday, the woman’s physical health had improved enough to be moved to a psychiatric hospital in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra state.

“Currently, her health is stable,” hospital superintendent Dr Sanghamitra Phule told BBC Marathi.

“She is taking medication, eating, and interacting with people. If she wants something, she can communicate it. She only knows English.”

According to the police, Ms Kayi was a ballet dancer and yoga practitioner in America – some reports say specifically Massachusetts – and moved to India about 10 years ago to study yoga and meditation in Tamil Nadu.

It was there that she met her husband – in some media reports, police have called him Satish. Police say they believe at some point she fell out with her husband.

Some reports say that she stayed in a hotel in Goa for two days and then travelled to Mumbai city, India’s financial capital.

But there is no clarity surrounding when or how she then ended up in the forest where she was discovered last week.

Ms Kayi, who was initially unable to speak, communicated with the police and doctors by scribbling notes on a pad. Through them she blamed her husband for tying her to the tree and claimed that she had gone without food and water for 40 days.

She also claimed that she had been given an “injection for extreme psychosis” which locked her jaw and prevented her from drinking water, and that she had to be provided nutrition intravenously.

“I am a victim and survived. But he ran away from here,” she alleged.

Police say they have been unable to verify these claims and believe it is unlikely that someone would survive without food or water for so long.

They have registered a case of attempted murder against her husband and have dispatched teams to Tamil Nadu, Goa and Maharashtra to investigate the matter further. Her husband is yet to be traced by the police and hasn’t made any statements to the media.

Police say they are also looking for clues in the mobile phone and the tablet they found on the woman.

The US embassy in Delhi – which media reports say has been “exerting pressure on the police to speed up the investigation” – has refused to comment on the case.

A spokesperson told the BBC that it could not respond to inquiries “due to the US Privacy Act”, which governs the dissemination of private information.

When Lolita came to Australia in 2022, she was fleeing an older man she’d been forced to marry as a child in Saudi Arabia.

She told confidants she’d escaped a cycle of violence and sexual servitude so extreme it had repeatedly landed her in hospital.

But less than a year after her arrival, she vanished – last seen by a friend who claims he watched as she was taken from her apartment by a group of Saudi men in a black van.

Records show that Lolita, who is in her early 30s and goes by a single name, was put on a flight from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur in May 2023. From there, her lawyer believes she was returned to Saudi Arabia and detained.

But Lolita’s exact whereabouts and safety – or whether she is even alive – remain unknown.

It’s far from the first time the mysterious plight of a Saudi woman fleeing her homeland has ended up in the headlines.

“What makes this case particularly compelling, compared to some other cases of Saudi women who have disappeared… or turned up dead, is that we have a witness,” says solicitor Alison Battisson.

The Saudi Arabian embassy in Canberra declined to comment. However, in a statement to the BBC, the Australian Federal Police said it became “aware” of the alleged kidnapping in June and had “started making immediate inquiries” both within the country and “offshore”.

Advocates fear Lolita’s case is part of a growing trend in Australia, in which agents of other countries are monitoring, harassing or assaulting their expats with impunity.

The government has declared foreign interference – of all forms – its “most significant” national security threat and promised a crackdown.

But Ms Battisson and other rights campaigners are questioning how a woman – who had told immigration authorities she was fleeing violence – could allegedly be snatched from her home in broad daylight.

Lolita first came to Melbourne in May 2022, according to flight records.

Although she mostly kept to herself, she soon struck up a friendship with a Sudanese refugee who had also lived in Saudi Arabia, as an undocumented migrant.

It was Ali – not his real name – who put Lolita in touch with Ms Battisson, as she had helped him with his own asylum claim.

The human rights lawyer spoke frequently with Lolita from that point onwards, describing her as a “soft spoken” woman with a clear resolve to take back her life: “She was determined this was her time.”

But their correspondence ended abruptly in May of last year, after Ms Battisson received a “strange” text message from Lolita.

“It was in much more formal language than she had ever used, and it said, ‘What is my visa status’,” she tells the BBC.

Lolita’s claim for a protection visa – for people at risk of persecution in their home country – had previously been rejected, but Ms Battisson was helping her appeal against the decision. She says that is something her client was acutely aware of, as the two discussed it frequently.

“I now believe that message was actually from the people who had taken Lolita,” Ms Battisson says. She thinks they were trying to work out whether Lolita had a permanent visa, which would have given her the right to Australian consular assistance back in Saudi Arabia.

Then came the radio silence. As the weeks turned to months, Ms Battisson knew in her gut that “something was seriously wrong”.

She couldn’t reach Ali either, which was highly unusual as the two kept in regular contact.

When Ali eventually did return Ms Battisson’s calls, her worst fears were confirmed.

He said that he had witnessed Lolita being taken, but that the incident had left him so paralysed with fear for his own family, that he’d gone to ground.

He detailed his last conversation with Lolita – a frantic phone call in which she pleaded for protection from a group of men planning to take her to Saudi Arabia.

She even sent him pictures of the bags she claimed they had forced her to pack.

Ali told Ms Battisson he rushed to her flat, but on arrival an Arabic-speaking man threatened him, using personal details that Ali believes could only have come from the Saudi embassy in Canberra.

Changing tack, he contacted a friend and asked him to go to the airport, so the two of them could “create a fuss” and get the attention of security.

But they never saw Lolita in the terminal.

“It took me a year in total to confirm she had been taken,” Ms Battisson says, the dismay in her voice palpable.

The pro-bono lawyer has since been building a paper trail to try to piece together what happened.

“We have phone records and message records of her talking about being frightened. And we also have a pattern of her moving house because of that fear,” she says.

And then there’s the recent testimony of a relative. “As far as they know, Lolita is now in a Saudi prison or detention centre,” Ms Battisson says.

Glaring gaps in the story remain, but one thing Ms Battisson is unequivocal about is that “there are simply no safe options” for Lolita in her home country.

Since becoming the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia in 2017, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has, in some ways, sought to modernise the kingdom by loosening its long-standing restrictions on women.

Crucially though, all females still require a male guardian to sign them out of prison, and in Lolita’s case, that obligation would fall to the husband she allegedly fled halfway across the world to escape.

That fact alone, Ms Battisson says, should be enough to convince Australian authorities that there is “simply no way she would have willingly gone back to Saudi Arabia”.

Around the same time Lolita came to Australia, the country was grappling with the mysterious deaths of two other Saudi women.

In June of 2022, the badly decomposed bodies of sisters Asra and Amaal Alsehli were discovered in their Western Sydney apartment.

Little is known about how they died, but police have described the case as both “suspicious” and “unusual”, and it will soon be the subject of a coronial inquest.

But according to those who witnessed their behaviour, Asra and Amaal – who travelled to Australia from Saudi Arabia in 2017 to seek asylum – were living in fear.

Reports of Saudi women turning up dead while living abroad or being dragged back to the kingdom while trying to seek asylum are not new.

High profile examples include the case of Tala Farea and Rotana Farea, two sisters who were found duct-taped together in the Hudson River in 2018 after applying for asylum in the US. Or Dina Ali Lasloom, who claims she was intercepted by her uncles during a transit in Manila Airport, while trying to flee to Australia in 2017.

In recent years, scores of Australians with Chinese, Iranian, Indian, Cambodian and Rwandan heritage have also come forward to report incidents of monitoring, harassment, or assault, by agents they believed were employed by their respective governments.

And Australia’s intelligence chief has said that more people are now “being targeted for espionage and foreign interference” inside the country “than ever before”.

“Australians need to know that the threat is real. The threat is now. And the threat is deeper and broader than you might think,” Mike Burgess said in February.

Earlier this year, a parliamentary review of national foreign interference legislation found “significant flaws in its design and implementation” and that it had “failed to achieve its intended purpose”.

In response, the government announced reforms – which it calls “world-leading” – including the establishment of a support network to help diaspora communities identify and report suspicious behaviour, and a permanent foreign interference task force.

“These are complex problems, and we’re constantly working with our agencies to… protect vulnerable people,” Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said in a statement about the measures.

But it is too early to assess how effective the changes will prove.

It is not, however, too late for the government to help Lolita, Ms Battisson argues. They could issue her a visa and help her return to Australia, a decision that would fall to the Immigration Minister, Tony Burke.

“As a country now, we have the opportunity to ensure that a victim of gendered violence is finally safe,” she says.

“All women deserve a safe environment in which to flourish, which is what Lolita was doing before she was taken.”

In a country where women still find it challenging to reach high office, the swing state of Michigan is an outlier.

Its three most senior elected officials are all women – nationally women fill only around a quarter of senior political roles.

With no woman having ever served as president, the state run by women could offer pointers for a route to the White House for Democrat Kamala Harris.

Opinion polling does not offer a clear answer on whether people are less willing to vote for a woman, but they certainly end up electing fewer overall.

And you don’t have to look far to find the perception that women still have to fight harder to get elected.

Robyn Kepplinger may be one of the few in her pro-gun, anti-abortion rural western Michigan town who is thrilled at the chance to vote for a Democratic woman for president.

The 33-year-old says she could not imagine a better candidate to lead the country “in the direction that we need to go”.

Listen to Madeline read this article

Ms Kepplinger, a resident of Jenison, has thrown her support behind Vice-President Harris. On Friday, the 59-year-old secured enough delegate votes to become Democratic nominee following President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race on 21 July.

But even some Harris fans worry that being a woman could be a significant obstacle between her and the presidency. “For anyone to be doing something that has not been done before, it’s difficult,” Ms Kepplinger said. “I don’t think that most people are behind a change as drastic as a female leader.”

Such a change, however, has proven possible in the key battleground state of Michigan, where three female Democrats now hold the top positions: Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and Attorney General Dana Nessel. In fact, Michigan has had two female Democratic governors in the past 20 years, Jennifer Granholm and Ms Whitmer.

Only around a quarter of senators and state governors in the US are women. The figure for representatives is slightly higher at 29%.

“Women are still underestimated,” said Marcie Paul, the chair of Fems for Dems, an advocacy group for liberal women in Michigan. “It’s going to be no different for her [Ms Harris], I believe, than it was when they said three women on the top of the ticket cannot possibly win in Michigan.”

Ms Harris, however, shares some of the traits that made women in Michigan successful candidates, according to Kim Gates, Democratic chair of Kent County, Michigan.

Ms Harris, Ms Whitmer and Ms Granholm managed to strike a balance between compassion and strength as “straight-talking, strong women”, Ms Gates said.

“They have great speaking skills. They’re able to sound like they’re talking to the average person,” she said. “They’re compassionate.”

Combining straight-talking, strength and compassion is easier said than done, but if Ms Harris can, it may bode well for her.

Female candidates may also prove more adept than men at galvanising voters around the issue of reproductive rights after the fall of Roe v Wade.

Voters nationwide cite abortion rights among the most important election issues, with one recent poll from KFF finding 1 in 8 voters saw it as a top priority for November. The issue has been relevant at the polls, with anti-abortion advocates losing a series of contests in Republican states since the federal right to abortion was overturned in 2022. In the past two years, a handful of states have passed ballot measures protecting the right to abortion, including in the Republican strongholds of Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio.

The cause helped propel Ms Whitmer to victory in her race for re-election in Michigan in 2022, the same year Michigan residents voted to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution. During Ms Harris’ tenure, she has shown a strong focus on reproductive rights, recently visiting a clinic that provides abortions.

It’s an area where her gender could prove an advantage, said Adrian Hemond, a political strategist in Michigan.

“Vice-President Harris is a much better messenger on that issue than Joe Biden,” he said.

As concerns grew around 81-year-old Mr Biden’s ability to beat Trump in November, some major donors paused funds when the president’s poll numbers were falling in swing states, including Michigan.

Meanwhile, Trump, 78, also saw a boost in personal ratings after a gunman attempted to assassinate him at a rally in Pennsylvania last month.

But after Mr Biden stepped down, Ms Harris received a record level of donations – $81m (£63m) within 24 hours. Since then, a Morning Consult poll released on Tuesday showed Harris’s approval rating at 50%, up from 43% a week previously, and a separate poll from Reuters/Ipsos found Ms Harris was supported by 43% of registered voters, and Trump supported by 42%.

Some Democratic campaigners in Michigan say that her background as a black woman has helped Ms Harris reach some voters. Her Indian heritage – and the fact she is significantly younger than both Mr Biden and Trump – are also said to boost her appeal to some of the electorate.

Greg Bowens, a member of the executive board of the NAACP in Grosse Pointe, said there is “excitement in the air” in Detroit. He added this hasn’t been seen in Detroit – Michigan’s largest majority African-American city – since Barack Obama, the first black president.

“She has electrified black and brown folks,” he said.

While an apparent wave of enthusiasm grows among some Democratic voters, Ms Harris has been subjected to attacks based on her gender and background.

A 2021 video of Trump’s running mate JD Vance resurfaced has resurfaced, with the Republican criticising the political left – including Ms Harris – for being full of “childless cat ladies with miserable lives”. The remark was criticised widely, including by actor Jennifer Aniston, but they were seized on by some conservative figures on social media, who argued that Ms Harris is less suitable to be president because she lacks a stake in the future. Ms Harris is step-mother to her husband’s two children.

More generally, female candidates face more superficial criticisms than male politicians about how they look, how they carry themselves and how they speak, said Ms Paul, the Fems for Dems leader who helps encourage women to vote and run for office.

It’s a point seemingly not lost on many voters – a Pew Research Center poll from September 2023 said 62% of Americans believed there was too much of a focus on female candidates’ appearances, versus 35% for male candidates.

Female politicians of colour are targeted more than their white male counterparts, said Nazita Lajevardi, a Michigan State University political science professor. “Women of colour politicians face attacks that are gendered and raced at the same time,” she said. “They report experiencing more verbal attacks, more online abuse.”

Female, black public figures can be subjected to scrutiny of their past sexual history, said Jamil Scott, an assistant professor of government at Georgetown University. Images have circulated on social media with criticisms of Ms Harris’ past romantic partners. Whatever the motivation for circulating these images, Ms Harris has been married to Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff for 10 years.

Ms Scott said that as a female politician, Ms Harris will also likely be forced to walk a tightrope where she is perceived as strong in attacking her Republican rival, but doesn’t risk being seen as angry.

“We want women to be tough as candidates, but then we don’t want them to be too tough,” she said.

Ms Scott pointed to Hillary Clinton – the first US major party female presidential candidate – who was perceived by some to be unlikeable and too aggressive in her attacks against Trump in 2016.

Trump attempted to exploit this sense, famously calling Ms Clinton a “nasty woman”.

While Ms Harris’s background and stance on abortion may appeal to some, they do not guarantee support among left-leaning voters.

Tressa Johnson, a 31-year-old liberal voter from Grand Rapids, believes Ms Harris’s policy stances are what make her undesirable – not her ethnicity or gender. She says the vice-president’s past as a tough-on-crime prosecutor and the Biden administration’s limited criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza make her a poor candidate.

“People just want to go, ‘Look, she’s a woman of colour,’” said Ms Johnson, who plans to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. “I just want a competent person that cares about the working class people in this country.”

What Ms Whitmer’s Michigan victory can’t help the Harris campaign with is how to beat a candidate as high profile as Trump. Mr Hemond, the political strategist, said that while Ms Whitmer defeated two “ill-equipped” Republican opponents, Ms Harris is up against a tougher candidate.

“It is very fair to say that Donald Trump is a much more potent electoral force,” he said.

The former president and his supporters have already started to attack Ms Harris based on her gender and ethnicity.

Echoing comments from Trump’s 2016 race, in which the former president accused Ms Clinton of playing the “woman card” to attract voters, Trump’s allies have claimed Ms Harris was picked solely for the purpose of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI).

It’s the kind of attack that Ms Harris would do best to ignore, as Ms Whitmer has done, said Mr Hemond.

During Ms Whitmer’s run for governor and time in office, she has been subjected to a host of sexist remarks, including from Michigan’s former Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, who once said he had “spanked” Ms Whitmer “hard” while working with her on the state’s budget.

“Gov. Whitmer largely let others litigate the sexist comments that were made about her, which was smart,” Mr Hemond said. “There does seem to be a perceptual danger for female candidates in engaging directly with these types of comments.”

Mr Hemond added that ignoring these types of comments often makes for an effective strategy because a majority of voters are women themselves, many of whom can relate to having to handle “sexist comments gracefully”.

Some liberal residents in Michigan hope voters will see beyond the DEI attacks against Ms Harris.

“She is intelligent, she has deep experience governing and making policy,” said Brandy, a voter in Southeast Michigan.

The Morning Consult poll also showed that Ms Harris’ ratings are a significant improvement on Mr Biden’s in swing states, and that she has gained 5 points in Michigan.

But Trump has strong support here too. A week after the shooting, he spoke to a crowd of 12,000 in Grand Rapids in his first public rally since the attack.

It’s a state Trump won by 11,000 votes in 2016 when he beat Hillary Clinton. Mr Biden won it back in 2020 by over 100,000 votes.

In some respects, the political backdrop has changed since 2016, Ms Scott said.

Voters were “not excited about Hillary Clinton”, she said. “They didn’t see the power in the moment of having a woman run for president.’’

But another wave of women may have been inspired by Ms Clinton’s defeat, and Trump’s victory, Ms Scott said. After millions of women participated in marches across the US to protest Trump’s inauguration, the country saw a record number of female candidates running for office in 2018.

Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans who believe men better suited to politics than women fell from 19% in 2014 to 14% in 2018, according to data from the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. In 1975, 47% of Americans believed men made better politicians than women.

Ms Harris has already seen an outpouring of support, in particular among black women and on social media, where memes of the vice-president are ubiquitous.

She is framing the race in November as a choice between “freedom” and “chaos” under Trump who she points out has been convicted of 34 felonies.

But ultimately, it may be her diverse background and experience that pulls more voters into the race, experts said.

“So many people see themselves in her, especially in a state like Michigan, where many people are of immigrant backgrounds or are black or South Asian,” said Ms Lajevardi, the Michigan State professor. “It matters when someone knows your community’s interests and seeks to represent them.”

Technically, Ms Harris became the first female president in 2021 – when she was handed presidential powers for 85 minutes while Mr Biden underwent a health check. Now the challenge for her campaign is to see whether she can extend that to four years.

Michigan offers pointers as to how women can take the top jobs, and stay in them.

Milla Magee was crowned Miss England in May with some reports calling her the first plus size Miss England.

The 23-year-old said whatever your size “it doesn’t matter” and she wants use her reign to spread the message.

She lives in Newquay in Cornwall, but grew up in London where she was surrounded by rock ‘n’ roll, with a mum who worked at Creation Records, the label of Oasis and Primal Scream.

Her godmother is Noel Gallagher’s ex-wife Meg Matthews, and Milla was “trying to conform to the lifestyle”.

“I went to an all-girls school and I think that’s where the struggle started,” she said.

“A lot of the other girls were petite and small.

“It’s not in my bone structure to look like that but I tried to conform to that because it’s what society told me I had to look like.”

What followed was body dysmorphia, a condition which causes people to believe they are extremely ugly.

She said: “And then I just it dawned on me, I thought, ‘no, I will make it my style’.”

Looking back to curvy beauties of the past such as Marilyn Monroe was her inspiration.

“We had role models of women back in the day, like the gorgeous Marilyn Monroe, who was curvaceous, or models like Naomi Campbell, who are very tall and athletically built,” she said.

“And they’re so beautiful, and embrace their looks.

“It’s about embracing whatever we’ve been born with and it’s still beautiful.”

Now, winning the Miss England title as the only size 16 in the line-up, she wants to be “that representative that I wish I had”.

What also helped her shun the demands of the body perfect was surfing on trips down from London and in Newquay where she has lived since she was 16.

“Surfing saved my life because at that time living in London I struggled a lot mentally and that was trying to conform to the lifestyle that I was born into,” she said.

“It was a very different lifestyle to the way I live now.

“I was trying to conform to my surroundings because we’ve got this image of what men and women should look like.

“But if you’re passionate and stay true to yourself, if you’re kind and humble that’s all that matters.”

She took this body positive message all the way to the podium when she was crowned Miss England in May.

She accepted there was still a tension between what was perceived by many as a beauty contest and shunning body stereotypes, but urges a different outlook on the contest.

She said rather than being a beauty contest the ethos of Miss England is now “beauty with a purpose”.

“I wanted to be part of the movement to change perspective on these so-called pageants,” she said.

“It’s evolved so much with women from all walks of life coming together.

“We’ve had firefighters, we’ve had lawyers, we’ve had doctors, myself as the first surfer and lifeguard to represent.

“You can’t not be inspired by the women around you. It’s not about the physical on the outside, it’s about beauty from the inside.”

Did she mention lifeguard?

Yes, she trained at Fistral in Newquay and is taking it further with her campaign Go Far with CPR – which calls for the teaching of the resuscitation technique CPR to be compulsory in schools.

“It’s a skill that you can do wherever you are in the world, but it is the difference between life and death,” she said.

“Both of my grandfathers passed away before I was born due to heart attacks.”

Back at Fistral, she is on a mission to spread the word all the way to the Miss World event next year.

“I feel like if I can use my voice and use this opportunity, not only to represent… represent our beautiful country, but also use my voice for positive change and for good, that is what my purpose is,” she said.

“If I can be a representative to all those young girls who look at me and think that they can relate to that, then I’ve done my job,” she said.

X (formerly Twitter)

There are few people who have become more synonymous with the 2024 Olympics than Snoop Dogg.

When there is an American athlete vying for a medal in Paris, there is a camera ready to pan to the American rapper cheering in the stands.

He has been seen dancing alongside the US women’s gymnastics team, dressing up in equestrian gear to support American horseback riders and even trying out judo skills.

Snoop Dogg’s enthusiasm for the games has injected a new energy into the Olympics that is captivating viewers in Paris and the internet alike, and making for a highly watched summer games, according to NBC viewership numbers.

After multiple clips went viral from Snoop Dogg’s time hosting a highlight show with comedian Kevin Hart on NBC’s streaming platform Peacock during the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 – the network gave the rapper an even bigger role in 2024: special correspondent.

But Snoop Dogg has seemingly taken the role to the next level becoming a cheerleader for American athletes regardless of the sport.

He started his games with an integral role: he was among the final torchbearers of the Olympic flame before the game’s opening ceremony last week.

The 52-year-old, whose full name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr, carried the torch through the streets of Saint-Denis in the north of Paris, home to the Stade de France Olympic Stadium.

And while the role of special correspondent and his torch-bearing job were announced ahead of time, Snoop Dogg’s consistent presence and high energy for the American athletes has been a special surprise for viewers.

“We’ve been pleasantly surprised by his popularity, but you never ever underestimate Snoop Dogg,” Molly Solomon, NBC’s executive producer of the Olympics, told reporters this week.

She described him an “ambassador of happiness”.

When the US women’s gymnastics team competed earlier this week, Snoop Dogg was dancing in the stands and sporting a t-shirt with Simone Biles’ face on it.

Elsewhere in Paris, he has cheered on tennis star Coco Gauff and volleyball star Kelly Cheng, among countless others.

On Saturday, he joined American celebrity chef Martha Stewart in watching the equestrian events, while decked out in horse riding gear.

He participated in promotional judo event during the games where he was awarded an honorary black belt and got a swimming lesson from American-swimming great Michael Phelps.

Some have suggested the rapper’s presence has been a defining factor in better ratings.

Beginning on 26 July, the day of the opening ceremony, the five-day total audience average was 34 million viewers when combining daytime and primetime coverage, an NBC Sports release said.

That is up 79% from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics where viewership suffered because of the pandemic.

But beyond the ratings and the internet coalescing, Snoop Dogg said he is just enjoying himself.

Never “in his wildest dreams” did he expect to play this role in the Olympics, he told NBC Nightly News’ Lester Holt in an interview recalling watching the Olympics on TV when he was younger.

“I’m the biggest kid in the crowd,” Snoop Dogg said.

The US will deploy additional warships and fighter jets to the Middle East to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies, the Pentagon said.

Tensions remain high in the region over the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and a key commander of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Missile defence forces were placed on a state of increased readiness to deploy, the Pentagon said, adding that its commitment to defend Israel was “ironclad”.

Iran’s leader Ayatollah Khamenei has vowed “harsh punishment” against Israel for the assassination of Haniyeh.

The Hamas leader was killed in Tehran on Wednesday. Iran and its proxy in Gaza blamed the attack on Israel, which has not commented.

Haniyeh, 62, was widely considered Hamas’s overall leader and played a key role in negotiations aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Gaza war.

His death came just hours after Israel claimed it killed Fuad Shukr, the top military commander of Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah.

A Pentagon statement said the new deployments would “improve US force protection… increase support for the defence of Israel, and … ensure the US is prepared to respond to various contingencies”.

The deployments would include additional ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers, it said.

On Tel Aviv’s seafront, the mood appears relaxed with bronzed bodies lazing under beach umbrellas.

But few are in any doubt that the Middle East stands perilously close to full- scale war.

Israel is on high alert.

Several international airlines have suspended flights to the country.

Meanwhile, Israeli ministers were sent home this weekend with satellite phones in case of an attack on communication infrastructure.

Earlier on Saturday, Israeli forces killed a Hamas operative in the West Bank.

Dozens of Palestinians were reported to have been killed in strikes on Gaza in the last 24 hours – a reminder that Israel’s war in the region continues even as diplomats scramble to prevent its escalation.

The US military has stepped-up deployments before, on 13 April when Iran launched an attack on Israel with drones and missiles. Israel and its allies shot down almost all of roughly 300 drones and missiles that were fired.

Israel has not commented directly on the strike which killed Haniyeh. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country had delivered “crushing blows” to its enemies in recent days, including the killing of Shukr in Beirut.

He warned Israelis that “challenging days lie ahead… we have heard threats from all sides. We are prepared for any scenario”.

Earlier, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said the US did not believe escalation was inevitable.

“I think we are being very direct in our messaging that certainly we don’t want to see heightened tensions and we do believe there is an off-ramp here and that is that ceasefire deal,” Singh said.

An Israeli delegation will travel to Cairo in coming days for negotiations to reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, Mr Netanyahu said on Friday.

Hamas sparked the war with its 7 October attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people. Israel responded with an ongoing military operation in Gaza that has killed almost 40,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The circumstances surrounding Haniyeh’s death are, as yet, still unclear.

On Saturday, the Daily Telegraph reported that Iranian agents hired by Israel’s Mossad spy agency had planted bombs in a building where Haniyeh was staying.

The newspaper says that two agents placed bombs in three rooms of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp guesthouse in Tehran, which were detonated from abroad.

An earlier report by the New York Times said that the bombs had been snuck into the building two months earlier.

The BBC has not been able to verify these claims.

Imagine memorising lines, lyrics and dance moves for the lead role in one of the world’s biggest plays.

For the cast of Hamilton, it’s what you sign up for.

The musical, created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, has been a huge hit with audiences and critics since its Broadway debut in 2015.

It retells America’s early political history through jam-packed raps and musical numbers that hurtle through genres including hip-hop, pop and R&B.

Praised for its clever, complex lyrics, cast members sings and dance their way through an estimated 144 words per minute during each show.

Actor Jonathan Hermosa-Lopez says this is why Hamilton is regarded as the “boss level” of musical theatre.

“It’s every single element of theatre at the highest level, put together,” he says.

“The music is so demanding and so relentless in pace.”

And Jonathan should know – he’s had to memorise not one, but four different parts.

The British-Colombian actor is a member of the theatre company currently performing Hamilton on a UK and Ireland tour.

But his road to the show actually started with crushing disappointment.

He was working graveyard shifts in hospitality while trying to find acting work, and was rejected when he first auditioned for Hamilton.

“It was this weird feeling of my life falling apart,” he says. “What else is there for me to do?”

But the following week he got a call, asking him to be an “alternate Hamilton”.

Alternates, or understudies, are the people on standby to step in if a lead actor falls ill or is otherwise unable to perform.

Rather than feel intimated by the scale of the challenge, Jonathan says he embraced the opportunity.

“I sat down for 12 hours in one day, learning it word for word, note for note,” he says.

“It got filmed and sent to the American producers who have the final say on things, and I got the part.”

There’s always a chance Jonathan, who grew up in south London, could have to swap a dressing room for centre stage.

When BBC Newsbeat meets him, it’s hours before he covers the lead role in front of a full house at Birmingham’s Hippodrome.

On this occasion, he knew he’d be needed in advance, but he isn’t always given that luxury.

“I just have to jump into the show,” he says.

Jonathan recalls getting a call from Hamilton’s tour manager during its Manchester run, moments before he was about to take a shower.

He says they asked him to come down from his room immediately as lead actor Shaq Taylor, who plays Alexander Hamilton, might need to come off-stage.

“My whole body flipped,” says Jonathan.

“So I went downstairs and the heads of every department were waiting for me – ready to do my hair, my costume.

“Sound were ready to put my mic on.

“In my mind, I was like, ‘this is the job I signed up for’.

“When Shaq came off there was an announcement and, when the next song started, I was on stage starting the show again.

“It takes a village to run the show but in that moment, it’s me that has to come in and fill those shoes.”

Hamilton’s cast is mostly made up of performers from minority backgrounds playing white historical figures, many of whom forced black people to be slaves.

Others who’ve performed in the show have spoken about it giving them a platform, and Jonathan says getting on stage felt particularly significant for him.

“Living in a single-parent household, I wanted to achieve something to make my mum proud,” he says.

But although his mum was desperate to see Hamilton, Jonathan had to say “no” when she asked to go with him.

He wanted her first time to be one when he was on-stage.

“I debuted in Manchester and she finally got to watch Hamilton live with me playing Hamilton,” he says.

There is also pride in being able to provide a positive reflection of the place he grew up in – a council estate in Brixton.

“This beautiful, vibrant community, full of so much diversity.

“I wanted to do something so out of the norm for Brixton, to go into musical theatre,” he says.

He adds there are many talented people in the area “who don’t get recognised” because of a lack of opportunity to do so in south London.

And while the motto for a job tends to be to “leave everything personal outside the building”, he doesn’t subscribe to that.

“The beauty of this show is you don’t have to do that,” he says.

“You get to come in with your own energy, your own baggage and say how can I take what I have today and use it.”

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has revoked a pre-trial agreement reached with men accused of plotting the 11 September 2001 attacks.

In a memo on Friday, Mr Austin also said he was revoking the authority of the officer overseeing the military court who signed the agreement on Wednesday.

The original deal, which would reportedly have spared the alleged attackers the death penalty, was criticised by some families of victims.

The 9/11 attacks in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania were the deadliest assault on US soil since the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where 2,400 people were killed. They sparked the “War on Terror” and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

In his memo, Mr Austin named five defendants including the alleged ringleader of the plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, all of whom are held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The original deal named three men.

“I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused… responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior authority,” Mr Austin wrote to Brig Gen Susan Escallier.

“I hereby withdraw your authority. Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements.”

The White House said on Wednesday that it had played no role in the plea deal.

The five men named in the memo were: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, often referred to as KSM, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak bin Attash, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi; and two others not mentioned in the original plea: Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali.

The men have been in custody for decades without trial. All have alleged they were tortured – KSM was subjected to simulated drowning, so-called “waterboarding”, 183 times before it was banned by the US government.

All have already faced more than a decade of pre-trial hearings, complicated by the allegations and evidence of torture against them.

Several family members of victims had criticised the terms of the deal struck on Wednesday as too lenient.

Brett Eagleson, the president of 9/11 Justice, which represents survivors and relatives of victims, had told the BBC earlier this week that the families were “deeply troubled by these plea deals”.

Speaking on Saturday, Terry Strada, who lost her husband Tom and chairs the 9/11 Families United group, told the BBC she was “very pleased” to see the Pentagon revoke the plea deal and put the death penalty back on the table.

If the men are found guilty after a trial, Mrs Strada said she would want to see the death penalty, “not because I am ghoulish or a horrible person, it’s because it fits the crime”.

“They’ve murdered nearly 3,000 Americans on American soil… lives were just permanently altered on that day,” she added.

A lawyer at Guantanamo representing Mohammed told The New York Times that he was shocked by the sudden u-turn.

“If the secretary of defence issued such an order, I am respectfully and profoundly disappointed that after all of these years the government still has not learned the lessons of this case,” said lawyer Gary Sowards.

“And the mischief that results from disregarding due process and fair play.”

The men have been accused of a litany of charges, including attacking civilians, murder in violation of the laws of war, hijacking and terrorism.

In September, the Biden administration reportedly rejected the terms of a plea deal with five men held at the US Navy base in Cuba, including Mohammed.

The men had reportedly sought a guarantee from the president that they would not be kept in solitary confinement and would have access to trauma treatment.

KSM is alleged to have brought the idea of hijacking and flying planes into buildings to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. He was captured in Pakistan in 2003 along with Hawsawi, a Saudi who was an alleged fundraiser.

Ali, a computer scientist and nephew of KSM, is accused of providing technical support to the 9/11 operation.

Bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni, allegedly co-ordinated the attacks and had planned to be a hijacker but could not secure a US visa.

Bin Attash, also a Yemeni, is accused of bombing the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, which killed 17 sailors, and involvement in the 11 September attacks.

Several Republicans applauded the defence secretary for revoking the deal.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said the “Biden-Harris Administration is correct to reverse course”, which he said followed Republicans “launching investigations into this terrible plea deal”.

“Now deliver long awaited justice for 9/11 families,” he said.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said the decision “exercised good command judgement”.

“The previous plea deal would have sent absolutely the wrong signal to terrorists throughout the world,” he added.

Earlier on Friday, Republican Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Mike Rogers demanded answers from Mr Austin on how the deal was struck.

“This deal signals willingness to negotiate with terrorists who deliberately harm Americans,” he wrote in a letter to the defence secretary.

The Sam Maguire, the Tailteann Cup, the Hogan Cup, the Andy Merrigan Cup, the Sigerson Cup, plus the rest.

All in the hands of Ulster’s teams and counties.

Ulster’s domination of men’s Gaelic football culminated on 28 July as Armagh clinched the All-Ireland in a tightly contested final against Galway.

Armagh’s triumph was their first All-Ireland since 2002.

Earlier in the month, Down had won the GAA’s second-tier Gaelic football competition for county teams, the Tailteann Cup.

Away from county football, Glen from Derry won the Senior Club Football Championship back in January and Ulster University added to the celebrations for the province with their victory over University College Dublin in the Sigerson Cup.

Ulster counties topped Division One, Two and Three in the National League but not Division Four as no Ulster county was competing.

For Ulster GAA chief executive, Brian McAvoy, the sweep of trophies is “unprecedented”.

“It has been an amazing year,” he told BBC News NI.

“Armagh’s All-Ireland win was the icing on the cake and put Ulster on the top of the tree.”

He credits the work of grassroots coaches and volunteers for the dominance men’s Gaelic football has seen from Ulster this year.

“There is a lot of work that goes into it all from the grassroots,” he added.

“These players are well nurtured and when they make it to senior level they are ready to go. This was years in the making.

“These victories are for them,” he added.

Glen’s senior club All-Ireland winning captain Connor Carville says there is a “momentum in Ulster” at the minute but with the new season starting soon “nothing is guaranteed.”

He told BBC News NI: “Other counites and provinces will be looking at this success and wanting to end it.

“They will want to shoot us down. But we are very proud of what we have achieved.

“There could be new champions and that’s the beauty of sport”.

He also credits the work of grassroots volunteers for the dominance.

“It shows the passion and attitude of people who give up their time,” he added.

It is not just clubs and counties doing well but the Ulster University team is also joined in on the success.

In February of this year, they beat University College Dublin to win the Sigerson Cup.

The win shows a “correlation” in college success and county success, according to Ulster University manager Barry Dillon.

He told BBC News NI: “It’s all connected. When you look at the Dublin team that won six All-Ireland’s in a row, the Sigerson Cup stayed almost exclusively in Dublin bar a few years.

“The dominance is similar to the early 90s for Ulster but I’ve never seen a time just as good as this.

“It’s just amazing.”

• All-Ireland Senior Football Championship – Armagh
• All-Ireland Under 20s – Tyrone
• All-Ireland Minor – Derry
• Tailteann Cup – Down
• National League Division One – Derry
• National League Division Two – Donegal
• All-Ireland Senior Club – Glen (Derry)
• All-Ireland Intermediate Club – St Patrick’s (Armagh)
• All-Ireland Junior Club – Arva (Cavan)
• Sigerson Cup – Ulster University
• Hogan Cup – Omagh CBS (Tyrone)

The BBC has begun to remove Huw Edwards from some of its archive footage after the former broadcaster pleaded guilty to making indecent images of children.

It is starting with family and entertainment content on iPlayer, according to the Observer who first reported on the move.

Until last year, Edwards was one of the main presenters on BBC One’s News at Ten and often fronted coverage of major national events.

“As you would expect we are actively considering the availability of our archive,” a BBC spokesperson said.

“While we don’t routinely delete content from the BBC archive as it is a matter of historical record, we do consider the continued use and re-use of material on a case-by-case basis.”

Edwards resigned from the BBC in April citing medical advice. On Wednesday, he admitted having 41 indecent images of children, which had been sent to him by another man on WhatsApp.

The Observer claimed that the removal of certain content was aimed at “protecting audiences from repeats of Edwards’ most visible work in news and on state occasions”, including the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.

A Doctor Who episode featuring Edwards’ voice has already been removed from iPlayer.

The episode from 2006 features David Tennant and Billie Piper as the Doctor and his companion Rose Tyler. The pair travel to the future to the London 2012 Olympics where Edwards’ voice is heard as part of a televised BBC news report.

A mural of the former newsreader in the presenter’s home village of Llangennech, Carmarthenshire has also been removed.

Artist Steve Jenkins, 50, painted over the portrait on Tuesday after it was announced Edwards had been charged.

Cardiff council has also removed a plaque honouring Edwards at Cardiff Castle.

The children of a Russian spy couple who returned home on Thursday after the largest prisoner swap between the West and Russia since the Cold War only found out their nationality on the flight to Moscow.

Artem Viktorovich Dultsev and Anna Valerevna Dultseva were posing as an Argentine couple living in Slovenia when they were jailed there.

Their children do not speak a word of Russian and did not know who President Vladimir Putin was, asking their parents who was greeting them upon their arrival, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

In total, 24 people jailed in seven different countries were exchanged on Thursday.

Sixteen were Western prisoners detained in Russian jails and eight were Russian prisoners held in the US, Norway, Germany, Poland and Slovenia. Among them was Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

The Russian family of four were warmly welcomed, with Mrs Dultseva and her daughter receiving flowers and a warm embrace from President Putin.

“Buenas noches,” the president said to the spies’ children, as he greeted them in Spanish.

As reported by Argentinian media, the couple were known as María Mayer and Ludwig Gisch and arrived in Slovenia sporting their Argentinian passports in 2017.

The husband set up a start-up IT company under his alias name and the wife had an online art gallery.

The family used Ljubljana as their base and it was not until 2022 that the couple were arrested by Slovenian police on espionage charges.

Ahead of the large scale prisoner swap, Mr Dultsev and Mrs Dultseva were sentenced to 19 months in prison each, after pleading guilty to spying charges on Wednesday. But given their arrests in 2022, they were released on time served and ordered to leave Slovenia, as reported by the Associated Press.

It was not until Thursday, during the large scale Russia-West prisoner swap, that the Kremlin spies, and their children, were returned to Russia.

Life for 11-year-old Sofia and 8-year-old Gabriel, who were born in Argentina, changed thereafter and they only learnt they were Russian when the plane set off from Ankara to Vnukovo Airport, the Kremlin said.

“The children of the undercover agents asked their parents yesterday who had greeted them,” Mr Peskov said, adding: “They did not even know who Putin is.”

The Kremlin spokesman said that is how undercover agents (or “illegals”) work, “making such sacrifices for the sake of their work and their dedication to their service”.

Unlike “legal” spies, who are posted abroad under diplomatic or other official cover, illegals are on their own – working normal jobs, living in suburbs and operating without the diplomatic immunity enjoyed by other agents should they be caught.

The US embassy in Beirut has urged its citizens to leave Lebanon on “any ticket available”, amid soaring tensions in the Middle East.

The advisory follows a similar warning from UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who said the regional situation “could deteriorate rapidly”.

Iran has vowed “severe” retaliation against Israel, which it blames for the death of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday. His assassination came hours after Israel killed Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut.

It is feared that Lebanon-based Hezbollah, an Iran-backed group, could play a heavy role in any such retaliation, which in turn could spark a serious Israeli response.

• Rocket strike puts Israel and Hezbollah on brink of all-out war
• Hezbollah leader says conflict with Israel in ‘new phase’ after killings
• US to send jets and warships as Iran threatens Israel

Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets at the town of Beit Hillel in northern Israel at around 00:25 local time on Sunday (22:25 BST Saturday) .

Footage posted on social media showed Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system intercepting the rockets. There have been no reports of casualties.

Jordan’s Foreign Ministry has also issued advice to its citizens, telling those in Lebanon to leave immediately and warning others not to travel there.

Canada has warned its nationals to avoid travel to Israel, on top of existing advice against going to Lebanon, because the “situation can deteriorate further without warning” in the region.

The US embassy stated on Saturday that those who choose to stay in Lebanon should “prepare contingency plans” and be prepared to “shelter in place for an extended period of time”.

It said that several airlines have suspended and cancelled flights, and many have sold out, but “commercial transportation options to leave Lebanon remain available”.

The Pentagon said it was deploying additional warships and fighter jets to the region to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies.

The UK said it was sending extra military personnel, consular staff and border force officials to help with any evacuations – but urged UK citizens to leave Lebanon “while commercial flights are running”.

Two British military ships are already in the region and the Royal Air Force has put transport helicopters on standby.

Mr Lammy said it was “in no-one’s interest for this conflict to spread across the region”.

Meanwhile in Gaza, at least 17 people in a school sheltering displaced persons were killed by an Israeli strike, the Hamas-run authorities said on Saturday.

The Israeli military says the Hamama school in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood was being used as a command centre for militants. Hamas has denied it operates from civilian facilities.

Israeli ministers were sent home this weekend with satellite phones in case of an attack on the country’s communication infrastructure.

In April, Iran launched an air attack on Israel using 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and at least 110 ballistic missiles.

That was in retaliation for the Israeli bombing of an Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria.

Many fear Iran’s retaliation on this occasion could take a similar form.

In a phone call with EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell on Friday, Iran’s Acting Foreign Minister Ali Baqeri Kani said Iran would “undoubtedly use its inherent and legitimate right” to “punish” Israel.

On Friday, an announcer on Iran’s state TV warned “the world would witness extraordinary scenes”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Israelis that “challenging days lie ahead… We have heard threats from all sides. We are prepared for any scenario”.

Tensions between Israel and Iran initially escalated with the killing of 12 children and teenagers in a strike on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Israel accused Hezbollah and vowed “severe” retaliation, though Hezbollah denied it was involved.

Days later, senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was killed in a targeted Israeli air strike in Beirut. Four others, including two children, were also killed.

Hours after that, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran, Hamas’s main backer. He was visiting to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

At a funeral ceremony for Haniyeh in Tehran on Thursday, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, led the prayers. He had earlier vowed that Israel would suffer a “harsh punishment” for the killing.

More than 90 people were arrested after far-right demonstrations descended into riots in towns and cities across the UK on Saturday.

Bottles were thrown, shops looted, and police officers attacked in areas including Hull, Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester, Blackpool and Belfast – but not all demonstrations turned violent.

The prime minister has pledged to give police forces the government’s “full support” to take action against “extremists” attempting to “sow hate”.

Tensions have been high after the killing of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party in Southport, Merseyside, on Monday.

In Liverpool, bricks, bottles and a flare were thrown at police, one officer was hit in the head when a chair was thrown, and another was kicked and knocked off his motorbike.

A few hundred anti-fascist demonstrators gathered across from Liverpool’s Lime Street station at lunchtime, calling for unity and tolerance, chanting “refugees are welcome here” and “Nazi scum, off our streets”.

They marched down to the city’s riverside to confront around one thousand anti-immigration protestors – some of whom were shouting Islamophobic slurs.

Police in riot gear with dogs struggled to keep the two sides apart and reinforcements were called to try and maintain order.

The unrest continued into the early hours of Sunday morning, with fireworks launched towards police officers wearing riot gear.

A library was set on fire in the Walton area of the city and rioters tried to prevent firefighters from putting it out, Merseyside Police said.

Shops were broken into and a number of wheelie bins were set on fire, it added.

The force confirmed a number of officers had been injured in what they described as “serious disorder”, adding that two had been taken to hospital – one with a suspected broken nose and one with a suspected broken jaw.

It said 23 people had been arrested.

Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Simms said: “The disorder, violence and destruction has no place here in Merseyside, least of all after the tragic events that took place in Southport on Monday”.

“Those who engaged in this behaviour bring nothing but shame to themselves and this city. “

At a meeting of government ministers earlier on Saturday, a spokesperson for Sir Keir Starmer said the PM told those assembled that “the right to freedom of expression and the violent disorder we have seen are two very different things.”

He added: “there is no excuse for violence of any kind and reiterated that the government backs the police to take all necessary action to keep our streets safe”.

On Saturday, the home secretary also warned that anyone engaging in “unacceptable disorder” would face imprisonment and travel bans amongst other punishments, adding that “sufficient” prison places had been made available.

“Criminal violence and disorder has no place on Britain’s streets,” Yvette Cooper said.

Police have the government’s full backing in taking action against those engaging in “thuggery”, she added.

In Bristol, protesters and counter-protests were engaged in a standoff.

One group could be heard singing Rule Britannia, “England ’til I die” and “we want our country back”, while the other side chanted “refugees are welcome here”.

Beer cans were been thrown at the anti-racism group, and some of the rival protesters were baton-charged by officers.

Avon and Somerset Police said 14 people in the city had been arrested, with Chief Inspector Vicks Hayward-Melen anticipating there would be “further arrests over the coming days”.

In Manchester, there were scuffles with police, and at least two arrests.

While in Belfast, two people were arrested as protesters outside a mosque threw objects at members of the media and earlier smashed windows in a cafe.

In Hull, protesters smashed a window at a hotel used to house asylum seekers, and bottles and eggs were thrown at police.

City Hall was placed on lockdown as the British Chess Championships took place inside.

Humberside Police said three police officers had been injured and 20 people arrested after disorder in the city centre also saw shops ransacked and items set on fire.

In Blackpool, protesters faced off against punks attending Rebellion Festival. There was little police presence as skirmishes broke out between the two groups, with bottles and chairs thrown.

Lancashire Police said it had arrested more than 20 people. The force said its focus had been on Blackpool but there had also been “minor disruption” in Blackburn and Preston.

In Stoke-on-Trent, bricks were thrown at officers. Staffordshire Police said that two men at the centre of online claims they had been stabbed had actually been hit by an object that was thrown, and were not seriously injured.

The force said 10 people had been arrested and three officers suffered minor injuries.

Elsewhere Leicestershire Police arrested two people in Leicester city centre. And West Yorkshire Police said a protest on the Headrow in Leeds “passed off largely without incident”, despite one arrest being made.

Not all demonstrations held across the UK descended into violence on Saturday, and in some places protesters dispersed by the evening.

Saturday’s protests follow a night of violence in Sunderland on Friday, which saw four police officers hospitalised and 10 people arrested.

Hundreds of people rioted, beer cans and bricks were thrown at riot police outside a mosque and a Citizens Advice office was torched.

Twelve people have been arrested in connection with the violence.

The BBC has identified at least 30 demonstrations being planned by far-right activists around the UK over the weekend, including a new protest in Southport.

An extra 70 prosecutors are on standby this weekend to charge people arrested in connection with violent disorder.

Shadow home secretary James Cleverly called on Sir Keir and home secretary to “do more” to restore public order and “send a clear message to the thugs”.

Earlier this week, the prime minister announced a new national violent disorder programme to help clamp down on violent groups by allowing police forces to share intelligence.

Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed with a “short-range projectile” fired from outside his guesthouse in Tehran, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says.

The paramilitary organisation said the projectile weighed about 7kg (16lbs) and caused a “strong blast”, killing Haniyeh and his bodyguard last Wednesday. The Hamas leader had been visiting the Iranian capital for the inauguration of President Massoud Pezeshkian.

The IRGC accused Israel of designing and implementing the operation – supported by the US. Israel has not commented on Haniyeh’s death.

The IRGC account is at odds with reports in Western media, which have suggested that explosives were planted in the guesthouse by Israeli operatives.

The failures surrounding Haniyeh’s death, especially on a day marked by intense security, have caused embarrassment for Iran and the IRGC.

Dozens of IRGC officers have been arrested or dismissed in the days since Haniyeh’s death, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The paper said the organisation’s intelligence agency had taken over the investigation. Staff members at Haniyeh’s guesthouse have been interrogated and their phones and other electronics have been seized, it added.

Meanwhile, the security details of Iranian politicians have been overhauled. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh on Thursday, but was whisked away soon after the ceremony by his security detail.

The IRGC’s statement on Saturday came after Britain’s Daily Telegraph said Haniyeh was killed by bombs planted in his room by agents of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency

Citing Iranian officials, the paper said two Mossad agents had entered the guesthouse and planted explosives in three rooms. The Iranians, who had viewed CCTV footage of the operatives, said the two subsequently left the country before detonating the bombs from outside Iran.

The New York Times also reported that Haniyeh was killed by explosives detonated in his room, saying they could have been planted up to two months earlier. The BBC has not been able to verify these claims.

But Hamas officials told the BBC earlier this week that Haniyeh had stayed at the same guesthouse before. He had made up to 15 visits to Iran since becoming the head of the political bureau in 2017.

The papers’ reports – if true – would represent an even bigger failure for the IRGC, who have long controlled internal security in the country. Experts also said it would highlight the degree to which Mossad can operate with impunity in Iran.

Regardless of the manner of Haniyeh’s death, both Iran and Hamas have vowed to retaliate.

The IRGC said on Saturday that Israel would receive “a severe punishment at the appropriate time, place and manner”.

Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia and political group in Lebanon, has also vowed reprisals. One of their top commanders, Fuad Shukr, was killed in an Israeli strike last Tuesday.

After an Israeli operation killed IRGC Brig Gen Mohammad Reza Zahedi in Damascus earlier this year, Iran fired 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and at least 110 ballistic missiles towards Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Israelis that “challenging days lie ahead… We have heard threats from all sides. We are prepared for any scenario”.

His ministers were sent home this weekend with satellite phones in case of an attack on the country’s communication infrastructure.

Despite the government’s warnings, the mood appeared relaxed on Tel Aviv’s seafront, with bronzed bodies lazing under beach umbrellas.

But few are in any doubt that the Middle East stands perilously close to full-scale war.

Israel is on high alert and several international airlines have suspended flights to the country.

The US has also deployed additional warships and fighter jets to the Middle East to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies, the Pentagon said.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has warned that the risk that “the situation on the ground could deteriorate rapidly is rising”.

Meanwhile, at least 10 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, the Hamas-run government media office has said.

It comes as Israel said an airstrike it conducted in the occupied West Bank killed a Hamas commander and four senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters on Saturday.

The Israeli military said the air strike hit a vehicle as the men were on the way to carry out an attack.

Elsewhere, Israeli officials – including the directors of Mossad and the internal security agency Shin Bet – have arrived in Cairo for fresh ceasefire talks.

They will meet Egyptian intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel, and other senior military officials in a bid to rescue a potential truce. But US President Joe Biden admitted on Friday that Haniyeh’s death had damaged the talks.

Haniyeh was heavily involved in negotiations and Mr Biden said his death “doesn’t help” efforts to end the ten-month old conflict.

The war began in October when Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.

The attack triggered a massive Israeli military response, which has killed at least 39,550 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Ukraine’s military says it attacked and destroyed a Russian submarine while it was anchored at a port in the occupied Crimean peninsula.

The Rostov-on-Don, a kilo-class attack submarine launched in 2014, sank after it was struck in a missile attack on the port city of Sevastopol on Friday, Ukraine’s general staff said in a statement.

It was reportedly one of four submarines operated by Russia’s Black Sea fleet capable of launching Kalibr cruise missiles. The Russian defence ministry has not commented.

Officials in Kyiv said the attack also destroyed four S-400 air defence systems protecting the peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.

Intelligence officials in the UK noted last September that the Rostov-on-Don “likely suffered catastrophic damage” in a missile strike while undergoing maintenance at a Sevastopol shipyard.

Ukraine’s military said Russia subsequently repaired the vessel and it was recently testing its capabilities near Sevastopol. The vessel was worth $300m (£233m), they added.

“The destruction of Rostov-on-Don once again proves that there is no safe place for the Russian fleet in the Ukrainian territorial waters of the Black Sea,” the general staff in Kyiv said in a statement on Saturday.

It marks the latest attack on Russian naval forces in Sevastopol in recent months. In March alone, Ukraine said it hit two landing ships and a patrol vessel in the port city.

Since Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 it has suffered several major naval setbacks. Ukraine says it has seriously damaged or sunk at least 15 warships, including the Black Sea fleet’s flagship, the Moskva.

Last week Ukraine’s military said Moscow had been forced to withdraw all of its naval assets from the Sea of Azov – a body of water connected to the Black Sea – due to repeated strikes on its vessels.

And Russia’s internal security service, the FSB, recently said it foiled a Ukrainian plot to destroy its last remaining aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov. The ship, launched in 1985, has been undergoing repairs since 2018.

Meanwhile, officials in Kyiv said Ukrainian drones targeted a major airfield and oil depots in Russia.

The attack targeted the Morozovsk airfield, where guided bombs which have recently wrecked havoc on Ukrainian cities, are stored.

Online footage said to be from the base showed powerful explosions and huge fires, after what appears to be several hits on fuel or ammunition depots. Russia said many of the drones used were shot down, but local authorities have declared a state of emergency around the air base.

Oil storage facilities were also targeted in the Rostov, Kursk and Belgorod regions.

The attacks come after Russia launched more than 600 guided air bombs towards Ukraine in a week, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

He said that it was crucial that Ukraine stopped Russian aircraft from launching the munitions and said that attacking airfields in Russia to do so was “quite fair”.

Ukraine’s allies have previously been reluctant to allow it to strike within Russia using Western weapons, though the US has recently granted Kyiv permission to attack some targets along the border.

Earlier this week Lithuania’s foreign minister said the first deliveries of F-16 fighter jets had arrived in Ukraine. Long promised by Kyiv’s Nato allies, President Zelenky views the planes as central to his country’s air defence plans.

The Times newspaper reported that six jets donated by the Netherlands had arrived in the country, but Dutch defence officials declined to comment when approached by the BBC earlier this week.

Officials in Kyiv will also hope that the jets can help arrest Russian momentum on the frontlines. Moscow’s forces have been making incremental gains in the east of the country for several weeks.

Something remarkable has happened to A23a, the world’s biggest iceberg.

For months now it has been spinning on the spot just north of Antarctica when really it should be racing along with Earth’s most powerful ocean current.

Scientists say the frozen block, which is more than twice the size of Greater London, has been captured on top of a huge rotating cylinder of water.

It’s a phenomenon oceanographers call a Taylor Column – and it’s possible A23a might not escape its jailer for years.

“Usually you think of icebergs as being transient things; they fragment and melt away. But not this one,” observed polar expert Prof Mark Brandon.

“A23a is the iceberg that just refuses to die,” the Open University researcher told BBC News.

The berg’s longevity is well documented. It broke free from the Antarctic coastline way back in 1986, but then almost immediately got stuck in the bottom-muds of the Weddell Sea.

For three decades it was a static “ice island”. It didn’t budge. It wasn’t until 2020 that it re-floated and started to drift again, slowly at first, before then charging north towards warmer air and waters.

In early April this year, A23a stepped into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) – a juggernaut that moves a hundred times as much water around the globe as all Earth’s rivers combined.

This was meant to put boosters on the near-trillion-tonne berg, rifling it up into the South Atlantic and certain oblivion.

Instead, A23a went precisely nowhere. It remains in place just north of South Orkney Islands, turning in an anti-clockwise direction by about 15 degrees a day. And as long as it does this, its decay and eventual demise will be delayed.

A23a has not grounded again; there is at least a thousand metres of water between its underside and the seafloor.

It’s been stopped in its tracks by a type of vortex first described in the 1920s by a brilliant physicist, Sir G.I. (Geoffrey Ingram) Taylor.

The Cambridge academic was a pioneer in the field of fluid dynamics, and was even brought into the Manhattan Project to model the likely stability of the world’s first atomic bomb test.

Prof Taylor showed how a current that meets an obstruction on the seafloor can – under the right circumstances – separate into two distinct flows, generating a full-depth mass of rotating water between them.

In this instance, the obstruction is a 100km-wide bump on the ocean bottom known as Pirie Bank. The vortex sits on top of the bank, and for now A23a is its prisoner.

“The ocean is full of surprises, and this dynamical feature is one of the cutest you’ll ever see,” said Prof Mike Meredith from the British Antarctic Survey.

“Taylor Columns can also form in the air; you see them in the movement of clouds above mountains. They can be just a few centimetres across in an experimental laboratory tank or absolutely enormous as in this case where the column has a giant iceberg slap-bang in the middle of it.”

How long might A23a continue to perform its spinning-top routine?

Who knows, but when Prof Meredith placed a scientific buoy in a Taylor Column above another bump to the east of Pirie Bank, the floating instrument was still rotating in place four years later.

A23a is a perfect illustration once again of the importance of understanding the shape of the seafloor.

Submarine mountains, canyons and slopes have a profound influence on the direction and mixing of waters, and on the distribution of the nutrients that drive biological activity in the ocean.

And this influence extends also to the climate system: it’s the mass movement of water that helps disperse heat energy around the globe.

A23a’s behaviour can be explained because the ocean bottom just north of South Orkney is reasonably well surveyed.

That’s not the case for much of the rest of the world.

Currently, only a quarter of Earth’s seafloor has been mapped to the best modern standard.

US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are at odds over their first head-to-head debate, with each in favour of a different broadcaster and date.

The Harris campaign is pushing for a debate to take place on ABC News on 10 September, in a slot previously scheduled for a debate between President Joe Biden and Mr Trump.

But Mr Trump says the ABC debate has been “terminated” by Mr Biden leaving the race – and has instead pushed for himself and Ms Harris to debate on Fox News on 4 September.

The pair will face off for the presidency when the US goes to the polls on 5 November.

The disagreement began after President Biden dropped out of the race on 21 July, with Ms Harris immediately becoming favourite to secure the Democratic nomination.

• Project 2025 – a wishlist for a Trump presidency
• A guide to Donald Trump’s four criminal cases
• Who could be Harris’s running mate?

Since then, Mr Trump has been non-committal about whether he will still take part in the previously scheduled ABC News debate.

US TV networks have been negotiating with both campaigns to arrange new dates.

On Friday night, Mr Trump wrote on his social network Truth Social that he had accepted Fox News’ proposal for a debate on 4 September, which is pencilled to take place in Pennsylvania – a key battleground state.

He wrote that the moderators would be Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum – and that the rules would be similar to his debate with Mr Biden.

“If for any reason Kamala is unwilling or unable to debate on that date, I have agreed with Fox to do a major Town Hall on the same September 4th evening,” he wrote.

Mr Trump added that the prior agreement has been terminated because Joe Biden is no longer taking part and because his defamation case against the broadcaster would mean there is a conflict of interest.

The Harris campaign has responded saying the former president is “running scared” and is trying to back out of the agreed debate. They said he’s looking to Fox News – a conservative cable network – to “bail him out”.

“He needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to on Sept 10,” Michael Tyler, Harris Campaign communications director said.

Ms Harris followed up on social media, saying it is interesting how “any time, any place” becomes “one specific time, one specific safe space”.

“I’ll be there on September 10th, like he agreed to,” she wrote.

Ms Harris’ team said they are open to discussing further debates but only after the agreed one takes place.

If and when the next debate does happen it will be keenly watched to see how the two contenders match up.

Ms Harris secured enough pledges to become the Democratic nominee on Friday.

During a campaign rally in Atlanta on Wednesday, Ms Harris challenged Mr Trump to debate her, saying “if you got something to say, say it to my face”.

The debate news comes just hours after a report by the Homeland Security Department revealed that the US Secret Service made mistakes in their response to the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

Ms Harris, who was then vice-president-elect, came within 20ft (6m) of a “viable” pipe bomb planted outside the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington.

That bomb – and a similar one found at the Republican National Committee headquarters – were placed near the buildings the night before Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol. It remains unclear who planted both pipe bombs.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• ANALYSIS: Three ways Trump will try to end Harris honeymoon
• SWING STATES: Where the election could be won and lost
• EXPLAINER: RFK Jr and others running for president
• VOTERS: US workers in debt to buy groceries

Bangladesh is tense as both anti-government protesters and the governing Awami League are set to hold rallies across the country on Sunday.

The demonstrations are happening in the aftermath of deadly violence during protests last month over quotas in civil service jobs, in which more than 200 people were killed.

Around 10,000 people have been reportedly detained in a major crackdown by security forces in the past two weeks. Those arrested included opposition supporters and students.

Students Against Discrimination, a group behind the anti-government demonstrations, has called on prime minister Sheikh Hasina to step down.

The group has announced a nationwide disobedience movement starting from Sunday, urging citizens not to pay taxes or any utility bills. The students have also called for a shutdown of all factories and public transport.

The Awami League, the party of Ms Hasina, is also holding marches across the country on Sunday.

With both sides set to hold rallies there are concerns that there could be further violence.

The next few days are seen as crucial for both camps.

“Sheikh Hasina should not only resign, there should be a trial for the killings, looting and corruption,” Nahid Islam, one of the student movement’s leaders, told thousands of people at a gathering on Saturday in Dhaka.

The protests pose a momentous challenge to Ms Hasina, who was elected for a fourth consecutive term in January elections, boycotted by the main opposition.

Students took to the streets last month over the reservation of many civil service jobs for relatives of the veterans of Bangladesh’s independence war with Pakistan in 1971.

Most of the quota has now been scaled back by the government following a government ruling, but students have continued to protest, demanding justice for those killed and injured. Now they want Ms Hasina to step down.

Supporters of Ms Hasina have ruled out her resignation.

Earlier, Ms Hasina offered unconditional dialogue with the student leaders, saying she wanted the violence to end.

“I want to sit with the agitating students of the movement and listen to them. I want no conflict,” she said.

But the student protesters have rejected her offer.

Ms Hasina called in the military last month to restore order after several police stations and state buildings were set on fire during the protests.

The Bangladeshi army chief, General Waker-Uz-Zaman, held a meeting with junior officers in Dhaka to assess the security situation.

“Bangladesh Army has always stood by the people and will continue to do so for the interest of people and in any need of the state,” Gen Zaman said, according to a release by the Inter Services Public Relation Directorate.

The protests have restarted in several cities and the government is struggling to control the rising tide of anger over how it initially responded to the demonstrations.

Bangladeshi media says most of those killed in last month’s protests were shot dead by police. Thousands were injured.

The government argues that police opened fire only in self-defence and to protect state properties.

Two plain-clothed police officers were waiting for Dmitry Gudkov as he arrived at London’s Luton Airport last summer. The Russian opposition politician, who lives in exile in an EU country, was flying to the UK to attend a friend’s birthday.

“They were there to intercept me immediately after I exited the plane,” Dmitry says. “That had never happened to me before.”

But the police weren’t arresting him – instead, they wanted to warn him.

“They told me I’m on a list of people who are in danger. They asked where I’ll be staying and what phone I’ll be using.”

Dmitry Gudkov is the co-founder of the Anti-War Committee, an organisation that co-ordinates efforts to oppose the war in Ukraine. He is wanted in Russia for “spreading fakes” about the Russian army.

The start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to a wide-ranging crackdown against opponents inside Russia. Almost all activists and independent journalists fled the country.

Now, a number of Kremlin critics living in Europe have told the BBC that Russia is stepping up its efforts to silence, threaten and persecute opponents abroad. Some were unwilling to share their stories publicly. The Russian embassy in London didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Analyst Mark Galeotti, who studies the Russian security services, agrees that the campaign against Russia’s “enemies” abroad is intensifying. “I think it reflects the growing paranoia of the Kremlin,” he says, “that it is involved in an existential political struggle.”

With all dissent snuffed out at home, Russia is turning its attention to opponents who have sought refuge in the West. Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who is now deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, described them as “traitors who have gone over to the enemy and want their Fatherland to perish”.

Another anti-Kremlin activist was also contacted by British police. “They said they needed to discuss the safety of me and my family,” Ksenia Maximova tells me.

The founder of the Russian Democratic Society in London says the police advised her not to travel to certain countries where Russian agents operate more freely.

“[The Kremlin is] stepping up the campaign against ‘enemies’, that’s absolutely true,” she says, “They’re tightening the screws.”

She and her fellow campaigners have noticed an uptick in cyber attacks and attempts to infiltrate the group online.

In a statement to the BBC, a spokesperson for UK Counter Terrorism Policing said, “We have been open for some time now about the growing demand within our casework relating to countering state threats… We have been actively increasing resources dedicated to countering the activity of hostile states.”

In December, new UK legislation came into effect, giving police more powers to tackle threats from hostile states such as Russia.

“Parasites can’t sleep in peace…” was one of the messages that investigative journalist Alesya Marokhovskaya received last year.

The threats were accompanied by the name of the street in Prague where she lived. “I moved house to make it harder for them,” says Alesya.

“We thought it may just be some crazy Czech guy who was pro-Putin and had recognised me on the street.”

But then the messages became more sinister – calling her a “scumbag” and promising to find her “wherever she walks her wheezing dog”.

Alesya’s dog really does wheeze when it walks. She informed the Czech police.

Later, Alesya was due to fly to Sweden to attend a conference. The sender then sent even more specific threats: details of her flight, seat number and the hotel she had booked. “It was clear they had high-level access to documents,” Alesya says. “It looks like the behaviour of the Russian state.”

Alesya had been branded a ‘foreign agent’ years before by the Russian government, due to her work at independent Russian news website iStories.

“When I left Russia and came to Prague, I had this illusion of security,” says Alesya. “Now I realise that [Russian intelligence services] can get their hands on people almost anywhere in Europe. I can’t say I’m not afraid, because I am.”

But why is this happening now? Experts suggest the Russian security services are beginning to activate operations abroad after a period of turmoil. Hundreds of Russian diplomats believed to be intelligence agents operating under diplomatic cover were expelled from Western countries following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“There was a period of confusion after 2022,” says Andrei Soldatov, a Russian journalist who writes about the intelligence services. “In 2023, the agencies regrouped and found a new sense of purpose. They got resources and began increasing pressure.”

Mark Galeotti says the authorities are increasingly turning to proxies to do their dirty work – criminal gangs: “If you want someone beaten up or even killed, they’re a lot easier to engage,” says Mr Galeotti, who has been writing about the links between the Russian state and organised crime for years.

“They’re going to be some thug – maybe someone whom the Russian-based organised crime groups have at some point dealt with.”

The Polish government believes that’s what happened in the case of Leonid Volkov, a prominent activist and associate of the late Alexei Navalny. He was brutally attacked with a hammer in Lithuania four months ago, but survived.

The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, said a Belarusian man working for Russian intelligence had paid two Polish football hooligans to carry out the assault. All three have been arrested.

“Intimidation is the intent,” suggests Mark Galeotti. “The idea that you’d better keep your head down. It’s a way of deterring the emergence of some kind of coherent political opposition [to the Kremlin].”

The Russian authorities also try to make day-to-day life as difficult as possible for opponents abroad.

Activist Olesya Krivtsova, 21, escaped from Russia after being arrested and threatened with jail for anti-war posts on social media. She now lives in Norway, but recently discovered her Russian passport had been cancelled, meaning she can’t apply for travel documents.

“I think this is a new [method] of repression,” Olesya says. “They’re always thinking, how can we do more, how can we pressure them?”

Several other activists living abroad have also had their passports cancelled without warning. Many have criminal cases open against them in Russia – without a valid passport, they cannot hire lawyers or make payments back home. The only way to resolve the issue is to return to Russia.

For Olesya, returning would mean arrest and prison. She has now applied for a temporary Norwegian ID for refugees.

“In Russia, now I only have one right – the right to go to prison. My passport is cancelled. This shows the essence of their cruelty,” says the young activist.

“They’ve already completely destroyed my life and the life of my family…They’re never going to stop.”

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has addressed a mass rally in the capital Caracas, defying government calls for her arrest.

Ms Machado went into hiding earlier this week after accusing President Nicolás Maduro of defrauding the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, of a clear victory in the presidential election.

The president in turn has promised “maximum punishment” for anti-government demonstrators who say his re-election was rigged.

The electoral commission – controlled by allies of Mr Maduro – has insisted he won with 52% of last Sunday’s vote, but independent observers have said it lacked transparency.

The commission has not published the full breakdown of results. The opposition has said its own vote tally shows it won the election by a wide margin. Opinion polls ahead of the election had suggested a clear victory for the challenger.

On Saturday Ms Machado addressed thousands of her supporters in Caracas from a truck bearing a banner reading “Venezuela has won”.

“We have never been so strong as today,” she told the crowd, adding that “the regime has never been weaker… It has lost all legitimacy”.

The opposition leader, who was blocked from running in the election, has spent days in hiding.

Earlier this week, Ms Machado wrote in The Wall Street Journal that she had been left “fearing for my life,” along with other opposition leaders.

She was greeted by cheers of “freedom, freedom” and was accompanied by several other opposition leaders – but not Mr Gonzales.

In a separate a video message he urged supporters to “respond to the regime’s attacks with hope, harmony, and peace”.

Security forces in Venezuela have spent the past several days trying to contain mass protests. At least 11 people have died in clashes with police.

Speaking to supporters in Caracas on Saturday, Mr Maduro said around “2,000 prisoners” had been detained since the election a week ago.

He promised “maximum punishment” for them, adding: “This time there will be no forgiveness.”

The government is coming under increasing international pressure. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that there was “overwhelming evidence” that Mr Gonzalez had won the election.

His intervention comes as the presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia all called on Venezuela to release detailed election results.

Other regional governments, including Argentine, Costa Rica, Panama and Uruguay have all raised concern over the vote.

But Mr Maduro has been backed by his allies in Russia, China and Cuba.

He has asked Venezuela’s top court to audit the voting tallies with a view to confirming the results, which handed him another six-year term in power.

The opposition says the court is in the hands of government loyalists who will delay the publication of the tallies. Mr Gonzalez boycotted court proceedings on Friday.

Mystery surrounds an American woman who was found chained to a tree “screaming” in a forest in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

Lalita Kayi, 50, was discovered a week ago in the dense forests of Sindhudurg district after her cries for help were heard by shepherds. They alerted the police who sawed off the chain and rescued her.

Ms Kayi, who appeared completely emaciated, was taken to hospital. Her physical health has since improved and, on Friday, she was moved to a psychiatric facility for further treatment, doctors treating her told the BBC.

In a written statement to the police, she has alleged that her husband “chained her and left her in the forest to die without food or water”.

Police say they are looking for her husband in the southern state of Tamil Nadu on the basis of information she provided them.

But seven days after Ms Kayi was rescued, many questions remain unanswered.

Pandurang Gawkar, a cow herder who found her last Saturday, told BBC Marathi that he had taken his cattle to graze in the forest when he heard “a woman screaming loudly”.

“The sound was coming from the forest on the side of the mountain. When I went there, I saw that one of her legs was tied to a tree. She was screaming like an animal. I called other villagers and the local police.”

Police said that on her they found a copy of her passport, which stated that she was an American citizen, and her Aadhaar card – a unique ID for Indians – with her home address in Tamil Nadu.

They said she also had a mobile phone, a tablet and 31,000 rupees ($370; £290) in her possession – which allowed them to rule out theft as a motive.

Locals say that it was the woman’s good fortune that the shepherd picked a spot near her to graze his flock that day. The forest she was discovered in is vast and she otherwise could have gone for days without anyone hearing her cries for help.

Police initially took her to a local hospital before moving her to a hospital in the neighbouring state of Goa.

Dr Shivanand Bandekar, dean of Goa Medical College, told The Indian Express newspaper that she had some wounds on her leg and that she appeared to be suffering from a mental health condition.

“We do not know for how long she did not eat, but her vital signs are stable,” Dr Bandekar said.

On Friday, the woman’s physical health had improved enough to be moved to a psychiatric hospital in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra state.

“Currently, her health is stable,” hospital superintendent Dr Sanghamitra Phule told BBC Marathi.

“She is taking medication, eating, and interacting with people. If she wants something, she can communicate it. She only knows English.”

According to the police, Ms Kayi was a ballet dancer and yoga practitioner in America – some reports say specifically Massachusetts – and moved to India about 10 years ago to study yoga and meditation in Tamil Nadu.

It was there that she met her husband – in some media reports, police have called him Satish. Police say they believe at some point she fell out with her husband.

Some reports say that she stayed in a hotel in Goa for two days and then travelled to Mumbai city, India’s financial capital.

But there is no clarity surrounding when or how she then ended up in the forest where she was discovered last week.

Ms Kayi, who was initially unable to speak, communicated with the police and doctors by scribbling notes on a pad. Through them she blamed her husband for tying her to the tree and claimed that she had gone without food and water for 40 days.

She also claimed that she had been given an “injection for extreme psychosis” which locked her jaw and prevented her from drinking water, and that she had to be provided nutrition intravenously.

“I am a victim and survived. But he ran away from here,” she alleged.

Police say they have been unable to verify these claims and believe it is unlikely that someone would survive without food or water for so long.

They have registered a case of attempted murder against her husband and have dispatched teams to Tamil Nadu, Goa and Maharashtra to investigate the matter further. Her husband is yet to be traced by the police and hasn’t made any statements to the media.

Police say they are also looking for clues in the mobile phone and the tablet they found on the woman.

The US embassy in Delhi – which media reports say has been “exerting pressure on the police to speed up the investigation” – has refused to comment on the case.

A spokesperson told the BBC that it could not respond to inquiries “due to the US Privacy Act”, which governs the dissemination of private information.