China has publicly acknowledged for the first time that it successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean, in a move likely to raise international concerns about the country’s nuclear buildup.

The ICBM, carrying a dummy warhead, was launched by the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force at 8:44am Beijing time on Wednesday and “fell into expected sea areas,” the Chinese defence ministry said in a statement, adding it was a “routine arrangement in our annual training plan” and not directed at any country or target.

China “informed the countries concerned in advance,” according to a separate Xinhua report, which did not clarify the path of the missile or where exactly in the “high seas of the Pacific Ocean” it fell.

The launch “effectively tested the performance of weapons and equipment and the training level of the troops, and achieved the expected goal,” Xinhua reported.

An analyst told AFP that China has typically conducted such tests in its own airspace.

“This is extremely unusual and likely the first time in decades that we’ve seen a test like this,” Ankit Panda, Stanton Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said.

“(The test) likely speaks to China’s ongoing nuclear modernisation manifesting in new requirements for testing,” he added.

The PLA Rocket Force, which oversees the country’s conventional and nuclear missiles, has been tasked with modernising China’s nuclear forces to deter developments such as improved US missile defences, better surveillance capabilities, and strengthened alliances.

Some analysts, however, argue the speed of China’s nuclear buildup goes beyond a credible minimum deterrence.

Beijing says it adheres to a “no first use” policy.

The Chinese military has emphasised that the central military commission, headed by President Xi Jinping, is the only nuclear command authority.

China, which has been frequently criticised by the US for the opacity of its nuclear buildup, scrapped nuclear talks with Washington in July over US arms sales to Taiwan.

China has more than 500 operational nuclear warheads in its arsenal, of which approximately 350 are ICBMs, and will probably have over 1,000 warheads by 2030, the Pentagon estimated last year. China’s military is constructing hundreds of secret silos for land-based ICBMs, the Pentagon said in the report.

That compares to 1,770 and 1,710 operational warheads deployed by the US and Russia, respectively. The Pentagon said that by 2030, much of Beijing’s weapons will probably be held at higher readiness levels.

The launch comes as democratically governed Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has complained of increased Chinese military activities around the island in the past five years.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Wednesday it had detected 23 Chinese military aircraft, including J-16 fighters and drones, operating around Taiwan carrying out long-range missions to the south-east and east of the island.

The ministry added it had also recently detected “intensive” Chinese missile firing and other drills, though it did not give details of where that took place.

Taiwan has dispatched its own air and naval forces to keep watch, the ministry said.

Thousands of Lebanese people fled the continuing bombing in the country’s south on Tuesday as Israel said it was conducting “extensive strikes” on Hezbollah targets, including on the southern suburbs of Beirut, for the second day in a row and third time this week.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed to maintain the offensive against Hezbollah and said the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was leading Lebanon “to the edge of the abyss” while world leaders meeting at the United Nations general assembly in New York called for the de-escalation of the conflict, which has claimed hundreds of lives this week.

“I say to the people of Lebanon: Our war is not with you. Our war is with Hezbollah,” Netanyahu said on Tuesday afternoon, speaking at an Israeli military intelligence base. “I told you yesterday to evacuate homes in which there is a missile in the living room and a rocket in the garage. Whoever [does not] will no longer have a home.”

The new strike in Dahieh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in the Lebanese capital, was typical of those which have targeted leaders of the group over recent months. A missile hit the top floor of an apartment building in the Ghobeiri neighbourhood, with images of the strike showing a collapsed roof with a large smoke cloud billowing from it.

Videos posted to social media showed crowds of people gathered in a rubble-filled street and badly burned human remains.

“This is the aggression of Israel. This is Israel! Don’t you see what they are doing to us? Despite all of this, we will wipe them from the earth,” a man screamed in the video.

Lebanon’s health ministry said in a statement that the “Israeli enemy raid on Ghobeiri in Beirut’s southern suburbs killed six people and injured 15”. Israel’s military said the attack had killed Ibrahim Muhammad Qubaisi, also known as Abu Issa, the commander of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile division.

Israel struck hundreds of Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon overnight and during Tuesday, with the death toll from the recent wave of attacks now nearing 560 people.

Hezbollah, which is sponsored by Iran, said it had targeted several Israeli military targets including an explosives factory about 35 miles (56km) into Israel and the Megiddo airfield near the town of Afula, which it attacked three separate times.

Officials in Israel said more than 50 missiles and rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern parts of the country on Tuesday morning, most of which were intercepted.

The fighting has raised fears that the US, Israel’s close ally, and Iran will be drawn into a wider conflict. On Tuesday Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, expressed fears of a regional conflagration but said Hezbollah, which Iran helped to found in 1983, “cannot stand alone” against Israel.

“Hebzollah cannot stand alone against a country that is being defended and supported and supplied by western countries, by European countries and the United States,” Pezeshkian told CNN.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, described the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah as almost a “full-fledged war”, as world leaders gathered in New York for the opening of the 79th UN general assembly.

Israel’s UN ambassador said on Tuesday it was exploring “concrete ideas” for de-escalating the conflict. “As we speak there are important forces trying to come up with ideas and we are open-minded for that,” Danny Danon told reporters. “We are not eager to start any ground invasion anywhere … We prefer a diplomatic solution.”

But diplomatic efforts appear to have had little impact so far, with Lebanon recording more casualties on Monday than in any other single day since the 15-year civil war that started in 1975.

Israeli officials have said the recent rise in airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon is designed to force the group to agree to a diplomatic solution, cease its own attacks on Israel or unilaterally withdraw its forces from close to the contested border.

Many experts and officials question the assumption that air power or other military operations can achieve such strategic aims. Others point out that Hezbollah has repeatedly pledged to stop firing into Israel if there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

About 60,000 people were evacuated from northern Israel in the days after the 7 October raid by Hamas into southern Israel that triggered the current conflict, and they have been prevented from returning by the ongoing exchanges of fire across the contested border with Lebanon. In Lebanon, approximately 100,000 people had been displaced even before the escalation of the conflict in recent days.

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, has said the campaign of airstrikes will continue until the residents are back in their homes.

“This is the most difficult week for Hezbollah since its establishment – the results speak for themselves,” Gallant said. “Entire units were taken out of battle as a result of the activities conducted at the beginning of the week in which numerous terrorists were injured.”

The Israeli military said Israeli strikes had hit long-range cruise missiles, heavyweight rockets, short-range rockets and explosive drones.

Though Hezbollah has remained defiant, the groupwas already reeling from heavy losses last week when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded.

That operation killed 42 and wounded several thousand. It was widely blamed on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.

In Lebanon, displaced families slept in shelters hastily set up in schools in Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon. With hotels quickly booked to capacity or rooms priced beyond the means of many families, those who did not find shelter slept in their cars, in parks or along the seaside.

Fatima Chehab, who came with her three daughters from the area of Nabatieh, said her family had been displaced twice in quick succession.

“We first fled to stay with my brother in a nearby area, and then they bombed three places next to his house,” she said.

Some people waited for hours in gridlocked traffic to get to what they hoped would be safety.

Issa Baydoun fled the village of Shihine in southern Lebanon when it was bombed and came to Beirut in a convoy of cars with his extended family. They slept in the vehicles on the side of the road after discovering that the shelters were full.

He rejected Israel’s contention that it hit only military targets.

“We evacuated our homes because Israel is targeting civilians and attacking them,” Baytown said. “That’s why we left our homes, to protect our children.”

The Israeli military has warned residents in eastern and southern Lebanon to evacuate ahead of its widening air campaign against what it said were Hezbollah weapons sites.

Israel and some analysts have said that Hezbollah has deliberately stored missiles and other armaments in homes or other civilian buildings to use local communities as a “human shield”.

Well-wishers in Lebanon offered up empty apartments or rooms in their houses to those displaced in social media posts, while volunteers set up a kitchen at an empty petrol station in Beirut to cook meals for the displaced.

In the eastern city of Baalbek, the state-run National News Agency reported that queues formed at bakeries and petrol stations as residents rushed to stock up on essential supplies in anticipation of further airstrikes.

Meanwhile, the border crossing with Syria saw big traffic jams as a result of people escaping from Lebanon to the neighbouring country.

The Alma Centre, a security research centre in Israel, said Hezbollah had launched more than 300 rockets deep into northern and central parts of the country in the past 24 hours. New alarms warning of rockets sounded in the northern Israeli towns of Kiryat Shmona and Margaliot late on Tuesday afternoon.

Hassan waited until the last minute to flee. As Israeli warplanes thundered overhead and bombs began to fall on the forests surrounding his home town of Deir al-Zahrani, south Lebanon, on Monday morning, he told himself he still had some time. For almost a year the town, 12 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border, had been mostly spared from the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that had engulfed much of south Lebanon.

The bombs grew closer. His neighbours began to get calls from unknown numbers with a recorded message, the voice speaking classical Arabic with a strange accent: “If you are in a building where there are Hezbollah weapons, distance yourself from the village.” Hassan had no idea if the homes around him contained weapons. Houses in the village began to get hit.

“Civilians, houses, they hit everything. When they started striking civilians, we had to flee. A few of my relatives were killed,” Hassan, 23, said, sitting in a school in Dekwaneh, a suburb north of Beirut, which had been converted into a shelter for displaced people less than 24 hours earlier.

Dier al-Zahrani was no longer safe as Israel carried out a devastating aerial barrage on swathes of south Lebanon and the Beqaa valley that killed 558 people, injured 1,835 and pushed tens of thousands to flee their homes.

It was Lebanon’s deadliest day in almost 50 years, bringing the death toll of the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel in September to more than 1,200, exceeding that of the brutal 2006 war between the two.

Hassan and the six other members of his family grabbed a few possessions, crammed into a BMW sedan and headed towards Beirut.

“As we put the bags in the car, we were telling ourselves that maybe it would stop, that maybe there would be something that let us stay. But we found nothing that stopped us from leaving,” Hassan said.

As Hassan fled northwards, the fighting followed. Thousands crowded the potholed, narrow roads of the south as Israeli jets and drones circled above them, occasionally shooting off a missile.

“It was horrifying’; there was a strike here, there, we saw it all in front of us. We could see the smoke, hear the sounds of the missiles. Everyone was rushing, our car was hit [by other cars] twice,” Hassan said. A video showed drivers hastily pulling off to the side as an Israeli bomb falls just ahead of them on the Zahrani-Mslihiyeh road that Hassan was driving on.

It took Hassan seven hours to reach Beirut – a journey that usually takes an hour and a half. Others in his family had yet to reach the capital city, almost 24 hours after leaving. Messages circulated on WhatsApp groups, asking for anyone with a motorcycle to meet cars with wounded people stuck on the highway and take them to hospitals.

As displaced people arrived to Beirut, crisis cells, set up months before, sprang into action. Schools were converted into ad-hoc shelters and began to be fitted out with water, food and mattresses.

“We have 12 schools that are welcoming people, with a capacity for 2,500 people. Nine are already full, but we will open more,” Fadi Baghdadi, the official media officer for the Beirut disaster risk management cell, said on Monday night.

By Tuesday morning, lists were published of the dozens of schools across Beirut and the surrounding villages of Mount Lebanon that had been converted into shelters.

Official efforts were bolstered by a wave of donations and private initiatives to house the displaced. Individuals began to offer up their homes; hotels in Beirut offered steeply discounted rates and churches opened up their doors for weary travellers. A message from a Syrian man went viral after he invited Lebanese to come to stay with him and his neighbours in Homs, central Syria.

“We have tried our best to give them the basic needs such as mattresses, blankets, hygiene kits, water and food,” Rafka Rayees, an emergency use worker from Caritas Lebanon, said at the displacement shelter in Dekwaneh. She had come to the centre the previous afternoon and had worked through the night to get it up and running.

The centre was hosting 1,100 people, mostly older people, children and families. Children milled about the grounds of the converted school, moving shyly as they adjusted to their new environment. Cars were arriving steadily, packed with belongings and people whose fatigue was plain on their faces, having driven overnight.

“Here, the situation is OK. We don’t know where we’re sleeping yet,” Hassan said, shrugging.

A woman emerged from inside the school, waving her finger at administrators who had just arrived. “We shouldn’t be treated like this! There’s no electricity in the floor above, we shouldn’t have to be humiliated,” she yelled.

“The cases here in the centre are so severe because there’s a lot of kids and lots of elderly. They don’t want to do anything, they just want to go back home because of the trauma and the situation,” Rayees said. She rushed away to do an inspection tour of the facility with a team of volunteers in tow.

The brutality of Monday’s bombings was still fresh in the minds of many at the shelter. Entire families had been wiped out. Everyone knew someone who had been killed or injured. For some, it was the second time they had been displaced in less than a year.

“We left Majdal Zoun in February and we came to Dahieh [in the southern suburbs of Beirut]; it seemed safer than the south”, Fatima, 20, said. She left Majdal Zoun, in the south of Lebanon, after her cousin, a six-year-old girl, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in February.

Fatima said: “We started to hear the planes and everything in Dahieh as well. My daughter became scared of the planes and the sonic booms. When they hit Dahieh last night, we came here.”

Just two hours later, another airstrike would hit Dahieh – the second time in less than a day. Six people were killed and 15 were injured in the strike, which Israel said was a targeted assassination of a senior commander in Hezbollah’s rocket corps.

“There’s so much destruction and we haven’t even started, it’s just beginning. Maybe soon there will be no safe places for us to go to,” Hassan said.

In a forceful speech to the UN security council, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on a broad alliance of nations to “force Russia into peace”, saying that Vladimir Putin has violated the foundations of the United Nations and that the war “can’t be conquered by talks” alone.

Addressing the council, of which Russia is a permanent member, Zelenskyy accused Moscow of committing “international crimes” by targeting Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure, and claimed he had proof that Putin is plotting to target three Ukrainian nuclear power plants to further degrade the country’s energy grid.

After thanking Ukraine’s allies for their support, the Ukrainian leader appealed to countries further afield, calling on Brazil, India and countries across Africa and Latin America, to increase pressure on Russia to halt the war, saying “all [countries] are equally important for peace without exceptions”.

Many of those countries have economic or close diplomatic ties with Russia, and have given greater credence to Putin’s claims that Russia was provoked into the war by the west.

“We know some in the world want to talk to Putin,” Zelenskyy said. “To meet, to talk, to speak. But what could they possibly hear from him? That he’s upset because we are exercising our right to defend our people? Or that he wants to keep the war and terror going, just so no one thinks he was wrong?”

He added: “It’s insane.”

Zelenskyy later this week will travel to the White House to meet with Joe Biden and discuss his “victory plan” – a roadmap for Ukraine to end the war with greater western support. In his speech, he said that further pressure was needed to conclude a peace with Russia after it had been “doing things that cannot possibly be justified under the UN charter”.

“That’s why this war can’t be conquered by talks,” Zelenskyy said. “Action is needed … Putin has broken so many international laws and rules that he won’t stop. Russia can only be forced into peace, and that is exactly what’s needed, forcing Russia into peace as the soul aggressor in this war, the soul violator of the UN charter.”

In an interview that aired on ABC on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine needed greater support from the west to win the war, but conceded that the time for negotiations was nearing.

He has repeatedly called on the US and UK to drop their restrictions on the use of long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia, despite concerns in the Biden administration that those attacks could lead to further escalation of the war.

“I think that we are closer to the peace than we think,” Zelenskyy said in the interview. “We are closer to the end of the war. We just have to be very strong, very strong.

“The plan of victory is strengthening of Ukraine. That’s why we’re asking our friends, our allies, to strengthen us. It’s very important.”

At the security council meeting, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said the body’s priority must be halting Russia’s growing cooperation with Iran and North Korea. He accused both countries of providing arms that have allowed Russia to sustain its war in Ukraine, and called on members of the security council to support a “just peace” that “upholds the principles of the UN charter”.

In a likely reference to the proposal that Zelenskyy is set to discuss with Biden, Blinken said Ukraine is “prepared to engage in negotiations” to end the war.

Blinken said Iran had provided Russia with drones, ballistic missiles – including a shipment of hundreds of missiles earlier this month – and training, in exchange for which Russia is sharing nuclear technology and “space information”. He did not specify what nuclear technology Russia had provided Iran.

North Korea, Blinken said, had provided “trainloads of weapons and ammunition … including ballistic missiles and launchers, and millions of artillery rounds”.

He also accused China, another permanent member of the security council, of being a “top provider of machine tools, microelectronics and other items that Russia is using to rebuild, restock and ramp up its war machine and sustain its brutal war”.

But in calling the war a “textbook example” of the kind of security threat that the council had been developed to address, Blinken offered few insights into how the White House will amass a diplomatic coalition to stop the war, especially when two members accused of fueling it also sit on the security council.

In a forceful speech to the UN security council, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on a broad alliance of nations to “force Russia into peace”, saying that Vladimir Putin has violated the foundations of the United Nations and that the war “can’t be conquered by talks” alone.

Addressing the council, of which Russia is a permanent member, Zelenskyy accused Moscow of committing “international crimes” by targeting Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure, and claimed he had proof that Putin is plotting to target three Ukrainian nuclear power plants to further degrade the country’s energy grid.

After thanking Ukraine’s allies for their support, the Ukrainian leader appealed to countries further afield, calling on Brazil, India and countries across Africa and Latin America, to increase pressure on Russia to halt the war, saying “all [countries] are equally important for peace without exceptions”.

Many of those countries have economic or close diplomatic ties with Russia, and have given greater credence to Putin’s claims that Russia was provoked into the war by the west.

“We know some in the world want to talk to Putin,” Zelenskyy said. “To meet, to talk, to speak. But what could they possibly hear from him? That he’s upset because we are exercising our right to defend our people? Or that he wants to keep the war and terror going, just so no one thinks he was wrong?”

He added: “It’s insane.”

Zelenskyy later this week will travel to the White House to meet with Joe Biden and discuss his “victory plan” – a roadmap for Ukraine to end the war with greater western support. In his speech, he said that further pressure was needed to conclude a peace with Russia after it had been “doing things that cannot possibly be justified under the UN charter”.

“That’s why this war can’t be conquered by talks,” Zelenskyy said. “Action is needed … Putin has broken so many international laws and rules that he won’t stop. Russia can only be forced into peace, and that is exactly what’s needed, forcing Russia into peace as the soul aggressor in this war, the soul violator of the UN charter.”

In an interview that aired on ABC on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine needed greater support from the west to win the war, but conceded that the time for negotiations was nearing.

He has repeatedly called on the US and UK to drop their restrictions on the use of long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia, despite concerns in the Biden administration that those attacks could lead to further escalation of the war.

“I think that we are closer to the peace than we think,” Zelenskyy said in the interview. “We are closer to the end of the war. We just have to be very strong, very strong.

“The plan of victory is strengthening of Ukraine. That’s why we’re asking our friends, our allies, to strengthen us. It’s very important.”

At the security council meeting, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said the body’s priority must be halting Russia’s growing cooperation with Iran and North Korea. He accused both countries of providing arms that have allowed Russia to sustain its war in Ukraine, and called on members of the security council to support a “just peace” that “upholds the principles of the UN charter”.

In a likely reference to the proposal that Zelenskyy is set to discuss with Biden, Blinken said Ukraine is “prepared to engage in negotiations” to end the war.

Blinken said Iran had provided Russia with drones, ballistic missiles – including a shipment of hundreds of missiles earlier this month – and training, in exchange for which Russia is sharing nuclear technology and “space information”. He did not specify what nuclear technology Russia had provided Iran.

North Korea, Blinken said, had provided “trainloads of weapons and ammunition … including ballistic missiles and launchers, and millions of artillery rounds”.

He also accused China, another permanent member of the security council, of being a “top provider of machine tools, microelectronics and other items that Russia is using to rebuild, restock and ramp up its war machine and sustain its brutal war”.

But in calling the war a “textbook example” of the kind of security threat that the council had been developed to address, Blinken offered few insights into how the White House will amass a diplomatic coalition to stop the war, especially when two members accused of fueling it also sit on the security council.

Britain is moving 700 troops to Cyprus to be ready for an emergency evacuation of UK citizens from Lebanon, as the prime minister urged those still in the country to leave immediately.

The government said military teams were moving there to further support British nationals in Lebanon, where Israel has been bombarding the south of the country.

The Royal Air Force also has aircraft and helicopters on standby to provide support if necessary.

It is the first phase of contingency plans for Lebanon, as the government seeks to avoid the chaos seen when British nationals were evacuated from Afghanistan in 2021.

The military teams will be supported by Border Force and Foreign Office officials.

Keir Starmer said the government was “ramping up the contingency plans” to rescue British nationals as he urged Israel and Lebanon to “pull back from the brink”.

Speaking from a flight to New York, where he will discuss Lebanon with world leaders at the United Nations general assembly, Starmer said: “The most important message from me this evening is to British nationals in Lebanon, to leave immediately and I just want to reinforce that.

“It is important that we be really, really clear: now is the time to leave. More broadly, I am worried about the situation and I think we need to be clear we need de-escalation, we need a ceasefire, we need to pull back from the brink.”

Lebanon’s health ministry has said at least 569 people have been killed and 1,645 injured, after a wave of Israeli airstrikes that left the country with its highest death toll since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.

It said the death toll includes 50 children and 94 women.

The new British troops add to a significant military presence of UK forces at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and the Royal Navy ships of RFA Mounts Bay and HMS Duncan.

The defence secretary, John Healey, left the Labour conference early and held a meeting with ministers, intelligence chiefs and diplomats on Tuesday afternoon to test government planning.

In New York, the US president, Joe Biden, addressed the UN general assembly on Tuesday and said a “full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest”.

“Even though the situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible,” he added.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, told world leaders that Lebanon was on the brink of becoming a second Gaza, adding that the crisis had “become a non-stop nightmare that threatens to take the whole region down”.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, described the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah as almost a “full-fledged war”.

They spoke as world leaders gathered in New York for the opening of the 79th UN general assembly, with diplomatic efforts having had little impact so far on the tensions and violence between Israel and Lebanon.

Planet-heating pollution doubled the chance of the extreme levels of rain that hammered central Europe in September, a study has found.

Researchers found global heating aggravated the four days of heavy rainfall that led to deadly floods in countries from Austria to Romania.

The rains were made at least 7% stronger by climate change, World Weather Attribution (WWA) found, which led to towns being hit with volumes of water that would have been half as likely to occur if humans had not heated the planet.

“The trend is clear,” said Bogdan Chojnicki, a climate scientist at Poznań University of Life Sciences, and co-author of the study. “If humans keep filling the atmosphere with fossil fuel emissions, the situation will be more severe.”

Storm Boris stalled over central Europe in mid-September and unleashed record-breaking amounts of rain upon Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The heavy rains turned calm streams into wild rivers, triggering floods that wrecked homes and killed two dozen people.

The researchers said measures to adapt had lowered the death toll compared with similar floods that hit the region in 1997 and 2002. They called for better flood defences, warning systems and disaster-response plans, and warned against continuing to rebuild in flood-prone regions.

“These floods indicate just how costly climate change is becoming,” said Maja Vahlberg, technical adviser at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, and co-author of the study. “Even with days of preparation, flood waters still devastated towns, destroyed thousands of homes and saw the European Union pledge €10bn in aid.”

Rapid attribution studies, which use established methods but are published before going through lengthy peer-review processes, examine how human influence affects extreme weather in the immediate aftermath of a disaster.

The scientists compared the rainfall recorded in central Europe over four days in September with amounts simulated for a world that is 1.3C cooler – the level of warming caused to date by burning fossil fuels and destroying nature. They attributed a “doubling in likelihood and a 7% increase in intensity” to human influence.

But the results are “conservative”, the scientists wrote, because the models do not explicitly model convection and so may underestimate rainfall. “We emphasise that the direction of change is very clear, but the rate is not.”

Physicists have shown that every degree celsius of warming allows the air to hold 7% more moisture, but whether it does so depends on the availability of water. The rains in central Europe were unleashed when cold air from the Arctic met warm, wet air from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

Warmer seas enhance the rainy part of the hydrological cycle, though the trend on parts of the land is towards drier conditions, said Miroslav Trnka, a climate scientist at the Global Change Research Institute, who was not involved in the study. When the conditions were right, he said, “you can have floods on steroids”.

Trnka compared the factors that result in extreme rainfall to playing the lottery. The increase in risk from global heating, he said, was like buying more lottery tickets, doing so over a longer period of time, and changing the rules so more combinations of numbers result in a win.

“If you bet long enough, you have a higher chance of a jackpot,” said Trnka.

The study found heavier four-day rainfall events would hit if the world heats 2C above preindustrial levels, with a further increase from today of about 5% in rainfall intensity and 50% in likelihood.

Other factors could increase this even more, such as the waviness of the jet stream, which some scientists suspect is increasingly trapping weather systems in one place as a result of global heating. A study published in Nature Scientific Reports on Monday projected that such blocking systems would increase under medium- and worst-case emissions scenarios.

Hayley Fowler, a climate scientist at Newcastle University, who was not involved in the study, said: “These large storms, cut off from the jet stream, are able to stagnate in one place and produce huge amounts of rainfall, fuelled by increased moisture and energy from oceans that are record-shatteringly hot.”

“These ‘blocked’ slow-moving storms are becoming more frequent and are projected to increase further with additional warming,” she added. “The question is not whether we need to adapt for more of these types of storm but can we.”

WWA described the week following Storm Boris as “hyperactive” because 12 disasters around the world triggered its criteria for analysis, more than in any week in the organisation’s history.

The study did not try to work out how much global heating had increased the destruction wreaked by the rains but the researchers said even minor increases in rainfall disproportionately increased damages.

“Almost everywhere in the world it is the case that a small increase in the rainfall leads to a similar order-of-magnitude increase in flooding,” said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute and co-author of the study. “But that leads to a much larger increase in the damages.”

Keir Starmer was in full flow during his party conference speech when he made an unfortunate slip-up, calling for the return of “sausages” from Gaza.

The prime minister had just praised his “decisive government” as one that was prepared to face the future, when he called for peace in the Middle East and the return of Israeli hostages taken during Hamas’s attack on 7 October last year.

He will set off for the UN general assembly on Tuesday, and he told the conference about the message he would take to New York.

“I call again for restraint and de-escalation at the border between Lebanon and Israel. I call again for all parties to step back from the brink. I call again for all parties to step back from the brink,” he said.

“I call again for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the return of the sausages – the hostages – and a recommitment to the two-state solution: recognised Palestinian state alongside a safe and secure Israel.”

The prime minister quickly recovered from the slip-up, which swiftly went viral. It did not appear to overshadow his message that things would get better for Britain – a country that he said was “no longer sure of itself” – if his government made difficult decisions now.

Starmer was heckled during the speech, which was also attended by the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, by an audience member over Labour’s position on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Starmer said: “And every child deserves the chance to study the creative subjects that widen their horizons, provide skills employers do value, and prepares them for the future, the jobs and the world that they will inherit.”

“But more than that. Every child, every person, deserves to be respected for the contribution they make,” he added and was then heckled.

A member of the audience shouted, “Does that include the children of Gaza?”

Starmer responded: “This guy has obviously got a pass from the 2019 conference.”

Starmer is no stranger to leaders’ gaffes. In July, he found himself a character witness for the US president, Joe Biden, who introduced the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as Vladimir Putin during a Nato summit.

A man accused of lurking outside Donald Trump’s south Florida golf course on 15 September with a gun – and allegedly writing about his desire to kill him – was charged on Tuesday with attempting to kill the Republican presidential candidate.

Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was indicted on five counts in south Florida federal court: attempted assassination of a major political candidate, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, assaulting a federal officer, felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. He was first charged with federal firearms crimes after his arrest.

“Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable for the attempted assassination of former President Trump charged in the indictment,” the US attorney general Merrick Garland said in a statement.

“The justice department will not tolerate violence that strikes at the heart of our democracy, and we will find and hold accountable those who perpetrate it. This must stop.”

Prosecutors have laid out what they allege is evidence of a murder plot. Routh left behind a missive, addressed “Dear World”, in which he described his apparent intent to kill Trump. The note was put in a box, which had been left at the home of a person whom authorities have not identified, officials said.

The recipient did not open this box – in which there was also allegedly ammunition and a metal pipe – until after Routh’s arrest. This person contacted authorities.

“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job,” the note read, which prosecutors disclosed in a memorandum arguing for Routh’s detention.

Routh’s note appeared to suggest Trump’s foreign policy decisions played into the motive behind his alleged assassination attempt, as it said that the ex-president “ended relations with Iran, like a child, and now the Middle East has unraveled”.

Authorities believe Routh staked out the golf course for a month before the alleged attempt on Trump’s life; on that day, he hid outside the fence near the sixth hole of the grounds. A US Secret Service agent on site, who was monitoring a hole ahead of Trump’s party, said he saw “the barrel of a rifle aimed directly at him”.

As the agent started backing up, he saw the rifle barrel move and fired at Routh, prosecutors said. Routh ran across the road from the golf course and took off in his Nissan SUV; he was subsequently caught traveling north on I-95.

The prosecution said Routh planned to use a semi-automatic rifle, fitted with a scope, to open fire on Trump. There was a bullet in the rifle’s chamber, and 11 more in the gun, which Routh left behind when he tried to escape, prosecutors said.

“At approximately 1.30pm, the agent spotted the partially obscured face of a man in the brush along the fence line,” prosecutors’ detention memo stated, continuing that the face was “directly in line with the sixth hole”.

“The agent then observed a long black object protruding through the fence and realized the object was the barrel of a rifle aimed directly at him,” the filing said, further noting: “The agent jumped out of the golf cart, drew his weapon, and began backing away. The agent saw the rifle barrel move, and the agent fired at Routh.

“The agent took cover behind a tree and reloaded his weapon, then looked up and saw that Routh was gone. The agent called out over his radio that shots had been fired by the agent and that there was a subject with a rifle.”

When authorities searched Routh’s SUV upon his arrest, they claimed to have found “a handwritten list of dates in August, September and October, and venues where the former president had appeared or was expected to be present”, and six mobile phones. On one of these cellphones, there had been a Google search for how to travel from Palm Beach to Mexico City, prosecutors said.

In 2002, Routh was convicted of illegally possessing what a report described as a “fully automatic machine gun”. The Greensboro News & Record said Routh had barricaded himself at his roofing business in a three-hour standoff that turned into a car chase before his eventual surrender.

Routh also has a second felony conviction for multiple counts of possession of stolen goods, prosecutors said.

A man accused of lurking outside Donald Trump’s south Florida golf course on 15 September with a gun – and allegedly writing about his desire to kill him – was charged on Tuesday with attempting to kill the Republican presidential candidate.

Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was indicted on five counts in south Florida federal court: attempted assassination of a major political candidate, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, assaulting a federal officer, felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. He was first charged with federal firearms crimes after his arrest.

“Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable for the attempted assassination of former President Trump charged in the indictment,” the US attorney general Merrick Garland said in a statement.

“The justice department will not tolerate violence that strikes at the heart of our democracy, and we will find and hold accountable those who perpetrate it. This must stop.”

Prosecutors have laid out what they allege is evidence of a murder plot. Routh left behind a missive, addressed “Dear World”, in which he described his apparent intent to kill Trump. The note was put in a box, which had been left at the home of a person whom authorities have not identified, officials said.

The recipient did not open this box – in which there was also allegedly ammunition and a metal pipe – until after Routh’s arrest. This person contacted authorities.

“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job,” the note read, which prosecutors disclosed in a memorandum arguing for Routh’s detention.

Routh’s note appeared to suggest Trump’s foreign policy decisions played into the motive behind his alleged assassination attempt, as it said that the ex-president “ended relations with Iran, like a child, and now the Middle East has unraveled”.

Authorities believe Routh staked out the golf course for a month before the alleged attempt on Trump’s life; on that day, he hid outside the fence near the sixth hole of the grounds. A US Secret Service agent on site, who was monitoring a hole ahead of Trump’s party, said he saw “the barrel of a rifle aimed directly at him”.

As the agent started backing up, he saw the rifle barrel move and fired at Routh, prosecutors said. Routh ran across the road from the golf course and took off in his Nissan SUV; he was subsequently caught traveling north on I-95.

The prosecution said Routh planned to use a semi-automatic rifle, fitted with a scope, to open fire on Trump. There was a bullet in the rifle’s chamber, and 11 more in the gun, which Routh left behind when he tried to escape, prosecutors said.

“At approximately 1.30pm, the agent spotted the partially obscured face of a man in the brush along the fence line,” prosecutors’ detention memo stated, continuing that the face was “directly in line with the sixth hole”.

“The agent then observed a long black object protruding through the fence and realized the object was the barrel of a rifle aimed directly at him,” the filing said, further noting: “The agent jumped out of the golf cart, drew his weapon, and began backing away. The agent saw the rifle barrel move, and the agent fired at Routh.

“The agent took cover behind a tree and reloaded his weapon, then looked up and saw that Routh was gone. The agent called out over his radio that shots had been fired by the agent and that there was a subject with a rifle.”

When authorities searched Routh’s SUV upon his arrest, they claimed to have found “a handwritten list of dates in August, September and October, and venues where the former president had appeared or was expected to be present”, and six mobile phones. On one of these cellphones, there had been a Google search for how to travel from Palm Beach to Mexico City, prosecutors said.

In 2002, Routh was convicted of illegally possessing what a report described as a “fully automatic machine gun”. The Greensboro News & Record said Routh had barricaded himself at his roofing business in a three-hour standoff that turned into a car chase before his eventual surrender.

Routh also has a second felony conviction for multiple counts of possession of stolen goods, prosecutors said.

Missouri executed a man on death row on Tuesday, despite objections from prosecutors who sought to have his conviction overturned and have supported his claims of innocence.

Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams, 55, was killed by lethal injection, ending a legal battle that has sparked widespread outrage as the office that originally tried the case suggested he was wrongfully convicted.

In an extraordinary move condemned by civil rights advocates and lawmakers across the US, Missouri’s Republican attorney general, Andrew Bailey, pushed forward with the execution against the wishes of the St Louis county prosecuting attorney’s office.

Williams was convicted of the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and former St Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. He was accused of breaking into Gayle’s home, stabbing her to death and stealing several of her belongings.

But no forensic evidence linked Williams to the murder weapon or crime scene, and as local prosecutors have renounced his conviction, the victim’s family and several trial jurors also said they opposed his execution.

“We must all question any system that would allow this to occur. The execution of an innocent person is the most extreme manifestation of Missouri’s obsession with ‘finality’ over truth, justice, and humanity, at any cost,” Tricia Rojo Bushnell, Williams’s attorney, said in a statement just before the execution. “Tonight, we all bear witness to Missouri’s grotesque exercise of state power. Let it not be in vain. This should never happen, and we must not let it continue.”

Williams’s son and two of his attorneys watched the execution from another room, the AP reported. Williams appeared to speak with a spiritual adviser by his side in his final moments. In a written “last statement” released by corrections officials, he said: “All Praise Be to Allah In Every Situation!!!”

Williams, who served as the imam in his prison and dedicated his time to poetry, twice had his execution halted at the last minute. He was days away from execution in January 2015 when the Missouri state supreme court granted his attorneys more time for DNA testing. In August 2017, Eric Greitens, the Republican governor at the time, granted a reprieve hours before the scheduled execution, citing DNA testing on the knife, which showed no trace of Williams’s DNA.

Greitens set up a panel to review the case but when Mike Parson, the current Republican governor, took over, he disbanded that board and pushed for the execution to proceed.

In January, Wesley Bell, the Democratic prosecuting attorney in St Louis who has championed criminal justice reforms, filed a motion to overturn Williams’s conviction. Bell cited repeated DNA testing finding that Williams’s fingerprints were not on the knife.

“Ms Gayle’s murderer left behind considerable physical evidence. None of that physical evidence can be tied to Mr Williams,” his office wrote, adding: “New evidence suggests that Mr Williams is actually innocent.” He also asserted that Williams’s counsel at the time was ineffective.

Additional testing on the knife, however, revealed that staff with the prosecutors’ office had mishandled the weapon after the killing – touching it without gloves before the trial, Bell’s office said. A forensic expert testified that the mishandling of the weapon made it impossible to determine if Williams’s fingerprints could have been on the knife earlier.

In August, Williams and prosecutors reached an agreement to halt his execution: he would plead no contest to first-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life without parole. His lawyers said the agreement was not an admission of guilt, and that it was meant to save his life while he pursued new evidence to prove his innocence. A judge signed off on the agreement, as did the victim’s family, but the attorney general challenged it, and the state supreme court blocked it.

Last-ditch efforts by both Williams’s lawyers and St Louis prosecutors were unsuccessful in recent days. In a plea over the weekend, Bell’s office said there were “constitutional errors” in Williams’s prosecution and pointed to recent testimony from the original prosecutor, who said he rejected a potential Black juror because he looked like he could be Williams’s “brother”. The jury that convicted him had 11 white members and one Black member.

The governor also rejected Williams’s clemency request on Monday, which noted that the victim’s family and three jurors supported calls to revoke his death sentence. The US supreme court denied a final request to halt the execution on Tuesday, with the three liberal justices dissenting.

The attorney general argued in court that the original prosecutor denied racial motivations for removing Black jurors and asserted there was nothing improper about touching the murder weapon without gloves at the time.

Bailey’s office has also suggested that other evidence points to Williams’s guilt, including testimony from a man who shared a cell with Williams and said he confessed, and testimony from a girlfriend who claimed she saw stolen items in Williams’s car. Williams’s attorneys, however, contended that both of those witnesses were not reliable, saying they had been convicted of felonies and were motivated to testify by a $10,000 reward offer.

Bailey and Parson have not commented on their decision to override the wishes of the victim’s family, but have pointed to the fact that the courts have repeatedly upheld Williams’s conviction throughout his years of appeals.

‘A kind and thoughtful man’

Williams’s execution was widely denounced Tuesday evening.

Derrick Johnson, NAACP president, said Missouri had “lynched another innocent Black man”. Missouri congresswoman Cori Bush said the state had failed Williams, adding: “We have a moral imperative to abolish this racist and inhumane practice.” And Bell said: “Marcellus Williams should be alive … This outcome did not serve the interests of justice.”

Bushnell, Williams’s attorney from the Midwest Innocence Project, praised Williams’s “evocative poetry” and “service to his family and his community”, saying he had been a “kind and thoughtful man, who spent his last years supporting those around him in his role as imam”.

“While he yearned to return home, he … worked hard to move beyond the anger, frustration, and fear of wrongful execution, channeling his energy into his faith and finding meaning and connection through Islam. The world will be a worse place without him,” she said.

Williams’s public defenders said the governor had “utterly ignored” the victim’s family, adding in a statement: “Khaliifah was an inspiration. We aspire to his level of faith, to his integrity, and to his complete devotion to the people in his life.”

Michelle Smith, co-director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, who considered Williams a mentor, said in an interview before the execution that she hoped his case would help the public understand that “capital punishment doesn’t work”.

“I know people who say: ‘We shouldn’t kill innocent people, but other than that, I believe in the death penalty.’ But if you believe in the system at all, that means you’re OK with innocent people being killed, because the system isn’t perfect. It is going to kill innocent people.”

Since 1973, at least 200 people sentenced to death have been exonerated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Robin Maher, the group’s executive director, said she was unaware of another case in which someone was executed after a sitting prosecutor objected and confessed to constitutional errors that undermined the conviction.

Williams’s execution is one of five scheduled across the US in a one-week period. On Friday, South Carolina executed a man days after the state’s main witness recanted his testimony. On Tuesday, the state of Texas executed Travis Mullis, 38, who waived his right to appeal his death sentence for killing his three-month-old son in 2008. His attorney said he suffered a lifetime of “profound mental illness”, but was a “redeemed man” who accepted responsibility for his crime.

A zoo in Finland has blamed rising inflation and upkeep costs for its decision to return two giant pandas to China, more than eight years ahead of the date they were set to go back.

The pandas, named Lumi and Pyry, were brought to Finland in January 2018, months after Chinese president Xi Jinping visited the Nordic country and signed a joint agreement on protecting the animals.

The Finnish agreement was for a stay of 15 years, but instead the pandas will soon go into a month-long quarantine before they are shipped back to China, according to Ahtari Zoo, the pandas’ current home.

The zoo, a private company, had invested over 8m euros ($8.92m) in the facility where the animals live and faced annual costs of 1.5m euros for their upkeep, including a preservation fee paid to China, Ahtari chair Risto Sivonen told the Reuters news agency.

Since its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China has sent pandas to foreign zoos to strengthen trading ties, cement foreign relations and boost its international image.

The zoo had hoped the pandas would attract visitors to the central Finland location but last year said it had instead accumulated mounting debts as the pandemic curbed travel, and that it was discussing a return.

Rising inflation had added to the costs, the zoo said, and Finland’s government in 2023 rejected pleas for state funding. In all, negotiations to return the animals had lasted three years, Sivonen said.

“Now we reached a point where the Chinese said it could be done,” Sivonen said.

The return of the pandas was a business decision made by the zoo which did not involve Finland’s government and should not impact relations between the two countries, a spokesperson for Finland’s foreign ministry said.

Despite efforts by China to aid the zoo, the two countries in the end jointly concluded after friendly consultations to return the pandas, the Chinese embassy in Helsinki said in a statement to Reuters.

A woman has alleged that Sean “Diddy” Combs and his bodyguard sexually assaulted her some two decades ago and distributed video of their heinous attack, “including by selling it as pornography”, according to a new lawsuit filed on Tuesday.

“It’s a pain that reaches into your very core of who you are,” the woman, Thalia Graves, said at a press conference held hours after she filed suit against Combs.

“The combination of physical and emotional pain has created a cycle of suffering from which it is so hard to break free,” Graves also said. Throughout the press conference, Graves cried and wiped tears away from her eyes.

The Guardian typically does not disclose names of sexual assault accusers. Graves’s lead attorney, Gloria Allred, said that she has given permission to use her name.

Graves’s lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court, and comes roughly a week after Combs’s arrest on sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy counts. He remains in a Brooklyn jail after being denied bail.

Graves said she met Combs around late 1999. Her then boyfriend worked as an executive at Bad Boy Records, Combs’s music label.

Court papers state that Graves routinely visited her boyfriend at the Bad Boy studio in New York City and often went to events at Combs’s homes. Sometime around summer 2001, Combs allegedly called Graves about her boyfriend’s work at the label, saying he wanted to meet and discuss his purported performance problems.

Graves’s boyfriend “was determined to climb up the ladder at Combs’ record label and as his romantic partner, [she] was committed to helping him”, court papers explained. She agreed, and several hours later Combs came to her house; his security chief, Joseph Sherman, was driving.

When Graves got into Combs’s SUV, he gave her a glass of wine, which she drank. She started to feel dizzy and weak and “in retrospect, it is clear that Combs had caused a drug to be put into Plaintiff’s drink, as a few sips of wine had never impacted her that way”, court papers claim.

The SUV ultimately arrived at the Bad Boy studio in Manhattan and Graves followed Combs to a sofa in a private room. Combs sat alongside Graves and, as he spoke, she “lost consciousness”, according to court papers.

When Graves woke up, “she was naked, and her hands were tied behind her back with what felt like a plastic grocery bag”. Sherman allegedly grabbed Graves off the couch and “slammed” her face against a pool table.

Graves alleges that Combs came back into the room and raped her as she screamed out in pain, crying for help. She passed out and when she woke up, Sherman forced her to perform oral sex on him, the suit alleges.

Graves lost consciousness again and when she woke up, she dressed in a panic and fled, fearing the men would return. Graves called a livery driver, whom she and her family knew well, who picked her up.

The driver brought Graves to a hospital and implored her to report the rape, but she was “shaking and crying hysterically”, and couldn’t leave the car. Graves’s suit said she was “terrified” of what Combs might do to her and her family if she spoke out against him.

Graves told her then boyfriend but instead of helping, he told her not to report the attack, saying it would harm his career. After the assault, and “multiple times over the years”, Combs and Sherman contacted Graves and told her to keep quiet, “threatening repercussions” such as losing custody of her son.

Graves was fearful of staying in New York City while Combs resided there and “fled” to Pennsylvania, ultimately moving around over the years in an effort to stay away from him, court papers allege.

While Graves has suffered trauma following the alleged attack, it intensified dramatically in November 2023 – when Combs’s former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, filed suit against him alleging extensive abuse. Graves claims that her ex-boyfriend brought up Ventura’s suit, and revealed that Combs video-recorded his attack, court papers contend.

To Graves’s shock and horror, her ex said that Combs and Sherman had shown him and several men the video of the attack. He told Graves that Combs and Sherman “had a pattern and practice of non-consensually recording women engaging in sexual acts and making those videos available to the public, including by selling tapes as pornography”.

This lawsuit against Combs is the latest in a long line of legal woes: following Ventura’s lawsuit, which settled in just one day, several other accusers filed civil claims against him. The indictment against Combs appears to lean heavily on Ventura’s accusations.

Combs pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Neither a representative for Combs nor his attorney immediately responded to a request for comment on Graves’s suit. It was not immediately clear whether Sherman has a contact for media inquiries or an attorney.

A new species of ghost shark, with an unusually long nose and a whip-like tail, has been discovered in the inky depths of New Zealand waters.

Scientists at New Zealand’s National Institute for Water and Atmospherics (Niwa) initially believed the creature was part of an existing species found around the world, but further investigation revealed it was new, genetically distinct, species.

The newly described Australasian narrow-nosed spookfish is only found in New Zealand and Australian waters.

Ghost sharks – also known as chimaeras and spookfish – are a group of cartilaginous fish closely related to sharks and rays. They have smooth skin, beak-like teeth and feed off crustaceans such as shrimp and molluscs. They are sometimes referred to as the ocean’s butterflies for the way they glide through the water with their large pectoral fins.

The mysterious fish are typically found at great ocean depths – up to 2,600 metres – and little is known about their biology or the threats they face.

“Ghost sharks are incredibly under-studied, there is a lot we don’t know about them,” said Dr Brit Finucci, a fisheries scientist at Niwa who helped discover the new species.

“Chimaeras are quite cryptic in nature – they can be hard to find in the deep ocean … and they generally don’t get the same attention sharks do, when it comes to research.”

The new ghost shark was found in the Chathams Rise, roughly 750km east of New Zealand’s coast. It is distinctive for its very elongated snout that can make up half of its entire body length and has likely evolved to aid its hunt for prey. The chocolate-brown fish can grow up to a metre long, has large milky-coloured eyes and a serrated dorsal fin to deter predators.

Roughly 55 species of ghost shark have been discovered globally, with about 12 of those found in New Zealand and South Pacific waters.

Scientists suspected it was a new species based off of its morphology – how it looks – but further genetic research was needed to confirm the theory. Discovering that it was indeed a distinct species was an exciting moment for Finucci.

“It’s really neat to be able to contribute to science,” she said. “Understanding the animal itself can feed into further research and whether they need conservation management.”

In a touching homage to her grandmother, Finucci gave the ghost shark the scientific name Harriotta avia: Harriotta being her grandmother’s name, and avia meaning grandmother in Latin.

“I also liked the idea that … sharks and ghost sharks are the old, ancient, relatives of fish, and I was naming the animal after an ancient relative of mine.”