Tributes have been paid to 18-year-old Hannah Lynch, after divers recovered what is believed to be her body in the wreckage of a luxury yacht which sank off Sicily.

Hannah was the last person unaccounted for after the luxury yacht Bayesian sank during a freak storm off the Italian fishing village of Porticello, east of Palermo, claiming seven lives in total.

Friends have described her as a “warm and beautiful soul”, while teachers praised her “sky-high intellectual ability”.

The body of her father, tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, was recovered from the shipwreck earlier this week.

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• ‘UK’s greatest tech entrepreneur’ – tributes paid to Mike Lynch

The family released a picture of the two on Friday.

In a statement a spokesperson said: “The Lynch family is devastated, in shock and is being comforted and supported by family and friends.”

“Their thoughts are with everyone affected by the tragedy. They would like to sincerely thank the Italian coastguard, emergency services and all those who helped in the rescue.”

“Their one request now is that their privacy be respected at this time of unspeakable grief.”

“Mike was the most brilliant mind and caring person I have ever known,” a close friend, Andrew Kanter, said. “His passion for life, knowledge and all those around him was instantly inspiring to everyone he met, and he will be sorely missed.”

The Italian Coast Guard released a statement saying the rescue operations have come to an end with the recovery of Hannah Lynch, adding that a total of seven people were confirmed dead.

The survivors include a one-year-old child and Hannah’s mother, Angela Bacares.

Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy Bloomer, Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo, his wife Neda Morvillo and the boat’s chef Recaldo Thomas all died in the disaster.

Italian authorities are continuing to investigate the circumstances around Monday’s incident.

In cases like this one, it is common for officials to embark on a broad investigation – known as a ‘crime hypothesis’ – that considers a series of possible criminal charges.

Approached by BBC News, the Italian police confirmed an investigation was ongoing but no charges have yet been brought.

Rescuers described the search operation, which started on Monday, as “complex”, with divers limited to 12-minute underwater shifts.

After reports emerged that the final body had been found, a coastguard vessel which had been at the site of the shipwreck for hours could be seen back in the port.

Meanwhile, a helicopter landed nearby as divers took off their orange suits on the quayside.

A decision on whether to raise the sunken yacht from the seabed is “not on the agenda” but will be in the future, a spokesperson from the Italian Coastguard has said.

The ship was “practically intact” on the seabed, according to divers on the search and rescue team.

On Friday morning a flag outside Hannah Lynch’s school in Hammersmith in west London was being flown at half mast to mark her death.

She had recently finished her A-levels and had been offered a place to study English at the University of Oxford, according to the Times.

“We are all incredibly shocked by the news,” a spokesperson for Latymer Upper School said.

“Our thoughts are with their family and everyone involved,” they added.

Gracie Lea, a classmate of Hannah, described her as “easy to love: sincere, dedicated, fiercely intelligent and genuinely kind. I’ll always remember her smiling”.

Four prison employees have been killed after prisoners staged a revolt in a Russian penal colony and took eight hostages, federal authorities say.

Special forces stormed the IK-19 Surovikino facility in the southwestern Volgograd region after knife-wielding prisoners, who identified themselves as Islamic State (IS) militants, claimed to have taken control of the sprawling complex.

Authorities said the special forces operation had freed some hostages and “neutralised” all the attackers, but later confirmed that four prison employees died in the attack.

An unverified image posted on social media appeared to show an inmate holding a knife standing above a bloodied prison guard during the revolt.

Russia’s Rosgvardia National Guard said snipers shot four attackers in the rescue operation.

Heavily armed troops were filmed arriving at the prison in footage posted to the Telegram messaging app by the National Guard.

The attack began during a disciplinary commission meeting, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement. During the attack, the attackers slashed guards and wounded several prison staff.

Federal prison authorities said eight people had been taken hostage. Some reports in Russian media suggested that the prison’s director and deputy director had been seized.

In dramatic mobile phone footage released by the attackers, they identified themselves as IS militants. The men said they were motivated by the desire to avenge the persecution of Muslims.

The video also showed prison officials lying in pools of blood, while in separate clips the attackers roamed the prison courtyard.

Volgograd regional governor Andrei Bocharov said earlier that the hostage-taking posed “no threat to the civilian population”.

President Vladimir Putin was filmed taking part in a virtual meeting with security chiefs, during which the Kremlin said he had been updated on the situation.

The Volgograd hostage-taking is the second such incident this summer, after six prisoners who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group captured two guards at a facility in the neighbouring Rostov region.

Five of the prisoners were killed and a sixth sentenced to 20 years in prison following the attack.

Prosecutors said they had opened a case relating to a hostage-taking.

IK-19 Surovikino is a high-security penal colony. It is believed to hold about 1,200 inmates.

A court in Taipei has jailed eight Taiwanese soldiers for spying on behalf of China in exchange for money.

Retired military officers bribed active duty soldiers with as much as 700,000 Taiwan dollars ($21,900; £16,700) to join a spy network, the court found.

One of the men, who was believed to be key to recruiting soldiers, got a 13-year sentence, the longest in the group.

One of the recruits, a lieutenant-colonel, was handed nine years for planning to defect to China by flying a helicopter, while another shot an instructional video about surrendering to China in the event of war.

China sees self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province that will eventually be under its control, and has not ruled out the use of force to take the island.

The two sides have been spying on each other since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.

Ten people in total were indicted for spying last year, and eight were sentenced on Thursday. The court acquitted one, while another – a retired officer – remains at large.

“They were seduced by money,” the court said.

“Their actions violated their official duties of being loyal to the country, defending the country and the people… to seriously endanger national security and the well-being of the people of Taiwan.”

Taiwan recently flagged Beijing’s growing espionage efforts, with the sentencing on Thursday the latest in a string of cases.

Last month, a sergeant who worked at a navy training centre was indicted for allegedly photographing and leaking confidential defence data to China.

Taipei has also raised concern over the growing frequency of Chinese fighter jet flights around the island.

On Friday, Taiwan’s President William Lai said the island’s people “must unite as one” and “defend national sovereignty and safeguard democracy”.

He was speaking at an event to commemorate the 66th anniversary of China’s assault on Taiwan’s Kinmen islands.

A 10-month-old baby has been partially paralysed after contracting polio in Gaza, United Nations officials have said.

According to the UN, Gaza, now in its 11th month of war, has not registered a polio case for 25 years, although type 2 poliovirus was detected in samples collected from the territory’s wastewater in June.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he is “gravely concerned” and confirmed that efforts are under way to roll out a vaccination programme in the coming weeks.

The 10-month-old, who was unvaccinated, is said to be in a stable condition after developing paralysis in one leg.

Poliovirus, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious.

It can cause disfigurement and paralysis, and is potentially fatal. It mainly affects children under the age of five.

Humanitarian groups have blamed the re-emergence of polio in Gaza on disruption to child vaccination programmes and massive damage to water and sanitation systems caused by the war.

In order to try to contain the spread, the UN has been pressing for a week-long pause in fighting to carry out a polio vaccination campaign for more than 640,000 children under the age of 10.

UN Secretary General António Guterres said “hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza [are] at risk”.

He said that for the campaign to be successful, transport of vaccines and required equipment would need to be facilitated, as well as the entry of polio experts into Gaza.

Adequate fuel, increased flow of cash, reliable communications and the ensured safety of both health workers and people reaching health facilities were also needed, he said.

WHO has approved the release of 1.6 million doses of vaccine, UNICEF is coordinating their delivery along with cold storage units and UNRWA’s medical teams will administer the vaccines once they arrive in Gaza.

UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russel said that the re-emergence of the virus in the strip after 25 years is “another sobering reminder of how chaotic, desperate and dangerous the situation has become”.

On 18 August, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said since the beginning of the war, 282,126 vials of the polio vaccine, sufficient for 2,821,260 doses, have been sent to Gaza.

It said in the coming weeks, an additional 60,000 vaccines will be delivered to vaccinate over one million children.

According to the IDF, entry to the Gaza Strip for vaccines and epidemic prevention is being facilitated by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT),

“This includes the entry of medical teams and vaccines against the polio virus,” the IDF said.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October by Hamas gunmen, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

More than 40,265 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and combatant deaths. The UN human rights office says most of those killed were women and children.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Ukraine to hold talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky. The trip comes just weeks after he met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

The visit is significant because Kyiv and some Western capitals had reacted sharply to Mr Modi’s visit to the Russian capital in July.

Mr Zelensky was particularly critical, saying he was “disappointed to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow”.

So, is Mr Modi visiting Kyiv to placate Mr Zelensky and other Western leaders?

Not entirely.

It’s not surprising to see India balance its relations between two competing nations or blocs. The country’s famed non-alignment approach to geopolitics has served it well for decades.

Friday’s visit – the first by an Indian prime minister to Ukraine – is more about signalling that while India will continue to have strong relations with Russia, it will still work closely with the West.

Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Centre think-tank in Washington, says the trip will further reassert India’s strategic autonomy.

“India isn’t in the business of placating Western powers, or anyone for that matter. It’s a trip meant to advance Indian interests, by reasserting friendship with Kyiv and conveying its concerns about the continuing war,” he says.

However, the timing of the visit does reflect that Indian diplomats have taken onboard the sharp reactions from the US to Mr Modi’s Moscow visit.

India has refrained from directly criticising Russia over the war, much to the annoyance of Western powers.

• Modi’s balancing act as he meets Putin in Moscow

Delhi, however, has often spoken about the importance of respecting territorial integrity and sovereignty of nations. It has continuously pushed for diplomacy and dialogue to end the war.

Mr Modi’s Moscow visit in July came hours after Russian bombing killed at least 41 people in Ukraine, including at a children’s hospital in Kyiv, sparking a global outcry.

The Indian PM said the death of children was painful and terrifying but stopped short of blaming Russia.

Mr Modi is not likely to deviate from this stance during his visit to Kyiv. The US and other Western nations have grown to accept Delhi’s stand, given India’s time-tested relationship with Moscow and its reliance on Russian military equipment.

India, the world’s largest importer of arms, has diversified its defence import portfolio and also grown domestic manufacturing in recent years but it still buys more than 50% of its defence equipment from Russia.

India has also increased its oil imports from Russia, taking advantage of cheaper prices offered by Moscow – Russia was the top oil supplier to India last year.

The US and its allies have often implored India to take a clearer stand on the war but they have also refrained from applying harsh sanctions or pressure.

The West also sees India as a counterbalance to China and doesn’t want to upset that dynamic. India, now the fifth largest economy in the world, is also a growing market for business.

Mr Kugelman says the West will welcome the visit and see it as Delhi’s willingness to engage with all sides.

“Mr Modi has a strong incentive to signal that it’s not leaning so close to Moscow that there’s nothing to salvage with Kyiv,” he says.

This is important because India wants to keep growing its relations with the West, particularly with the US, and wouldn’t want to upset the momentum. Eric Garcetti, the US ambassador to India, recently said the relationship should not be “taken for granted”.

India also needs the West as China, its Asian rival, and Russia have forged close ties in recent years.

While Delhi has long viewed Moscow as a power that can put pressure on an assertive China when needed, it can’t be taken for granted.

Meanwhile, many media commentators have spoken about the possibility of Mr Modi positioning himself as a peacemaker, given India’s close relations with both Moscow and the West.

But it’s unlikely that he will turn up with a peace plan.

“Is India really up to it, and are the conditions right? India doesn’t like other countries trying to mediate in its own issues, chief among them Kashmir. And I don’t think Mr Modi would formally offer mediation unless both Russia and Ukraine want it. And at this point, I don’t think they do,” Mr Kugelman adds.

Ukraine, however, will still welcome Mr Modi’s visit and see it as an opportunity to engage with a close ally of Moscow, something it hasn’t done much since the war began.

Mr Zelensky, though, is unlikely to hold back his criticism of Mr Putin in front of the Indian PM. Mr Modi can live with that as he has faced such situations many times in other Western capitals.

Moscow is not likely to react to the visit as it has also been making concessions for Delhi’s multilateral approach to geopolitics.

But beyond reasserting its non-alignment policy, Delhi also has bigger goals from this visit.

India has been ramping up engagement with Europe in the past decade, particularly with the underserved regions in Central and Eastern Europe.

Delhi wants to keep consolidating its relations with the big four – the UK, Italy, Germany and France – but also wants to boost engagement with other countries in Europe.

Mr Modi is also visiting Poland on this trip – the first Indian PM to visit the country in 45 years. He also became the first Indian prime minister to visit Austria in 41 years in July.

Analysts say that this signals India’s growing understanding that Central European nations will play a bigger role in geopolitics in the future and strong relations with them will serve Delhi well.

The Indian government has also revived trade deal negotiations with Europe. It has signed a trade and investment deal with the European Free Trade Association, which is the intergovernmental organisation of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

So, while there will be a lot of focus on the war during his visit, Indian diplomats are likely to stay focused on the bigger goal.

“Central and Eastern Europe now have greater agency in writing their own destiny and reshaping regional geopolitics. Mr Modi’s visit to Warsaw and Kyiv is about recognising that momentous change at the heart of Europe and deepening bilateral political, economic and security ties with the Central European states,” foreign policy analyst C Raja Mohan wrote in the Indian Express newspaper, summing up Mr Modi’s wider goal.

Vice-President Kamala Harris pledged a “new way forward” for all Americans as she formally accepted the Democratic nomination for president on Thursday night, delivering a message of unity and urging voters to reject Donald Trump.

November’s election is a chance to “move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles of the past”, she said, bringing her party’s convention in Chicago to a close as balloons rained down and supporters cheered.

Ms Harris’s speech capped off a four-day spectacle designed to highlight her backstory and shape the contours of what remains a vague policy agenda.

She made history as the first black and Asian-American woman to lead a major party’s presidential ticket.

The 59-year-old officially became the Democratic nominee after a fast-moving few weeks that began with President Joe Biden stepping aside in the White House race.

Polls suggest she is now in a tight race with Trump, who offered criticism of Ms Harris’s appearance as it unfolded.

Ms Harris used her nearly 45-minute address, the most important speech of her political career, to reintroduce herself to the nation.

She shared personal anecdotes about growing up in a “beautiful working-class neighbourhood” as the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants.

And she argued that her background as a prosecutor – a detail she avoided emphasising during her 2020 run – made her uniquely qualified to defeat Trump and serve in the Oval Office, as did her record as vice-president under Mr Biden.

Ms Harris also dedicated several minutes of her speech to how her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, shaped her life and political career.

“She taught us to never complain about injustice, but (instead) to do something about it,” Ms Harris recalled. Her sister Maya, 57, also spoke on Thursday night, saying their mother had been a “trailblazer”, having set “great expectations of us”.

“She raised us to believe that we could be or do anything,” she said, to loud applause. “It’s a distinctly American story.”

• America’s future, Gaza and other takeaways from Harris’s address
• BBC Verify fact-checks the speech
• The Global Story podcast on Harris’s biggest moment
• Where the vice-president stands on key issues

Ms Harris made a pitch to aspirational families across America, saying she would create an “opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed”.

She said she would “end America’s housing shortage” and help entrepreneurs. However, did not describe any specific changes in policy from the administration in which she currently serves.

Trump reacted to his rival’s speech on his social media platform Truth Social, and called into Fox News after the event concluded to criticise her remarks.

He questioned her record during four years in the White House as vice-president.

“Why didn’t she do something about the things of which she complains?” the Republican wrote.

Five weeks ago, Democrats thought their party extravaganza would be centred on President Joe Biden, as he ran for another term despite widespread anxiety about his age and whether he could defeat Trump.

But a plot twist came in late July, when Mr Biden, bowing to party pressure after a poor debate performance, announced he would step aside and throw his support behind Ms Harris.

Within days, party leaders, delegates and potential challengers coalesced behind Ms Harris’s candidacy. And in Chicago, the vice-president’s speech was well received by the delegates who had given her their official backing for the top job.

“I think she set the tone for the enthusiasm Democrats are going to have from now until November,” Georgia delegate Edward Bohannan told the BBC. “There wasn’t much excitement about the election before. But now people are getting engaged.”

Among the other figures who energised the convention’s thousands of attendees over the previous days were Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and even Republican defectors.

It was Mr Biden, 81, who delivered the keynote speech on the first night, in a symbolic passing of the torch. While on holiday in California, he also called Ms Harris to wish her luck with her own speech.

• Biden gives the convention speech he never wanted to give
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• Hillary Clinton: It’s time for Harris to smash ‘glass ceiling’

The DNC’s fourth night also featured speakers emphasisng the toll of gun violence, an issue Ms Harris focused on as California’s top prosecutor and one she has pursued during her vice-presidency. Mr Biden last year created an office dedicated to combating gun violence and named Ms Harris to lead it.

Gabby Giffords, a leading gun safety advocate and former US congresswoman who was shot in the head 2011 in Arizona, appeared alongside her husband, Senator Mark Kelly, who was a leading contender to be Ms Harris’s running mate. Georgia Congresswoman Lucy MacBath, who has pushed for gun restrictions and was elected after her son was shot and killed, also delivered remarks.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democratic rising star who also was floated as a potential vice-presidential pick for Ms Harris, described the Democratic candidate as “tough, tested, and a total badass”.

Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman who now backs the Democrats, used his moment in the spotlight to attack Trump.

“It’s in standing up for our constitution and our democracy that that is the soul of being a conservative,” said Mr Kinzinger. “It used to be the soul of being a Republican, but Donald Trump has suffocated the soul of the Republican Party.”

“Democrats are just as patriotic as we are,” he added as the crowd broke out in chants of “USA”.

But DNC organisers rejected protesters’ demands to allow a Palestinian to speak, following days of protests in Chicago against the war in Gaza and White House policy.

Ms Harris did not directly address the protesters, though she did touch on Gaza. She said she would always defend Israel’s right to security, while calling for Palestinians to live with “dignity” and “freedom”.

A packed arena featured delegates and supporters brandishing American flags and placards bearing Ms Harris’s name. Many donned white clothing in honour of the women’s suffrage movement.

And there was no shortage of star power on Thursday – following a packed programme of celebrity appearances on the previous nights, which was also witnessed at last month’s Republican convention.

Steph Curry – a basketball star who is part of Ms Harris’s hometown NBA team the Golden State Warriors, and who recently led Team USA to Olympic gold – delivered a video message. There were performances from Pink and The Chicks (formerly the Dixie Chicks).

But those hoping for a showing from Beyoncé were left disappointed, after rumours throughout the evening of a “surprise guest” led to some hope that the star would perform her hit Freedom, which Ms Harris has used as a campaign song.

By the time 100,000 red, white and blue balloons dropped from the ceiling, hope of a rockstar ending quickly deflated.

“After all that, no Beyoncé,” one man joked as he left, popping balloons with his foot.

LISTEN: Americast podcast asks whether Harris pulled off the speech

SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything to know about the November vote

EXPLAINER: Where the election could be won and lost

ANALYSIS: Harris faced years of doubt, but she still prepared

Donald Trump isn’t in Chicago but his presence hangs over everything and he is clearly following events here.

Ahead of Kamala Harris’s speech on Thursday, a couple of Trump aides told me, a little implausibly, that the former president is not tuning into the Democratic National Convention because he has no interest in watching a Democratic Party “infomercial”.

But one senior campaign official confirms, anonymously, that Trump is watching and is irritated by the attacks against him.

In the view of one ally who speaks to the former president every week, Trump wins in November if he sticks to talking about the economy, the border and crime.

At the start of this week, that looked possible. Trump scheduled a string of rallies, in Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Arizona – each was themed to focus on exactly those political and economic topics.

But with night after night of anti-Trump speeches here in Chicago, staying on message has gone out the window. And it’s not what his supporters tell him they want anyway.

• Kamala Harris pledges ‘new way forward’ in historic convention speech
• America’s future, Gaza and other takeaways from Harris’s address
• BBC Verify fact-checks the speech
• Where does Kamala Harris stand on key issues?
• Influencers swarm convention as Democrats’ secret weapon

The North Carolina event on Wednesday was vintage Trump – and it became a referendum on his own team’s strategy. “They always say, ‘Sir, please stick to policy, don’t get personal’… and yet [the Democrats are] getting personal all night long, these people. Do I still have to stick to policy?” Trump asked.

Then he polled the crowd: more policy or go personal? His fans roared, they wanted the Trump show, not a list of boring economic proposals. “My advisers are fired!” he joked. Then he said he’d stick to policy but couldn’t let the attacks go unanswered.

So the campaign strategy now seems to be at the whim of the candidate and the feedback of his crowds. That makes life difficult for his campaign advisers who repeatedly tell me their single biggest concern in this election campaign is whether they can keep Trump focused on issues and off the controversial personal attacks.

• Michelle Obama belittles Trump in starry convention turn
• ‘Coach Walz’ rallies Democrats with personal pitch to middle America
• ‘That’s my dad’: Tim Walz’s son Gus gives tearful reaction to speech

There have been a couple of those this week already.

Late on Wednesday night, Trump took to social media to criticise the Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who had given a rousing speech earlier in the evening. Trump clearly didn’t like what he heard.

“The highly overrated Jewish Governor of the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, made a really bad and poorly delivered speech,” Trump wrote.

“I have done more for Israel than any President…Shapiro has done nothing for Israel, and never will.”

The fact that he singled out Mr Shapiro as Jewish has not gone unnoticed. It was picked up on the US morning shows as an example of a racial dog whistle.

After the Obamas criticised Trump at the DNC on Tuesday night, he responded during his rally in North Carolina, and, again, there was a similar racial innuendo.

“Did you see Barack Hussein Obama last night,” Trump said. “He was taking shots at your president. And so was Michelle.”

It’s true that they did take pretty personal shots at him, but the use of Mr Obama’s middle name has long been used to stoke racial animosity towards him.

The problem for the Trump team is that their candidate thrives on controversy which then dominates headlines, and this distracts from their attempts to point out weaknesses in his opponent’s policy positions.

“It doesn’t matter what he talks about for 45 minutes,” one adviser told me on the condition of anonymity. “One comment or answer to a question gives the left all they need to change the subject.”

SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote

ANALYSIS: Three ways Trump will try to end Harris honeymoon

EXPLAINER: Where the election could be won and lost

FACT-CHECK: Trump falsely claims Harris crowd was faked

VOTERS: What Democrats make of Tim Walz as VP

President Emmanuel Macron met left-wing leaders on Friday, at the start of two days of crunch talks aimed at deciding who will form France’s next government.

Snap elections in early July left French politics in deadlock, with no party able to form a clear majority in the National Assembly.

A caretaker government led France during the Paris Olympics, to the anger of a left-wing alliance that topped the poll.

Their four-party New Popular Front wants a little-known senior civil servant called Lucie Castets to be named prime minister. However, the 37-year-old economist is unelected and seen as an unlikely presidential pick for prime minister.

Under France’s political system, the president appoints a prime minister who can command a majority in the National Assembly. In recent years, that prime minister has come from the same party as the president, because they are elected within a few weeks of each other.

But after Mr Macron stunned France in June by calling a snap two-round parliamentary vote, his centrist Ensemble alliance came runner-up behind the leftist NFP.

The Élysée Palace said ahead of Friday’s talks that Mr Macron was “on the side of the French” and “the will of their vote”. A large and stable majority is required that won’t fall with the first censure motion, presidential officials were quoted as saying.

Arriving for talks with the president, along with the leaders of the far-left France Unbowed, the Socialists, Greens and Communists, Lucie Castets said they had come to remind the president to “respect the election result and bring the country out of the paralysis it has been plunged into”.

She said afterwards that she and her colleagues were satisfied that the president had understood that French voters had sent a message at the elections that they wanted a change of political direction.

“Nevertheless the president still seems to be tempted to form his government – we told him it was up to the political force that came top, the New Popular Front, to form a government,” Ms Castets said.

Socialist leader Olivier Faure said the president had not given a precise date for naming a prime minister, but said it would be quick.

Mr Macron was next due to meet the parties that make up his own Ensemble alliance followed by the leaders of the right-wing Republicans.

On Monday he will talk to the leaders of the far-right National Rally, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, along with Eric Ciotti, who heads a group of Republicans who split from the rest of the party before the election. They came third in the election, even though they had led the first round.

No party grouping has enough seats to make up the 289 required for an absolute majority in the 577-seat National Assembly.

But under the constitution Mr Macron cannot dissolve parliament until next summer, so analysts believe he is likely to name as prime minister a figure who would have the best chance of finding common ground among the parties.

In a letter to the French people last month he said voters had expressed their desire for change and broad political unity.

Among the names discussed in political circles are former Socialist interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Xavier Bertrand, who is a regional leader from the Republicans.

However, Mr Macron has not given any indication yet of who he might support.

Almost seven weeks after the election, and a supposed political truce that he called during the Paris Olympics, he now has the difficult task of finding a candidate who can form a government that does not collapse at the first sign of a vote of no confidence.

At least 14 people have died after a bus carrying passengers from India fell into a river in Nepal, officials have said.

There were around 40 people on the bus, which was travelling to Nepal’s capital Kathmandu from Pokhara, according to reports.

Rescue operations are underway at the accident site on the bank of the Marsyangdi river in Tanahun district.

The cause of the accident and the identities of the victims have not been confirmed yet.

“The bus bearing number plate UP FT 7623 plunged into the river and is lying on the bank of the river,” news agency ANI quoted Deepkumar Raya, a senior police official from Tanahun, as saying. The vehicle is registered in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of the western state of Maharashtra said that some of the victims were from the state.

“We are in touch with the Uttar Pradesh government to bring the bodies of the deceased to Maharashtra in coordination with the Nepal government,” he posted on X (formerly Twitter).

Videos from the accident site show the mangled remains of the bus lying at the bottom of a hilly slope, next to a gushing river. Rescue personnel can be seen looking for survivors among the wreckage.

A Nepal army helicopter carrying a medical team has been despatched to the accident site.

The bus route from Pokhara to Kathmandu is very popular among Indian tourists and pilgrims.

Accidents are often reported in Nepal, due to factors including poor maintenance of roads and vehicles and narrow paths in mountainous areas.

In July, dozens of people went missing after a landslide swept two passenger buses into the Trishuli river.

A transgender woman from Australia has won a discrimination case against a women-only social media app, after she was denied access on the basis of being male.

The Federal Court found that although Roxanne Tickle had not been directly discriminated against, she was a victim of indirect discrimination – which refers to when a decision disadvantages a person with a particular attribute – and ordered the app to pay her A$10,000 ($6,700; £5,100) plus costs.

It’s a landmark ruling when it comes to gender identity, and at the very heart of the case was the ever more contentious question: what is a woman?

In 2021, Tickle downloaded “Giggle for Girls”, an app marketed as an online refuge where women could share their experiences in a safe space, and where men were not allowed.

In order to gain access, she had to upload a selfie to prove she was a woman, which was assessed by gender recognition software designed to screen out men.

However, seven months later – after successfully joining the platform – her membership was revoked.

As someone who identifies as a woman, Tickle claimed she was legally entitled to use services meant for women, and that she was discriminated against based on her gender identity.

She sued the social media platform, as well as its CEO Sall Grover, and sought damages amounting to A$200,000, claiming that “persistent misgendering” by Grover had prompted “constant anxiety and occasional suicidal thoughts”.

“Grover’s public statements about me and this case have been distressing, demoralising, embarrassing, draining and hurtful. This has led to individuals posting hateful comments towards me online and indirectly inciting others to do the same,” Tickle said in an affidavit.

Giggle’s legal team argued throughout the case that sex is a biological concept.

They freely concede that Tickle was discriminated against – but on the grounds of sex, rather than gender identity. Refusing to allow Tickle to use the app constituted lawful sex discrimination, they say. The app is designed to exclude men, and because its founder perceives Tickle to be male – she argues that denying her access to the app was lawful.

But Justice Robert Bromwich said in his decision on Friday that case law has consistently found sex is “changeable and not necessarily binary”, ultimately dismissing Giggle’s argument.

Tickle said the ruling “shows that all women are protected from discrimination” and that she hoped the case would be “healing for trans and gender diverse people”.

“Unfortunately, we got the judgement we anticipated. The fight for women’s rights continues,” Grover wrote on X, responding to the decision.

Known as “Tickle vs Giggle”, the case is the first time alleged gender identity discrimination has been heard by the federal court in Australia.

It encapsulates how one of the most acrimonious ideological debates – trans inclusion versus sex-based rights – can play out in court.

Tickle was born male, but changed her gender and has been living as a woman since 2017.

When giving evidence to the court, she said: “Up until this instance, everybody has treated me as a woman.”

“I do from time to time get frowns and stares and questioning looks which is quite disconcerting…but they’ll let me go about my business.”

But Grover believes no human being has or can change sex – which is the pillar of gender-critical ideology.

When Tickle’s lawyer Georgina Costello KC cross examined Grover, she said:

“Even where a person who was assigned male at birth transitions to a woman by having surgery, hormones, gets rid of facial hair, undergoes facial reconstruction, grows their hair long, wears make up, wears female clothes, describes themselves as a woman, introduces themselves as a woman, uses female changing rooms, changes their birth certificate – you don’t accept that is a woman?”

“No”, Grover replied.

She also said she would refuse to address Tickle as “Ms,” and that “Tickle is a biological male.”

Grover is a self-declared Terf, which stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”. Typically used as a derogatory term for those considered hostile to transgender people, it has also been claimed by some to describe their own gender-critical beliefs.

“I’m being taken to federal court by a man who claims to be a woman because he wants to use a woman-only space I created,” she posted on X.

“There isn’t a woman in the world who’d have to take me to court to use this woman only space. It takes a man for this case to exist.”

She says she created her app “Giggle for Girls” in 2020 after receiving a lot of social media abuse by men while she worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter.

“I wanted to create a safe, women-only space in the palm of your hand,” she said.

“It is a legal fiction that Tickle is a woman. His birth certificate has been altered from male to female, but he is a biological man, and always will be.”

“We are taking a stand for the safety of all women’s only spaces, but also for basic reality and truth, which the law should reflect.”

Grover has previously said that she would appeal against the court’s decision and will fight the case all the way to the High Court of Australia.

The outcome of this case could set a legal precedent for the resolution of conflicts between gender identity rights and sex-based rights in other countries.

Crucial to understanding this is the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). This is an international treaty adopted in 1979 by the UN – effectively an international bill of rights for women.

Giggle’s defence argued that Australia’s ratification of CEDAW obliges the State to protect women’s rights, including single-sex spaces.

So today’s ruling in favour of Tickle will be significant for all the 189 countries where CEDAW has been ratified – from Brazil to India to South Africa.

When it comes to interpreting international treaties, national courts often look at how other countries have done it.

Australia’s interpretation of the law in a case that got this level of media attention is likely to have global repercussions.

If over time a growing number of courts rule in favour of gender identity claims – it is more likely that other countries will follow suit.

Berhane Abrehe – a former Eritrean finance minister and fierce critic of the country’s president – has died in prison, his family say.

The 79-year-old was Eritrea’s longest serving minister of finance, but he was removed from his role in 2012 following clashes with President Isaias Afwerki.

Six years later, he was jailed after releasing a book where he described the president as a “dictator” who needed to resign.

His family told the BBC that the authorities, who rarely confirm the deaths of senior officials in custody, had notified them of Mr Berhane’s death.

The government also rarely shares where the bodies are buried but Mr Berhane’s family have heard there is a plan to bury him in Asmara Patriots Cemetery. Only veterans of the Eritrean independence war, like Mr Berhane, or members of the national service can be buried there.

His body has not yet been released, his family said, and it is not clear when and exactly how Mr Berhane died.

He was never brought before a court of law.

• Jailed without trace in Eritrea: ‘I haven’t seen my parents for 17 years’
• I fought for independence but I’m still waiting for freedom
• Why Eritreans are at war with each other around the world

President Isaias has ruled the East African country, without holding national elections, since winning the independence war against Ethiopia in 1991.

Political parties, civic organisation and independent media are all banned.

The UN and human rights groups have long accused the Eritrean government of gross human rights violations, including torture, forced disappearance and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of people in inhumane conditions.

Mr Berhane’s fall-out with President Isaias began during the former’s 12-year tenure as finance minister, in which he urged Mr Isaias for transparency on the country’s budget. The budget is still inaccessible to the public today.

In 2012, Mr Berhane was removed from his post and sidelined from politics.

Three years later he secretly wrote a two-volume book named My Country, and sent it abroad to be published.

Alongside calling his old boss a dictator and demanding he resign, Mr Berhane used the book to challenge Mr Isaias to a debate on national television.

He also called for the reinstatement of the national assembly – Eritrea’s parliament – which had been dissolved by the president in 2002. To this day, there is still no legislative body to hold the government accountable.

In 2018, after Mr Berhane had published My Country, he was detained and imprisoned in an unknown location.

By this time his wife was already in prison, although no reason was given. She was released in 2019.

One of Mr Berhane’s sons, who was also detained during the same period as his mother, previously described his family’s ordeal to the BBC.

“I am living with a dim glimmer of hope that my father who has health issues [will be out of prison one day],” Efrem Berhane said in 2020.

The 31-year-old, who lives in the US after fleeing Eritrea, asked: “How can people be kidnapped by a government and disappear for years? Why do people show such cruelty on a fellow human like this?”

But some people have been imprisoned for even longer.

In September 2001, 11 senior ministers and generals who were part of a group known as the “G-15” were arrested after they criticised the president. The collective – which included three former foreign ministers, an education minister and a former armed forces chief of staff – have not been seen since.

In Eritrea, political prisoners are often prohibited from contact with the outside world.

In February, Ilze Brands-Kehris, United Nations Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights said “impunity persists” for human rights violations in Eritrea.

“Our office continues to receive credible reports of torture; arbitrary detention; inhumane conditions of detention; enforced disappearances; restrictions of the rights to freedoms of expression, of association, and of peaceful assembly,” she said.

Born in Eritrea in 1945, Mr Berhane earned an MA degree in economics from a US university before joining the struggle for independence from Ethiopia.

He is the father of four children.

• The Eritrean Tour de France cyclist racking up historic wins
• Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel: ‘Our second country is bleeding’
• Asmara: The African capital with ‘no traffic’

A seaside hotel and former bank offices on the Isle of Man have been used by scammers conning victims in China out of millions of dollars, a BBC World Service investigation has found.

The dining room and lounge at the Seaview Hotel in Douglas were packed with dozens of Chinese workers, we have been told, on computers hooked up to fast broadband. A specialist wok hob had also been delivered to the hotel’s kitchen.

The deception, which happened between January 2022 and January 2023 according to Chinese court documents, used a method known as “pig-butchering”. It is so-called because the process of “fattening the pig” – gaining the victim’s trust – is vital to its success.

The BBC spent nearly a year establishing how the investment scam was carried out from the island, which is a British Crown dependency with an independent government.

We also uncovered other details, such as how bosses had big ambitions to build a state-of-the-art office complex overlooking the Irish Sea.

As well as obtaining court papers, we have accessed leaked documents and spoken to company insiders.

One former member of staff, Jordan [not his real name], told us he had no idea of the murky world he was entering when he arrived on the Isle of Man. He says he was relieved to have found what he thought was a stable administrative job.

He did notice, however, that his new employer seemed quite secretive – for example, he and his colleagues were forbidden from taking photos at company social events. What he says he didn’t realise was that many of his Chinese colleagues were actually scam artists.

In late 2021, nearly 100 people had been transferred to the Isle of Man to work for a company which Chinese court documents refer to as “MIC”. They had come from the Philippines where they had worked for another scamming firm. The BBC has discovered that MIC stands for Manx Internet Commerce.

On the Isle of Man, MIC was part of a group of associated companies – all with the same owner.

An online casino, run by King Gaming Ltd, was the most prominent. In mainland China, gambling is illegal. Setting up halfway around the world meant the group’s founders could target Chinese customers, but also take advantage of the Isle of Man’s low gambling taxes.

A few months after being based at the Seaview Hotel in Douglas, the MIC workers were moved to former bank offices on the east side of town.

And this is where Jordan says he would hear sporadic cheering from his new colleagues – who worked in groups of four. He now believes they were celebrating moments when they had successfully scammed another victim, some 5,000 miles away.

Six people who worked for MIC in Douglas have now been convicted – upon their return home to China – of carrying out investment scams against Chinese citizens.

The cases, heard in late 2023, detail the illicit money stream. Victims were lured by the defendants and their accomplices from bases on the Isle of Man and in the Philippines, according to the Chinese court papers.

They say the defendants would work in teams to pull Chinese investors into chat groups on QQ – a popular Chinese instant messaging service similar to WhatsApp. One scammer would play the role of an investment “teacher”, and others would pretend to be fellow investors.

The BBC has seen evidence – including in the court papers – that many of those who arrived in Douglas from the Philippines were engaged in the scams. All used the same computer equipment, depended on QQ for their work and, with the exception of a few managers, all held the same job title.

The fake investors would build an atmosphere of hype and excitement around the money-making skills of the “teacher”, who would then tell the victim to put money into a particular investment platform, the Chinese court found.

Dazzled by the hype, the victim would comply, only for their funds to be syphoned off by the scammers, who actually controlled these platforms and could manipulate them from behind the scenes.

The Chinese court said it was difficult to verify the victims’ total losses – but it said 38.87m renminbi (£4.17m/$5.3m) had been taken from at least 12 victims.

Relying on evidence including the defendants’ own confessions, as well as travel and financial records and chat logs, the court found the six defendants guilty.

This was not only a profitable but also a sophisticated scam, say the court documents, requiring front line teams to deploy the “pig-butchering” techniques with persuasiveness and skill.

The BBC has discovered the identity of the companies’ sole beneficiary. His name was hidden behind layers of administrative paperwork.

MIC and its affiliate companies were all held by a trust set up by an individual named “Bill Morgan” who, documents show, was also known as Liang Lingfei. Employees called him “Boss Liang”, says Jordan.

The Chinese court papers refer to a man called Liang Lingfei being the co-founder of MIC on the Isle of Man – which it described as “a fairly stable criminal organisation established in order to carry out scam activities”. Mr Liang was not one of those prosecuted or represented at the hearings.

The court stated that Mr Liang was also co-founder of the scamming organisation in the Philippines. The BBC has seen evidence that many MIC employees worked there before being transferred to the Isle of Man.

Our investigation has also found that Mr Liang obtained an Isle of Man investment visa and attended multiple company events on the island. His wife also owns a home in the town of Ballasalla, near the island’s airport.

The group of companies on the Isle of Man was ambitious, having signed a planning agreement late last year for a glitzy “parkland campus” headquarters on the site of a former naval training base. A spokesperson for the developers described it as the “largest single private investment in the Isle of Man”.

Architects’ images show office buildings set on a hill above the seafront in Douglas. Inside would have been penthouse apartments, a spa, multiple bars and a karaoke lounge.

The campus was to be used by MIC staff and those working for MIC’s “affiliate” companies, including those involved in online gambling, planning documents state.

Conservative estimates put the global annual revenues of the “pig-butchering” industry at more than $60bn (£46.5bn).

“This is the first such case we’ve seen of one of these [pig-butchering] scam operations setting up in a Western country,” says Masood Karimipour, South East Asia representative at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Trying to stop the scams is like a “game of whack-a-mole”, he says, and it is a battle that “organised crime is currently winning” as criminals engage in what he calls “jurisdiction shopping” where they perceive there to be legal loopholes and little oversight.

Any ambitions the group of companies may have had on the Isle of Man – legitimate or otherwise – appear to have come to an end.

In April, police raided the former bank offices. They also targeted an address next to the island’s Courts of Justice building – using a ladder to enter through a first-floor window in the early hours of the morning.

In a statement released shortly afterwards, police said the raids had been in connection with a wider fraud and money laundering investigation in relation to King Gaming Ltd IOM. Seven people had been arrested and released on bail, they added.

Since then, a further three people are known to have been arrested.

Receivers were appointed earlier this month for companies in the group – including MIC and King Gaming Ltd IOM – at the request of the Isle of Man’s attorney general.

The island’s gambling regulator has stripped MIC’s gambling affiliate companies of their licences.

The parkland campus site was cleared of trees and signage went up – but the redevelopment is now on hold indefinitely.

The BBC has made repeated attempts, via several methods of communication, to contact the companies involved – as well as Bill Morgan/Liang Langfei and company directors – but has received no replies.

We have also attempted to contact the Seaview Hotel, but have received no response, though there is no suggestion that anyone there was aware of any illegal activities taking place on the premises.

You can reach the Global China Unit directly and securely through encrypted messaging app Signal on: +447769939386 or by email at wsinvestigations@bbc.co.uk

Having a pet crocodile in the backyard sounds like a far-fetched Australian fable – like riding kangaroos to school or the existence of drop bears.

But in the Northern Territory (NT), it’s a reality.

And Trevor Sullivan has 11 of the reptiles sharing his tropical home in Batchelor, about an hour south of Darwin.

Among them is Big Jack, who is named after a Jack in the Box toy due to his alarming propensity for lunging. Despite his antics, the giant predator is adored, having joined Mr Sullivan’s household as a hatchling the same day his daughter was born 22 years ago.

“He’s been part of our family ever since… [my daughter] refers to him as brother.”

Also on the 80-acre property is Cricket, still a tiny critter, and Shah, who – at the complete other end of the scale – is more than a century old and has truly lived a life.

“He’s possibly seen two world wars and maybe federation in Australia [in 1901],” Mr Sullivan says of the 4.7m (15.4ft) beast.

He claims Shah once killed a man, has been used for scientific research, was almost poisoned to death at a bird park, and lost half his bottom jaw in a fight at a Queensland crocodile farm, all before joining Mr Sullivan a few years ago.

The 60-year-old lights up as he tells the BBC about his crocodiles: “There’s nothing like them… crocodiles are the Harley Davidson of pets.”

But as the famously quirky region heads to the polls on Saturday, the right to own a pet croc has turned into a somewhat unlikely – and very Territory – election issue.

The cost of living, housing and crime are the prime concerns for many voters, but Mr Sullivan is one of scores left heartbroken after the governing Labor Party moved to ban crocodiles as pets.

It is one of the last places in the country the practice is allowed, but the government says they’re concerned for the wellbeing of both humans and the reptiles. The Country Liberal Party opposition, however, has pledged its support for the practice and has promised a review of the “rushed” decision if elected.

About 250,000 people call the NT home, but relatively few of them own crocodiles. The environment minister’s office said they could not provide a figure because the government is in election caretaker mode, but previous estimates have put the number of permit holders at around 100.

Many of the captive crocs are raised from hatchlings, others rehomed from farms or after causing trouble in the wild.

Regulations have long dictated strict conditions about where, and under what conditions, the animals can be kept. For example, hatchlings can only live in urban areas until they are 60cm long – usually about a year old – at which point they must be handed over to authorities or moved to a property outside the town limits.

Under those rules, however, owners were not required to have any special training or knowledge to keep the beasts.

Tom Hayes says owning – or “saving” – a crocodile is part of the Territory’s appeal, and one of the factors which drew his young family to the Darwin region, from Queensland, earlier this year.

The 40-year-old grew up taking trips to the NT with his dad, fishing in the Mary River alongside giant crocodiles, instilling a love of predators and, eventually, a dream to have his own one day.

“I’m not just some dude that wants a crocodile [for] when I’m having a barbecue with my mates on the weekend,” the tattooist and self-styled conservationist told the BBC.

“I wanted to have somewhere I could bring these poor old buggers and they could just live their lives out – happy, fed… not having to worry about people shooting them.”

He was in process of adopting a mega croc when the NT government announced it would not be issuing any new permits to keep the reptiles as pets.

It has left Mr Hayes reeling and the crocodile he’d hoped to rescue at risk of being put down.

NT Environment Minister Kate Worden said the decision was made “after public consultation” and “taking into account personal safety and animal welfare concerns”.

Existing permits will remain valid, but transfers of permits will not be allowed.

“Let’s remember they are an apex predator and probably not one that’s best kept for captivity,” Ms Worden told reporters, adding that there were instances of crocodiles attacking their owners in the region.

The new rules bring the NT in in line with every other state and territory in Australia – except, oddly, Victoria, which is well outside of the comfortable climate of a saltwater crocodile.

Animal activists, who had been pushing for the change, say it’s a big win.

While some of the people keeping crocodiles “may have good intentions”, no wild animal can have its needs fully met in captivity, argues Olivia Charlton, from World Animal Protection.

“There is no way to replicate the space and freedom these crocodiles would have in the wild, particularly given they live for up to 70 years,” she said in a statement.

Charles Giliam, from the RSPCA NT, said the dangerous nature of crocodiles also made it extremely hard for authorities to regulate the program and ensure the reptiles had an acceptable standard of living and medical care.

“I only know one vet who’s prepared to work with crocodiles,” he said, as an example.

But croc owners say they had no idea the change was coming and are distressed over what may now happen to their pets.

“I don’t think you spend many nights on the couch watching TV, snuggling with your four-and-a-half-meter crocodile… but there’s still that emotional attachment,” Mr Hayes says.

They accuse the government of hiding the change in a broader Crocodile Management Plan to avoid doing true consultation on the issue.

The opposition environment spokeswoman Jo Hersey said “the [Country Liberal Party] supports the rights of Territorians to own crocs as pets under a permit system” and has promised the party will look at the rules if elected.

Both Mr Hayes and Mr Sullivan said there is broad support for greater training and education requirements for permit holders.

But they say the reptiles are surprisingly easy to care for – and reject arguments that keeping them as pets is harmful.

“In the wild, they have a stretch of territory and they then have to fight to keep it. They’re forever hunting for food, forever chasing off their enemies or trying to keep their girlfriend sorted and life’s pretty tough going,” Mr Sullivan says.

“In captivity, if they got a good enclosure, plenty of water, sunlight, a bit of shade, and food on a regular basis, they just love it.

“I have a river running through my property and I actually have wild crocs always trying to get in and join my mob.”

The decision to end the practice is particularly bad timing for Mr Sullivan. He listed his home and his menagerie for sale last year, so he could join his partner in New Zealand.

“It is a bit like a Willy Wonka story – I want some young kids, of the right nature, to take on a property full of wildlife.”

But that’s left him with a quandary that belongs in a maths textbook: If you have 80 acres and 11 crocodiles on the market, but zero permits available to transfer, what’s the answer?

There is “not a chance” he’ll euthanise his crocs, he says. “I’ll have to stay on the property until I die, or until something else changes.”

His hope is resting on the election of a CLP government on Saturday, adding he thinks it is an issue which will galvanise voters.

But Mr Hayes, on the other hand, hopes it isn’t. There are greater issues at play which should decide votes, he explains, and he is optimistic that both parties will come to see sense anyway.

“Whoever’s in needs to really look at it… It’s an attack on the Territory way of life.”

Friends and colleagues of Mike Lynch have paid tribute to “the UK’s greatest tech entrepreneur” after he was confirmed to have died when a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily.

The British businessman, 59, was killed, along with his daughter Hannah, 18, and five other people when the boat foundered in stormy weather early on Monday.

Their bodies were recovered following a search by divers spanning several days, with Hannah’s the last to be brought ashore, on Friday.

Mr Lynch was a prominent figure in the UK tech industry, where his backing of successful companies led to him being dubbed the British equivalent of Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

However, he later became embroiled in a long-running legal dispute which resulted in him being controversially extradited to the US, before being acquitted earlier this summer.

In a statement on Friday, a spokesperson for the Lynch family said it was a time of “unspeakable grief” for them.

“The Lynch family is devastated, in shock and is being comforted and supported by family and friends. Their thoughts are with everyone affected by the tragedy,” they said.

Andrew Kanter, a close friend and colleague of Mr Lynch, said he was “the most brilliant mind and caring person I have ever known.”

“Over nearly a quarter century I had the privilege of working beside someone unrivalled in their understanding of technology and business,” he said.

Former Sun newspaper editor David Yelland said Mr Lynch was “an irreplaceable loss not only to those that loved him but also to the country”.

“He is the UK’s greatest tech entrepreneur of recent decades, a family man, a long-time client of my business and a friend,” he said.

“To think Mike Lynch lost his life just as he began to rebuild it is devastating for all those that know him.”

Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy Bloomer, Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo, his wife Neda Morvillo and Recaldo Thomas, the yacht’s chef, also died when the vessel sank.

In a statement confirming their parents’ deaths, the Bloomer family described the couple as “incredible people and an inspiration to many”.

Mr Lynch is survived by his wife Angela Bacares, who was rescued, along with 14 others, after the yacht sank, as well as their elder daughter Esme.

Mike Lynch and Angela Barcares lived at the Loudham Hall estate in Suffolk.

Brent Hoberman, co-founder of Lastminute.com, described the events as “tragic”, saying Mr Lynch had much more to give to the UK tech scene.

“He was still on his journey, and he’d been sidetracked for a decade with this court case,” he told the BBC.

“I think there was a lot of unfulfilled potential.”

IT analyst Richard Holway said in a post on LinkedIn that Mr Lynch – a friend of more than 25 years – was “a unique British tech talent”.

“Goodness knows what he could have achieved next,” he added.

Mr Lynch co-founded tech firm Autonomy in 1996, which expanded rapidly and was sold to Hewlett Packard for $11bn (£8.6bn) in 2011, from which he is believed to have netted £500m.

But questions over the sale of Autonomy led to a long-running legal battle.

In 2022, Mr Lynch lost a civil fraud case against HP at the High Court in London.

A day later, he was extradited to the US as part of criminal proceedings, and was facing a possible two decades in jail.

He was acquitted in June this year after a jury found him not guilty of the crimes.

He told BBC Radio 4 that though he was convinced of his innocence, he was only able to prove it in a US court because he was rich enough to pay the enormous legal fees involved.

Mr Lynch is reported to have gone on the yacht trip with his family to celebrate securing his freedom.

Its name, Bayesian, is understood to derive from the theory that his PhD thesis – and the software that underpinned Autonomy – was based on.

Witnesses say its aluminium mast broke in half in a storm, causing the ship to lose its balance and sink.

Dick Smith, a neighbour of Mr Lynch, told the BBC he was “reeling from the shock of the news”.

“He was so approachable and a very easy person to talk to with a nice sense of humour,” he said.

“You might think with all that money he would be difficult to talk to, but in fact he was a very easy person to talk to.”

Born on 16 June 1965, Mr Lynch was the son of a nurse and a fireman, and was raised near Chelmsford in Essex.

His first computer was a BBC Micro, and he wrote fondly of how it shaped his passion for programming in a 2011 BBC article celebrating 30 years of the device.

While at school his “first foray into commercialisation of technology” came when designing a digital sampler that could sample music, then selling the designs, according to a 2017 interview.

He continued the hobby while studying Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge – where he said he annoyed his college by getting “solder in the carpets” of his room.

While at Cambridge he earned a PhD in mathematical computing, and later undertook a research fellowship.

In 1991, Mr Lynch helped establish Cambridge Neurodynamics – a firm which specialised in using computer-based detection and recognition of fingerprints.

His tech firm Autonomy was created five years later, using a statistical method known as “Bayesian inference” at the core of its software.

The company’s fast-paced growth and success throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s saw Mr Lynch earn a number of awards and accolades.

In 2006 he was awarded an OBE in recognition of his service to UK enterprise.

He served on the board of the BBC as a non-executive director, and in 2011 was appointed to the government’s council for science and technology – advising then-Prime Minister David Cameron on the risks and possibilities of AI development.

Following the sale of Autonomy, Mr Lynch established tech firm Invoke Capital, which helped create prominent UK cybersecurity firm Darktrace in 2013. Lynch had a seat on its board until earlier this year.

Reacting to the news on Thursday, a spokesperson for Darktrace said that they were shocked by the tragedy, describing Mr Lynch as an “active champion” of the UK’s technology sector.

“His loss will be felt by many,” they added.

Andy Yearley and Barton Williams grew up at opposite ends of the world – but when they met, they discovered a shared past.

Both were “rescued” from Saigon orphanages after the US withdrew its troops from Vietnam in the early 1970s.

Thousands of children were rehomed in the United States but Barton grew up in south Australia and Andy ended up on the Scottish island of Lewis.

The pair met by chance in 2021 while Barton was starring in a surfing film set on the island.

They had both grown up as Asian children in a predominantly white communities, with no memory or knowledge of Vietnam.

“It’s not every day you meet another Vietnam orphan,” Andy says.

“It’s like meeting a twin brother – a blood brother.

“We just clicked straight away.”

The bond between the two men has been brought to life on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe in Precious Cargo – a theatre performance telling the stories of the Vietnamese orphans.

The show explores the individual experience of each person but also their shared feelings of displacement.

“Andy has lived almost a repeat life to mine but in Scotland,” Barton says in his broad Australian accent.

“He has grown up in a very predominant white middle-class environment.

“He looks full Viet, but he doesn’t sound like a Viet – just like me.”

Andy was adopted by Eileen and Iain Yearley after he had been found in the Saigon orphanage by a friend of the family.

According to Andy, the only flight he could be put on was to Orly airport in France.

“My adoptive mum had to travel there – apparently there was no-one with me,” Andy says.

“I was left alone as a baby in the airport.”

He was brought up in the village of Keose, about 12 miles from Stornoway, the main town on Lewis.

He says he wore thick NHS glasses and had long black hair to protect his ears after they were damaged in Vietnam.

“I was one of the only Asian people in the Western Isles, certainly the only Vietnamese,” he says.

His parents never mentioned Vietnam, he says.

“They were my parents and I was their child,” Andy says.

By early 1975, it was becoming clear that the war would end as South Vietnam strongholds fell to the communist forces of the Viet Cong.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled by air and sea, including westerners and Vietnamese people who had supported the Americans.

The US military had left the country two years prior but a feeling of concern and panic was building among the Western public for the orphaned children left behind.

Their cries were heard by President Gerald Ford, who ordered Operation Babylift, taking 2,000 South Vietnamese children from orphanages to the United States.

The final flight filled with children and orphanage staff took to the skies as artillery fire came barrelling towards the runway.

“The Vietnam War and Operation Babylift is not something that many people – including myself – know an awful lot about,” Andy says.

“Part of bringing the play to the Fringe is to raise awareness of the historical event”, Barton says.

“People always say sorry when they find out you are adopted, and I always replied ‘Why? Don’t be sorry’.”

The show was originally performed in London as a full-length play of Barton’s personal experience but in bringing the show to the Fringe the creative team decided to give it a more Scottish focus.

Despite a life working with music, the play was Andy’s first experience in the theatre industry. He wrote original compositions for the play, while Barton is the lead and sole actor.

Andy and Barton were introduced to each other by a friend who was working on Barton’s surf film, Laura Cameron-Lewis, who became the play’s director.

Her husband Andrew Eaton-Lewis, then joined the Precious Cargo project as a producer to develop the script and find other orphans.

“I didn’t want it to be narcissistic,” Barton says.

“Now that it’s moulded with other orphans, it isn’t just my story, it’s more than that.”

There are unanswered questions for many children taken from Vietnam.

Andy and Barton travelled back at different points in their life to experience the culture of their birth country.

Andy travelled to Ho Chi Minh City, the official name for Saigon, for a BBC2 documentary in 2004 to explore Vietnam for the first time.

Andy, who works as a music teacher, played accordion for children at the orphanage where he had been found.

He says his only link to his past was locating the street he was found on.

Barton was unaware of any living blood relatives until he recently discovered a second cousin through an ancestry website.

His search was aided by another Viet war orphan, Toni Angelique Harrison, who is still searching for her own mother.

Toni, who was raised in Bedfordshire in England, has her voice and story feature in the show and hopes the publicity could reunite her with her mother.

She travelled to the US to meet her father in 2018, an American soldier who fell for her Vietnamese mother.

For all the children of Operation Babylift, time is not on their side, the play’s producer says.

With the 50th anniversary fast approaching, the tragic reality is that their parents might not be here for much longer.

“Operation Babylift was seen as controversial at the time,” Mr Eaton-Lewis says.

“Was it the right thing to do?

He says: “The Americans exorcising their guilt over Vietnam, it all seemed quiet colonialist – all these white families, adopting Vietnamese babies.

“But talking to the various adoptees, they are all very positive about their experience.

“They are aware it is a strange thing to grow up in these very white environments, and some of them did experience racism and it was very difficult.

“But we have very much based this show on what these people have told us – and they were very grateful.”

Despite the successful flights, Operation Babylift began in tragedy as an operational failure caused the first plane to crash, killing 138 people, including 78 children.

In total, a huge humanitarian effort saw 3,300 Viet children – not all of them orphans – make it safely to western allies such as the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK and West Germany.

Many of the children were orphaned by war, but some had just been separated from their parents in the chaos.

But because of their coincidental meeting and work on the Fringe show, both men say it has brought their personal situation fresh in their mind.

Almost 50 years on, many are still searching for their biological families.

The death of a mother-of-six from a botched abortion at an unlicensed clinic 10 years ago is one Reverend Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth will never forget.

It had been almost two decades since Guyana passed ground-breaking abortion reform legislation, yet no public hospitals offered terminations and doctors were not licensed to carry them out.

“Women were still dying of abortions gone wrong,” Patricia tells the BBC.

“They were using home remedies, bush medicine, unlicensed doctors. The law may have been passed but it took many years for it to be implemented. For me, it was an urgent cause.”

Today, Guyana remains one of few countries in the Caribbean to allow terminations upon request.

Most are beholden to colonial-era laws – backed by religious leaders – outlawing them in all but the most extreme circumstances.

Despite this, clandestine abortions are prevalent.

As a minister in the Christian Church, Patricia may seem an unlikely campaigner for legal reform.

“We are all talking about life, and we are for life. There are too many abortions; we want to address the issues that create them. Decriminalising abortion will bring it out of the darkness and lead to a reduction because people are educated and don’t have repeat ones,” she explains.

Patricia is working alongside regional women’s health charity Aspire to change the law in two Caribbean nations.

Aspire is spearheading legal action in Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda to overturn the 19th-Century Offences Against the Person Act, which stipulates a 10-year prison sentence for a woman who ends a pregnancy. The only exception is when her life is at risk.

When Brianna (not her real name) fell pregnant at 19 in Dominica, she was faced with a difficult choice. A college student with limited funds, she knew she was neither financially nor emotionally ready to become a parent.

Seven years on, the memory of the secret termination she underwent remains acutely painful.

Brianna and her partner had been taking precautions.

“We used contraception most of the time and I was on birth control too. We were both really young and bringing up a child wasn’t something we could have done then,” she explains.

Brianna decided ending the pregnancy was her only option.

“It was a frightening situation. I had no idea where to go and I didn’t want to get into trouble by just walking in somewhere and asking,” she recalls.

Eventually she found a private doctor willing to carry out the procedure, but at more than $600 (£465) – about an average month’s salary in Dominica – the cost was steep.

A nurse took pity on her and loaned her the money.

“I was really scared. I wasn’t well versed on how it would work or what would happen to me. I had to lie to get the time off work. And at the doctor’s, they hid me in a room by myself.

“I felt really isolated, like I was doing something wrong,” she says.

Brianna’s story is far from unique.

A study carried out by Aspire indicates that in Antigua, almost three in four women will have a termination by their mid-40s – practically all of them carried out clandestinely.

Aspire’s founder Fred Nunes – who played a key role in changing the law in Guyana in the 1990s – says he is fighting to “eliminate unsafe abortions”.

He argues that current laws are unconstitutional, an affront to women’s bodily autonomy, and disproportionately affect the poor.

“The women who have the power to change the law have no need to, because they can walk into a doctor’s office and have a safe abortion,” he says.

“The women who have a need to change the law are the poor, the young and the vulnerable. That is why we have to intervene, to end the silence and provoke social justice.”

Prosecutions for covert abortions in the Caribbean are rare, but not unheard of. Aspire cites a handful of cases where women, and the healthcare provider helping them, have been charged in the last decade.

In Dominica, a young woman’s death in May 2023 was blamed on a self-administered termination after police found a foetus buried at her home.

Still, campaigners know they will have a battle on their hands.

The Christian Church plays a key role in Caribbean society and religious leaders have spoken out vehemently against the matter, which is due to come before Antigua’s High Court in September.

The Antigua and Barbuda Evangelical Alliance has condemned what it calls a “deliberate erosion of our moral code… under the cloak of advancing human rights”.

Spokesman Pastor Fitzgerald Semper told the BBC: “We’re directly opposed to any changes in the law. As a church, we believe life is sacred and only God should determine when life should end.

“The current law says that if the mother’s life is endangered, then abortion is permitted, and we stand in agreement with that. There should be nothing added or taken away from the legislation.”

With the church wielding such power, abortion is a delicate area to navigate politically and many Caribbean governments have been reluctant to broach the issue. In Antigua, the government has sidestepped the debate by pledging to leave the matter in the hands of the courts.

“Politicians are scared of the church,” Mr Nunes says.

“In the last few decades in the Caribbean, membership has declined in mainline established churches and risen in evangelical, right-wing dogmatic churches – and those are extremely hostile to women’s rights.

They’ve made it almost impossible to approach improving the law.”

Alexandrina Wong, of Antigua-based campaign group Women Against Rape, wants to see the “archaic” legislation removed, while retaining some restrictions such as term limits.

“We’ve seen women who’ve become pregnant after being raped and their mental state has been affected considerably. They must not be denied the right to choose,” she adds.

Brianna thinks better sex education in schools would alleviate the prevalence of abortion.

Aspire’s study also indicates very low rates of contraception in the region; 80% of pregnancies are said to be unplanned.

“A lot of teenage pregnancies are because youth are just not educated about sex,” she says.

Stigma surrounding abortion means Brianna has kept her own termination largely to herself.

“Even though many people know someone who did it, people still get shunned. It’s a very religious community and people think it’s taking a life,” she says.

“But to expect a woman to go ahead with a pregnancy when she’s not capable of taking care of a child physically, financially or emotionally is unfair on her and the child. I feel that’s worse than an abortion.

“Unless someone has been in that situation, they can’t understand the psychological warfare it can cause.”

Malaysian authorities are trying to rescue a woman who fell into an eight-metre deep sinkhole that opened on a busy road in Kuala Lumpur.

The 48-year-old Indian national was sitting on a roadside bench in Jalan India Masjid when the ground beneath her suddenly caved in, according to local police.

Videos on social media show crowds of people watching rescue workers trying to make their way into the sinkhole. Some have ladders, while others are using hammers and diggers to try and clear the way.

There does not appear to be any sign of the woman.

The Kuala Lumpur Fire and Rescue Department said it received a distress call at 08:22 local time (00:22 GMT) and dispatched 15 firemen to the scene.

Operation commander Mohd Riduan Akhbar told local media that a search and rescue operation was being conducted.

“The Special Tactical Operation and Rescue Team of Malaysia (STORM) and the K9 unit are at the location,” he said.

Ninety personnel from various other agencies have also joined in the operation, according to local police chief Assistant Commissioner Sulizmie Affendy Sulaiman.

“We will look at CCTV footage and take statements from witnesses to get a clearer picture of what occurred,” he said.

The BBC has reached out to the Kuala Lumpur Fire and Rescue Department for comment.

Sinkholes generally form when underground water dissolves the rock on the surface, causing a hole to form.

Although there is no precise data globally, geologists say they are reasonably common. Human injuries, however, are very rare.

One of the worst recent sinkholes disasters in terms of casualties occurred in Canada in 2010, when a family of four died after their entire house was swallowed by a gaping sinkhole near Montreal.

The world’s largest sinkhole is Xiaoxhai Tiankeng in south-western China. With a depth measuring 660 metres, researchers believe it was formed more than 128,000 years ago.

Online taxi firm Bolt has restricted “inter-country” requests between Nigeria and South Africa after the two countries’ social media rivalry reached an all-time high – or low – with people booking and then cancelling rides in the other nation as a prank.

The drivers were pawns in this malicious game as they were sent on a wild goose chase to find passengers who weren’t even in the same country.

Munyaradzi Chinyama, a Zimbabwean Bolt driver based in Cape Town, told the BBC he received three ride requests before he realised they were not genuine. He said he wasted a lot of fuel, time and money.

Bolt told the BBC it had identified and blocked users participating in this cruel game.

“We understand the impact this situation has had on our driver-partners in Nigeria and South Africa,” it said in a statement.

It said inter-country requests would still work between other countries.

Mr Chinyama told the BBC he had been inundated with insulting messages through the Bolt messaging feature that connects drivers with passengers.

He said he was called various names, including “Mandela’s son”.

It is unclear how this “Bolt war” started but social media users in sub-Saharan Africa’s two biggest economies have a long history of trolling each other.

“When I’m bored, I request [Bolt] in Nigeria, akere their brothers are disrespecting us,” one user said on X on Tuesday. This seems to have set off the chain of events and Nigerians swiftly retaliated.

A disgruntled Nigerian driver based in Kano told the BBC he received an order for an airport trip from an international number but the person didn’t show up.

“I tried calling and calling but they didn’t answer. Then they cancelled the trip,” he said.

He said he wasn’t the only victim. Many of his colleagues faced similar issues.

Some social media users rallied behind the drivers, saying they were just trying to make a living.

“Uber and Bolt drivers are just trying to make ends meet. They aren’t on twitter trolling anyone. They are literally trying to earn an honest living. Please leave them alone. And i’m talking to both sides,” one X user wrote.

A second person said: “The bolt challenge is paining me because it’s innocent and hardworking people on both sides that are suffering for the wickedness and thoughtlessness of other people. Really unfair.”

In Nigeria fuel prices have rocketed in recent months. Many drivers would have wasted scarce fuel picking up non-existent customers.

The “Bolt-war” also reportedly caused prices to surge in both countries, leaving many people stranded as they couldn’t afford to pay for their rides.

South Africans and Nigerians often lock horns on social media.

They rowed most recently over the Miss South Africa controversy which saw a half-Nigerian contestant step down following xenophobic abuse.

The two African heavyweights have also pitted their popstars Tyla and Arya Starr against one another and exchanged insults over their national football teams.

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Police have captured an Arizona man who allegedly threatened to kill Donald Trump following a manhunt that unfolded as the former president was visiting the border state.

Police say Ronald Lee Syvrud, 66, of Cochise County, made death threats against Trump in social media posts over the past fortnight.

Trump was in Cochise County on Thursday visiting the US frontier with Mexico.

Last month Trump was grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office says Syrvud is also wanted for failing to register as a sex offender.

He faces several warrants in both Wisconsin and Arizona, including on charges of driving under the influence and a felony hit and run.

Police say he is from Benson, Arizona, which is located about 50 miles (80km) south-east of Tucson.

The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office posted on Thursday afternoon that they had caught the suspect within the county lines.

“This subject has been taken into custody without incident,” the office posted.

Trump spent Thursday in Cochise County, visiting the US-Mexico border.

During his remarks, he sought to blame his rival, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, for allowing illegal immigrants into the US.

Reporters asked him if he was aware of the search for the Cochise County suspect.

“No, I have not heard that, but I am not that surprised and the reason is because I want to do things that are very bad for the bad guys,” Trump said.

This isn’t the first threat against a presidential candidate this election cycle.

Earlier this month, a 66-year-old Virginia man was arrested on suspicion of making death threats against Vice-President Harris, among other public officials.

Rapper A$AP Rocky has said “leaks and sample clearances” have been “disrupting” the release of his new music.

His fourth studio album Don’t Be Dumb was expected at the end of August, but that will no longer be happening.

“I wanna make the best album ever. I’m sorry for the wait,” he wrote on X, adding it’s been “six years” in the making.

The Wild for the Night star’s latest release was Testing in 2018, but he’s continued to perform on stage at festivals and tours.

His new album has been rumoured to have appearances by J.Cole, Busta Rhymes and partner Rihanna, with whom he has two children.

The issue of leaks are not new for the rapper, whose real name is Rakim Mayers.

In an interview with Billboard, he hinted that leaks have previously impacted the progress of new music repeatedly over the years.

“They leak a lot of the music and it ruins it.

“Like my ‘Taylor Swift’ video,” he says, referring to a visual for a song named for her that was leaked online last year.

In his post online, A$AP also spoke about “sample clearances“, which refers to the process of getting permission from the owners of copyrighted music to use bits of it in a song.

The rapper was one of the biggest breakout stars of the 2010s, earning eight platinum singles in the US, including Wild For The Night, Everyday, LSD and A$AP Forever.

He rose to fame after being championed by Drake, and has worked with artists including Alicia Keys, Lana Del Rey, Skepta, Selena Gomez and Kendrick Lamar.

But he has also faced controversies over the years.

In 2019, the star was found guilty of assault over a fight in Stockholm and given a two-year suspended sentence.

And in 2023, a judge ruled the rapper will have to stand trial on charges that he fired a pistol in a feud with a former childhood friend – to which he pleaded not guilty.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

Hundreds of people have queued to be the first inside Jeremy Clarkson’s new pub ahead of its grand opening.

Based in Asthall, near Burford in Oxfordshire, The Farmer’s Dog opened to the public at 12:00 BST.

The former Top Gear presenter revealed earlier this year he had paid “less than £1 million” for the pub, previously known as The Windmill.

There are fears the venture could bring more traffic problems, following the success of his Diddly Squat farm shop.

Mr Clarkson was seen driving into the rear car park shortly before 10:45, before re-appearing to carry a box into the pub.

He told reporters why he wanted to open the pub.

“We wanted to have that restaurant on the farm last year and we couldn’t, and pubs, they are all for sale.

“So, we thought instead of building a restaurant we would buy a pub.”

He described getting ready for the opening as “terribly stressful”.

“There’s just so many things about running a pub you don’t think about.

“Yesterday we had the soft opening and someone’s managed to smash the lavatory door.

“When you go to a festival and go in the bogs, you think, does your bathroom at home look like this? How can you break a bathroom door?”

At the front of the queue for the pub were Lauren Hanly and Blake Jones, who had travelled from Gloucester.

Ms Hanly said they wanted to sample the food having previously visited Clarkson’s other businesses, the Diddly Squat farm shop and Hawkstone Brewery, which features in his Amazon series Clarkson’s Farm.

“We got here just before 8am. We were surprised to be at the front. We thought it would be busier earlier but then the gates weren’t opening until 7.30am,” she said.

“Having Jeremy Clarkson’s name on it, it is always going to do well. It is a destination site and people will come from all over, as well as the local community.”

Mr Clarkson says he is happy with his choice of location.

He said: “We looked at 40 pubs. We needed some very special things like a big car park, a big car park and lots of parking, and no little roads to get to it.

“There’s no-one to annoy. It’s a good spot.”

He does have doubts as to whether his new venture, which only serve British produce, will be profitable though.

He said: “I’m not very good at business plans and I haven’t done one.

“I do know this. If I take one of our pigs and we slaughter it and butcher it and we turn it into sausages and we sell it here, it costs us 74p.

“If I buy imported pig meat it is 18p. So, something is wrong with the food system in this country.”

The TV star has faced pushback over the years from locals in West Oxfordshire when he has tried to expand his Diddly Squat farm project.

Some residents also expressed concerns about traffic problems because the pub is located next to the busy A40 road.

But Oxfordshire County Council said it had worked “closely and pro-actively” with Clarkson’s team ahead of the opening.

“Several measures have been taken to reduce the likelihood of traffic and parking-related problems, and to support the safe and successful opening of the site,” a council spokesman said.

Mr Clarkson even posted on social media to thank the authority for its help.

Motorists are being asked to only use designated off-highway car parks and not park on the roads or verges nearby.

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Tributes have been paid to 18-year-old Hannah Lynch, after divers recovered what is believed to be her body in the wreckage of a luxury yacht which sank off Sicily.

Hannah was the last person unaccounted for after the luxury yacht Bayesian sank during a freak storm off the Italian fishing village of Porticello, east of Palermo, claiming seven lives in total.

Friends have described her as a “warm and beautiful soul”, while teachers praised her “sky-high intellectual ability”.

The body of her father, tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, was recovered from the shipwreck earlier this week.

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The family released a picture of the two on Friday.

In a statement a spokesperson said: “The Lynch family is devastated, in shock and is being comforted and supported by family and friends.”

“Their thoughts are with everyone affected by the tragedy. They would like to sincerely thank the Italian coastguard, emergency services and all those who helped in the rescue.”

“Their one request now is that their privacy be respected at this time of unspeakable grief.”

“Mike was the most brilliant mind and caring person I have ever known,” a close friend, Andrew Kanter, said. “His passion for life, knowledge and all those around him was instantly inspiring to everyone he met, and he will be sorely missed.”

The Italian Coast Guard released a statement saying the rescue operations have come to an end with the recovery of Hannah Lynch, adding that a total of seven people were confirmed dead.

The survivors include a one-year-old child and Hannah’s mother, Angela Bacares.

Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy Bloomer, Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo, his wife Neda Morvillo and the boat’s chef Recaldo Thomas all died in the disaster.

Italian authorities are continuing to investigate the circumstances around Monday’s incident.

In cases like this one, it is common for officials to embark on a broad investigation – known as a ‘crime hypothesis’ – that considers a series of possible criminal charges.

Approached by BBC News, the Italian police confirmed an investigation was ongoing but no charges have yet been brought.

Rescuers described the search operation, which started on Monday, as “complex”, with divers limited to 12-minute underwater shifts.

After reports emerged that the final body had been found, a coastguard vessel which had been at the site of the shipwreck for hours could be seen back in the port.

Meanwhile, a helicopter landed nearby as divers took off their orange suits on the quayside.

A decision on whether to raise the sunken yacht from the seabed is “not on the agenda” but will be in the future, a spokesperson from the Italian Coastguard has said.

The ship was “practically intact” on the seabed, according to divers on the search and rescue team.

On Friday morning a flag outside Hannah Lynch’s school in Hammersmith in west London was being flown at half mast to mark her death.

She had recently finished her A-levels and had been offered a place to study English at the University of Oxford, according to the Times.

“We are all incredibly shocked by the news,” a spokesperson for Latymer Upper School said.

“Our thoughts are with their family and everyone involved,” they added.

Gracie Lea, a classmate of Hannah, described her as “easy to love: sincere, dedicated, fiercely intelligent and genuinely kind. I’ll always remember her smiling”.

Donald Trump isn’t in Chicago but his presence hangs over everything and he is clearly following events here.

Ahead of Kamala Harris’s speech on Thursday, a couple of Trump aides told me, a little implausibly, that the former president is not tuning into the Democratic National Convention because he has no interest in watching a Democratic Party “infomercial”.

But one senior campaign official confirms, anonymously, that Trump is watching and is irritated by the attacks against him.

In the view of one ally who speaks to the former president every week, Trump wins in November if he sticks to talking about the economy, the border and crime.

At the start of this week, that looked possible. Trump scheduled a string of rallies, in Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Arizona – each was themed to focus on exactly those political and economic topics.

But with night after night of anti-Trump speeches here in Chicago, staying on message has gone out the window. And it’s not what his supporters tell him they want anyway.

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The North Carolina event on Wednesday was vintage Trump – and it became a referendum on his own team’s strategy. “They always say, ‘Sir, please stick to policy, don’t get personal’… and yet [the Democrats are] getting personal all night long, these people. Do I still have to stick to policy?” Trump asked.

Then he polled the crowd: more policy or go personal? His fans roared, they wanted the Trump show, not a list of boring economic proposals. “My advisers are fired!” he joked. Then he said he’d stick to policy but couldn’t let the attacks go unanswered.

So the campaign strategy now seems to be at the whim of the candidate and the feedback of his crowds. That makes life difficult for his campaign advisers who repeatedly tell me their single biggest concern in this election campaign is whether they can keep Trump focused on issues and off the controversial personal attacks.

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There have been a couple of those this week already.

Late on Wednesday night, Trump took to social media to criticise the Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who had given a rousing speech earlier in the evening. Trump clearly didn’t like what he heard.

“The highly overrated Jewish Governor of the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, made a really bad and poorly delivered speech,” Trump wrote.

“I have done more for Israel than any President…Shapiro has done nothing for Israel, and never will.”

The fact that he singled out Mr Shapiro as Jewish has not gone unnoticed. It was picked up on the US morning shows as an example of a racial dog whistle.

After the Obamas criticised Trump at the DNC on Tuesday night, he responded during his rally in North Carolina, and, again, there was a similar racial innuendo.

“Did you see Barack Hussein Obama last night,” Trump said. “He was taking shots at your president. And so was Michelle.”

It’s true that they did take pretty personal shots at him, but the use of Mr Obama’s middle name has long been used to stoke racial animosity towards him.

The problem for the Trump team is that their candidate thrives on controversy which then dominates headlines, and this distracts from their attempts to point out weaknesses in his opponent’s policy positions.

“It doesn’t matter what he talks about for 45 minutes,” one adviser told me on the condition of anonymity. “One comment or answer to a question gives the left all they need to change the subject.”

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Four prison employees have been killed after prisoners staged a revolt in a Russian penal colony and took eight hostages, federal authorities say.

Special forces stormed the IK-19 Surovikino facility in the southwestern Volgograd region after knife-wielding prisoners, who identified themselves as Islamic State (IS) militants, claimed to have taken control of the sprawling complex.

Authorities said the special forces operation had freed some hostages and “neutralised” all the attackers, but later confirmed that four prison employees died in the attack.

An unverified image posted on social media appeared to show an inmate holding a knife standing above a bloodied prison guard during the revolt.

Russia’s Rosgvardia National Guard said snipers shot four attackers in the rescue operation.

Heavily armed troops were filmed arriving at the prison in footage posted to the Telegram messaging app by the National Guard.

The attack began during a disciplinary commission meeting, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement. During the attack, the attackers slashed guards and wounded several prison staff.

Federal prison authorities said eight people had been taken hostage. Some reports in Russian media suggested that the prison’s director and deputy director had been seized.

In dramatic mobile phone footage released by the attackers, they identified themselves as IS militants. The men said they were motivated by the desire to avenge the persecution of Muslims.

The video also showed prison officials lying in pools of blood, while in separate clips the attackers roamed the prison courtyard.

Volgograd regional governor Andrei Bocharov said earlier that the hostage-taking posed “no threat to the civilian population”.

President Vladimir Putin was filmed taking part in a virtual meeting with security chiefs, during which the Kremlin said he had been updated on the situation.

The Volgograd hostage-taking is the second such incident this summer, after six prisoners who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group captured two guards at a facility in the neighbouring Rostov region.

Five of the prisoners were killed and a sixth sentenced to 20 years in prison following the attack.

Prosecutors said they had opened a case relating to a hostage-taking.

IK-19 Surovikino is a high-security penal colony. It is believed to hold about 1,200 inmates.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Ukraine to hold talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky. The trip comes just weeks after he met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

The visit is significant because Kyiv and some Western capitals had reacted sharply to Mr Modi’s visit to the Russian capital in July.

Mr Zelensky was particularly critical, saying he was “disappointed to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow”.

So, is Mr Modi visiting Kyiv to placate Mr Zelensky and other Western leaders?

Not entirely.

It’s not surprising to see India balance its relations between two competing nations or blocs. The country’s famed non-alignment approach to geopolitics has served it well for decades.

Friday’s visit – the first by an Indian prime minister to Ukraine – is more about signalling that while India will continue to have strong relations with Russia, it will still work closely with the West.

Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Centre think-tank in Washington, says the trip will further reassert India’s strategic autonomy.

“India isn’t in the business of placating Western powers, or anyone for that matter. It’s a trip meant to advance Indian interests, by reasserting friendship with Kyiv and conveying its concerns about the continuing war,” he says.

However, the timing of the visit does reflect that Indian diplomats have taken onboard the sharp reactions from the US to Mr Modi’s Moscow visit.

India has refrained from directly criticising Russia over the war, much to the annoyance of Western powers.

• Modi’s balancing act as he meets Putin in Moscow

Delhi, however, has often spoken about the importance of respecting territorial integrity and sovereignty of nations. It has continuously pushed for diplomacy and dialogue to end the war.

Mr Modi’s Moscow visit in July came hours after Russian bombing killed at least 41 people in Ukraine, including at a children’s hospital in Kyiv, sparking a global outcry.

The Indian PM said the death of children was painful and terrifying but stopped short of blaming Russia.

Mr Modi is not likely to deviate from this stance during his visit to Kyiv. The US and other Western nations have grown to accept Delhi’s stand, given India’s time-tested relationship with Moscow and its reliance on Russian military equipment.

India, the world’s largest importer of arms, has diversified its defence import portfolio and also grown domestic manufacturing in recent years but it still buys more than 50% of its defence equipment from Russia.

India has also increased its oil imports from Russia, taking advantage of cheaper prices offered by Moscow – Russia was the top oil supplier to India last year.

The US and its allies have often implored India to take a clearer stand on the war but they have also refrained from applying harsh sanctions or pressure.

The West also sees India as a counterbalance to China and doesn’t want to upset that dynamic. India, now the fifth largest economy in the world, is also a growing market for business.

Mr Kugelman says the West will welcome the visit and see it as Delhi’s willingness to engage with all sides.

“Mr Modi has a strong incentive to signal that it’s not leaning so close to Moscow that there’s nothing to salvage with Kyiv,” he says.

This is important because India wants to keep growing its relations with the West, particularly with the US, and wouldn’t want to upset the momentum. Eric Garcetti, the US ambassador to India, recently said the relationship should not be “taken for granted”.

India also needs the West as China, its Asian rival, and Russia have forged close ties in recent years.

While Delhi has long viewed Moscow as a power that can put pressure on an assertive China when needed, it can’t be taken for granted.

Meanwhile, many media commentators have spoken about the possibility of Mr Modi positioning himself as a peacemaker, given India’s close relations with both Moscow and the West.

But it’s unlikely that he will turn up with a peace plan.

“Is India really up to it, and are the conditions right? India doesn’t like other countries trying to mediate in its own issues, chief among them Kashmir. And I don’t think Mr Modi would formally offer mediation unless both Russia and Ukraine want it. And at this point, I don’t think they do,” Mr Kugelman adds.

Ukraine, however, will still welcome Mr Modi’s visit and see it as an opportunity to engage with a close ally of Moscow, something it hasn’t done much since the war began.

Mr Zelensky, though, is unlikely to hold back his criticism of Mr Putin in front of the Indian PM. Mr Modi can live with that as he has faced such situations many times in other Western capitals.

Moscow is not likely to react to the visit as it has also been making concessions for Delhi’s multilateral approach to geopolitics.

But beyond reasserting its non-alignment policy, Delhi also has bigger goals from this visit.

India has been ramping up engagement with Europe in the past decade, particularly with the underserved regions in Central and Eastern Europe.

Delhi wants to keep consolidating its relations with the big four – the UK, Italy, Germany and France – but also wants to boost engagement with other countries in Europe.

Mr Modi is also visiting Poland on this trip – the first Indian PM to visit the country in 45 years. He also became the first Indian prime minister to visit Austria in 41 years in July.

Analysts say that this signals India’s growing understanding that Central European nations will play a bigger role in geopolitics in the future and strong relations with them will serve Delhi well.

The Indian government has also revived trade deal negotiations with Europe. It has signed a trade and investment deal with the European Free Trade Association, which is the intergovernmental organisation of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

So, while there will be a lot of focus on the war during his visit, Indian diplomats are likely to stay focused on the bigger goal.

“Central and Eastern Europe now have greater agency in writing their own destiny and reshaping regional geopolitics. Mr Modi’s visit to Warsaw and Kyiv is about recognising that momentous change at the heart of Europe and deepening bilateral political, economic and security ties with the Central European states,” foreign policy analyst C Raja Mohan wrote in the Indian Express newspaper, summing up Mr Modi’s wider goal.

Vice-President Kamala Harris pledged a “new way forward” for all Americans as she formally accepted the Democratic nomination for president on Thursday night, delivering a message of unity and urging voters to reject Donald Trump.

November’s election is a chance to “move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles of the past”, she said, bringing her party’s convention in Chicago to a close as balloons rained down and supporters cheered.

Ms Harris’s speech capped off a four-day spectacle designed to highlight her backstory and shape the contours of what remains a vague policy agenda.

She made history as the first black and Asian-American woman to lead a major party’s presidential ticket.

The 59-year-old officially became the Democratic nominee after a fast-moving few weeks that began with President Joe Biden stepping aside in the White House race.

Polls suggest she is now in a tight race with Trump, who offered criticism of Ms Harris’s appearance as it unfolded.

Ms Harris used her nearly 45-minute address, the most important speech of her political career, to reintroduce herself to the nation.

She shared personal anecdotes about growing up in a “beautiful working-class neighbourhood” as the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants.

And she argued that her background as a prosecutor – a detail she avoided emphasising during her 2020 run – made her uniquely qualified to defeat Trump and serve in the Oval Office, as did her record as vice-president under Mr Biden.

Ms Harris also dedicated several minutes of her speech to how her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, shaped her life and political career.

“She taught us to never complain about injustice, but (instead) to do something about it,” Ms Harris recalled. Her sister Maya, 57, also spoke on Thursday night, saying their mother had been a “trailblazer”, having set “great expectations of us”.

“She raised us to believe that we could be or do anything,” she said, to loud applause. “It’s a distinctly American story.”

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• Where the vice-president stands on key issues

Ms Harris made a pitch to aspirational families across America, saying she would create an “opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed”.

She said she would “end America’s housing shortage” and help entrepreneurs. However, did not describe any specific changes in policy from the administration in which she currently serves.

Trump reacted to his rival’s speech on his social media platform Truth Social, and called into Fox News after the event concluded to criticise her remarks.

He questioned her record during four years in the White House as vice-president.

“Why didn’t she do something about the things of which she complains?” the Republican wrote.

Five weeks ago, Democrats thought their party extravaganza would be centred on President Joe Biden, as he ran for another term despite widespread anxiety about his age and whether he could defeat Trump.

But a plot twist came in late July, when Mr Biden, bowing to party pressure after a poor debate performance, announced he would step aside and throw his support behind Ms Harris.

Within days, party leaders, delegates and potential challengers coalesced behind Ms Harris’s candidacy. And in Chicago, the vice-president’s speech was well received by the delegates who had given her their official backing for the top job.

“I think she set the tone for the enthusiasm Democrats are going to have from now until November,” Georgia delegate Edward Bohannan told the BBC. “There wasn’t much excitement about the election before. But now people are getting engaged.”

Among the other figures who energised the convention’s thousands of attendees over the previous days were Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and even Republican defectors.

It was Mr Biden, 81, who delivered the keynote speech on the first night, in a symbolic passing of the torch. While on holiday in California, he also called Ms Harris to wish her luck with her own speech.

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The DNC’s fourth night also featured speakers emphasisng the toll of gun violence, an issue Ms Harris focused on as California’s top prosecutor and one she has pursued during her vice-presidency. Mr Biden last year created an office dedicated to combating gun violence and named Ms Harris to lead it.

Gabby Giffords, a leading gun safety advocate and former US congresswoman who was shot in the head 2011 in Arizona, appeared alongside her husband, Senator Mark Kelly, who was a leading contender to be Ms Harris’s running mate. Georgia Congresswoman Lucy MacBath, who has pushed for gun restrictions and was elected after her son was shot and killed, also delivered remarks.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democratic rising star who also was floated as a potential vice-presidential pick for Ms Harris, described the Democratic candidate as “tough, tested, and a total badass”.

Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman who now backs the Democrats, used his moment in the spotlight to attack Trump.

“It’s in standing up for our constitution and our democracy that that is the soul of being a conservative,” said Mr Kinzinger. “It used to be the soul of being a Republican, but Donald Trump has suffocated the soul of the Republican Party.”

“Democrats are just as patriotic as we are,” he added as the crowd broke out in chants of “USA”.

But DNC organisers rejected protesters’ demands to allow a Palestinian to speak, following days of protests in Chicago against the war in Gaza and White House policy.

Ms Harris did not directly address the protesters, though she did touch on Gaza. She said she would always defend Israel’s right to security, while calling for Palestinians to live with “dignity” and “freedom”.

A packed arena featured delegates and supporters brandishing American flags and placards bearing Ms Harris’s name. Many donned white clothing in honour of the women’s suffrage movement.

And there was no shortage of star power on Thursday – following a packed programme of celebrity appearances on the previous nights, which was also witnessed at last month’s Republican convention.

Steph Curry – a basketball star who is part of Ms Harris’s hometown NBA team the Golden State Warriors, and who recently led Team USA to Olympic gold – delivered a video message. There were performances from Pink and The Chicks (formerly the Dixie Chicks).

But those hoping for a showing from Beyoncé were left disappointed, after rumours throughout the evening of a “surprise guest” led to some hope that the star would perform her hit Freedom, which Ms Harris has used as a campaign song.

By the time 100,000 red, white and blue balloons dropped from the ceiling, hope of a rockstar ending quickly deflated.

“After all that, no Beyoncé,” one man joked as he left, popping balloons with his foot.

LISTEN: Americast podcast asks whether Harris pulled off the speech

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ANALYSIS: Harris faced years of doubt, but she still prepared

A transgender woman from Australia has won a discrimination case against a women-only social media app, after she was denied access on the basis of being male.

The Federal Court found that although Roxanne Tickle had not been directly discriminated against, she was a victim of indirect discrimination – which refers to when a decision disadvantages a person with a particular attribute – and ordered the app to pay her A$10,000 ($6,700; £5,100) plus costs.

It’s a landmark ruling when it comes to gender identity, and at the very heart of the case was the ever more contentious question: what is a woman?

In 2021, Tickle downloaded “Giggle for Girls”, an app marketed as an online refuge where women could share their experiences in a safe space, and where men were not allowed.

In order to gain access, she had to upload a selfie to prove she was a woman, which was assessed by gender recognition software designed to screen out men.

However, seven months later – after successfully joining the platform – her membership was revoked.

As someone who identifies as a woman, Tickle claimed she was legally entitled to use services meant for women, and that she was discriminated against based on her gender identity.

She sued the social media platform, as well as its CEO Sall Grover, and sought damages amounting to A$200,000, claiming that “persistent misgendering” by Grover had prompted “constant anxiety and occasional suicidal thoughts”.

“Grover’s public statements about me and this case have been distressing, demoralising, embarrassing, draining and hurtful. This has led to individuals posting hateful comments towards me online and indirectly inciting others to do the same,” Tickle said in an affidavit.

Giggle’s legal team argued throughout the case that sex is a biological concept.

They freely concede that Tickle was discriminated against – but on the grounds of sex, rather than gender identity. Refusing to allow Tickle to use the app constituted lawful sex discrimination, they say. The app is designed to exclude men, and because its founder perceives Tickle to be male – she argues that denying her access to the app was lawful.

But Justice Robert Bromwich said in his decision on Friday that case law has consistently found sex is “changeable and not necessarily binary”, ultimately dismissing Giggle’s argument.

Tickle said the ruling “shows that all women are protected from discrimination” and that she hoped the case would be “healing for trans and gender diverse people”.

“Unfortunately, we got the judgement we anticipated. The fight for women’s rights continues,” Grover wrote on X, responding to the decision.

Known as “Tickle vs Giggle”, the case is the first time alleged gender identity discrimination has been heard by the federal court in Australia.

It encapsulates how one of the most acrimonious ideological debates – trans inclusion versus sex-based rights – can play out in court.

Tickle was born male, but changed her gender and has been living as a woman since 2017.

When giving evidence to the court, she said: “Up until this instance, everybody has treated me as a woman.”

“I do from time to time get frowns and stares and questioning looks which is quite disconcerting…but they’ll let me go about my business.”

But Grover believes no human being has or can change sex – which is the pillar of gender-critical ideology.

When Tickle’s lawyer Georgina Costello KC cross examined Grover, she said:

“Even where a person who was assigned male at birth transitions to a woman by having surgery, hormones, gets rid of facial hair, undergoes facial reconstruction, grows their hair long, wears make up, wears female clothes, describes themselves as a woman, introduces themselves as a woman, uses female changing rooms, changes their birth certificate – you don’t accept that is a woman?”

“No”, Grover replied.

She also said she would refuse to address Tickle as “Ms,” and that “Tickle is a biological male.”

Grover is a self-declared Terf, which stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”. Typically used as a derogatory term for those considered hostile to transgender people, it has also been claimed by some to describe their own gender-critical beliefs.

“I’m being taken to federal court by a man who claims to be a woman because he wants to use a woman-only space I created,” she posted on X.

“There isn’t a woman in the world who’d have to take me to court to use this woman only space. It takes a man for this case to exist.”

She says she created her app “Giggle for Girls” in 2020 after receiving a lot of social media abuse by men while she worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter.

“I wanted to create a safe, women-only space in the palm of your hand,” she said.

“It is a legal fiction that Tickle is a woman. His birth certificate has been altered from male to female, but he is a biological man, and always will be.”

“We are taking a stand for the safety of all women’s only spaces, but also for basic reality and truth, which the law should reflect.”

Grover has previously said that she would appeal against the court’s decision and will fight the case all the way to the High Court of Australia.

The outcome of this case could set a legal precedent for the resolution of conflicts between gender identity rights and sex-based rights in other countries.

Crucial to understanding this is the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). This is an international treaty adopted in 1979 by the UN – effectively an international bill of rights for women.

Giggle’s defence argued that Australia’s ratification of CEDAW obliges the State to protect women’s rights, including single-sex spaces.

So today’s ruling in favour of Tickle will be significant for all the 189 countries where CEDAW has been ratified – from Brazil to India to South Africa.

When it comes to interpreting international treaties, national courts often look at how other countries have done it.

Australia’s interpretation of the law in a case that got this level of media attention is likely to have global repercussions.

If over time a growing number of courts rule in favour of gender identity claims – it is more likely that other countries will follow suit.

Kamala Harris formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night, delivering a speech which hit the key notes her campaign wanted – but had only rare moments of soaring rhetoric and broke little new ground.

The ground-breaking was in the nature of the nominee herself – the first woman of colour to become a major party’s presidential nominee.

“Never let anyone tell you who you are,” Ms Harris said. “You show them who you are.”

But for roughly 45 minutes on Thursday, she tried to tell Americans who she is – and what she would do if she wins the White House.

Here are four takeaways from her convention-closing remarks.

Many Americans know who Ms Harris is, but not many know what she believes in or details of her background. First and foremost, her convention speech set out to change that.

She recounted her mother’s journey as an immigrant from India. She spoke about how her parents met – and how they ultimately divorced. She talked about her childhood upbringing in a working-class neighbourhood in Oakland, California.

“The middle class is where I come from,” she said. “My mother kept a strict budget. We lived within our means. Yet, we wanted for little. And she expected us to make the most of the opportunities that were available to us.”

Ms Harris also spoke of why she chose to become a lawyer – and a prosecutor. She drew a line from her early days in the courtroom to her public services as a politician.

“My entire career, I have only had one client,” she said. “The people.”

Ms Harris’s speech included calls for unity and a pathway beyond the “bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles” of modern American politics.

She said that the US had a “precious, fleeting” opportunity to “chart a new path forward”. But that chart had few details.

Vague calls for unity and a path beyond partisanship are rhetoric many presidential hopefuls have used in the past.

When Ms Harris did turn to policy details, she spoke in generalities.

She said she will be focused on lowering the costs of “everyday needs” – including healthcare, housing and groceries. She specifically called out abortion rights – and framed it as a means of preserving freedom, which has been a recurring theme at this Democratic convention.

“America cannot truly be prosperous unless Americans are fully able to make their own decisions about their own lives, especially about matters of heart and home,” she said.

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Ms Harris, in her speech, styled herself as a centre-left moderate, putting little daylight between her policies and those of her boss, the man she hopes to replace, Joe Biden.

“Everywhere I go, in everyone I meet, I see a nation ready to move forward,” she said. “Ready for the next step, in the incredible journey that is America.”

The exact details of that step, however, are to be determined.

As pro-Palestinian protesters marched outside the convention, Ms Harris devoted particular attention in the foreign-policy section of her speech to the Gaza war.

Here, yet again, there was little difference between her rhetoric and views and those of Mr Biden – and she linked herself to the president several times.

“President Biden and I are working around the clock,” she said, “because now is the time to get a hostage deal and ceasefire done.”

She also pledged to ensure that Israel always has the ability to defend itself and took particular note of the brutality of the 7 October Hamas attack.

For a moment, it sounded like some in the crowd would jeer, but Ms Harris quickly moved on to the plight of Palestinians, saying that the scale of their suffering was “heartbreaking”.

That will hardly be enough to satisfy the protesters outside, however, and they could return to their homes – some in key battleground states like Michigan – convinced that a Harris presidency would be a continuation of the Biden Gaza War policies.

Two days ago, Michelle and Barack Obama formed a tag-team that belittled former president Donald Trump for what they charaterised as his small obsessions and petty personality.

Ms Harris also took swipes at her Republican opponent, but they were pretty standard fare for Democrats – including Mr Biden – over the past few months.

“In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man,” she said. “But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”

She brought up the 6 January attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters, and mentioned his criminal convictions.

She also hit what has become a favourite Democratic punching bag, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for a Republican presidency. Although the former president has disavowed the plan, she noted that it was written by his advisers and it sought to “pull our country back into the past”.

The future vs the past contrast has been a central theme of the Harris campaign so far, as it was in her nomination acceptance speech.

It’s one of the ways the vice-president has been able to draw a distinction not only from her current Republican opponent, but from the unpopular aspects of her boss, Joe Biden, who just a few weeks ago was the presumptive Democratic nominee.

SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything to know about the November vote

EXPLAINER: Swing states where the election could be won and lost

ANALYSIS: Harris faced years of doubt, but she still prepared

Malaysian authorities are trying to rescue a woman who fell into an eight-metre deep sinkhole that opened on a busy road in Kuala Lumpur.

The 48-year-old Indian national was sitting on a roadside bench in Jalan India Masjid when the ground beneath her suddenly caved in, according to local police.

Videos on social media show crowds of people watching rescue workers trying to make their way into the sinkhole. Some have ladders, while others are using hammers and diggers to try and clear the way.

There does not appear to be any sign of the woman.

The Kuala Lumpur Fire and Rescue Department said it received a distress call at 08:22 local time (00:22 GMT) and dispatched 15 firemen to the scene.

Operation commander Mohd Riduan Akhbar told local media that a search and rescue operation was being conducted.

“The Special Tactical Operation and Rescue Team of Malaysia (STORM) and the K9 unit are at the location,” he said.

Ninety personnel from various other agencies have also joined in the operation, according to local police chief Assistant Commissioner Sulizmie Affendy Sulaiman.

“We will look at CCTV footage and take statements from witnesses to get a clearer picture of what occurred,” he said.

The BBC has reached out to the Kuala Lumpur Fire and Rescue Department for comment.

Sinkholes generally form when underground water dissolves the rock on the surface, causing a hole to form.

Although there is no precise data globally, geologists say they are reasonably common. Human injuries, however, are very rare.

One of the worst recent sinkholes disasters in terms of casualties occurred in Canada in 2010, when a family of four died after their entire house was swallowed by a gaping sinkhole near Montreal.

The world’s largest sinkhole is Xiaoxhai Tiankeng in south-western China. With a depth measuring 660 metres, researchers believe it was formed more than 128,000 years ago.

Former Match of the Day and One Show star Jermaine Jenas has said he is “speaking to his lawyers” after being sacked by the BBC for allegedly sending inappropriate messages to a female colleague.

Jenas said there were “two sides to every story” and he would let his “lawyers deal with it”.

The ex-footballer’s contract was terminated this week following allegations involving unsolicited digital communications including texts to a member of a production team.

The issue was brought to the BBC’s attention a few weeks ago. The corporation announced his departure on Thursday, but didn’t give further details of the allegations.

Later that day, he was asked about the claims on talkSport radio, but said: “I can’t really talk about it.”

He told the station: “As you can probably see, I am not happy about it.”

Asked if he was surprised that any complaints had been made against him, Jenas replied: “I can’t really talk right now.

“I’ve just got to leave this to a team of lawyers at the minute who are, yeah, I suppose just managing the situation,” he said.

“This is… yeah, it’s tough, you know. But I’ve got to listen to my lawyers.”

A BBC spokesperson said: “We can confirm Jermaine Jenas is no longer part of our presenting line-up.”

He was last on air for the corporation earlier in the summer.

When the news of his BBC exit broke, he was on air as a guest presenter on the talkSport drivetime show.

A statement from the station said: “We were made aware of a breaking news story involving Jermaine Jenas as he went on air for a one-off presenting slot on talkSport Drive.

“We made a decision – with Jermaine – that he should continue to present the show.

“Given the array of serious allegations being reported as the story continues to evolve, it’s for Jermaine as a private individual to address them in the way he chooses.

“There are no plans for Jermaine to broadcast as a presenter on talkSport in the immediate future.”

Jenas also works for pay TV channels TNT Sports as a football pundit and co-commentator, and fronts their Formula E racing coverage.

TNT has not commented about his future.

Jenas’s profile was removed from his agent’s website on Thursday evening.

His firing from the BBC came three months after he received a prize for Women’s Football Ally of the Year at the 2024 Women’s Football Awards.

He said at the time he had “always supported the women’s game” and that his mother had raised him as a “strong advocate of women in sport”.

In previous years, the award winner had been selected from a shortlist of nominees, but Jenas’s award was given to him outright.

At the time of writing, the Women’s Football Awards website has been taken down for maintenance. The BBC has approached the organisation for comment.

Jenas made his footballing debut at the age of 17, and played for his boyhood team Nottingham Forest, then Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United. He went on to play 341 times, as well as making 21 appearances for England.

He retired in 2016 aged 32, although he had not played since 2014.

Jenas turned his attention to media work, as a pundit while recovering from a knee injury and became a regular on Match of the Day, as well as BT Sport.

He became a permanent member of the flagship BBC One show’s presenting team in 2021, appearing on the sofa beside long-time host Alex Jones.

He started acting as a stand-in host on The One Show in 2020 following the departure of Matt Baker.

It was announced the next April that he and Boyzone star Ronan Keating would be given permanent positions, with Jenas presenting alongside Alex Jones from Mondays to Wednesdays.

He said at the time that he was “really looking forward to joining as a full-time host”.

Jenas was also the face of Match of the Day spin-off show MOTDx until that was cancelled in 2023.

Jenas, who is married and has four children, earned between £190,000 and £194,999 at the BBC in the last financial year for his work on coverage of football including the FA Cup, Match of the Day and the World Cup.

His salary for his work on The One Show has not been made public because it is made by BBC Studios, the BBC’s commercial production company, which doesn’t reveal how much it pays presenters.

He also set up the Aquinas Foundation with a friend to help incentivise and raise the aspirations of young people in schools across Nottingham.

The charity is not currently commenting.

In December 2023 he collected an honorary degree from Nottingham Trent University.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has paid a historic visit to Ukraine, telling President Volodymyr Zelensky he is prepared to play a personal role to bring peace.

The Indian leader was criticised by President Zelensky last month when he hugged Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during a trip to Moscow on a day of deadly Russian strikes, including one on Kyiv’s biggest children’s hospital.

Mr Modi, 73, said he had told Mr Putin that problems could not be solved on the battlefield.

“Both sides will have to sit together and to look for ways to come out of this crisis,” he said after meetings in Kyiv.

Mr Modi arrived in the Ukrainian capital by train from Poland, the first international leader to visit since Ukraine forces crossed into Russia’s Kursk region in early August, seizing more than 1,250 sq km of territory, according to the military.

Six weeks ago, President Zelensky had spoken of his “huge disappointment” at watching Mr Modi warmly hug the Russian leader.

On Friday it was the Ukrainian leader’s turn to be embraced by Mr Modi – although it appeared a more awkward greeting. Mr Zelensky appeared to frown, but equally it may have been the sun in his eyes.

Smiles were few and far between.

More than 40 people had died in Russian strikes on the day Mr Modi had visited Moscow. Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv took a direct hit.

It was surely no coincidence that the first place Mr Modi was taken on Friday was Ukraine’s history museum where he was invited to watch an exhibition remembering all of the 570 Ukrainian children reported to have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

Both leaders crouched down to place soft toys at a makeshift shrine, and India’s prime minister said later his heart was filled with grief at the young people “martyred” in the war.

At one point he put his arm around the Ukrainian president’s shoulders – an image posted on Mr Modi’s social media account with the message that his heart went out to the families of children who had died.

Later on came his personal offer to help initiate peace talks, with Mr Modi stressing only dialogue and diplomacy would end the fighting.

India had never been neutral in the war, he insisted. “Right from the first day our side was peace,” Mr Modi argued, pointing out that he came from the land of Mahatma Gandhi, whose statue in Kyiv he visited earlier.

But behind the language, the fact remains that India has never condemned Russia’s full scale invasion and, in effect, has been helping to power Moscow’s war economy with Delhi overtaking Beijing last month as the biggest importer of Russian oil – at a time it has been hit by Western sanctions.

Mr Modi and President Zelensky discussed Ukraine’s ongoing incursion into Russian territory, although the content of that specific conversation is not known.

India did take part in a Ukraine-led peace summit in Switzerland in June, to which Russia was not invited, and Mr Zelensky urged Mr Modi to sign up to a joint communique that highlighted the territorial integrity of Ukraine and all other states.

However, he thanked his visitor for “supporting our sovereignty and territorial integrity”, a sentiment that Mr Modi repeated shortly afterwards – as both men hailed it an historic day.

They went on to release a joint statement, pledging to build on the two countries relations in defence and trade.