Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, announced on Monday that he would meet donor countries to seek additional funding for Lebanon’s growing displacement crisis, as hundreds of thousands of people fled Israel’s widening aerial campaign.

“We are trying as much as possible to fill the gaps; as I said yesterday, it is not an easy process,” Mikati said, announcing that he would ask donors on Tuesday to give money to Lebanon through the United Nations.

Israeli warplanes continued to bombard southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley and parts of Beirut, creating successive waves of internal displacement. About 115,000 people are living in state-run shelters, according to the Lebanese council of ministers, though the true numbers of displaced people is believed to be far greater.

More than 77,000 people, Lebanese and Syrian, have fled to Syria over the past five days, Lebanon’s general security directorate said on Sunday.

Many displaced people were sleeping rough on the streets of Beirut, crowding public parks and lying on pavements. Those who spoke to the Guardian said they had not been given any services since their displacement on Friday night.

Hezbollah’s interim leader, Naim Qassem, announced in a speech on Monday that the group would continue its war with Israel. Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said it would use “all the capabilities we have” against Hezbollah.

In Beirut, an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in the early hours of Monday shocked residents. The strike was the first time that Israel had targeted Beirut proper since 2006, its previous airstrikes over the last two weeks having been entirely concentrated in the capital’s southern suburbs.

The area that was struck, Cola, a popular intersection where buses and taxis congregate in the mornings, was not known for its affinity for Hezbollah. The strike killed two military and security commanders, as well as a third member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – a militant organisation associated with a series of high-profile aircraft hijackings in the 1970s.

On Monday afternoon, debris still lay at the foot of the apartment building, and onlookers gathered around a cordoned-off area patrolled by Lebanese special forces.

“Israel isn’t thinking of a certain sect, religion or area. Wherever they want to kill someone, they’ll kill them, there won’t ever be peace”, said Mohammed, 28, a computer scientist, who was lightly injured when the airstrike brought down a wall in his apartment.

On Sunday an Israeli airstrike in the town of Qraiyeh, east of the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, killed 45 people. Wassim Jabour, an employee in the Qraiyeh municipality, said: “There are so many dead and wounded, it was truly a massacre. And they all still trying to clear the rubble, there are entire families still missing.”

Israel announced two weeks ago that it intended to return to their homes about 60,000 residents of northern Israel displaced by Hezbollah rocket attacks since 8 October last year. Since then it has pounded Lebanon with airstrikes, killing more than 700 people, triggered an attack using sabotaged pagers and walkie-talkies commonly held by Hezbollah that killed at least 37 people, including some children, and injured nearly 3,000, and called reserve troops to its border with Lebanon.

In the first speech by any Hezbollah official since the group’s longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday, Qassem said Hezbollah was still functioning despite the killing of almost every single senior military commander by Israel over the last two months and the targeting of hundreds of weapon depots across the country. He said it “will continue to confront the Israeli enemy in support of Gaza and Palestine and in defence of Lebanon and its people”.

Qassem said Hezbollah would soon appoint a new secretary general, without naming a potential candidate. It is widely believed that Hashem Safieddine, the head of the group’s executive council, would be picked as the next leader – though the organisation has denied rumours that a successor had been picked.

Gallant, meanwhile, hinted that Israel was readying itself to conduct a ground invasion in Lebanon. “The elimination of Nasrallah is a very important step but it is not everything. We will use all the capabilities we have,” he said to troops in north Israel.

Since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah started on 8 October, more than 1,600 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 8,400 wounded. Hezbollah attacks in the same period have killed 50 Israelis.

For months, the staff at Rafik Hariri university hospital had been preparing for the worst. Nurses ran drills in parking garages, practising transferring patients from the wards to the bombproof concrete structures. A building was left empty on the hospital campus so that if mass bombing occurred, medics could bring their families with them and not worry about their safety.

On Friday night, the drills seemed to pay off. Dozens of bombs were dropped on Dahiya, the southern suburbs of Beirut, sending residents running to the safest place they could think of – the nearby hospital.

People ran to the gates of Rafik Hariri hospital, asking to stay in the car park until the bombing ceased. Staff could not let them in because they had to keep the way clear for incoming wounded and were expecting hundreds of casualties from the airstrikes, which killed the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and levelled a city block. The residents settled for waiting outside the hospital gates, staying as close to the structure as possible until the Israeli bombing of Dahiya slowed in the morning.

Once the displaced left, the wounded started coming in. Hospitals in Dahiya transferred patients to Rafik Hariri and other surrounding medical centres after the ministry of health ordered the evacuation of all hospitals in the southern suburbs.

Contrary to expectations, the wounded from Friday’s strike on Dahiya came at a trickle, the health ministry reporting 11 dead and 108 wounded in its latest update. The deep craters where six buildings used to stand, a result of the powerful bunker bombs Israel had dropped, made search and rescue difficult.

Lebanon’s first responders, who had grown used to sifting through rubble over the last 12 months of fighting, found themselves combing through destruction the likes of which they had never seen before. Two days after the strike, the death toll continued to steadily climb.

The hospital system had successfully passed its latest crisis, nurses and doctors exhausted after two weeks of non-stop mass casualty events. No one, however, was optimistic, bracing themselves for further escalation, including the possibility of an Israeli ground invasion.

“We’re facing a big psychological challenge. We’re are scared that the basic supplies will be cut off. I’m scared that if the situation continues, we will be cut off from everything,” Shoshana Mazraani, the emergency room director of Marjayoun public hospital in south Lebanon, said.

Those fears were multiplied when Israel continued to escalate its aerial campaign across wide swathes of the country. On Saturday in Shebaa, a town on the Lebanon-Israel border, residents’ phones began to ring. An Israeli official on the line told them to evacuate their homes immediately, as they soon would be struck.

“They told us which road to take; they even called the police. Everyone was frightened and fled. Just 10 minutes after the calls started, they started to bomb the town,” Mohammed Saab, the mayor of the Shebaa, said over the phone. He added that three homes were destroyed by the Israeli strikes.

Rumours of people receiving similar calls began to circulate on social media, with people warning each other to stay away from certain areas lest they be bombed. In one case, rumours swirled that residents of a building housing displaced people in the town of Baakline in the mountains of south-east Lebanon had evacuated after receiving a call. One of the building’s residents later said that it was just hearsay and that no one had been called by the Israelis.

On the streets of Beirut, Lebanese soldiers stood at intersections mostly devoid of cars. An Israeli drone patrolled overhead, the strengthening and receding of its buzz periodically sending residents to their balconies, where they craned their heads to spot any smoke that would signal a strike.

The period of official mourning for Nasrallah’s death did not start until Monday. For some people in the capital, there was a reluctance to believe he had gone.

“They said that they killed Seyed Hassan Nasrallah, which until now 90% of the people don’t believe. This is what the media wants us to hear, this is my thinking,” Amir, a 24-year-old shop owner in Karkoun al-Druze, a mixed-sect neighbourhood in Beirut, said. “It will just take a little bit of time for him to get back. If he does come back and he’s alive, things will get way worse [for Israel].”

About a mile away, as Amir was speaking, media reported that rescue workers had found Nasrallah’s body, lifting his shrouded corpse with a crane.

Amir’s neighbour agreed with him that the late leader of Hezbollah, who during his three-decade command of the group achieved mythical status among supporters and enemies alike, was not dead. The group’s announcement of his death was just a ploy to fool the Israelis, who to Amir and his neighbour were verging on hubris by even thinking of a ground invasion.

“It’s impossible for them to set a foot in Lebanon. If we’re facing 10 of them, there will be hundred of us,” Amir said, saying that despite the fact that he was Sunni, he supported what he saw as the Shia organisation’s defence of Lebanon against Israel.

Even if some Lebanese might face the prospect of an Israeli invasion with bravado, there were doubts as to whether the Lebanese state was prepared for it.

“They said they had been preparing for a year, but look what happened last Friday. No one was expecting it,” Yusuf, who owned a shop next to Amir, said. “I’m afraid it will be like 2006 all over again. It was very difficult then: food stocks ran out, supplies were low.”

In downtown Beirut, the lack of preparation was evident. Families displaced from Dahiya crowded together under the few trees that dotted a park, shielding themselves from the afternoon sun.

The prospect of more fighting, regardless of whether it was missiles fired at or coming from Israel, was a disturbing one for some of those who had lost their homes.

Murshid Yusuf’s wife had been killed and his home destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon. “I want the situation to get better. I want everyone to be in their homes sitting with their family,” he said. “I want people to be able to go out and be happy. That’s it.”

A hundred munitions – including, it is believed, US-made 2,000lb bombs – were used by the Israeli air force in Friday evening’s overwhelming air raid that killed the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an underground complex hidden in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh.

Nasrallah, who was careful to the point of paranoia about his security arrangements and only rarely appeared in public, would have given little notice of his plan to undertake the fateful trip to the meeting.

But the intelligence penetration of Hezbollah was so deep that Israel knew Nasrallah and other surviving members of Hezbollah’s already decimated leadership would be meeting at the supposedly secret location – and that an order to bomb them could be given.

Benjamin Netanyahu was required to give permission to undertake the attack from New York, where the Israeli prime minister had given a bellicose speech at the UN general assembly. There was, presumably, felt to be little time to wait.

According to an unsubstantiated report in the French newspaper Le Parisien, the mole who informed the Israelis that Nasrallah was on his way to the bunker was Iranian. If true, it would be eye-catching, given that Iran is Hezbollah’s principal backer.

The reports of the planning behind the attack indicate that Israel had an eye on the location for some time. The commander of the 69th Squadron of F-15I jets that carried out the attack, named in Israeli media only as Lt Col M, said the aircrews involved were preparing for “several days”, though they were told of the intended target only a few hours before. The F-15I jets were armed to strike and destroy below ground, requiring a large amount of explosive, capable also of eliminating the buildings above.

Video released by the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday of the jets “taking off for the strike from Hatzerim airbase” showed eight US-made F-15Is. One taking off is laden with multiple missiles, under the wings and at the rear. Experts said they appeared to be American-manufactured BLU-109 2,000lb bombs, of the class the Biden administration had decided to withhold from Israel in the summer amid concerns about their use in densely populated Gaza.

Justin Bronk, an aviation expert with the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) thinktank, said the Israeli air force would have probably used 2,000lb joint direct attack munition (JDAM) guided missiles fitted with penetrating fuses designed to explode after a building or the ground is struck. Israeli air force officers said that during the attack, named Operation New Order, about 100 munitions were used and that bombs were dropped “every two seconds”.

Four residential buildings were hit, three destroyed utterly, leaving behind only smouldering craters, and two more were damaged in the strike. Initial estimates on the ground suggested that 300 people may have been killed, although Lebanon’s official count was that 11 were killed and 108 wounded. Israel said it had killed more than 20 members of Hezbollah and that the strike was justified because “Nasrallah intentionally built Hezbollah’s central headquarters under residential buildings in Dahiya”.

Brig Gen Amichai Levine, the commander of the Hatzerim airbase where the 69th Squadron is based, gave more details of the planning. The first challenge, in what he coldly described as “elimination operations” was precise intelligence; the second, he said at a briefing, was to ensure that the target “does not escape while the planes are en route or the munitions are on their way to the target” – for example by not receiving early warning that the fighter jets were in the air and on their way.

A tantalising question is why Nasrallah felt it necessary to meet other Hezbollah members in person. It was nearly a fortnight ago that Israel’s war against Hezbollah stepped up with the explosions of sabotaged pagers and walkie-talkies used by the militant group that may have injured as many as 1,500 – low tech preferred by Nasrallah because he distrusted the way mobile phones could be tracked. With all electronic means distrusted, a face-to-face meeting may have been the only way to discuss Israel’s escalation of the crisis with close colleagues.

In any event, it is now clear that Israel has been unfolding an orchestrated plan in the past fortnight to attack and destroy Hezbollah’s military leadership, from the pager attack to several rounds of airstrikes, wreaking havoc on Lebanese civilians as it does so. An estimated million people have been displaced as well as several hundred killed, a price Israel deems acceptable as it seeks to halt Hezbollah attacks on Israel’s north and allow 65,000 Israelis to go back home from the border area.

Israel’s success in killing Nasrallah and other leaders can only have come following an intelligence penetration of Hezbollah that stands in sharp contrast to the misjudgment of Hamas’s intentions before 7 October. Matthew Savill, a military analyst at Rusi, said Israel probably “spent years building up and sustaining a comprehensive intelligence picture” of Hezbollah, involving “an element of human sources involved, to keep it current”.

That, he argued, “brings into even starker relief the failure to identify and prevent Hamas’s operation last year, lending credibility to the theory they concentrated on Lebanon and Iran at the expense of Gaza”.

As the south-east US continues recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene’s devastation, the storm’s death toll keeps climbing, with at least 90 killed across several states.

More than 1 million Americans are also still without power in the Carolinas and Georgia.

Helene made landfall last Thursday night in Florida’s Big Bend region as a category 4 hurricane. And even though it weakened to a tropical storm before moving through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, the storm’s winds, rainfall, storm surge and flooding destroyed entire communities in its path.

As of Monday morning, the Associated Press was reporting that at least 90 people had been killed across several states as a result of the storm. Thirty of those deaths were being reported from the city of Asheville, in western North Carolina, which was left isolated on Saturday by damaged roads and a lack of power and phone service amid a deluge inflicted by Helene.

Officials in Buncombe county – which includes Asheville – also said over the weekend that they had received about 600 missing persons reports through an online form. Rescue missions remained ongoing there on Monday.

On Sunday, North Carolina’s department of public safety said that supplies such as food, water and other needs were arriving in Asheville. The state’s national guard was airlifting supplies into counties across western North Carolina, too, officials said.

“This is an unprecedented tragedy that requires an unprecedented response,” Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s governor, said.

Over the weekend, more than 500 national guard soldiers helped conduct more than 100 rescue operations in western North Carolina, officials there said. At least 119 North Carolina residents and their pets were rescued.

Cooper has said that the death toll in North Carolina toll may rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reach other isolated and devastated areas. More than 50 search teams are spread throughout the region in search of stranded people, he said.

He has urged residents in western North Carolina to avoid travel, largely so the roads can be clear for emergency crews.

All roads in western North Carolina are currently considered closed, and non-emergency travel is prohibited, according to the state’s transportation department website.

On Monday morning, Cooper appeared on CNN and said that hundreds of roads had been destroyed – and that entire communities had been “wiped off the map”.

“We have to make sure that we get in there and are smart about rebuilding and doing it in a resilient way,” he said. “But right now we’re concentrating on saving lives and getting supplies to people who desperately need them.

“A lot of communities are completely cut off. And by the way, rivers are still rising, so the danger is not over, the flooding is likely not over.”

The University of North Carolina-Asheville said over the weekend that due to the storm’s damage, classes would be suspended until 9 October. The school said that parts of the campus were inaccessible and described “significant tree damage”.

“Cell and internet coverage is nonexistent at this point,” the school also said on Saturday, adding that they were providing security, food, water and comfort to the students who remain on campus.

According to the Associated Press, the storm unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina.

On Sunday on CBS News, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) administrator, Deanne Criswell, described the flooding in North Carolina as “historic”, adding: “I don’t know that anybody could be fully prepared for the amount of flooding and landslides that they are experiencing right now.

“We’re sending more search-and-rescue teams in there,” Criswell said.

As of Monday morning, more than 700,000 homes in South Carolina were without power – including more than 500,000 in Georgia and 400,000 in North Carolina, according to Poweroutage.us.

In Florida’s Tampa Bay region, the death toll as a result of the hurricane reached nine people on Sunday. All deaths took place in a mandatory evacuation zone, county officials in Pinellas county said.

In Augusta, Georgia, which suffered widespread damage due to the storm, officials are urging residents to limit water use to “essential drinking only for the next 24-48 hours” – a temporary effort to help with the recovery of the area’s water supply.

State officials in South Carolina have announced 25 storm-related deaths in the state so far, according to the Post and Courier, and many residents in South Carolina remain without power.

The National Weather Service office of Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, described the storm over the weekend as the “worst event in our office’s history” in a post on Facebook addressed to the residents of western North Carolina and north-east Georgia.

“We are devastated by the horrific flooding and widespread wind damage that was caused by Hurricane Helene across our forecast area,” the post reads. “There are no words to express our sorrow at the loss of life and incredible impacts to property.”

The American Red Cross announced that it had opened or supported more than 140 shelters across the US for nearly 9,400 people driven out of their homes by the storm.

And AccuWeather is estimating that Hurricane Helene inflicted between $145bn and $160bn in property damage and economic losses.

Joe Biden has said that he would visit the areas affected by Helene this week, as long as it does not disrupt rescue and recovery operations.

The president has pledged federal assistance to help with recovery efforts – and said that his administration is giving states “everything we have” to help with their response to the storm.

Kamala Harris reportedly will also be visiting the areas struck by Helene this week, and so will Harris’s opponent in the 5 November election, Donald Trump.

A US citizen has pleaded guilty in a Moscow court to charges of fighting for Ukraine, marking the first known instance of an American being tried as a mercenary in Russia.

Russian state media reported that Stephen James Hubbard, 72, of Michigan, had admitted he had received money to fight for Ukraine against Russia.

“Yes, I agree with the indictment,” the state news agency Ria Novosti quoted him as saying in court on Monday.

The Kremlin-friendly Izvestia newspaper, citing a prosecutor in court, said Hubbard was paid $1,000 (£750) after he signed a contract with a Ukrainian territorial defence unit in the eastern city of Izium in February 2022.

He was captured by Russian forces in April 2022, according to the prosecutor, during the occupation of Izium by Russian troops. The city was later liberated by Ukrainian forces in the autumn of 2022.

If convicted of participating in mercenary activities, he could face up to 15 years in prison.

Hubbard’s sister Patricia Fox denied her brother was a mercenary and said he was too old for combat. “He is so non-military,” Fox told Reuters. “He never had a gun, owned a gun, done any of that … He’s more of a pacifist.”

In a public Facebook group, Fox earlier said that her brother had been “kidnapped up in the Ukraine” nearly three years ago.

Hubbard has reportedly spent decades working abroad as an English teacher, including in Japan, Cyprus and Ukraine, where he was living at the time of Moscow’s invasion in February 2022.

A spokesperson for the US embassy in Moscow said last week that it was aware of the detention of an American citizen, but declined further comment.

Hubbard is one of at least a dozen Americans behind bars in Russia. Arrests of Americans in Russia have become increasingly common as relations between the two countries sink to cold war-era lows. Washington has previously accused Moscow of using US citizens as bargaining chips for political leverage.

Hubbard is the first known US citizen to be tried in Russia on mercenary charges in relation to the war in Ukraine.

In June 2022, two American men were captured by Russian-backed separatist forces in Donbas while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces during a battle north of Kharkiv. The men were later released along with five British citizens as part of a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine that was brokered by Saudi Arabia.

Climbing Mount Everest has always been a feat, but it seems the task might be getting harder: researchers say Everest is having something of a growth spurt.

The Himalayas formed about 50m years ago, when the Indian subcontinent smashed into the Eurasian tectonic plate – although recent research has suggested the edges of these plates were already very high before the collision.

With the process still going on, the mountain range continues to be pushed upwards, though landslides and other events mean rock is also being lost.

But now experts say Everest – which currently stands at 8,849m (29,032ft) – has been experiencing an additional boost to its height as a result of erosion by its neighbouring rivers.

The team say the process has resulted in Everest rising an extra 15 to 50 metres over the last 89,000 years, with the uplift continuing today.

“Our study demonstrates that even the world’s highest peak is subject to ongoing geological processes that can measurably affect its height over relatively short geological timescales,” said Prof Jingen Dai, co-author of the study from China University of Geosciences in Beijing.

Dai noted Everest is something of an anomaly, with its peak about 250 metres higher than the Himalayas’ other tallest mountains. In addition, data has suggested a discrepancy between Everest’s long-term and short-term rates of uplift.

“This raised the question of whether there was an underlying mechanism making Everest’s anomalous elevation even higher,” said Dai.

Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, Dai and colleagues report how they created computer models to explore the evolution of river networks in the Himalayas.

Their results suggest that about 89,000 years ago the upper reach of the Arun River that lies to the north of Everest – and which would have flowed eastward on the Tibetan plateau – merged with its lower reach, as a result of the latter eroding northward. The upshot was that the entire length of the Arun River became part of the Kosi River system.

The team suggest the rerouting arising from this “river capture” resulted in an increase in river erosion near Everest, and the formation of the Arun River gorge.

“At that time, there would be an enormous amount of additional water flowing through the Arun River, and this would have been able to transport more sediment and erode more bedrock, and cut down into the valley bottom,” said Dr Matthew Fox, co-author of the research, from University College London.

The researchers say the reduction in weight on the Earth’s crust as this material was removed has led to an uplift of the surrounding land – a process known as isostatic rebound.

The team estimates the process is propelling Everest upwards by about 0.16mm to 0.53mm a year, with its neighbouring peaks Lhotse and Makalu, the world’s fourth and fifth highest peaks respectively, experiencing a similar uplift.

“This effect will not continue indefinitely,” said Dai. “The process will continue until the river system reaches a new equilibrium state.”

Prof Mikaël Attal of the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the work, said while river capture was a well-known phenomenon, it was relatively rare.

“What is unique in this study is the demonstration that erosion resulting from river capture can lead to such a dramatic response of the Earth’s surface, with an area the size of Greater London going up a few tens of metres in tens of thousands of years, which is fast,” he said.

However, Attal notes this rebound only explains a fraction of the unusual height of the highest peaks of the Himalayas. Indeed, Fox noted other mechanisms such as tectonic stresses associated with earthquake cycles, and loss of mountain glaciers, could also cause uplift.

Dr Elizabeth Dingle of Durham University said the study’s findings could be important beyond Everest.

“There are other river captures known to have occurred in the Himalaya,” she said, “So it would be interesting to know whether similar effects are preserved elsewhere, or in other tectonically active mountain ranges more broadly.”

More than 200 people were killed in Nepal over the weekend in what experts described as some of the worst flash flooding to have hit the capital, Kathmandu, and the surrounding valleys.

Swathes of Kathmandu were left underwater after the heaviest monsoon rains in two decades fell on Friday and Saturday, washing away entire neighbourhoods, bridges and roads. The heavy rains caused the Bagwati River, which runs through the city, to swell more than 2 metres higher than deemed safe.

Officials reported that by Monday afternoon, 204 bodies had been recovered from the disaster and at least 30 more were still stranded or missing, while hundreds more were injured. Dozens who died had been travelling on buses that were washed away when the highways were engulfed by surging flood waters.

Nepal’s army said more than 4,000 people had been rescued using helicopters, motorboats and rafts. Search teams continued working to dig people buried in deep mud and rubble, while rescue teams also used ziplines to reach those who were stranded.

The mountain city of Pokhara, which is popular with tourists, was also hit by heavy flooding.

In the aftermath, thousands were displaced and hundreds were left without access to power and drinking water. The damage to the roads was so extensive that all main routes out of Kathmandu remained blocked and schools in the capital were closed for the next three days.

Officials and experts attributed the disaster to the climate crisis, which is causing increasingly intensive and erratic downpours and deadly flooding in south Asian countries such as Nepal. While the monsoon rains are drawing to a close, the onslaught over the weekend was caused by unusual monsoon weather patterns.

More than 300 people have died in Nepal this year from rain-related incidents, and recent studies have shown that the incidence of heavy flooding is likely to increase in the Himalayan country in the next five years as it is disproportionately affected by the changing climate.

Arun Bhakta Shrestha, an environmental risks expert at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), said he had “never before seen flooding on this scale in Kathmandu”.

ICIMOD said the scale of the disaster had been worsened by unplanned urban encroachment on flood plains and unauthorised construction without proper drainage along the banks of the Bagmati River. It called for the restoration of wetlands in areas vulnerable to flooding.

More than 200 people were killed in Nepal over the weekend in what experts described as some of the worst flash flooding to have hit the capital, Kathmandu, and the surrounding valleys.

Swathes of Kathmandu were left underwater after the heaviest monsoon rains in two decades fell on Friday and Saturday, washing away entire neighbourhoods, bridges and roads. The heavy rains caused the Bagwati River, which runs through the city, to swell more than 2 metres higher than deemed safe.

Officials reported that by Monday afternoon, 204 bodies had been recovered from the disaster and at least 30 more were still stranded or missing, while hundreds more were injured. Dozens who died had been travelling on buses that were washed away when the highways were engulfed by surging flood waters.

Nepal’s army said more than 4,000 people had been rescued using helicopters, motorboats and rafts. Search teams continued working to dig people buried in deep mud and rubble, while rescue teams also used ziplines to reach those who were stranded.

The mountain city of Pokhara, which is popular with tourists, was also hit by heavy flooding.

In the aftermath, thousands were displaced and hundreds were left without access to power and drinking water. The damage to the roads was so extensive that all main routes out of Kathmandu remained blocked and schools in the capital were closed for the next three days.

Officials and experts attributed the disaster to the climate crisis, which is causing increasingly intensive and erratic downpours and deadly flooding in south Asian countries such as Nepal. While the monsoon rains are drawing to a close, the onslaught over the weekend was caused by unusual monsoon weather patterns.

More than 300 people have died in Nepal this year from rain-related incidents, and recent studies have shown that the incidence of heavy flooding is likely to increase in the Himalayan country in the next five years as it is disproportionately affected by the changing climate.

Arun Bhakta Shrestha, an environmental risks expert at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), said he had “never before seen flooding on this scale in Kathmandu”.

ICIMOD said the scale of the disaster had been worsened by unplanned urban encroachment on flood plains and unauthorised construction without proper drainage along the banks of the Bagmati River. It called for the restoration of wetlands in areas vulnerable to flooding.

Kamala Harris’s economic policies proved far more popular than Donald Trump’s plans in a blind test of their proposals.

Four of the top five most popular proposals were from the Democratic candidate’s campaign, according to a new Harris Poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian.

The poll showed strong optimism from Democrats about Harris’s presidential candidacy but – once again – highlighted pessimism around the US economy from both sides of the aisle.

Americans surveyed were given a list of 12 policy proposals – six from Harris’s campaign and six from Trump’s. The poll did not say whose campaign the proposals came from.

The most popular proposal was a federal ban on the price-gouging of food and groceries – a Democratic proposal that some leading economists have criticized. Nearly half (44%) of all those polled agreed that it would strengthen the economy.

Harris’s price gouging proposal is designed to help address the top economic issue of respondents: cost of living. A majority of those polled (66%) indicated that the cost of living was one of their biggest economic concerns right now.

Other Harris proposals that voters liked included expanding the child tax credit (33%) and selected tax breaks for new small businesses (33%). The only Trump plan to break the top five was his proposal to cut taxes on social security benefits (42%).

But Trump’s policies are popular with his base: when asked about his proposal for the mass deportation of millions of migrants, 43% of Republicans said it would be good for the economy versus 24% of independents and 15% of Democrats.

In more good news for Harris, independent voters, a key group this election, seemed to favor Harris’s policies over Trump’s. Four out of the five top policies selected by independents are from Harris’s campaign.

Since Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race two months ago, paving the way for Harris to become the Democratic candidate, she has tried to craft her own economic platform.

This has involved shifting away from Bidenomics, which failed to ignite much enthusiasm on the campaign trail. In the Harris/Guardian poll conducted last September, a majority of Democrats (62%) said that while Bidenomics was good in theory, it wasn’t being implemented well.

Harris instead has been promoting her “opportunity economy”, which focuses on rising costs, rather than issues like infrastructure and manufacturing, which were key components of Bidenomics.

The shift in focus seems to be working. Harris’s policies were particularly popular with younger Americans, an increasingly powerful voting bloc.Some 87% of millennials and gen Z voters said that at least one of Harris’s proposals would be good for the economy, versus 79% of young voters who said the same for Trump.

Of the four generations polled, millennial voters seemed to be the most onboard with Harris’s candidacy, energized by her appointment after President Biden withdrew. The majority of millennials (59%) said that Harris’s policies are better than Biden’s, compared to just 36% of Boomers.

Democratic voters as a whole seem to think Harris turned out to be the better candidate: when asked if their lives would be better if Harris or Biden won the election, 80% of Democratic voters went with Harris.

Though Harris has received criticism for being “light on policy”, a majority of all voters in the poll suggested they understand her policies just fine. More than 60% of voters said they understood Harris’s policies on the economy.

Slightly more voters said they understood where Trump stands on certain issues more than Harris, but most of the differences were small. The widest gap was seen in how voters understand the candidate’s tax policies, with 70% of voters indicating that they understood Trump’s pledges, while 62% said the same for Harris.

“Despite some skepticism that VP Harris has yet to define where she stands, our data shows she’s energized her base – particularly millennials, who will be the largest voting bloc this election – by effectively messaging and connecting with them on the issues they are facing as they move more into adulthood: childcare, housing and jobs,” said John Gerzema, CEO of Harris Poll.

Across the board, Americans still seem to be down about the economy – negativity that has persisted since Harris Poll and the Guardian first asked voters their thoughts about the economy last September, and again in May.

Since the last poll in May, the economy improved across several key measures. Inflation fell back to 2.5% in August, the lowest it’s been since 2021, and has been going down for the last five months. Though there have been some anemic job growth reports, unemployment is still relatively low at 4.2%. And the stock market has hit record highs in September. And all of this is despite the decades-high interest rates, which the US Federal Reserve only started to cut this month.

But Americans are still feeling sour.

When asked how they feel about the US economy now, compared with the start of the summer, 35% of respondents said they were more pessimistic, while 29% felt more optimistic (29%). Nearly three-quarters (73%) of all polled said they did not feel any positive effects of good economic news today.

A majority of Americans (61%) believe inflation is increasing, when it has actually fallen significantly from its peak in 2022. And nearly half of those polled, 49%, said they believed the US economy was experiencing a recession. The US is not in recession.

Though many seem to believe the economy is worse than it really is – particularly when looking at macroeconomic measures like inflation, unemployment and interest rates – most Americans are actually feeling better about their own personal financial situations.

More Americans indicated they were confident in their overall personal finances (61%) and their ability to afford necessities (72%) compared with May. And when asked if they felt better off financially than their parents, 58% of those polled agreed – 8% more than when the same question was asked last September.

As shown with the last two Confidence Question polls, beliefs about the economy tend to be shaped by a person’s political party. Democrats are far more likely to feel better about the economy than Republicans. Half of Democrats, 51%, compared with 30% of Republicans, said they feel optimistic about the future of the US economy.

Something that Americans from both parties agree on: they still don’t know who to trust when it comes to learning about the economy. And most respondents (78%) also agreed that most people don’t know how the US economy is actually doing, despite it being their top priority in the election.

This survey was conducted online within the US by the Harris Poll from 12 to 14 September 2024 among a nationally representative sample of 2,122. The margin of error for the survey is 2.6 percentage points.

Austria’s main parties are preparing to begin tense wrangling to form a government amid warnings about the country’s democracy after the far right’s watershed victory in a general election in which angry voters punished centrist incumbents over migration and inflation.

On Sunday, the anti-Islam, Kremlin-friendly Freedom party (FPÖ) scored its strongest result since its founding after the second world war by former Nazi functionaries and SS officers with just over 29% of the vote. The outcome surpassed expectations and beat the ruling centre-right People’s party (ÖVP) by nearly three percentage points. The centre-left opposition Social Democratic party (SPÖ) turned in its worst-ever performance with 21% while the Greens, junior partners in government, sank to 8%.

Exit polls showed that the 13-point gain for the FPÖ since the last parliamentary election in 2019 came thanks to strong support among younger voters. Amid deep frustration with the cost of living and angst about immigration, the hard right clearly won among Austrians under 34 with 27% of that demographic, and even more decisively with the 35-to-59 set on 37%. The FPÖ profited as well from festering resentment over Austria’s strict measures during the Covid pandemic.

The FPÖ, which cites Hungary’s Viktor Orbán as a model, placed only third with over-60s on 22%. Instead, they gave their support to the ÖVP of the chancellor, Karl Nehammer, with 38%, and the SPÖ on 24%.

Austria has often faced criticism about its tepid culture of historical remembrance of the Nazi period, long casting itself as the Nazis’ “first victim” despite its enthusiastic welcome of the Anschluss in 1938 by native son Adolf Hitler.

In the wake of Sunday’s results, the International Auschwitz Committee, representing survivors of the Nazi extermination camp from 19 countries, denounced an “alarming new chapter” in Austria. Its vice-president, Christoph Heubner, said they were placing their faith in the “common ground among Austria’s democrats” to “stand up to historical amnesia and the ideology of old and new rightwing extremists … in the interest of the country and Europe”.

Despite its resounding win, the FPÖ, which calls for a “Fortress Austria” against migration and “remigration” or forced deportations of unwanted foreigners, will face an uphill battle to form a government as it failed to secure an absolute majority.

All of the smaller parties have ruled out any cooperation with the hard right. The ÖVP, which has worked with the rightwing populists several times at national and regional level, would be a potential partner but has called a government led by polarising FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl a dealbreaker.

Kickl routinely deploys Nazi rhetoric in his speeches, rails against immigrants, sides with Russia in its war against Ukraine and was previously ousted as a hardline interior minister. The FPÖ would have to defenestrate Kickl, an acolyte of the late firebrand party leader Jörg Haider, if it hopes to realise its dream of claiming the chancellery.

Celebrating his triumph, Kickl urged the ÖVP and Nehammer to “sleep on the results for a few nights” before sticking to a firm ultimatum.

A few hundred leftist protesters rallied outside the parliament building in Vienna’s historic centre late on Sunday to urge the democratic parties to stand firm against the FPÖ, shouting “Nazis out” and “Never Kickl”.

President Alexander Van der Bellen, a former Greens leader who has the power to task parties with forming a government, urged the political class to preserve “the pillars of our liberal democracy”.

The thinly veiled encouragement to unite in isolating the FPÖ could result in Nehammer, with his second-place ÖVP, cobbling together an alliance with the Social Democrats and the Greens or the liberal Neos, the only party in parliament beyond the FPÖ to make gains in the election.

However, Vedran Džihić, a senior researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs, called such a move “fraught with great risk”.

“This would bolster the (FPÖ) rhetoric around ‘parties of the system’ and ‘coalition of losers’, again picking up dissatisfied voters and setting it on a course for growth,” he said.

But he said the alternative, with the far right in power, would be far worse, “endangering democracy and the rule of law”.

A conservative hard-right coalition would “put Austria on the track of Hungary and Orbán … with more illiberalism, more fear and incitement, less Europe and less stability in society”.

Džihić, who has just published Ankommen (Arrival), about his experiences in Austria after fleeing the Bosnian war in 1993, said he saw himself and his children “directly targeted when the FPÖ talks about remigration”.

“When you yourself become the object of such hateful and violent omnipotence fantasies you get scared,” he said, adding that he was ”shocked that so many people in this country are prepared to give this party their vote”.

On the other hand, “there are still 71% who are clearly speaking out for democratic parties and reject the FPÖ,” he said. “That makes me hopeful that a large majority in this country will defend democracy and freedom in Austria.”

Basketball Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo, whose towering presence dominated basketball on and off the court, has died from brain cancer at the age of 58.

“Dikembe Mutombo was simply larger than life,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement on Monday. “On the court, he was one of the greatest shot blockers and defensive players in the history of the NBA. Off the floor, he poured his heart and soul into helping others.”

Helped by his 7ft 2in frame, Mutombo ended his career second on the NBA’s all-time list for blocked shots. He was also an eight-time All-Star and four-time defensive player of the year in an 18-season NBA career that lasted from 1991 to 2009. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2015, and his number was retired by two of his teams, the Atlanta Hawks and the Denver Nuggets. He also played for the Houston Rockets, Philadelphia 76ers, New York Knicks and the then-New Jersey Nets.

Mutombo was also known for his humanitarian work, particularly with the Special Olympics and in his birthplace of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where his Dikembe Mutombo Foundation focused improving health and quality of life in the country.

“It’s a sad day, especially for us Africans … and really the whole world because, other than what he’s accomplished on the basketball court, I think he was even better off the court,” Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid said on Monday. “He’s done a lot of great things. He did a lot of great things for a lot of people, so he was a role model of mine.”

Philadelphia 76ers president Daryl Morey, who worked with Dikembe during their time together with the Houston Rockets, was tearful as he spoke about his friend on Monday.

“There aren’t many guys like him,” Morey said. “Just a great human being. When I was a rookie GM in this league, my first chance in Houston, he was someone I went to all the time. … His accomplishments on the court, we don’t need to talk about too much. Just an amazing human being, what he did off the court for Africa. Rest in peace, Dikembe.”

Mutombo, who was also a naturalized US citizen, served on a number of boards, including Special Olympics International, the CDC Foundation and the National Board for the US Fund for Unicef, where he was able to make use of the seven languages he spoke.

“There was nobody more qualified than Dikembe to serve as the NBA’s first Global Ambassador. He was a humanitarian at his core,” said Silver. “He loved what the game of basketball could do to make a positive impact on communities, especially in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo and across the continent of Africa. I had the privilege of traveling the world with Dikembe and seeing first-hand how his generosity and compassion uplifted people. He was always accessible at NBA events over the years – with his infectious smile, deep booming voice and signature finger wag that endeared him to basketball fans of every generation.”

Mutombo was also known for his playful finger wag, which he would often use after a blocked shot.

“Any time I would block shots, people would still be coming and trying to put a little bit on me. Then I used to shake my head every time I would block the shot,” Mutombo once explained. “Then I said, man fuck this. Those guys are not listening to me. Maybe if I start giving them the finger wag. And I tell you what, I lost a lot of money because of that finger wag, man. I got so many technical fouls, but no referee would kick me out of the game.”

Mutombo’s family first revealed he was undergoing treatment for brain cancer two years ago. He had three children with his wife, Rose, and the couple adopted another four children. His son Ryan, who is also 7ft 2in, currently plays college basketball at Georgia Tech after three seasons at Georgetown, his father’s alma mater. The NBA said he died surrounded by his family.

Police in Milan have arrested 19 people as part of an operation against hardcore “ultra” football fans, most of whom were accused of having links to the mafia.

Among those arrested were Luca Lucci and Renato Bosetti, leaders of the AC Milan and Inter Milan ultras respectively.

Lucci, who was previously convicted on drug charges, was photographed shaking hands with Matteo Salvini, the leader of the far-right League party, in 2018. Salvini is deputy prime minister and transport minister in Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government.

The investigation began after the murder of Antonio Bellocco, a powerful member of the ’Ndrangheta crime syndicate, in early September. Bellocco was killed during a fight outside a Milan boxing gym, allegedly by Andrea Beretta, one of Bosetti’s predecessors. Beretta had a leading role in the Inter Milan ultras, known as the Curva Nord, after the career criminal Vittorio Boiocchi was shot dead outside his home in October 2022.

Italy’s finance police said the charges included “criminal conspiracy aggravated by mafia methods, extortion, assault and other serious crimes”.

Bellocco’s murder heightened suspicions over the growing connection between mafia clans and ultras operating in Milan’s San Siro stadium.

Marco Ferdico, a close associate of Bellocco, was also arrested, as were Alex Cologno and Christian Rosiello, who were described by the Italian press as being “friends and bodyguards” of the high-profile rapper Fedez.

The alleged crimes include ticket touting; forced “pizzo” payments, or protection money, from the sellers of food and drink outside the stadium, or in return for car park spaces; and grievous bodily harm.

The Milan prosecutor Marcello Viola, quoted by the Ansa news agency, said it was “a complex investigation” brought together by various branches of Italy’s state police. He also said Milan police had banned numerous others from accessing “places where sporting events take place”.

He described illicit economic activities at the San Siro stadium as being “beyond control” and that this was partly due to the “shortcomings” in the management of fan relations.

AC Milan and Inter Milan are two of Italy’s most prominent football clubs. Supporters of the two teams made a “non-belligerence” agreement in 1981 after the death of a 21-year-old fan. But police said the pact turned into a business deal aimed at “making profits” and jointly infiltrating “every possible profitable aspect of football”.

Ultras tend to be well-organised, extremely violent and racist. Ultra leaders reportedly earn thousands of euros a month in illegal activities.

Oasis have announced that their reunion tour will take them to the US, Canada and Mexico in August and September 2025.

The band previously teased the news on billboards in New York, Toronto, Chicago and other cities. “Be careful what you wish for,” the advertisements said.

They will play Toronto Rogers Stadium on 24 August, Chicago Soldier Field on 28 August, New Jersey MetLife Stadium on 31 August, Los Angeles Rose Bowl Stadium on 6 September, and Mexico City Estadio GNP Seguros on 12 September. US rock band Cage the Elephant will support across all dates.

The dates will be Oasis’s first in those territories since 2008, when they toured Dig Out Your Soul. The band’s first American tour for Definitely Maybe from 1994-95 remains infamous: after an inebriated, messy gig at Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles, Noel Gallagher left the band for several days.

The international dates come in addition to the 19 sold-out UK and Ireland dates already announced, which include five additional dates to the original total of 14.

After the initial sale in August left many fans without a ticket – after hours of technical issues and queuing frustrations – the band added two new shows at Wembley Stadium to be sold through a staggered invitation-only ballot, with fans who were unsuccessful in the initial sale first to be given access.

It remains to be seen whether the international dates will be subject to Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing policy, which saw £135 standing tickets hiked to £337.50 plus fees owing to demand.

In a statement, the band said they had been unaware that dynamic pricing would be used in the sale.

“Inevitably interest in this tour is so overwhelming that it’s impossible to schedule enough shows to fulfil public demand,” they said. “As for the well-reported complaints many buyers had over the operation of Ticketmaster’s dynamic ticketing: it needs to be made clear that Oasis leave decisions on ticketing and pricing entirely to their promoters and management, and at no time had any awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used.”

In the wake of the ticketing fiasco, the government announced that it would include dynamic pricing in a review of ticketing promised in its election manifesto. Consumer law experts added that while the practice was not illegal, Ticketmaster may have breached consumer regulations if the potential price increase on basic standing tickets was not made clear to fans.

The consumer group Which? urged the band and Ticketmaster to refund fans who paid inflated prices.

Ticketmaster does not set ticket prices and has argued that dynamic pricing discourages ticket touts by aligning prices with market value. It is believed that the ticket prices for Oasis gigs were set by promoters SJM Concerts, MCD and DF Concerts & Events.

In a typically combative response, however, Liam Gallagher shrugged off criticism over the pricing by telling one complainant on X to “shut up” and another to buy “kneeling tickets”.