Actress Jenna Fischer has revealed she has been receiving treatment for breast cancer since December last year.

Best known for her role as receptionist Pam Beesly in the US version of The Office, Jenna said she was “now cancer-free” after surgery and multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

“I’m happy to say I’m feeling great,” Jenna shared on Instagram, adding she was opening up about her treatment to encourage other people to check for signs of the disease.

“If I had waited six months longer, things could have been much worse,” she wrote.

Jenna, who also hosts the Office Ladies podcast, played Pam in the mockumentary series between 2005 and 2013 alongside Steve Carrell, who plays regional manager Michael Scott.

The much-memed series, based on a BBC series of the same name starring Ricky Gervais, is one of the most-watched shows on Netflix and repeatedly ranks among the most popular US sitcoms.

Jenna said her cancer was found after a routine scan in October 2023 which she said she’d been putting off.

“Seeing women post photos of their mammogram appointments on Instagram needled me into setting my own (which I was late for),” she wrote.

After that appointment, she said further tests found she had “stage 1 triple positive breast cancer”.

Jenna said that “luckily” her cancer was caught early but the tumour was aggressive so needed multiple rounds of treatment.

There are a number of types of breast cancer and some, like triple positive, are known as hormone receptor-positive cancers.

This means the tumours are encouraged to grow by hormones, such as oestrogen, progesterone and a protein called HER2, that are found naturally in the body

These cancers are much more likely to respond to drug treatments that target these hormones to help stop the cancer cells dividing and growing.

Cancer Research says the term “triple positive breast cancer” is not widely used in the UK, instead being called “invasive breast cancer”.

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer affecting women in the UK according to the NHS, but it can also affect men.

More than 50,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with it each year and figures from Cancer Research suggest one in every seven women in the country will be diagnosed in their lifetime.

It still claims the lives of more than 11,000 British people each year, but Cancer Research says survival rates are improving, with 76% of patients living for at least 10 years after diagnosis.

During chemotherapy, Jenna said she lost her hair and shared a photo on Instagram of her “patchy pixie” cut as it grew back.

She said she was ready to “ditch the wigs” she has been wearing for the past year, adding that “many people” in her life did not know she was undergoing treatment.

“I needed spaces and people who did not regard me as a cancer patient.”

But she highlighted the support she’d had from people who did know, including her co-star Angela Kinsey, who plays picky safety officer Angela Martin in the series and co-hosts the Office Ladies podcast.

“When I lost my hair, she wore hats to our work meetings to make sure I wasn’t the only one,” Jenna said.

Jenna told her followers that she will “continue to be treated and monitored”, and she urged fans: “Get ’em checked ladies”.

“My tumour was so small it couldn’t be felt on a physical exam,” she wrote, adding that had she delayed her scans “it could have spread”.

“Should you get a breast cancer diagnosis,” she wrote, “there is a village waiting to care for you.”

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

The winner of Fat Bear Week has finally been crowned – and she’s no stranger to the title.

Voters chose 128 Grazer, a mother bear who won Fat Bear Week last year, and whose cub was recently killed by her last remaining opponent in the competition, 32 Chunk.

The competition, which started a decade ago, allows viewers to watch live cameras of Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve and pick their favourite brown bear after the animals have beefed up on salmon in preparation for winter.

In a post on X, explore.org, the nature network that runs the contest, said 128 Grazer was “the first working mom to ever be crowned champion”.

In July, two of Grazer’s cubs were swept over a waterfall, where Chunk – the most dominant bear on the river – attacked them both, according to explore.org. One later succumbed to its injuries.

The two bears were later pitted against each other in Fat Bear Week’s competition, with Grazer eventually coming out on top, winning more than double Chunk’s votes with more than 71,000 votes.

A highly defensive mother bear, the 20-year-old Grazer is raising her third litter.

“Her fearless nature is respected by other bears who often choose to give her space instead of risking a confrontation. This elevates Grazer’s rank in the bear hierarchy above almost all bears except for the largest males,” her bear profile states.

Fat Bear Week came after a grisly series of events this year. The beginning of the contest was delayed by one day after a female bear was killed by a male bear on camera.

Each year, 12 bears are chosen for the Fat Bear Week bracket and fans can vote online to decide the winner.

Grazer also beat Chunk in 2023, when nearly 1.4 million votes were cast from more than 100 countries, according to Katmai Conservancy and explore.org.

A Nepalese teenager has broken the world record for the youngest mountaineer to summit Earth’s 14 highest peaks.

Nima Rinji Sherpa, 18, stood atop Tibet’s Mount Shishapangma at about 06:05 local time on Wednesday.

In doing so, he became the latest of just a few dozen people to have scaled all of the world’s “eight-thousanders” – the 14 mountains that the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) recognises as more than 8,000 metres above sea level.

Sherpa, who started climbing high-altitude mountains at the age of 16, summited all eight-thousanders in 740 days.

He reached the peak of Nepal’s Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest mountain, on 30 September, 2022 – shortly after finishing his 10th-grade high school exams.

On each trek the young athlete was accompanied by his climbing partner, Pasang Nurbu Sherpa.

The record-shattering ascent on Wednesday marked the latest in a long list of accolades for Nima Rinji, who is also the world’s youngest climber to have scaled Himalayan mountains G1 and G2; the youngest climber to have scaled Kashmir’s Nanga Parbat; and the youngest climber to have scaled both Mount Everest and nearby Lhotse within 10 hours.

Standing atop Mount Shishapangma on Wednesday morning, though, another life ambition was front of mind for the 18-year-old: to subvert the stereotype of Sherpas as mere helpers who assist foreign climbers on their ascents.

“This summit is not just the culmination of my personal journey, but a tribute to every Sherpa who has ever dared to dream beyond the traditional boundaries set for us,” Nima Rinji said shortly after scaling Mount Shishapangma.

“Mountaineering is more than labour, it is a testament to our strength, resilience and passion.”

Although the word ‘Sherpa’ is commonly used to describe someone who is a mountain guide or porter working in the Everest area, it is in fact the name of an ethnic group of people who live in the mountains of Nepal.

Nima Rinji said he wants to prove to younger generation of Sherpas that they can “rise above the stereotype of being only support climbers and embrace their potential as top-tier athletes, adventurers, and creators”.

“We are not just guides; we are trailblazers,” he said on Wednesday. “Let this be a call to every Sherpa to see the dignity in our work, the power in our heritage, and the limitless possibilities in our future.”

Nima Rinji comes from a family of record-holding mountaineers, who now run Seven Summit Treks: Nepal’s largest mountaineering expedition company, and the group with whom he completed the Mount Shishapangma climb.

Speaking to the BBC shortly after the record had been set, his father, Tashi Lakpa Sherpa, recounted the moment he delivered the news via satellite phone.

“He told me, ‘Dad, I reached the summit at 6:05 Chinese time. ‘My colleague Pasang Norbu and I have arrived’,” Tashi Lakpa recalled.

“Being highly trained and professional, he wasn’t even thrilled; it was normal. I said ‘I had faith in you. Return safely’.”

Rakesh Gurung, Director of Adventure Tourism and Mountaineering Branch under Nepal’s Department of Tourism, confirmed to the BBC that Nima Rinji had set the record.

“The peak has been confirmed this morning. Now I understand that there is a matter of giving a certificate after returning to the base camp,” he said.

The previous record holder for the youngest mountaineer to scale all eight-thousanders was also a Nepali climber, Mingma Gyabu ‘David’ Sherpa, who achieved it at the age of 30 in 2019.

“This record is difficult to break now,” Gurung noted.

All 14 eight-thousanders are located in Asia, in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges.

A New Zealand father who disappeared with his three children into the country’s wilderness three years ago has been publicly seen with them for the first time in years.

A national search has been under way for Tom Phillips since he took Ember, 8, Maverick, 9, and Jayda, 11, away from their family home in December 2021, after a dispute with their mother.

Police believe they have been hiding and camping in the North Island’s western Waikato region and and earlier this year posted an NZ$80,000 (£37,200) appeal for information.

The sighting last week came from a group of teenage pig hunters who had been trekking through the bush and filmed the encounter on their phones.

New Zealand media reported the teenagers had briefly spoken to one of their children – asking if anyone knew they were there. They had replied “only you” and kept walking, the father of one of the teenagers told New Zealand’s 1News.

The teenagers reported that Mr Phillips had been carrying a gun and had a long beard while the children were masked and carrying their own packs.

New Zealand Police have described the sighting as “credible”, and said it was “positive information” for relatives.

“We know it will be reassuring for the children’s wider family,” said Det Insp Andrew Saunders.

While there have been a number of reported sightings of Mr Phillips – this is the first time he is believed to have been seen with all three of his children.

The footage was shot on 3 October in a bush area of Marokopa, with police becoming aware of it at about 19:00 local time (06:00 GMT) that day. That prompted a three- day search involving police and army helicopters.

In the video, Tom Phillips can be seen leading his children through the rugged terrain. They are all wearing camouflage clothing.

Speaking to the New Zealand Herald newspaper on Thursday, the mother of the children, Cat, expressed her relief that they were still alive and that her children appeared well enough to be carrying their own bags.

She accused her ex-partner of using the children as “pawns in his game”.

“They shouldn’t have to be worrying about where they’re going to sleep that night or whether they’re going to be warm,” she told the paper.

She also said authorities should be doing more to track down her ex-partner, and appealed to those she believed were helping her ex-husband.

Police have said they believe Mr Phillips is being helped by other parties.

In June, authorities offered the cash reward for information which would lead to the safe return of the children – although the offer expired before being claimed.

Police said the children had not been in contact with other people in the past three years, and had not received an education.

“We believe that Tom and the children are being assisted and we’re urging anyone who’s doing this to please stop, do the right thing and tell police what you know,” said Det Insp Andrew Saunders.

Last year, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Mr Phillips over his suspected involvement in a bank robbery in Te Kuiti, a small town in the North Island.

Police said he had an accomplice during the alleged incident, and cautioned the public against approaching him as he was probably armed.

A couple in India have said they are “delighted” after a court ordered a hospital to hand over the frozen semen sample of their dead son to them so they could have a grandchild through surrogacy.

The landmark Delhi High Court order came after a four-year legal battle.

“We were very unlucky, we lost our son. But the court has given us a very precious gift. We would now be able to get our son back,” the mother, Harbir Kaur, told the BBC.

Ms Kaur and her husband Gurvinder Singh petitioned the court after Delhi’s Ganga Ram Hospital in December 2020 refused to release their son’s semen which was stored in their fertility lab.

The couple’s 30-year-old son, Preet Inder Singh, had been diagnosed in June 2020 with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma – a form of blood cancer – and admitted to the hospital for treatment.

“Before he began chemotherapy, the hospital advised him to store his semen as the treatment could adversely affect the quality of his sperm,” Gurvinder Singh told the BBC.

Preet Inder, who was unmarried, agreed and his sample was frozen on 27 June 2020. He died in early September.

A few months later, when the grief-stricken parents sought access to their son’s frozen sperm, the hospital declined their request. The couple then petitioned the Delhi High Court.

The couple, who are in their 60s, told the court that they would bring up any child born using their son’s semen sample. And in the event of their death, their two daughters have given an undertaking in court that they will take full responsibility for the child.

In her order last week, Justice Prathiba Singh said that “under Indian law, there was no prohibition against posthumous reproduction” if the sperm owner had given consent.

She added that parents were entitled to the sample as in the absence of a spouse or children, they became legal heirs under the Hindu Succession Act.

The couple say they approached the court because they wanted to carry on his “legacy” and that the order would help them preserve a connection with him and help their family name to continue.

“He loved his sisters and was much loved by his friends. He is the screensaver on my phone. I start my day by looking at his face every morning,” Ms Kaur said. She did not want to share a photo of him with the BBC over privacy concerns.

She added that the family was considering using his sperm in surrogacy and that a relative had agreed to be the surrogate. “We will keep it in the family,” she said. Under Indian law commercial surrogacy is illegal.

The case is rare, but not without precedent, her lawyer Suruchii Aggarwal told the BBC.

In court, she cited the 2018 case of a 48-year-old woman in the western Indian city of Pune who got twin grandchildren through surrogacy using the semen of her 27-year-old son who had died of brain cancer in Germany.

Her son, who was also unmarried, had authorised his mother and sister to use his semen after his death and the hospital in Germany handed over his sample to them.

Ms Aggarwal also gave the example of a case from 2019 where the New York Supreme Court allowed the parents of a 21-year-old military cadet killed in a skiing accident to use his frozen sperm to have a grandchild.

In her order, Justice Singh also cited a number of cases of posthumous reproduction, including a 2002 case from Israel where the parents of a 19-year-old soldier killed in Gaza had obtained legal permission to use their son’s sperm to have a child through a surrogate mother.

So if there is a precedent, why did the hospital reject the couple’s request?

As Justice Singh noted in her order, there is no international consensus on the issue.

The US, UK, Japan, Czech Republic and some other countries allow posthumous reproduction with written consent. Australia imposes an additional condition of a one-year wait period after the death to allow time for emotions to settle.

The practice is prohibited in a number of countries such as Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Malaysia, Pakistan, Hungary and Slovenia, while most of India’s South Asian neighbours – Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh – have no guidelines.

And even in countries that have laws on posthumous reproduction, a majority of cases involve a spouse who wants to use frozen eggs or sperm to conceive.

The number of bereaved parents seeking sperm of their sons has risen in Israel, and as the conflict with Russia has escalated, soldiers in Ukraine are offered semen cryopreservation free of charge. But in India, this is still relatively rare.

In court, Ganga Ram Hospital said legally they could only release the sample to the spouse. They said there were no clear laws or guidelines that governed the release of semen samples of an unmarried deceased male to his parents or legal heirs.

The Indian government also opposed the couple’s petition, saying that surrogacy laws in India were meant to assist infertile couples or women, not people who wanted to have a grandchild.

The authorities also pointed out that Preet Inder was unmarried – India’s Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Act 2021 bars single people from having children via surrogacy – and that he had not left any written or oral consent for the use of his frozen sperm so his parents did not have an automatic right to use it.

Ms Aggarwal, the couple’s lawyer, argued in court that while filling in the form for storing his semen, Preet Inder had clearly specified that it was for the purpose of IVF.

The form, she told the BBC, had the mobile numbers of both father and son, which implied consent. She pointed out that the father had been paying the lab for preserving the sample.

The ART Act, she said, was introduced to stop commercial use of surrogacy, to regulate and supervise clinics, not to impinge upon personal freedoms of aggrieved parents.

Justice Singh agreed with Ms Aggarwal’s argument that Preet Inder had given consent for his sperm to be used for the purpose of having children.

“He was not married and did not have any partner. He intended for the sample to be used in order to bear a child. When he passed away, the parents being the heirs of the deceased, and semen samples being genetic material and constituting property, the parents are entitled for release of the same.”

Under those circumstances, the court said they could not prohibit the couple from accessing the semen sample of their son.

The court order, Ms Kaur says, has offered her a “glimmer of hope, a light” that “we will be able to bring our son back”.

“I have prayed every day to fulfil all my child’s unfulfilled desires. It’s taken four years, but my prayers have been answered,” she adds.

A Spanish couple on their honeymoon in Singapore have been detained after protesting against the Singaporean owner of the football club they support.

Dani Cuesta posted photographs of himself outside the home of Peter Lim, the billionaire owner of Valencia CF, holding a banner criticising the business magnate.

Mr Cuesta and his partner Mireia Sáez were stopped while trying to leave Singapore airport on Friday and had their passports confiscated, Valencia Mayor María José Catalá told Spanish radio station Onda Cero.

It is unclear what charges the pair face, if any, but the matter will be resolved later on Wednesday, the BBC understands.

Singapore has some of the world’s strictest laws on vandalism and public assembly, which includes assemblies even of one person.

The government says these laws are necessary to maintain order and safety.

In 2020, a Singaporean activist who had long campaigned for freedom of speech was arrested for posing with a placard of a smiley face.

Shortly after arriving in Singapore on Thursday, Mr Cuesta posted on X that he would “take some photos with my lovely flag”, which reads “Lim Go Home”.

Mr Lim is deeply unpopular with Valencia fans, who have seen their club’s fortunes decline significantly over the course of his ten year tenure.

Encouraged by users online, Mr Cuesta posted a series of photos of himself at various tourist spots in Singapore holding the yellow banner.

Another image shows him outside what is believed to be the luxury complex where Mr Lim lives in Singapore.

A video he posted shows Mr Cuesta placing a yellow sticker reading “Lim out” – a common sight in the city of Valencia – on the residence’s gate.

The images quickly went viral among Valencia fans and Mr Cuesta even gave a light-hearted interview to a Valencia football podcast on Thursday.

He explained that as soon as his wife suggested going to Singapore, he had a “lightbulb moment” and decided to bring a banner and some stickers, which he placed on lampposts around the city.

“I told her ‘this is something I have to do’… perhaps it will be for nothing but it sends the message that we don’t want these people in Valencia,” Mr Cuesta told Tribuna Deportiva.

“I’ve not been detained yet,” he joked. “My wife’s been reading up about the laws in Singapore – she’s looking forward to getting through immigration tomorrow.”

Earlier that day, Mr Cuesta had joked on X that he did not want to “end up in a Singapore prison as that’s not the way I see my honeymoon going”.

The following day, as they attempted to board a flight to Bali, Singapore authorities stopped Mr Cuesta and Ms Sáez, according to Valencia’s mayor.

“[The Spanish embassy in Singapore] confirmed that two people had their passports taken away, due to an ongoing police investigation,” Ms Catalá told Spanish radio station Onda Cero.

“They have not been told what type of crime they are being investigated for. They can leave their hotel but not the country,” she added.

Valencia CF, meanwhile, said it was aware of the situation of two of the club’s supporters in Singapore.

“Valencia CF and La Liga are in contact with the Spanish embassy in Singapore, who have assured us that both are being advised and assisted in everything necessary with the objective of this being resolved as quickly as possible,” the club said in a statement.

Neither the Spanish embassy in Singapore nor the Singapore police have responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

One of Singapore’s richest men, Mr Lim purchased Valencia CF in 2014 and became the first foreign owner in the club’s history.

After an initial honeymoon period, he quickly became unpopular with fans as the team’s performances declined and the club ran up huge debts off the pitch.

Traditionally a team that would challenge for league and European titles, Valencia currently lie second-bottom in the league.

Mr Lim has particularly been criticised for his friendship with Portuguese “super agent” Jorge Mendes and his alleged influence on the club’s recruitment of players and coaches.

Another associate of Mr Lim is former Manchester United defender Gary Neville, with whom he co-owned English lower-league club Salford City until earlier this year.

Despite having no managerial experience, Mr Neville was appointed Valencia’s head coach in 2015 but was sacked four months later after a disastrous spell in charge.

Libertad VCF, a Valencia fan group, said in a statement it had “total support and solidarity” with the recently married couple and called for them to be “freed immediately”.

“Their freedom of movement has been violated, simply for peacefully exercising their right to expression,” the statement added.

A new documentary claims to have solved the greatest mystery in cryptocurrency: the true identity of the inventor of Bitcoin.

The question has captivated the internet since the digital currency was launched by an unknown person or persons calling themselves Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.

Now the makers of an HBO film say they finally have the answer: Canadian crypto expert Peter Todd.

The only problem with the theory – Mr Todd has dismissed it as “ludicrous.”

In Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, Peter Todd is confronted by film-maker Cullen Hoback.

Mr Hoback shows him his evidence and asks him if he was behind the now trillion dollar invention – a suggestion Mr Todd laughs off.

“I am not Satoshi Nakamoto”, he has since posted on X.

The intrigue around Satoshi is not just due to the mystery of their identity, but because of the enormous wealth they have accumulated.

If they still had control of their bitcoin wallet, it would be worth around $69bn today – meaning Satoshi would be around the 20th richest person in the world.

Peter Todd is a prominent Bitcoin developer and has been credited with many innovations in the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency.

But he has never previously been named as a prime Satoshi candidate in the years that people have spent trying to unmask the Bitcoin inventor.

There is huge interest in this latest attempt to solve that riddle. Ahead of the documentary being released more than $44m was placed in bets on crypto betting website Polymarket on who the programme would name as Satoshi.

• What is Bitcoin? Key cryptocurrency terms and what they mean
• Judge rules computer scientist not Bitcoin inventor

Cullen Hoback, who has previously attempted to unmask anonymous online figures like Q from Q Anon, says he came to his conclusion after years of research and interviews.

One of his pieces of evidence that Mr Todd is Satoshi is a forum post he found from Peter Todd that looked to be a continuation of one from Satoshi.

Another is that he once said online that he destroyed a huge number of the digital coins deliberately.

A leading theory is that Satoshi deliberately destroyed access to his massive stash of bitcoins that were the originals created to start bitcoin.

The 1.1m coins are now worth a fortune but have never been spent or transferred.

Satoshi’s stash of unmoved coins represent 5% of all bitcoins as the inventor decided that there would only ever be 21 million coins created.

Mr Todd though says his posting history indicates he was not involved – he claims he was “too busy with school and work.”

A number of individuals from the computing world have been previously tipped as the cryptocurrency’s creator.

In 2014, a high-profile article in Newsweek identified Dorian Nakamoto, a Japanese-American man living in California as Satoshi. But he denied it and the claim has largely been debunked.

In 2015, Wired and Gizmodo published an investigation that pointed to Australian computer scientist Craig Wright.

Soon after, Wright declared in interviews with outlets, including the BBC, that he was indeed Satoshi and showed apparent proof.

But his claims were disregarded by the community and after years of claiming to be the inventor, a UK High Court judge ruled that there was “overwhelming” evidence that he is not Satoshi.

Tech billionaire and crypto enthusiast Elon Musk also denied he was behind the cryptocurrency after a former employee at one of his firms, SpaceX, suggested it.

For some of the most prominent voices in Bitcoin, keeping Satoshi’s identity secret is a part of the appeal and power of the decentralised currency.

Adam Black, one of the core developers (and another potential Satoshi candidate) posted on X ahead of the documentary: “No one knows who satoshi is. and that’s a good thing.

North Korea will sever road and railway access to South Korea from Wednesday in a bid to “completely separate” the two countries.

Its military said the North would “permanently shut off and block the southern border” and fortify areas on its side.

The Korean People’s Army (KPA) described the move as “a self-defensive measure for inhibiting war”, claiming it was in response to war exercises in South Korea and the frequent presence of American nuclear assets in the region.

It marks an escalation of hostility at a time when tensions between the Koreas are at their highest point in years.

“The acute military situation prevailing on the Korean peninsula requires the armed forces of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] to take a more resolute and stronger measure in order to more creditably defend the national security,” the KPA said in a report published by state media outlet KCNA.

The declaration is a largely symbolic step by Pyongyang. Roads and railways leading from North Korea to the South are rarely used, and have been incrementally dismantled by North Korean authorities over the past year.

It also comes amid a broader push by Pyongyang to change how it relates to the South, and follows a string of inflammatory incidents that have worsened relations between the two countries.

Those incidents have ranged from missile tests to hundreds of trash balloons being sent over North Korea’s southern border.

Notably, North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un announced at the start of 2023 that he was no longer striving towards reunification with the South, raising concerns that war could resume in the Korean peninsula.

“I think it is necessary to revise some contents of the Constitution of the DPRK,” Kim said at a meeting of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) in January.

“In my view, it is necessary to delete such expressions in the constitution as ‘northern half’ and ‘independence, peaceful reunification and great national unity’,” he added, suggesting that the constitution should be revised “at the next session”.

That next session was held this week, and concluded on Tuesday. Yet while many onlookers had expected Pyongyang to ratify Kim’s earlier comments and make constitutional amendments to unification and border policies, no such changes were publicised.

One analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification think tank suggested that Pyongyang could be waiting for the outcome of the US election before making any concrete decisions.

Officials could “consider adjusting the extent of constitutional revisions to align with the direction of the new (US) administration”, Hong Min told news agency AFP.

It is unclear whether North Korea’s decision to cut off all roads and railways linking it to the South was a result of discussions during the SPA session.

Australia’s prime minister has apologised for making a “hurtful” comment in parliament, after he mocked opposition lawmakers by asking them if they had Tourette’s syndrome.

The remark – which was quickly withdrawn – has angered disability advocates and been labelled “ableist” and “despicable” by MPs across the political spectrum.

Late on Tuesday, Anthony Albanese returned to the chamber to ask for forgiveness from Australians living with the disorder.

“I regret saying it. It was wrong. It was insensitive and I apologise,” he said in his address.

Albanese made the taunt after facing interjections from frontbenchers, including shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, during a speech on tax changes.

“Have you got Tourette’s or something? You know, you just sit there, babble, babble, babble,” he said, responding to the interruptions.

Tourette’s syndrome is a condition that causes people to make involuntary movements or sounds, called tics.

The President of the Tourette Syndrome Association of Australia said Albanese’s comment demonstrated the need to increase awareness about the disorder.

“For him to just flippantly use it in such an offhanded manner speaks volumes… we have a lot of work to do,” Mandy Maysey told Seven News.

“If people see Albanese doing that in parliament, then it will trickle down, and people already use it as a punchline or an insult,” she added.

The Australian Greens disability spokesman Jordon Steele-John, who has cerebral palsy, criticised Albanese for “using disability as the butt of his jokes” – saying that “casual ableism is still ableism”.

Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston had earlier called the taunt “despicable” and demanded the PM apologise to the “entire Tourette’s community”.

“Mocking a disability is no laughing matter,” she wrote on X.

Research estimates one in every 100 school-aged children may have Tourette’s syndrome in Australia and that roughly 1-2% live with the disorder in the UK.

Tourette’s syndrome is a genetic inherited neurological condition, which means it can be passed on from birth parents to their children.

The US government is considering seeking the break-up of the world’s biggest search engine, Google, which it accuses of causing “pernicious harms” to Americans.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has been considering so-called remedies since a landmark court ruling in August which found Google illegally crushed its competition in online search.

If the DOJ pushes ahead with the proposed remedies – and they are accepted by the judge in the case – it would represent arguably the biggest regulatory intervention in the history of big tech.

Google has pushed back hard against the proposals, describing them as “radical” and “sweeping” and claiming they “risk hurting consumers, businesses, and developers.”

Google has become the go-to search engine for nearly every internet user in the world, accounting for about 90% of all online searches.

The DOJ has accused the company of using its other products, such as the Chrome browser and Android operating system, to funnel users to its search engine, where it makes money by selling adverts.

“Google’s unlawful conduct persisted for over a decade and involved a number of self-reinforcing tactics,” the DOJ said in a court filing.

It said this meant potential competitors were unable to get a foothold in the online search market.

It added this lack of competition had allowed Google to charge abnormally high prices for adverts “while degrading the quality of those ads and the related services”.

The DOJ said it was considering “remedies that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play [its app store], and Android to advantage Google search and Google search-related products”.

The DOJ is expected to submit a more detailed set of proposals by 20 November.

Google will be able to submit its own proposed remedies by 20 December.

In a blog post, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, said the recommendations constitute “government overreach” and could result in higher prices for consumers.

Ms Mulholland admitted Google makes its Chrome browser and Android operating system free because they are gateways to “help people access the web and use our products.”

She warned that if they were to be separated from Google, they would have to start making money in their own right – which would lead to increased prices.

Ms Mulholland also argued that by paying companies such as Apple and Samsung billions of dollars a year to be the default search engine on their devices, they effectively subsidise those products.

Therefore, if they stopped paying, the prices of those products would go up, she said.

Google also contended that the online advertising market is competitive, citing a Wall Street Journal article which says that more people are turning to TikTok and Amazon to search instead.

However, the same article said Google still had more than 50% of the ad search market.

If the aim is to reduce Google’s grip on the search market, it will require more than just regulatory change, says Xiaofeng Wang, principal analyst at tech consultants Forrester.

“It could open up more space for competitors, including smaller players, to grow their market share, leading to a more diverse and competitive market,” she says.

“However, technology innovations and consumer adoption strategies, including marketing, would be important to determine their eventual success.”

The outcome of this case may also set a precedent for regulation of other big American tech giants, Ms Wang adds.

“The US has also sued Meta Platforms, Amazon.com, and Apple, claiming they illegally maintain monopolies. Therefore, if the Google case goes through, it would affect more tech giants,” she says.

A year ago, after the October 7 attacks and the start of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Joe Biden became the first US president to visit Israel at a time of war. I watched him fix his gaze at the TV cameras after meeting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the war cabinet in Tel Aviv, and tell the country: “You are not alone”. But he also urged its leadership not to repeat the mistakes an “enraged” America made after 9/11.

In September this year at the United Nations in New York, President Biden led a global roll call of leaders urging restraint between Israel and Hezbollah. Netanyahu gave his response. The long arm of Israel, he said, could reach anywhere in the region.

Ninety minutes later, Israeli pilots fired American-supplied “bunker buster” bombs at buildings in southern Beirut. The strike killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. It marked one of the most significant turning points in the year since Hamas unleashed its attack on Israel on 7 October.

Biden’s diplomacy was being buried in the ruins of an Israeli airstrike using American-supplied bombs.

I’ve spent the best part of a year watching US diplomacy close up, travelling in the press pool with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on trips back to the Middle East, where I worked for seven years up until last December.

• Follow live updates on this story
• Analysis: What will it take to end the conflict?
• BBC Verify examines footage revealing scale of damage in Lebanon
• Gaza then and now – a visual guide to how life has changed in 12 months
• Watch: How do young Palestinians and Israelis see their future?

The single greatest goal for diplomacy as stated by the Biden administration has been to get a ceasefire for hostage release deal in Gaza. The stakes could barely be higher. A year on from Hamas smashing its way through the militarised perimeter fence into southern Israel where they killed more than 1,200 people and kidnapped 250, scores of hostages – including seven US citizens – remain in captivity, with a significant number believed to be dead. In Gaza, Israel’s massive retaliatory offensive has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry, while the territory has been reduced to a moonscape of destruction, displacement and hunger.

Thousands more Palestinians are missing. The UN says record numbers of aid workers have been killed in Israeli strikes, while humanitarian groups have repeatedly accused Israel of blocking shipments – something its government has consistently denied. Meanwhile, the war has spread to the occupied West Bank and to Lebanon. Iran last week fired 180 missiles at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group. The conflict threatens to deepen and envelop the region.

Covering the US State Department, I have watched the Biden administration attempt to simultaneously support and restrain Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. But its goal of defusing the conflict and brokering a ceasefire has eluded the administration at every turn.

Biden officials claim US pressure changed the “shape of their military operations“, a likely reference to a belief within the administration that Israel’s invasion of Rafah in Gaza’s south was more limited than it otherwise would have been, even with much of the city now lying in ruins.

Before the Rafah invasion, Biden suspended a single consignment of 2,000lb and 500lb bombs as he tried to dissuade the Israelis from an all-out assault. But the president immediately faced a backlash from Republicans in Washington and from Netanyahu himself who appeared to compare it to an “arms embargo”. Biden has since partially lifted the suspension and never repeated it.

The State Department asserts that its pressure did get more aid flowing, despite the UN reporting famine-like conditions in Gaza earlier this year. “It’s through the intervention and the involvement and the hard work of the United States that we’ve been able to get humanitarian assistance into those in Gaza, which is not to say that this is… mission accomplished. It is very much not. It is an ongoing process,” says department spokesman Matthew Miller.

In the region, much of Biden’s work has been undertaken by his chief diplomat, Antony Blinken. He has made ten trips to the Middle East since October in breakneck rounds of diplomacy, the visible side of an effort alongside the secretive work of the CIA at trying to close a Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

But I have watched multiple attempts to close the deal being spiked. On Blinken’s ninth visit, in August, as we flew in a C-17 US military transporter on a trip across the region, the Americans became increasingly exasperated. A visit that started with optimism that a deal could be within reach, ended with us arriving in Doha where Blinken was told that the Emir of Qatar – whose delegation is critical in communicating with Hamas – was ill and couldn’t see him.

A snub? We never knew for sure (officials say they later spoke by phone), but the trip felt like it was falling apart after Netanyahu claimed he had “convinced” Blinken of the need to keep Israeli troops along Gaza’s border with Egypt as part of the agreement. This was a deal breaker for Hamas and the Egyptians. A US official accused Netanyahu of effectively trying to sabotage the agreement. Blinken flew out of Doha without having got any further than the airport. The deal was going nowhere. We were going back to Washington.

On his tenth trip to the region last month, Blinken did not visit Israel.

For critics, including some former officials, the US call for an end to the war while supplying Israel with at least $3.8bn (£2.9bn) of arms per year, plus granting supplemental requests since 7 October, has amounted either to a failure to apply leverage or an outright contradiction. They argue the current expansion of the war in fact marks a demonstration, rather than a failure, of US diplomatic policy.

“To say [the administration] conducted diplomacy is true in the most superficial sense in that they conducted a lot of meetings. But they never made any reasonable effort to change behaviour of one of the main actors – Israel,” says former intelligence officer Harrison J. Mann, a career US Army Major who worked in the Middle East and Africa section of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the time of the October 7th attacks. Mr Mann resigned earlier this year in protest at US support for Israel’s assault in Gaza and the number of civilians being killed using American weapons.

Allies of Biden flat-out reject the criticism. They point, for example, to the fact that diplomacy with Egypt and Qatar mediating with Hamas resulted in last November’s truce which saw more than 100 hostages released in Gaza in exchange for around 300 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. US officials also say the administration dissuaded the Israeli leadership from invading Lebanon much earlier in the Gaza conflict, despite cross border rocket fire between Hezbollah and Israel.

Senator Chris Coons, a Biden loyalist who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and who travelled to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia late last year, says it’s critical to weigh Biden’s diplomacy against the context of the last year.

“I think there’s responsibility on both sides for a refusal to close the distance, but we cannot ignore or forget that Hamas launched these attacks,” he says.

“He has been successful in preventing an escalation – despite repeated and aggressive provocation by the Houthis, by Hezbollah, by the Shia militias in Iraq – and has brought in a number of our regional partners,” he says.

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert says Biden’s diplomacy has amounted to an unprecedented level of support, pointing to the huge US military deployment, including aircraft carrier strike groups and a nuclear power submarine, he ordered in the wake of October 7.

But he believes Biden has been unable to overcome the resistance of Netanyahu.

“Every time he came close to it, Netanyahu somehow found a reason not to comply, so the main reason for the failure of this diplomacy was the consistent opposition of Netanyahu,” says Olmert.

Olmert says a stumbling block for a ceasefire deal has been Netanyahu’s reliance on the “messianic” ultranationalists in his cabinet who prop up his government. They are agitating for an even stronger military response in Gaza and Lebanon. Two far-right ministers this summer threatened to withdraw support for Netanyahu’s government if he signed a ceasefire deal.

“Ending the war as part of an agreement for the release of hostages means a major threat to Netanyahu and he’s not prepared to accept it, so he’s violating it, he’s screwing it all the time,” he says.

The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly rejected claims he blocked the deal, insisting he was in favour of the American-backed plans and sought only “clarifications”, while Hamas continually changed its demands.

But whatever the shuttle diplomacy, much has turned on the relationship between the US president and Netanyahu. The men have known each other for decades, the dynamics have been often bitter, dysfunctional even, but Biden’s positions predate even his relationship with the Israeli prime minister.

Passionately pro-Israel, he often speaks of visiting the country as a young Senator in the early 1970s. Supporters and critics alike point to Biden’s unerring support for the Jewish state – some citing it as a liability, others as an asset.

Ultimately, for President Biden’s critics, his biggest failure to use leverage over Israel has been over the scale of bloodshed in Gaza. In the final year of his only term, thousands of protesters, many of them Democrats, have taken to American streets and university campuses denouncing his policies, holding “Genocide Joe” banners.

Biden’s mindset, which underpins the administration’s position, was shaped at a time when the nascent Israeli state was seen as being in immediate existential peril, says Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University in New York.

“American diplomacy has basically been, ‘whatever Israel’s war demands and requires we will give them to fight it’,” says Prof Khalidi.

“That means, given that this [Israeli] government wants an apparently unending war, because they’ve set war aims that are unattainable – [including] destroying Hamas – the United States is a cart attached to an Israeli horse,” he says.

He argues Biden’s approach to the current conflict was shaped by an outdated conception of the balance of state forces in the region and neglects the experience of stateless Palestinians.

“I think that Biden is stuck in a much longer-term time warp. He just cannot see things such as… 57 years of occupation, the slaughter in Gaza, except through an Israeli lens,” he says.

Today, says Prof Khalidi, a generation of young Americans has witnessed scenes from Gaza on social media and many have a radically different outlook. “They know what the people putting stuff on Instagram and TikTok in Gaza have shown them,” he says.

Kamala Harris, 59, Biden’s successor as Democratic candidate in next month’s presidential election against Donald Trump, 78, doesn’t come with the same generational baggage.

However, neither Harris nor Trump has set out any specific plans beyond what is already in process for how they would reach a deal. The election may yet prove the next turning point in this sharply escalating crisis, but quite how is not yet apparent.

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

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed directly to the people of Lebanon in a video published on Tuesday, telling them to turn against the Iran-backed Shia group Hezbollah or risk destruction on the scale of Gaza.

“Christians, Druze, Muslims Sunni and Shia, all of you are suffering because of Hezbollah’s futile war against Israel,” he said. “Stand up and take your country back.”

But in Shia, Sunni and Christian neighbourhoods of Beirut on Wednesday morning, Netanyahu’s appeal was falling largely – if not entirely – on deaf ears.

“Yes we heard the address but nobody here listens to Netanyahu,” said Yusuf Habbal, 31, as he cut pieces of the traditional Lebanese sweet Kunafah in his shop in Tariq El Jdideh, a Sunni area.

“Nobody told Netanyahu to occupy Palestine, nobody told him to occupy Lebanon. It is the Israelis who are driving this conflict.”

But Habbal and his fellow Sunnis “also do not accept what Hezbollah is doing”, he said.

“Before Netanyahu ever spoke about Hezbollah, we were against them. Beiruti people know that Hezbollah has their own agenda. And now they are driving us into a war we do not want.”

Hezbollah, which is a better-armed and more powerful force in Lebanon than the country’s own military, began firing rockets into northern Israel a year ago, in support for Hamas the day after the brutal 7 October attack.

The Hezbollah rockets signalled the beginning of a new phase of its clash with Israel. Last month, Israel escalated that simmering conflict when it expanded its bombing campaign of Lebanon, including in Beirut, before launching a ground invasion in the south of the country.

“They are striking very close to us now and it is terrifying,” said Mohammed Khair, 43, as he had his hair cut in a barber shop in Tariq El Jdideh.

“Nobody here wants this war, but nobody is going to be turned against Hezbollah by something Netanyahu said in a video,” he said.

Netanyahu was “always talking to the Palestinians, to the Lebanese,” said Tarraf Nasser, a 76-year-old retiree who was passing by the barber shop. “Nobody listens to Netanyahu,” he said. “He is not really talking to us.”

In Achrafieh, Beirut’s main Christian neighbourhood, there was a sense of futility at the Lebanese people’s ability to heed Netanyahu’s advice, even if they wanted to.

Antoine, a 75-year-old Catholic retiree, who asked to be identified only by his first name, was smoking a cigarette outside the neighbourhood’s Brewholic Café.

“Benjamin Netanyahu is the prime minister of Israel, not Lebanon. He should take care of his people, not ours,” Antoine said.

“At the same time, it is true that we have to do something to be free from the influence of Iran. But we don’t have weapons and we don’t have politicians who can be truly Lebanese. All our politicians are affiliated to other states or groups, mostly Iran.”

Nobody in Lebanon was going to have domestic conflict because Netanyahu instructed them to, Antoine said. “We will do that on our own.”

Across the road in her shoe shop, Maya Habib, 35, gave a tired shrug at the Israeli prime minister’s video appeal. “Everyone here knows that Israel lies,” she said. “But listen, maybe he has a point. He warned everyone – don’t attack us, don’t come close to us, and it won’t be your war. Now it is.”

Among the Christians of Achrafieh, “people are paying attention” to Netanyahu, Habib said. “But nobody can do anything anyway,” she said, shrugging again. “We don’t even have a president. Netanyahu is saying all the weapons should go to the Lebanese army, but how?”

Hezbollah can still rely on staunch support in the neighbourhoods where it is the dominant force in political and social life, and among the Shia communities of mixed areas. Several Shia residents of the Mar Elias neighbourhood said they stood completely behind the group.

“We are all Hezbollah here, whatever Hezbollah does we will support them,” said Fadi Ali Kiryani, a 52-year-old corner shop owner. Like other people in Mar Elias, Kiryani said he was not concerned by Netanyahu’s threat that Lebanon would suffer the same destruction and suffering as Gaza.

“Even if it becomes worse here than Gaza, we will still fly the flag,” he said.

“My house in Dahieh has already been destroyed. I would rather my house was gone than the shoe on the foot of one Hezbollah fighter was damaged.”

Sitting behind the desk of her 40-year-old towel and bedlinens shop, 75-year-old Fany Sharara said that Hezbollah was the only force defending the people of Lebanon.

“Nothing Netanyahu could say could change my mind,” she said. “He is a criminal, an assassin, he cannot leave one child alive.”

Israel had “all of Europe and all of America” on its side, Sharara added. “We are with Hezbollah because they are the only ones defending us. Not the Lebanese government.”

A few doors down, and a few years younger, 24-year-old jewellery shop owner Ali Shoura was simply weary of everyone involved, he said. “Nobody really cares – the politicians, the people in power, the Lebanese government, Iran, Israel, America, Hezbollah too.”

He shook his head. “It’s all just theatre,” he said. “And we are all the victims.”

Syria’s foreign ministry has condemned a suspected Israeli air strike on an apartment building in Damascus that, it says, killed seven civilians.

The ministry said women and children were among the dead from Tuesday evening’s attack on the Mezzeh neighbourhood, which houses the Iranian embassy and other diplomatic facilities. Israel’s military has not commented.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at 13, including nine civilians and two members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which is a key ally of Iran and Syria’s government.

The UK-based monitoring group said the strike targeted an apartment frequented by leaders of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”.

Syria’s state news agency, Sana, cited a military source as saying that the building was hit by three missiles launched by Israeli aircraft from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights.

Photographs from the scene showed emergency services personnel inspecting significant damage to apartments on the first, second and third floors.

“I was on my way home when the explosion happened and communications and electricity were cut off so I could no longer contact my family,” electrician Adel Habib, 61, who lives in the building, told AFP news agency.

“These were the longest five minutes of my life until I heard the voices of my wife, children and grandchildren.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights identified the civilians killed as a Yemeni doctor, his wife and their three children, as well as a woman and her child, a female doctor and a man.

Iran’s embassy said no Iranian citizens were among the casualties.

On Wednesday, one member of the Syrian security forces was killed in an Israeli strike near the south-western city of Quneitra, according to Sana.

Last week, another Israeli strike in Mezzeh reportedly killed the son-in-law of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Hassan Jaafar Qassir.

Israel has previously acknowledged carrying out hundreds of strikes in recent years on targets in Syria that it says are linked to Iran and allied armed groups like Hezbollah.

The Israeli strikes in Syria have reportedly been more frequent since the start of the war in Gaza last October, in response to cross-border attacks on northern Israel by Hezbollah and other groups in Lebanon and Syria.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Israeli air and artillery strikes have targeted Syrian territory on 104 occasions since January, killing at least 296 people and resulting in the damage or destruction of about 190 targets, including weapons depots, vehicles and Iran-backed militia headquarters.

Over the past three weeks, Israel has also gone on the offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, launching an intense and wide-ranging air campaign targeting the group’s infrastructure and weapons, and invading the south of the country.

US officials are warning about the potentially life-threatening impacts of Hurricane Milton as it barrels towards the Florida coast.

Milton is one of the most powerful storms to form in the North Atlantic in recent years.

It comes just two weeks after Hurricane Helene caused substantial damage across the US south-east.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) expects Milton to make landfall as an “extremely dangerous major hurricane” late on Wednesday night or early on Thursday morning, local time.

It could hit Florida at about 02:00EDT (07:00BST) on Thursday, according to a forecaster from CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

Milton could strike near the city of Tampa – which has a population of more than three million people in its wider metropolitan area.

Forecasters are warning of torrential rain, flash flooding, high winds and possible storm surges – which occur when water moves inland from the coast.

They say Milton could be the worst storm to hit the area in about a century – with a surge of 10-15ft (3-4.5m) possible, and localised rainfall of up to 1.5ft.

It is not expected to hit other states in the US, like Georgia and North Carolina.

• Follow live updates on this story
• What is a storm surge and how serious is the threat from Milton?
• Explainer: Is climate change making hurricanes and typhoons worse?
• Hurricanes: A look inside the deadly storms
• BBC Verify: Fact checking misinformation about Hurricane Helene

Hurricane Milton was located about 300 miles (485km) southwest of Tampa, Florida, as of Wednesday morning. At that time, it had a maximum sustained wind speed of 160 mph (260 km/h).

Milton became a category one hurricane on Sunday and has been steadily moving eastwards, through the Gulf of Mexico, after brushing past Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.

It has fluctuated slightly in strength, more than once achieving the most powerful status of category five, though it is expected to weaken to a lower category before it strikes the US mainland.

The core of the hurricane is expected to pass over west-central Florida, with a large storm surge expected along a swathe of the state’s coast ahead of landfall.

On Tuesday night, the NHC said the hurricane had “wobbled” to the south, leading forecasters to alter its track slightly. Even the most accurate forecasts are typically off by about 60 miles (100km) when the storm is 36 hours away, forecasters said.

Milton is then due to cut across the peninsula before ending up in the Atlantic Ocean.

Meteorologists are warning Hurricane Milton could also bring several tornadoes from scattered thunderstorms that may be triggered across central and southern Florida.

Floridians have been told to prepare for the state’s largest evacuation effort in years, with Governor Ron DeSantis warning that a “monster” is on the way.

Most counties are in an official state of emergency, and evacuations have been ordered up and down Florida’s west coast.

Disaster management authorities have issued a list and map of the evacuation orders.

Several large shelters have also been prepared as a last resort for those stranded.

Airports in Milton’s expected path have announced closures, and queues of traffic have been observed as people start to leave their homes.

• Are you in Florida? Please share your experiences

Hurricanes – sometimes known as cyclones or typhoons – are a type of tropical storm that form in the North Atlantic. They bring strong winds and heavy rain.

When ocean air is warm and moist, it rises, and then starts to cool – which causes clouds to form.

Sometimes this rising air can move away at the top of the hurricane more quickly than it can be replaced at the surface, causing the surface pressure to fall.

The falling pressure causes the winds to accelerate with more air then getting pulled in as the hurricane strengthens.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (Noaa) predicted that the 2024 hurricane season would be more active than usual. Rising average sea temperatures due to human-caused climate change were partly to blame, it said.

Category five hurricanes like Milton are considered “catastrophic” by Noaa.

They carry wind speeds greater than 155mph (249km/h) and can cause “very severe and extensive damage”.

The US government agency urges “massive evacuations” in residential areas near shorelines, since a category five hurricane can also bring storm surges that exceed 18ft (5m) and destroy many homes.

Trees and power lines can also be downed, causing the isolation of residential areas and lengthy power cuts. Noaa says affected areas can be left uninhabitable for weeks or months.

A database from Noaa shows that at least 40 storms in the Atlantic have reached category five status since 1924, though only four have actually hit land at that strength. Here are some of the most damaging:

Hurricane Camille

Camille crashed into Mississippi in 1969, producing a peak storm surge of 24ft and destroying almost everything along the coast.

It killed 259 people, most of them in Virginia, and caused about $1.4bn (£1.06bn) in damage.

Hurricane Andrew

Hurricane Andrew decimated southern Florida in 1992 with sustained wind speeds of up to 165mph and gusts as high as 174mph.

It claimed 26 lives directly and was blamed for dozens of other deaths. After causing $30bn in damage, it was considered the costliest natural disaster in US history at the time.

Hurricane Michael

Hurricane Michael slammed into Florida in 2018 with 160mph wind speeds and was the strongest storm to make landfall in the Sunshine State.

At least 74 deaths were attributed to the storm – 59 in the US and 15 in Central America – and Michael caused an estimated $25.1bn in damage.

Lower-category storms

Milton comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene hit the US as a category four storm, killing more than 200 people and becoming the deadliest hurricane to strike the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to get exclusive insight on the latest climate and environment news from the BBC’s Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt, delivered to your inbox every week. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

The UK has offered dozens of stranded migrants, held for years in a camp on a secretive UK-US military island in the Indian Ocean, a temporary move to Romania.

After six months, they could be moved to the UK. Others in the group are being offered financial incentives to go to Sri Lanka where they say they face persecution, the BBC has learned.

In 2021, dozens of Tamils became the first people ever to claim asylum on Diego Garcia after their boat ran into trouble.

The territory’s unusual status led to a long legal dispute, with the UK government saying that bringing them to Britain risked creating a “backdoor migration route”.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said ministers had been working to find a solution which protects the welfare of migrants and “the integrity of British territorial borders”.

Relocating the most vulnerable migrants while their legal claims are processed would offer them “greater safety and wellbeing”, the spokesperson said.

The offer to the migrants, by British officials on the island on Tuesday, came after the UK announced it was handing sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory (Biot), which includes Diego Garcia, to Mauritius. The military base, however, will remain on the island.

The BBC gained unprecedented access to Diego Garcia last month to attend a court hearing over whether the group had been unlawfully detained in a small fenced camp, which is guarded by private security company G4S.

A judgement in the case is expected soon.

The British government has argued that the refugee convention is not in force on Biot because it is “constitutionally distinct” from the UK, though it is administered from the Foreign Office in London.

Instead, the Biot administration established a separate process to determine if the Tamils could be returned to Sri Lanka or be granted international protection – which the UN says is akin to refugee status.

There are currently 56 Tamils still on Diego Garcia. A further eight are currently in Rwanda after being transferred there for medical care after self-harm or suicide attempts.

Most of the migrants are awaiting decisions on their international protection claims or appealing rejections. In total, eight have been granted international protection.

Over the summer, the top official running the territory, Paul Candler, requested that the government bring all of the migrants to the UK because of what he described as a “dangerous and unsustainable situation” in the camp amid mass incidents of self-harm.

Mr Candler stepped down a month later, saying in a resignation letter, obtained by the BBC, that he had found the “migrants situation increasingly difficult” and “the personal leadership demands that this has placed on me increasingly challenging”.

Speaking to the migrants in the camp on Tuesday morning, Biot’s acting commissioner Nishi Dholakia said the UK government had considered the Biot administration’s earlier request but had decided instead to “make different offers to different individuals”.

“Some people will receive offers to go to another safe country and others will receive an offer for voluntary return,” he said.

“I want to reassure you that this announcement does not mean anyone will be leaving the island immediately. You will all have time to consider the offer and next steps.”

Lawyers from the UK firms Leigh Day and Duncan Lewis, representing some of the migrants, said it was “imperative the camp be closed down without delay” and that the UK government “find a viable long term solution for all of the individuals and families”.

Migrants – both on the island and in Rwanda – whose claims for international protection have been approved, as well as families in the camp with children, have been offered a transfer to a “safe centre” run by the United Nations in Romania for up to six months.

“Within those six months, the UK will continue to develop a durable solution for you in line with international standards. You can choose to accept any solution presented to you during this time. If you do not wish to accept any offers made during those six months, you will be brought to the UK,” letters from the Biot administration, seen by the BBC, say.

One man, currently in Rwanda, who has been offered the move to Romania described it as “a very big relief”. Another migrant there said it was the “happiest day in three years”.

Those who have had their protection claims rejected and are not part of family units within the camp have been offered financial incentives to return to Sri Lanka. According to a letter to migrants, seen by the BBC, this will include £3,000, medical insurance for three years, accommodation for up to three years, plus a job or training or education opportunities.

The BBC understands that those who have not had their protection claims approved have not yet exhausted all legal avenues. Lawyers representing the migrants are due to fly to Diego Garcia to meet their clients this week.

“I didn’t eat anything from the morning. I feel very depressed,” said one of the Tamils who has been treated for a mental health condition in Rwanda and has now been offered a return to Sri Lanka.

The first Tamils who arrived on Diego Garcia in October 2021 said they had been fleeing persecution – and trying to sail to Canada to claim asylum when their boat ran into trouble and they were rescued by the Royal Navy. Their account was backed up by maps, diary entries and GPS data on board.

In the following months, more boats arrived.

When the BBC visited the camp last month, men and women lined up against the six-foot fence and stood outside their tents waving.

The camp is made up of beige domed military tents used as accommodation, and white humanitarian tents that have been turned into makeshift communal rooms and a church.

Inside one of the tents, where about five or six men sleep, one man lifted a panel above his bed to reveal a nest of rats.

“Look, a leak. A rat hole,” another said as he pointed urgently around his tent, where sheets and towels were hung to create different rooms.

The Tamils have been given green military cots to sleep on but have stacked wooden pallets and flattened cardboard boxes on top in an effort to make them more comfortable.

___

More on Diego Garcia:

• UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius
• What I found on the secretive tropical island they don’t want you to see
• Refugees sent to Rwanda from remote UK island speak to BBC
• Diego Garcia: The tropical island ‘hell’ for dozens of stranded migrants
• Diego Garcia asylum seekers feel unsafe on remote British island territory

Hand-written signs are hung in the camp with slogans such as “We are treated like animals in a cage” and “This is a bad place”.

Some showed off efforts to improve their living situation, including a dining table made of pallets, and plant beds lined with coconut husks.

Recently, an internal fence was erected splitting the camp between the single men there and families.

An independent social worker hired by one of the migrants’ lawyers described the situation in the camp late last year as an “emerging mental health pandemic”.

Outside the courtroom, men, women and children showed me signs of self-harm.

During the court visit to the camp, one woman wept as she alleged that her daughter had been assaulted by another migrant in the tent, one of several claims of sexual assault.

Three men, who have each been either charged or convicted of offences within the camp, are being held in a room next to the island’s police station.

Both United Nations and Red Cross representatives have previously raised concerns about the use of the camp and its conditions.

Following a visit late last year, the UN said the camp was “manifestly not appropriate” for people to live in long-term and raised particular concerns over reported sexual assaults and harassment of children by other migrants.

The chapel used to host the court hearing normally functions as a school. Educational posters were stuck on the walls alongside children’s drawings, one of which depicted a military tent with palm trees in the background.

A short drive away from the camp, there is accommodation for civilian contractors. Shops, bars, restaurants and leisure facilities, such as a bowling alley and cinema, are available to troops and contractors.

The Indian Ocean territory, located hundreds of miles away from any other population, is viewed as an important strategic base for the US.

Access to the island is heavily restricted and it has long been shrouded in rumour and mystery. The UK government has confirmed that two US rendition flights landed there in 2002 but says the detainees did not leave the planes.

UK government lawyers earlier this year opposed the BBC being granted access to the island to attend the hearing, but the Biot Supreme Court ruled in the BBC’s favour, saying that “justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done”.

The US – which controls most personnel and resources on Diego Garcia – later said it would block access to the BBC and lawyers representing the migrants. It also said it would withhold food, transport and accommodation from all those attending the hearing, including the British judge.

The US and British authorities later allowed the hearing to go ahead, but with restrictions in place. Additional G4S officers were flown over to guard the BBC and lawyers and ensure access around the island was restricted.

If they accept Tuesday’s offer, the stranded Tamils could face a 4,600-mile (7,500km) journey to Romania and more time in limbo, or a shorter trip to Sri Lanka.

Standing outside the courtroom alongside her parents last month, one 12-year-old girl said that since seeing a military aircraft pass over the camp, she had dreamed of being a pilot – so she too could fly away.

Ian Khama’s well-mannered voice barely disguises the anger that he feels.

In several interviews that Botswana’s former president has given since 2019, when he began to express dissatisfaction with his hand-picked successor, Mokgweetsi Masisi, he has talked about him in damning terms.

Masisi was “drunk on power”, Khama told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme five years ago.

Since then the 71-year-old has gone into exile, spoken about a plot to poison him and been charged in Botswana with several crimes including money laundering and owning illegal firearms.

Having previously dismissed the charges as being “fabricated”, last month he returned home and appeared in court for an initial hearing.

The tension between Khama and Masisi is likely to colour the diamond-rich country’s imminent general election – just three weeks away – as the former president is actively campaigning for an opposition party.

At a further, brief, court appearance on Tuesday, Khama was all smiles.

The authorities are now believed to be considering if the case should proceed.

There is a strong possibility that things will come to a halt as Khama’s co-accused are no longer facing the charges. But the court will not reconvene until a month after the election.

To the outsider, who might have the general feeling that Botswana is one of the continent’s most stable democracies with strong institutions, this dispute between the current and former presidents may seem surprising.

The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has governed since independence from the UK in 1966.

In a constituency-based system, it has dominated parliament for the last five decades though its share of the vote in recent elections has hovered around 50%.

The country’s first president, and Khama’s father, Sir Seretse Khama, was descended from royalty and helped cement Botswana’s reputation for orderly government in the 14 years he was in power up to his death in 1980.

His 1948 marriage to a white British woman, Ruth Williams, was controversial and led to his exile in the UK.

Ian Khama, the couple’s second child, likened his own recent time in South Africa to that of his father’s period away from Botswana.

After having been in the military, he went on to become president in 2008, serving for 10 years.

Despite the dynastic appeal, the shine came off Khama’s government and in the 2014 election the BDP won less than 50% of the vote for the first time.

Concerns about corruption, human rights and the state of the economy – with high levels of unemployment – all dented Khama’s popularity.

In the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, funded by Sudanese telecoms mogul Mo Ibrahim, Botswana’s score dropped during his period in power.

The country’s huge diamond reserves have proved lucrative and seen the economy grow, but not enough jobs were being created for the young population and the wealth was not being spread around.

In 2018, Khama handed over the reins of power to his loyal vice-president, Masisi, perhaps hoping that he could still have some influence, but things soon went awry.

One theory is that there was a gentleman’s agreement that Masisi would appoint Khama’s brother, Tshekedi, as vice-president, which he refused to do.

Khama began complaining that his security detail was being cut and that democracy within the BDP was being undermined.

Masisi also reversed some key policies such as a ban on trophy hunting and ended the scepticism towards having closer relations with China.

A year after stepping down as president, Khama then joined the newly formed opposition Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) telling the BBC at the time that the “democracy that we’ve been proud of in this country is now in decline”.

He then went into self-imposed exile in late 2021 alleging that there were threats to his life.

Masisi has batted away the criticism and earlier this year described the poisoning allegation as “shocking”.

“If you look at the history of either killings or murders in Botswana and the methods used, poisoning is not one of the ones we know best, but of late he [Khama] seems to be an expert,” Masisi told France 24, adding that the former president had nothing to fear.

Masisi also said that the arguments Khama has been using against the government and his leadership have been “a litany of inconsistencies”.

There is absolutely no chance of reconciliation between the former allies, and Khama is hoping to end the 58 years in power of the BDP – the party his father helped found.

There are opportunities to take votes from the government as the problems with the lack of jobs and the accusations of corruption have also dogged the current administration.

Furthermore, the former president still commands a lot of respect in the country, especially among the older voters and in his home area around Serowe, where he is paramount chief and where the BPF launched its manifesto at the weekend.

But Masisi and the BDP remain in a strong position, especially as the opposition is divided.

The 30 October poll offers an opportunity for the Khama dynasty to once again have an impact on the future of the country.

• World’s second-largest diamond found in Botswana
• Botswana welcomes Tebogo home with stadium spectacular
• Botswana threatens to send 20,000 elephants to Germany

A year ago, the images were searing.

With Israel still reeling from the worst attack in its history and Gaza already under devastating bombardment, it felt like a turning point.

The Israel-Palestine conflict, largely absent from our screens for years, had exploded back into view.

It seemed to take almost everyone by surprise. The US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had famously declared just a week before the attacks: “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

A year on, the region is in flames.

More than 41,000 Palestinians are dead. Two million Gazans have been displaced. In the West Bank, another 600 Palestinians have been killed. In Lebanon, another one million people are displaced and more than 2,000 dead.

More than 1,200 Israelis were killed on that first day. Since then, Israel has lost 350 more soldiers in Gaza. Two hundred thousand Israelis have been forced from their homes close to Gaza and along the volatile northern border with Lebanon. Around 50 soldiers and civilians have been killed by Hezbollah rockets.

Across the Middle East, others have joined the fight. Dogged US efforts to prevent the crisis from escalating, involving presidential visits, countless diplomatic missions and the deployment of vast military resources, have all come to nothing. Rockets have been fired from far away in Iraq and Yemen.

And mortal enemies Israel and Iran have exchanged blows too, with more almost certain to come.

Washington has rarely looked less influential.

As the conflict has spread and metastasised, its origins have faded from view, like the scene of a car crash receding in the rear view mirror of a juggernaut hurtling towards even bigger disasters.

• Listen to Paul read this article
• Follow live updates on this story
• Analysis: Why has America failed to broker a ceasefire?
• Gaza then and now – a visual guide to how life has changed in 12 months
• Watch: How do young Palestinians and Israelis see their future?

The lives of Gazans, before and after October 7, have been almost forgotten as the media breathlessly anticipates “all-out war” in the Middle East.

Some Israelis whose lives were turned upside down that terrible day are feeling similarly neglected.

“We have been pushed aside,” Yehuda Cohen, father of hostage Nimrod Cohen, told Israel’s Kan news last week. Mr Cohen said he held Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu responsible for a “pointless war that has pitted all possible enemies against us”.

“He is doing everything, with great success, to turn the event of October 7 into a minor event,” he said.

Not all Israelis share Mr Cohen’s particular perspective. Many now see the Hamas attacks of a year ago as the opening salvo of a wider campaign by Israel’s enemies to destroy the Jewish state.

The fact that Israel has struck back – with exploding pagers, targeted assassinations, long-range bombing raids and the sort of intelligence-led operations the country has long prided itself on – has restored some of the self-confidence the country lost a year ago.

“There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach,” Mr Netanyahu confidently declared last week.

The prime minister’s poll ratings were rock bottom for months after October 7. Now he can see them creeping up again. A license, perhaps, for more bold action?

But where’s it all going?

“None of us know when the music is going to stop and where everybody will be at that point,” Simon Gass, Britain’s former ambassador to Iran, told the BBC’s Today Podcast on Thursday.

The US is still involved, even if the visit to Israel of US Central Command (Centcom) chief Gen. Michael Kurilla feels more like crisis management than an exploration of diplomatic off-ramps.

With a presidential election now just four weeks away and the Middle East more politically toxic than ever before, this doesn’t feel like a moment for bold new American initiatives.

For now, the immediate challenge is simply to prevent a wider regional conflagration.

There’s a general assumption, among her allies, that Israel has the right – even the duty – to respond to last week’s ballistic missile attack by Iran.

No Israelis were killed in the attack and Iran appeared to be aiming at military and intelligence targets, but Mr Netanyahu has nevertheless promised a harsh response.

After weeks of stunning tactical success, Israel’s prime minister seems to harbour grand ambitions.

In a direct address to the Iranian people, he hinted that regime change was coming in Tehran. “When Iran is finally free, and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think, everything will be different,” he said.

For some observers, his rhetoric carried uncomfortable echoes of the case made by American neoconservatives in the run up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

But for all the danger of the moment, fragile guardrails do still exist.

The Iranian regime may dream of a world without Israel, but it knows that it’s far too weak to take on the region’s only superpower, especially at a time when Hezbollah and Hamas – its allies and proxies in the so-called “axis of resistance” – are being crushed.

And Israel, which would dearly like to get rid of the threat posed by Iran, also knows that it cannot do this alone, despite its recent successes.

Regime change is not on Joe Biden’s agenda, nor that of his vice president, Kamala Harris.

As for Donald Trump, the one time he seemed poised to attack Iran – after Tehran shot down a US surveillance drone in June 2019 – the former president backed down at the last moment (although he did order the assassination of a top Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani, seven months later).

Few would have imagined, a year ago, that the Middle East was heading for its most perilous moment in decades.

But looked at through that same juggernaut’s rear view mirror, the past 12 months seem to have followed a terrible logic.

With so much wreckage now strewn all across the road, and events still unfolding at an alarming pace, policy makers – and the rest of us – are struggling to keep up.

As the conflict that erupted in Gaza grinds on into a second year, all talk of the “day after” – how Gaza will be rehabilitated and governed when the fighting finally ends – has ceased, or been drowned out by the din of a wider war.

So too has any meaningful discussion of a resolution of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, the conflict which got us here in the first place.

At some point, when Israel feels it has done enough damage to Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel and Iran have both had their say – assuming this doesn’t plunge the region into an even deeper crisis – and the US presidential election is over, diplomacy may get another chance.

But right now, that all feels a very long way off.

Israel has invaded southern Lebanon in a dramatic escalation of its conflict with Hezbollah.

The Israeli ground operation began on 30 September, days after an air strike killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iran-backed armed group.

Hezbollah has fired rockets into northern Israel as Lebanon has endured three weeks of aerial bombardment that Lebanese authorities say has killed more than 1,000 people and forced up to a million to flee their homes.

Israel has a decades-long history of conflict with Hezbollah but the war in Gaza has sparked a year of deadly cross-border fighting between them.

We will be continually updating maps in this page to help explain the conflict.

• Follow live updates on this story
• Analysis: Why has America failed to broker a ceasefire?
• Analysis: What will it take to end the conflict?
• BBC Verify examines footage revealing scale of damage in Lebanon
• Watch: How do young Palestinians and Israelis see their future?

Lebanon is a small country with a population of about 5.5 million people, which borders Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. It is about 170km (105 miles) away from Cyprus.

Israeli troops and tanks that had gathered close to the border crossed into Lebanon on 1 October.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said it is carrying out “limited, localised, and targeted ground raids” in southern Lebanon to dismantle what it calls Hezbollah’s “terrorist infrastructure”.

Israeli troops are fighting directly with Hezbollah fighters on the ground.

Several Israeli soldiers have been killed in mortar attacks and ambushes by Hezbollah during operations in southern Lebanon aimed at “eliminating terrorists”, according to the IDF.

Hezbollah said its fighters had clashed with Israeli forces in Adaisseh, Kafr Kila, Maroun al-Ras and Yaroun – all Lebanese villages close to the border with Israel.

A ground operation in southern Lebanon comes with many risks for Israeli forces. Unlike the flat coastal plains of Gaza, southern Lebanon has rolling hills and some mountainous terrain that makes it difficult for tanks to move easily without fear of being ambushed.

Hezbollah is also thought to have a network of tunnels in the region, with the group having been preparing for another full-scale conflict with Israel since the 34-day war in 2006.

As part of its invasion of southern Lebanon, the IDF has ordered people living in some villages to evacuate, telling those remaining to leave their homes and “immediately head to the north of the Awali River” – which meets the coast about 50km (30 miles) from the border with Israel.

At first the evacuation orders were concentrated in the south east of Lebanon, but in recent days more have been been issued for villages in the south west, perhaps indicating that Israeli operations are about to extend to that part of the border.

Lebanese civilians have also been warned by the IDF not to use vehicles to travel south across the Litani River, located about 30km (20 miles) north of the border.

About a million people lived in southern Lebanon before the conflict escalated almost a year ago.

Tens of thousands have been fleeing north since Israeli air strikes in the region intensified in late September. The main route for civilians trying to leave the south is the coastal road that runs the length of the country – but areas along that route have been hit by air strikes.

• How Israel-Hezbollah conflict escalated to a ground invasion

Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon came after nearly two weeks of intense air strikes that Israel’s military says target Hezbollah in the south of the country, the eastern Bekaa Valley and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Israel says it is hitting Hezbollah sites, including weapons stores and ammunition dumps, but Lebanese officials say more than 100 women and children have been killed.

The majority of the rockets recently fired by Hezbollah have targeted northern areas of Israel. But some rockets have reached further south and damaged homes near the coastal city of Haifa.

There has been almost a year of cross-border hostilities between Israel’s forces and Hezbollah, sparked by the war in Gaza.

Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets at northern Israel during that time, forcing some Israelis living there to flee south, while the IDF has launched air strikes and artillery fire against Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.

As the chart below shows, the number of weekly Israeli attacks on Lebanon more than tripled in the week before the IDF launched its ground invasion. The number of Hezbollah attacks, while small in comparison, also increased in the same week.

Israel has intensified strikes on Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, in recent days.

The majority of the strikes have hit the southern suburbs of the city, densely populated areas that are home to thousands of civilians.

These areas, close to the international airport, also have a strong Hezbollah presence and a series of Israeli strikes on buildings there killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah on 27 September.

There have also been Israeli aerial attacks on locations closer to the centre of the city. A strike on an apartment block close to the Lebanese parliament building on 2 October killed several people, including rescue officers and paramedics, according to Beirut’s civil defence.

The map below – using analysis of satellite data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University – shows which areas have sustained concentrated damage – including Dahieh in Beirut and areas along the border with Israel.

Israel is now engaged in hostilities with armed forces and non-state armed groups in several countries in the Middle East, including Iran, Syria and Iran-backed groups operating in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Iran’s ballistic missile attack against Israel on Tuesday was the latest major escalation.

What happens next is unclear, but Israel has vowed to respond, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing the attack as “a big mistake” that Iran “will pay for”.

• How could Israel respond, and what might Iran do then?

When Elvis Presley’s only child, Lisa Marie, died aged 54 last year she left behind an intimate request: for daughter Riley Keough to finish off her memoir based on recorded tapes and their time together.

On Tuesday, the day of the book’s release, the BBC met Keough in New York to discuss From Here to the Great Unknown, a life story filled with trauma, addiction, loss and grief.

“It made me emotional that she was sharing it with the world because it was a story that she felt very protective of,” Keough, a soft-spoken 35-year-old actress, said.

In the memoir, Lisa Marie details the toll that her legendary dad’s death – when she was just nine – took on her.

For the first time, she describes waking up on the afternoon that he died in August 1977 and sensing something was wrong, before running into her father’s room across the hallway and seeing him face down on the bathroom floor.

His body was then displayed in an open casket at Graceland for two days. After the crowds left, Lisa Marie would go and “touch his face and hold his hand, to talk to him”.

“There have been nights as an adult when I would just get drunk and listen to his music and sit there and cry. The grief still comes. It’s still just there,” she wrote.

It is an event that Keough believes her mother never fully processed.

She told the BBC that she felt angry at her famous grandfather as a child because she associated his songs with seeing her mother in pain, even so many years after his death.

While there are also memories of tender, private moments at Graceland, tragedy is a constant theme in the story.

The death of Lisa Marie’s son, Benjamin Keough, who took his own life in 2020 at the age of 27, led to such intense grief that his body was kept in the family home on dry ice for two months before finally being buried.

“Ben was the love of mom’s life” and they “shared a very deep soul bond”, Keough writes about her brother.

She told the BBC that having more time with his body helped her mother to “get her thoughts together”.

“I think that it’s pretty common in the way that we handle death in the Western world, to [keep it] very quick and there’s not really a grieving process,” she said. “The body is taken away and the doors are shut and you don’t see anything. It’s not the way that it’s done so much in other places.”

Lisa Marie’s health went downhill following her son’s death and burial. Keough writes in the book that she believed her mother was going to ultimately die of a broken heart.

Lisa Marie first met pop icon Michael Jackson when she was six years old. Her father was performing at the Hilton in Las Vegas and the Jackson 5 were performing nearby.

They met again in 1993 when she was 25 and hit it off, she said in the book. They worked out a secret phone call routine and began meeting regularly.

During an eight-day trip to Las Vegas, she would go to his room each night and they would stay up talking and watching movies. “Nothing happened physically but the connection was so insanely strong. No-one had ever seen that side of him,” she said.

On the final night, he turned off the lights in the hotel room and proposed. “And in the darkness Michael said, ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m completely in love with you. I want us to get married and for you to have my children’.”

Lisa Marie agreed and they married in 1994. It was her second marriage, having divorced Keough’s father Danny.

But the couple often fought over Jackson’s suspected drug use, Presley wrote. He became secretive and “awful”, and disappeared for days – behaviours that she recognised from her father.

Keough said: “It was very passionate and kind of just went up in flames. I know they both cared for each other very deeply, and there were a lot of things at play.”

Presley’s short-lived and tumultuous third marriage to actor Nicolas Cage lasted only 108 days. That’s reflected in the book, with no direct mention of the actor in the tapes.

Keough writes that she “doesn’t know if they were truly in love, though she said they were”.

She recalls that Cage would bring her mother diamonds, and every time he showed up it would be in a different coloured car, usually a Lamborghini.

Cage said in a 2003 interview: “Sometimes I wish we couldn’t have rushed the marriage and sometimes I regret rushing the divorce.”

Presley moved to England for “her last shot at stability” with fourth husband Michael Lockwood.

She bought a historic property in East Sussex and took up gardening and cooking, and also enjoyed having tea by the fireplace.

The first couple of years of a “sweet little life in the countryside” were “magical”, she wrote, but overall the move turned out to be unhealthy for her.

She was distanced from her friends, the loneliness and isolation took a toll, and her drug use increased.

Lisa Marie only had two friends cited during the period: late English guitarist Jeff Beck and former Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, who shared a moving tribute at her funeral.

The book doesn’t fully tackle the reported rifts between Lisa Marie and her mother Priscilla, but it is clear they had a difficult relationship.

“I was a pain in her ass immediately and I always felt she didn’t want me,” Presley wrote in the opening chapter.

It also doesn’t touch on the family’s financial difficulties, including high-profile battles over the Graceland estate.

However, Keough told the BBC she hopes readers will come away with an ability to relate to “very human things that happen, like addiction and grief and love and mothers and daughters and family”.

“I’m aware that there’s a lot of tragedy in the book, but I think that all of us had a really wonderfully joyful, colourful, funny, crazy life as well,” she said. “I’m just grateful to be here.”

A new book by veteran Watergate reporter Bob Woodward says Donald Trump secretly sent coveted Covid-19 testing machines to Vladimir Putin for personal use when they were in short supply, a claim angrily dismissed by the Trump campaign.

The book – titled War – also includes a claim that Trump secretly has stayed in touch with Putin since leaving office, according to excerpts cited by US media.

In response, former President Trump told ABC News: “He’s a storyteller. A bad one. And he’s lost his marbles.”

The Trump campaign also said none of the “made-up stories” were true.

“President Trump gave him absolutely no access for this trash book that either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or used as toilet tissue,” said Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung in a statement to the BBC on Tuesday.

The new book, due out next week, attributes the continuing communications between the former president and Putin to a single Trump aide who is not named in the book.

According to a report by the New York Times, the book describes one scene in which a Trump aide was ordered out of Trump’s office in Mar-a-Lago so the former president could conduct a call with Putin.

The unnamed aide reportedly said that the two may have spoken a half-dozen times since Trump left the White House in 2021.

On Wednesday, the Kremlin denied the pair had spoken.

The book does not say what they discussed, and it quotes a Trump campaign official casting doubt on the supposed contact.

The BBC has not seen a copy of the book. The Times reported that Mr. Woodward wrote that he could not corroborate the aide’s claim, and that other sources it reached out to were unaware of Trump and Putin contacting each other after he left office.

Woodward, who rose to fame for his role in uncovering the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency, has written several best-selling books based on access to high-level sources.

Calling Woodward “demented” and “deranged”, Trump campaign spokesperson said: “Woodward is an angry little man and is clearly upset because President Trump is successfully suing him because of the unauthorized publishing of recordings he made previously.”

Trump had previously spoken to Woodward for the journalist’s 2021 book – titled Rage. He later sued him over it, claiming Woodward did not have permission to release recordings of their interviews, an allegation denied by the author.

In War, Woodward writes that while the former president was in office, Trump “secretly sent Putin a bunch of Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines for his personal use”.

Putin was reportedly anxious about falling ill with the virus, according to the retelling of Woodward’s book in US media.

The report adds that Putin had asked Trump not to publicly share that he had sent him the tests, fearful that it would damage Trump’s reputation.

“I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me,” Putin reportedly told Trump, according to the book cited by the Times.

Trump reportedly said: “I don’t care. Fine.”

The claims have resurfaced questions about the relationship between Trump and Putin just weeks before the 05 November election.

The former president has been accused in the past of colluding with Russia to interfere with US elections, though a probe by the Department of Justice found no evidence of this and reached no conclusion as to whether Trump had obstructed the inquiry.

The book also examines the long shadow cast by Trump over the foreign conflicts of the past four years and over the bitter US political environment in which they have unfolded, according to the Washington Post.

It also includes candid assessments by President Joe Biden of his own missteps, including his decision to make Merrick Garland attorney general.

Reacting to the prosecution of his son Hunter — by a special prosecutor named by Garland — the president told an associate, “Should never have picked Garland”, the Post reported.

The northern Indian state of Haryana and Indian-administered Kashmir sprang surprises on Tuesday as votes were counted in assembly elections there.

Most exit polls had predicted a hung assembly in Kashmir but an alliance of the main opposition Congress and the National Conference Party (NC) are on course for a landslide in the 90-member house and poised to form a government.

In Haryana, which also has 90 seats, predictions of a Congress landslide were upended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has proved the pollsters wrong.

The BJP-led government appears on course to return for a rare third consecutive term in Haryana.

The polls in Kashmir are significant as these are first assembly elections there in a decade – and also the first since the federal government revoked the region’s autonomy and changed the former state into a federally- governed territory in 2019.

Unlike Kashmir – which India and its neighbour Pakistan have fought wars over – Haryana does not often command global headlines.

But the tiny state grabs much attention in India as it is next to the capital, Delhi. Along with Punjab, it is called the bread basket of India for its large wheat and paddy farms, and the city of Gurugram is home to offices of some of the biggest global brands such as Google, Dell and Samsung.

The results are being watched keenly in India as these are the first state assembly polls since the summer parliamentary election. Analysts say Tuesday’s results will set the tone as the country heads into more regional elections, including in the state of Maharashtra and Delhi, over the next few months.

Perhaps the best description of what transpired in the state has come from political scientist Sandeep Shastri.

“The Congress has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory,” he told the BBC.

For weeks, political circles had been abuzz that the BJP was facing a huge wave of anti-incumbency and analysts were confidently saying that the party’s government was on its way out.

After most of the post-election exit polls predicted a Congress landslide, many said it was an election for the party to lose.

Shastri blames the Congress defeat on overconfidence and infighting within the party.

“They were confident they would win and became complacent. BJP, on the other hand, worked on issues quietly on the ground and successfully fought anti-incumbency to return to power.”

Both parties, he said, tried to form social coalitions by bringing together different caste groups – the results show the majority chose to support the BJP.

Shastri says differences between two top Congress leaders – Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Kumari Selja, who were contenders for the chief minister’s post – did not go down well with the voters.

Tuesday’s count, however, has been mired in controversy with the Congress accusing the Election Commission (EC) of delaying updating numbers on their website.

After party leader Jairam Ramesh submitted a complaint letter to the Election Commission, Selja said her party may still come out on top.

“I am telling you… there is something going on. If all goes well, Congress will form the government in Haryana,” she said.

But with numbers not on their side, that will likely remain a dream.

The EC has denied the allegations.

In the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, the Hindu nationalist BJP has little support, but it enjoys tremendous goodwill in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region. And the results reflect that divide. But the Congress-NC alliance has enough seats and is headed to form a government in the state.

The Modi government’s 2019 decision to scrap Article 370 of the constitution, which granted special status to Kashmir, and carve the state into two sent shockwaves around the valley, which elects 47 assembly seats.

At his campaign rallies, Modi had promised to restore the region’s “statehood”. But as the results show, that failed to placate angry voters.

The region saw a surprisingly high turnout – but as political analyst Sheikh Showkat Hussain says, they were voting against the BJP and the revocation of the region’s special status.

• Article 370: What happened with Kashmir and why it matters
• Modi’s BJP ahead in Haryana election but trails in Kashmir

“The BJP made this election into a sort of referendum on its decision [to revoke Article 370]. However, people voted in favour of the stand taken by the regional parties,” he said.

Noor Mohammad Baba, another political analyst in Kashmir, says the results reveal that the BJP’s “policies weren’t popular” in the region.

“The result is a message to Delhi that they need to mend their policies towards Jammu and Kashmir,” he added.

One surprising outcome of the election has been the poor showing by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), led by former Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.

Mufti, who earlier ruled in coalition with the BJP, has managed to win only three seats.

Responding to a query about her party’s poor performance, she said it was the “people’s choice”.

“Winning or losing is a part of politics. People feel that Congress and National Conference will give them a stable government and keep the BJP at bay. We respect their verdict,” she added.

Australia’s prime minister has apologised for making a “hurtful” comment in parliament, after he mocked opposition lawmakers by asking them if they had Tourette’s syndrome.

The remark – which was quickly withdrawn – has angered disability advocates and been labelled “ableist” and “despicable” by MPs across the political spectrum.

Late on Tuesday, Anthony Albanese returned to the chamber to ask for forgiveness from Australians living with the disorder.

“I regret saying it. It was wrong. It was insensitive and I apologise,” he said in his address.

Albanese made the taunt after facing interjections from frontbenchers, including shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, during a speech on tax changes.

“Have you got Tourette’s or something? You know, you just sit there, babble, babble, babble,” he said, responding to the interruptions.

Tourette’s syndrome is a condition that causes people to make involuntary movements or sounds, called tics.

The President of the Tourette Syndrome Association of Australia said Albanese’s comment demonstrated the need to increase awareness about the disorder.

“For him to just flippantly use it in such an offhanded manner speaks volumes… we have a lot of work to do,” Mandy Maysey told Seven News.

“If people see Albanese doing that in parliament, then it will trickle down, and people already use it as a punchline or an insult,” she added.

The Australian Greens disability spokesman Jordon Steele-John, who has cerebral palsy, criticised Albanese for “using disability as the butt of his jokes” – saying that “casual ableism is still ableism”.

Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston had earlier called the taunt “despicable” and demanded the PM apologise to the “entire Tourette’s community”.

“Mocking a disability is no laughing matter,” she wrote on X.

Research estimates one in every 100 school-aged children may have Tourette’s syndrome in Australia and that roughly 1-2% live with the disorder in the UK.

Tourette’s syndrome is a genetic inherited neurological condition, which means it can be passed on from birth parents to their children.

Boeing says it has withdrawn its pay rise offer to striking workers after negotiations with union representatives reached a stalemate.

The aviation giant accused the union of not giving its proposals serious consideration.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union (IAM) said Boeing was “hell-bent on standing on the non-negotiated offer” which it says was rejected by its members.

Last month, Boeing announced what it called its “best and final” offer to workers, which proposed a 30% rise over four years – lower than the 40% being demanded by the union.

“The union made non-negotiable demands far in excess of what can be accepted if we are to remain competitive as a business,” Boeing Commercial Airplanes President Stephanie Pope said in a letter sent to employees.

“Given that position, further negotiations do not make sense at this point and our offer has been withdrawn.”

But union representatives said Boeing was not willing to negotiate the terms of the plane maker’s latest offer.

Negotiators “attempted to address multiple priorities that could have led to an offer we could bring to a vote, but the company wasn’t willing to move in our direction,” IAM said in a statement.

More than 30,000 Boeing workers in the northwest of the US went on strike last month after overwhelmingly rejecting a tentative deal that included a 25% pay rise.

In response to the walkout that has shut down production of some of its planes, the company has suspended the jobs of tens of thousands of staff .

Boeing has said US-based executives, managers and staff would be asked to take one week of furlough every four weeks as long as the strike lasts.

The firm has said the impact of the strike will depend on its duration, but analysts say an extended stoppage could cost the firm and its suppliers billions of dollars.

The last strike at Boeing in 2008 lasted about eight weeks.

The stand-off adds to the challenges faced by Boeing’s new chief executive Kelly Ortberg, who was appointed in August with a mission to turn the business around.

Before the walkout, the company had already been dealing with historic losses, while production had slowed as the firm responded to concerns about the quality of its manufacturing.

Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley has alleged in a new memoir that he was abused for years by the Canadian rock band’s former manager.

In the memoir, Whibley accuses the band’s first manager, Greig Nori, of grooming and sexually abusing him starting when he was a teenager.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the singer says he kept the dark side of the relationship secret from his bandmates for years.

Mr Nori has called Whibley’s allegations “false”.

Sum 41 are a multi-award winning punk band formed in 1996 that have sold more than 15 million albums worldwide.

Whibley’s memoir, Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell, which was published on Tuesday, documents the ups and downs of the band’s early start in the Toronto music scene and its rise to international stardom.

Its beginning was aided in part by Mr Nori – then in his 30s and the frontman of a popular Canadian indie band. He met Whibley after a show and begin to mentor him.

Mr Nori later became the fledgling band’s manager.

Whibley said one night, Mr Nori suddenly, “passionately” kissed him in a bathroom stall at a rave, surprising and confusing the then-18 year old, who was high on ecstasy at the time.

He alleges Mr Nori coerced him into an unwanted sexual relationship that lasted about four years.

“Greig kept pushing for things to happen when we were together,” he writes in the memoir, according to the Toronto Star.

“I started feeling like I was being pressured to do something against my will.”

When the physical relationship ended, Whibley, now 44, alleges Mr Nori continued with verbal and psychological abuse.

Whibley alleges he revealed the relationship to his former wife, Canadian singer Avril Lavigne, who said: “That’s abuse! He sexually abused you.”

The couple were married from 2006 to 2009.

The Sum 41singer told the Toronto Star in an interview that he thought the relationship with Mr Nori would be “a deep, dark secret I was going to take to my grave”.

“But I didn’t know how to tell the story [of the band] without it, because it was so intertwined with everything that was going on in my life back at that point, almost on a daily basis.”

The band parted ways with Mr Nori in 2005.

Mr Nori told the Globe and Mail that Whibley’s claims were “false allegations”, and said he had retained a defamation lawyer.

The BBC has reached out to Mr Nori for comment.

Whibley told the LA Times he did not warn Mr Nori about the allegations in the memoir before it was published.

“I’ve had an inner battle, like, ‘Why do I want to tell him? Because I feel like I’m supposed to? Because he still has this thing over me?” he told the newspaper.

Sum 41 are currently on their farewell world tour and will be disbanding after 28 years together.

US officials are warning about the potentially life-threatening impacts of Hurricane Milton as it barrels towards the Florida coast.

Milton is one of the most powerful storms to form in the North Atlantic in recent years.

It comes just two weeks after Hurricane Helene caused substantial damage across the US south-east.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) expects Milton to make landfall as an “extremely dangerous major hurricane” late on Wednesday night or early on Thursday morning, local time.

It could hit Florida at about 02:00EDT (07:00BST) on Thursday, according to a forecaster from CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

Milton could strike near the city of Tampa – which has a population of more than three million people in its wider metropolitan area.

Forecasters are warning of torrential rain, flash flooding, high winds and possible storm surges – which occur when water moves inland from the coast.

They say Milton could be the worst storm to hit the area in about a century – with a surge of 10-15ft (3-4.5m) possible, and localised rainfall of up to 1.5ft.

It is not expected to hit other states in the US, like Georgia and North Carolina.

• Follow live updates on this story
• What is a storm surge and how serious is the threat from Milton?
• Explainer: Is climate change making hurricanes and typhoons worse?
• Hurricanes: A look inside the deadly storms
• BBC Verify: Fact checking misinformation about Hurricane Helene

Hurricane Milton was located about 300 miles (485km) southwest of Tampa, Florida, as of Wednesday morning. At that time, it had a maximum sustained wind speed of 160 mph (260 km/h).

Milton became a category one hurricane on Sunday and has been steadily moving eastwards, through the Gulf of Mexico, after brushing past Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.

It has fluctuated slightly in strength, more than once achieving the most powerful status of category five, though it is expected to weaken to a lower category before it strikes the US mainland.

The core of the hurricane is expected to pass over west-central Florida, with a large storm surge expected along a swathe of the state’s coast ahead of landfall.

On Tuesday night, the NHC said the hurricane had “wobbled” to the south, leading forecasters to alter its track slightly. Even the most accurate forecasts are typically off by about 60 miles (100km) when the storm is 36 hours away, forecasters said.

Milton is then due to cut across the peninsula before ending up in the Atlantic Ocean.

Meteorologists are warning Hurricane Milton could also bring several tornadoes from scattered thunderstorms that may be triggered across central and southern Florida.

Floridians have been told to prepare for the state’s largest evacuation effort in years, with Governor Ron DeSantis warning that a “monster” is on the way.

Most counties are in an official state of emergency, and evacuations have been ordered up and down Florida’s west coast.

Disaster management authorities have issued a list and map of the evacuation orders.

Several large shelters have also been prepared as a last resort for those stranded.

Airports in Milton’s expected path have announced closures, and queues of traffic have been observed as people start to leave their homes.

• Are you in Florida? Please share your experiences

Hurricanes – sometimes known as cyclones or typhoons – are a type of tropical storm that form in the North Atlantic. They bring strong winds and heavy rain.

When ocean air is warm and moist, it rises, and then starts to cool – which causes clouds to form.

Sometimes this rising air can move away at the top of the hurricane more quickly than it can be replaced at the surface, causing the surface pressure to fall.

The falling pressure causes the winds to accelerate with more air then getting pulled in as the hurricane strengthens.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (Noaa) predicted that the 2024 hurricane season would be more active than usual. Rising average sea temperatures due to human-caused climate change were partly to blame, it said.

Category five hurricanes like Milton are considered “catastrophic” by Noaa.

They carry wind speeds greater than 155mph (249km/h) and can cause “very severe and extensive damage”.

The US government agency urges “massive evacuations” in residential areas near shorelines, since a category five hurricane can also bring storm surges that exceed 18ft (5m) and destroy many homes.

Trees and power lines can also be downed, causing the isolation of residential areas and lengthy power cuts. Noaa says affected areas can be left uninhabitable for weeks or months.

A database from Noaa shows that at least 40 storms in the Atlantic have reached category five status since 1924, though only four have actually hit land at that strength. Here are some of the most damaging:

Hurricane Camille

Camille crashed into Mississippi in 1969, producing a peak storm surge of 24ft and destroying almost everything along the coast.

It killed 259 people, most of them in Virginia, and caused about $1.4bn (£1.06bn) in damage.

Hurricane Andrew

Hurricane Andrew decimated southern Florida in 1992 with sustained wind speeds of up to 165mph and gusts as high as 174mph.

It claimed 26 lives directly and was blamed for dozens of other deaths. After causing $30bn in damage, it was considered the costliest natural disaster in US history at the time.

Hurricane Michael

Hurricane Michael slammed into Florida in 2018 with 160mph wind speeds and was the strongest storm to make landfall in the Sunshine State.

At least 74 deaths were attributed to the storm – 59 in the US and 15 in Central America – and Michael caused an estimated $25.1bn in damage.

Lower-category storms

Milton comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene hit the US as a category four storm, killing more than 200 people and becoming the deadliest hurricane to strike the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to get exclusive insight on the latest climate and environment news from the BBC’s Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt, delivered to your inbox every week. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

A New Zealand father who disappeared with his three children into the country’s wilderness three years ago has been publicly seen with them for the first time in years.

A national search has been under way for Tom Phillips since he took Ember, 8, Maverick, 9, and Jayda, 11, away from their family home in December 2021, after a dispute with their mother.

Police believe they have been hiding and camping in the North Island’s western Waikato region and and earlier this year posted an NZ$80,000 (£37,200) appeal for information.

The sighting last week came from a group of teenage pig hunters who had been trekking through the bush and filmed the encounter on their phones.

New Zealand media reported the teenagers had briefly spoken to one of their children – asking if anyone knew they were there. They had replied “only you” and kept walking, the father of one of the teenagers told New Zealand’s 1News.

The teenagers reported that Mr Phillips had been carrying a gun and had a long beard while the children were masked and carrying their own packs.

New Zealand Police have described the sighting as “credible”, and said it was “positive information” for relatives.

“We know it will be reassuring for the children’s wider family,” said Det Insp Andrew Saunders.

While there have been a number of reported sightings of Mr Phillips – this is the first time he is believed to have been seen with all three of his children.

The footage was shot on 3 October in a bush area of Marokopa, with police becoming aware of it at about 19:00 local time (06:00 GMT) that day. That prompted a three- day search involving police and army helicopters.

In the video, Tom Phillips can be seen leading his children through the rugged terrain. They are all wearing camouflage clothing.

Speaking to the New Zealand Herald newspaper on Thursday, the mother of the children, Cat, expressed her relief that they were still alive and that her children appeared well enough to be carrying their own bags.

She accused her ex-partner of using the children as “pawns in his game”.

“They shouldn’t have to be worrying about where they’re going to sleep that night or whether they’re going to be warm,” she told the paper.

She also said authorities should be doing more to track down her ex-partner, and appealed to those she believed were helping her ex-husband.

Police have said they believe Mr Phillips is being helped by other parties.

In June, authorities offered the cash reward for information which would lead to the safe return of the children – although the offer expired before being claimed.

Police said the children had not been in contact with other people in the past three years, and had not received an education.

“We believe that Tom and the children are being assisted and we’re urging anyone who’s doing this to please stop, do the right thing and tell police what you know,” said Det Insp Andrew Saunders.

Last year, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Mr Phillips over his suspected involvement in a bank robbery in Te Kuiti, a small town in the North Island.

Police said he had an accomplice during the alleged incident, and cautioned the public against approaching him as he was probably armed.

A Nepalese teenager has broken the world record for the youngest mountaineer to summit Earth’s 14 highest peaks.

Nima Rinji Sherpa, 18, stood atop Tibet’s Mount Shishapangma at about 06:05 local time on Wednesday.

In doing so, he became the latest of just a few dozen people to have scaled all of the world’s “eight-thousanders” – the 14 mountains that the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) recognises as more than 8,000 metres above sea level.

Sherpa, who started climbing high-altitude mountains at the age of 16, summited all eight-thousanders in 740 days.

He reached the peak of Nepal’s Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest mountain, on 30 September, 2022 – shortly after finishing his 10th-grade high school exams.

On each trek the young athlete was accompanied by his climbing partner, Pasang Nurbu Sherpa.

The record-shattering ascent on Wednesday marked the latest in a long list of accolades for Nima Rinji, who is also the world’s youngest climber to have scaled Himalayan mountains G1 and G2; the youngest climber to have scaled Kashmir’s Nanga Parbat; and the youngest climber to have scaled both Mount Everest and nearby Lhotse within 10 hours.

Standing atop Mount Shishapangma on Wednesday morning, though, another life ambition was front of mind for the 18-year-old: to subvert the stereotype of Sherpas as mere helpers who assist foreign climbers on their ascents.

“This summit is not just the culmination of my personal journey, but a tribute to every Sherpa who has ever dared to dream beyond the traditional boundaries set for us,” Nima Rinji said shortly after scaling Mount Shishapangma.

“Mountaineering is more than labour, it is a testament to our strength, resilience and passion.”

Although the word ‘Sherpa’ is commonly used to describe someone who is a mountain guide or porter working in the Everest area, it is in fact the name of an ethnic group of people who live in the mountains of Nepal.

Nima Rinji said he wants to prove to younger generation of Sherpas that they can “rise above the stereotype of being only support climbers and embrace their potential as top-tier athletes, adventurers, and creators”.

“We are not just guides; we are trailblazers,” he said on Wednesday. “Let this be a call to every Sherpa to see the dignity in our work, the power in our heritage, and the limitless possibilities in our future.”

Nima Rinji comes from a family of record-holding mountaineers, who now run Seven Summit Treks: Nepal’s largest mountaineering expedition company, and the group with whom he completed the Mount Shishapangma climb.

Speaking to the BBC shortly after the record had been set, his father, Tashi Lakpa Sherpa, recounted the moment he delivered the news via satellite phone.

“He told me, ‘Dad, I reached the summit at 6:05 Chinese time. ‘My colleague Pasang Norbu and I have arrived’,” Tashi Lakpa recalled.

“Being highly trained and professional, he wasn’t even thrilled; it was normal. I said ‘I had faith in you. Return safely’.”

Rakesh Gurung, Director of Adventure Tourism and Mountaineering Branch under Nepal’s Department of Tourism, confirmed to the BBC that Nima Rinji had set the record.

“The peak has been confirmed this morning. Now I understand that there is a matter of giving a certificate after returning to the base camp,” he said.

The previous record holder for the youngest mountaineer to scale all eight-thousanders was also a Nepali climber, Mingma Gyabu ‘David’ Sherpa, who achieved it at the age of 30 in 2019.

“This record is difficult to break now,” Gurung noted.

All 14 eight-thousanders are located in Asia, in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges.

A Turkish Airlines pilot has died after becoming ill on his own flight from Seattle on the north-west coast of the United States to Istanbul in Turkey.

Captain Ilcehin Pehlivan, 59, collapsed mid-air and a second pilot and co-pilot took over the controls, an airline spokesman said on X.

“When first aid to our captain on the plane was unsuccessful, the cockpit crew… decided to make an emergency landing, but he died before landing,” Yahya Ustun explained.

The Airbus A350 plane landed in New York and plans were then made to fly the passengers on to Turkey from there, he added.

Flight TK204 took off from Seattle shortly after 19:00 Pacific Time on Tuesday evening. The pilot appears to have got into trouble over the Canadian territory of Nunavut, before his colleagues took over and headed for John F Kennedy airport.

The plane landed in New York about eight hours after leaving Seattle.

Mr Pehlivan had flown with Turkish Airlines since 2007 and had been given a regular health check in early March, which found no health problem that might affect his job, the airline said.

Turkey’s air traffic controllers’ association, TATCA, said he had served the aviation community for many years and offered its condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.

The cause of the pilot’s death has not been released. Pilots have to undergo medical exams every 12 months, while those aged over 40 have to renew their medical certificates every six months.

In 2015, an American Airlines pilot aged 57 collapsed and died during an overnight flight from Phoenix to Boston.

The first officer took over and made an emergency landing in Syracuse.

At the moment, two pilots are required to be in the cockpit of a large commercial plane at all times.

However, the EU’s aviation safety agency says technology is being developed to enable a single pilot to operate large passenger planes during the cruise phase of a flight. Such a move would allow other members of the cockpit to rest, although the agency stressed there needed to be measures to ensure safety and to respond to crew becoming “incapacitated”.

The European Cockpit Association and other pilots’ groups have joined forces to challenge the initiative, arguing that reducing the crew at any time would gamble with safety on board.

A Spanish couple on their honeymoon in Singapore have been detained after protesting against the Singaporean owner of the football club they support.

Dani Cuesta posted photographs of himself outside the home of Peter Lim, the billionaire owner of Valencia CF, holding a banner criticising the business magnate.

Mr Cuesta and his partner Mireia Sáez were stopped while trying to leave Singapore airport on Friday and had their passports confiscated, Valencia Mayor María José Catalá told Spanish radio station Onda Cero.

It is unclear what charges the pair face, if any, but the matter will be resolved later on Wednesday, the BBC understands.

Singapore has some of the world’s strictest laws on vandalism and public assembly, which includes assemblies even of one person.

The government says these laws are necessary to maintain order and safety.

In 2020, a Singaporean activist who had long campaigned for freedom of speech was arrested for posing with a placard of a smiley face.

Shortly after arriving in Singapore on Thursday, Mr Cuesta posted on X that he would “take some photos with my lovely flag”, which reads “Lim Go Home”.

Mr Lim is deeply unpopular with Valencia fans, who have seen their club’s fortunes decline significantly over the course of his ten year tenure.

Encouraged by users online, Mr Cuesta posted a series of photos of himself at various tourist spots in Singapore holding the yellow banner.

Another image shows him outside what is believed to be the luxury complex where Mr Lim lives in Singapore.

A video he posted shows Mr Cuesta placing a yellow sticker reading “Lim out” – a common sight in the city of Valencia – on the residence’s gate.

The images quickly went viral among Valencia fans and Mr Cuesta even gave a light-hearted interview to a Valencia football podcast on Thursday.

He explained that as soon as his wife suggested going to Singapore, he had a “lightbulb moment” and decided to bring a banner and some stickers, which he placed on lampposts around the city.

“I told her ‘this is something I have to do’… perhaps it will be for nothing but it sends the message that we don’t want these people in Valencia,” Mr Cuesta told Tribuna Deportiva.

“I’ve not been detained yet,” he joked. “My wife’s been reading up about the laws in Singapore – she’s looking forward to getting through immigration tomorrow.”

Earlier that day, Mr Cuesta had joked on X that he did not want to “end up in a Singapore prison as that’s not the way I see my honeymoon going”.

The following day, as they attempted to board a flight to Bali, Singapore authorities stopped Mr Cuesta and Ms Sáez, according to Valencia’s mayor.

“[The Spanish embassy in Singapore] confirmed that two people had their passports taken away, due to an ongoing police investigation,” Ms Catalá told Spanish radio station Onda Cero.

“They have not been told what type of crime they are being investigated for. They can leave their hotel but not the country,” she added.

Valencia CF, meanwhile, said it was aware of the situation of two of the club’s supporters in Singapore.

“Valencia CF and La Liga are in contact with the Spanish embassy in Singapore, who have assured us that both are being advised and assisted in everything necessary with the objective of this being resolved as quickly as possible,” the club said in a statement.

Neither the Spanish embassy in Singapore nor the Singapore police have responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

One of Singapore’s richest men, Mr Lim purchased Valencia CF in 2014 and became the first foreign owner in the club’s history.

After an initial honeymoon period, he quickly became unpopular with fans as the team’s performances declined and the club ran up huge debts off the pitch.

Traditionally a team that would challenge for league and European titles, Valencia currently lie second-bottom in the league.

Mr Lim has particularly been criticised for his friendship with Portuguese “super agent” Jorge Mendes and his alleged influence on the club’s recruitment of players and coaches.

Another associate of Mr Lim is former Manchester United defender Gary Neville, with whom he co-owned English lower-league club Salford City until earlier this year.

Despite having no managerial experience, Mr Neville was appointed Valencia’s head coach in 2015 but was sacked four months later after a disastrous spell in charge.

Libertad VCF, a Valencia fan group, said in a statement it had “total support and solidarity” with the recently married couple and called for them to be “freed immediately”.

“Their freedom of movement has been violated, simply for peacefully exercising their right to expression,” the statement added.

A new documentary claims to have solved the greatest mystery in cryptocurrency: the true identity of the inventor of Bitcoin.

The question has captivated the internet since the digital currency was launched by an unknown person or persons calling themselves Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.

Now the makers of an HBO film say they finally have the answer: Canadian crypto expert Peter Todd.

The only problem with the theory – Mr Todd has dismissed it as “ludicrous.”

In Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, Peter Todd is confronted by film-maker Cullen Hoback.

Mr Hoback shows him his evidence and asks him if he was behind the now trillion dollar invention – a suggestion Mr Todd laughs off.

“I am not Satoshi Nakamoto”, he has since posted on X.

The intrigue around Satoshi is not just due to the mystery of their identity, but because of the enormous wealth they have accumulated.

If they still had control of their bitcoin wallet, it would be worth around $69bn today – meaning Satoshi would be around the 20th richest person in the world.

Peter Todd is a prominent Bitcoin developer and has been credited with many innovations in the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency.

But he has never previously been named as a prime Satoshi candidate in the years that people have spent trying to unmask the Bitcoin inventor.

There is huge interest in this latest attempt to solve that riddle. Ahead of the documentary being released more than $44m was placed in bets on crypto betting website Polymarket on who the programme would name as Satoshi.

• What is Bitcoin? Key cryptocurrency terms and what they mean
• Judge rules computer scientist not Bitcoin inventor

Cullen Hoback, who has previously attempted to unmask anonymous online figures like Q from Q Anon, says he came to his conclusion after years of research and interviews.

One of his pieces of evidence that Mr Todd is Satoshi is a forum post he found from Peter Todd that looked to be a continuation of one from Satoshi.

Another is that he once said online that he destroyed a huge number of the digital coins deliberately.

A leading theory is that Satoshi deliberately destroyed access to his massive stash of bitcoins that were the originals created to start bitcoin.

The 1.1m coins are now worth a fortune but have never been spent or transferred.

Satoshi’s stash of unmoved coins represent 5% of all bitcoins as the inventor decided that there would only ever be 21 million coins created.

Mr Todd though says his posting history indicates he was not involved – he claims he was “too busy with school and work.”

A number of individuals from the computing world have been previously tipped as the cryptocurrency’s creator.

In 2014, a high-profile article in Newsweek identified Dorian Nakamoto, a Japanese-American man living in California as Satoshi. But he denied it and the claim has largely been debunked.

In 2015, Wired and Gizmodo published an investigation that pointed to Australian computer scientist Craig Wright.

Soon after, Wright declared in interviews with outlets, including the BBC, that he was indeed Satoshi and showed apparent proof.

But his claims were disregarded by the community and after years of claiming to be the inventor, a UK High Court judge ruled that there was “overwhelming” evidence that he is not Satoshi.

Tech billionaire and crypto enthusiast Elon Musk also denied he was behind the cryptocurrency after a former employee at one of his firms, SpaceX, suggested it.

For some of the most prominent voices in Bitcoin, keeping Satoshi’s identity secret is a part of the appeal and power of the decentralised currency.

Adam Black, one of the core developers (and another potential Satoshi candidate) posted on X ahead of the documentary: “No one knows who satoshi is. and that’s a good thing.

Actress Jenna Fischer has revealed she has been receiving treatment for breast cancer since December last year.

Best known for her role as receptionist Pam Beesly in the US version of The Office, Jenna said she was “now cancer-free” after surgery and multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

“I’m happy to say I’m feeling great,” Jenna shared on Instagram, adding she was opening up about her treatment to encourage other people to check for signs of the disease.

“If I had waited six months longer, things could have been much worse,” she wrote.

Jenna, who also hosts the Office Ladies podcast, played Pam in the mockumentary series between 2005 and 2013 alongside Steve Carrell, who plays regional manager Michael Scott.

The much-memed series, based on a BBC series of the same name starring Ricky Gervais, is one of the most-watched shows on Netflix and repeatedly ranks among the most popular US sitcoms.

Jenna said her cancer was found after a routine scan in October 2023 which she said she’d been putting off.

“Seeing women post photos of their mammogram appointments on Instagram needled me into setting my own (which I was late for),” she wrote.

After that appointment, she said further tests found she had “stage 1 triple positive breast cancer”.

Jenna said that “luckily” her cancer was caught early but the tumour was aggressive so needed multiple rounds of treatment.

There are a number of types of breast cancer and some, like triple positive, are known as hormone receptor-positive cancers.

This means the tumours are encouraged to grow by hormones, such as oestrogen, progesterone and a protein called HER2, that are found naturally in the body

These cancers are much more likely to respond to drug treatments that target these hormones to help stop the cancer cells dividing and growing.

Cancer Research says the term “triple positive breast cancer” is not widely used in the UK, instead being called “invasive breast cancer”.

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer affecting women in the UK according to the NHS, but it can also affect men.

More than 50,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with it each year and figures from Cancer Research suggest one in every seven women in the country will be diagnosed in their lifetime.

It still claims the lives of more than 11,000 British people each year, but Cancer Research says survival rates are improving, with 76% of patients living for at least 10 years after diagnosis.

During chemotherapy, Jenna said she lost her hair and shared a photo on Instagram of her “patchy pixie” cut as it grew back.

She said she was ready to “ditch the wigs” she has been wearing for the past year, adding that “many people” in her life did not know she was undergoing treatment.

“I needed spaces and people who did not regard me as a cancer patient.”

But she highlighted the support she’d had from people who did know, including her co-star Angela Kinsey, who plays picky safety officer Angela Martin in the series and co-hosts the Office Ladies podcast.

“When I lost my hair, she wore hats to our work meetings to make sure I wasn’t the only one,” Jenna said.

Jenna told her followers that she will “continue to be treated and monitored”, and she urged fans: “Get ’em checked ladies”.

“My tumour was so small it couldn’t be felt on a physical exam,” she wrote, adding that had she delayed her scans “it could have spread”.

“Should you get a breast cancer diagnosis,” she wrote, “there is a village waiting to care for you.”

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

The northern Indian state of Haryana and Indian-administered Kashmir sprang surprises on Tuesday as votes were counted in assembly elections there.

Most exit polls had predicted a hung assembly in Kashmir but an alliance of the main opposition Congress and the National Conference Party (NC) are on course for a landslide in the 90-member house and poised to form a government.

In Haryana, which also has 90 seats, predictions of a Congress landslide were upended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has proved the pollsters wrong.

The BJP-led government appears on course to return for a rare third consecutive term in Haryana.

The polls in Kashmir are significant as these are first assembly elections there in a decade – and also the first since the federal government revoked the region’s autonomy and changed the former state into a federally- governed territory in 2019.

Unlike Kashmir – which India and its neighbour Pakistan have fought wars over – Haryana does not often command global headlines.

But the tiny state grabs much attention in India as it is next to the capital, Delhi. Along with Punjab, it is called the bread basket of India for its large wheat and paddy farms, and the city of Gurugram is home to offices of some of the biggest global brands such as Google, Dell and Samsung.

The results are being watched keenly in India as these are the first state assembly polls since the summer parliamentary election. Analysts say Tuesday’s results will set the tone as the country heads into more regional elections, including in the state of Maharashtra and Delhi, over the next few months.

Perhaps the best description of what transpired in the state has come from political scientist Sandeep Shastri.

“The Congress has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory,” he told the BBC.

For weeks, political circles had been abuzz that the BJP was facing a huge wave of anti-incumbency and analysts were confidently saying that the party’s government was on its way out.

After most of the post-election exit polls predicted a Congress landslide, many said it was an election for the party to lose.

Shastri blames the Congress defeat on overconfidence and infighting within the party.

“They were confident they would win and became complacent. BJP, on the other hand, worked on issues quietly on the ground and successfully fought anti-incumbency to return to power.”

Both parties, he said, tried to form social coalitions by bringing together different caste groups – the results show the majority chose to support the BJP.

Shastri says differences between two top Congress leaders – Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Kumari Selja, who were contenders for the chief minister’s post – did not go down well with the voters.

Tuesday’s count, however, has been mired in controversy with the Congress accusing the Election Commission (EC) of delaying updating numbers on their website.

After party leader Jairam Ramesh submitted a complaint letter to the Election Commission, Selja said her party may still come out on top.

“I am telling you… there is something going on. If all goes well, Congress will form the government in Haryana,” she said.

But with numbers not on their side, that will likely remain a dream.

The EC has denied the allegations.

In the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, the Hindu nationalist BJP has little support, but it enjoys tremendous goodwill in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region. And the results reflect that divide. But the Congress-NC alliance has enough seats and is headed to form a government in the state.

The Modi government’s 2019 decision to scrap Article 370 of the constitution, which granted special status to Kashmir, and carve the state into two sent shockwaves around the valley, which elects 47 assembly seats.

At his campaign rallies, Modi had promised to restore the region’s “statehood”. But as the results show, that failed to placate angry voters.

The region saw a surprisingly high turnout – but as political analyst Sheikh Showkat Hussain says, they were voting against the BJP and the revocation of the region’s special status.

• Article 370: What happened with Kashmir and why it matters
• Modi’s BJP ahead in Haryana election but trails in Kashmir

“The BJP made this election into a sort of referendum on its decision [to revoke Article 370]. However, people voted in favour of the stand taken by the regional parties,” he said.

Noor Mohammad Baba, another political analyst in Kashmir, says the results reveal that the BJP’s “policies weren’t popular” in the region.

“The result is a message to Delhi that they need to mend their policies towards Jammu and Kashmir,” he added.

One surprising outcome of the election has been the poor showing by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), led by former Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.

Mufti, who earlier ruled in coalition with the BJP, has managed to win only three seats.

Responding to a query about her party’s poor performance, she said it was the “people’s choice”.

“Winning or losing is a part of politics. People feel that Congress and National Conference will give them a stable government and keep the BJP at bay. We respect their verdict,” she added.

A snapshot of wriggling toad tadpoles has earned Shane Gross the title of Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

Beneath a floating canopy of lily pads in Cedar Lake, Canada, a swarm of western toad tadpoles glided gracefully through the water.

“To me, the most fun that I can have, the thing that lights me up inside, is to see something new and try to photograph it in the best way I possibly can,” Shane told BBC News.

His careful movements through the delicate layer of silt and algae at the lake’s bottom ensured a clear view.

“I had no idea if I had anything good at all until I got home,” he said. “But when I finally looked, I was like, wow, this is pretty cool.”

Within four to twelve weeks after hatching, these little tadpoles begin their transformation into toads, with only about 1% making it to adulthood.

He was awarded the prize at London’s Natural History Museum.

“This image swirls with light, energy and a feeling of synchronised movement between the lilies and the tadpole tails,” said Kathy Moran, Jury Chair and Editor. “The real payoff is that this wonderful scene highlights environments and species that are often overlooked.”

Scroll on to see all of the winning photographs.

Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas, 17, from Germany, won the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year title. His photo “Life Under Dead Wood” featured fruiting slime mould alongside a tiny, energetic springtail.

Working quickly was essential, as these tiny critters can leap several times their body length in the blink of an eye.

“I think a lot of people don’t know that these things even exist,” Alexis said. “If people learn more through my images, I feel like that’s one of the biggest goals for me, to just show this tiny world that a lot of people don’t really get to see, in a different light.”

Using a technique known as focus-stacking, he combined 36 images into one stunning photograph.

These miniature springtails, under two millimetres long, are found alongside slime moulds worldwide, munching on microorganisms and playing a key role in soil health.

Britta Jaschinski observed as a crime scene investigator from London’s Metropolitan Police dusted a confiscated tusk at Heathrow Airport for fingerprints, using newly developed magnetic powder.

Matthew Smith captured a striking split image of a curious leopard seal beneath the Antarctic ice, using a custom extension he designed for his camera’s underwater housing.

The Amazon River dolphin, one of two freshwater dolphin species in the Amazon and Orinoco basins, uniquely adapts to explore seasonally flooded forest habitats.

Thomas Peschak highlights the endangered dolphins’ complex relationship with local communities and the challenges they face due to human interactions that disrupt their natural behaviours.

While filming a wildlife documentary in India’s western ghats, Robin Darius Conz saw a tiger on a hillside overlooking a town. He used a drone to track the tiger, to highlight the contrast between protected areas and those affected by human development.

After photographing birds and leopards, Hikkaduwa Liyanage Prasantha Vinod captured a young toque macaque peacefully sleeping in an adult’s arms to highlight the challenges these monkeys face amid habitat loss and farmer conflicts.

Ingo Arndt captured the red wood ants efficiently dismembering a blue ground beetle to carry into their nest. He described himself as “full of ant” after just a few minutes lying beside the ants’ nest as he watched their teamwork in action.

Alberto Román Gómez captured a playful stonechat perched beside a heavy chain, resembling a tiny warrior. From his father’s car in Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park, he struggled to photograph the bird as it darted about, gathering insects.

Mr Metelskiy captured a serene image of a lynx stretching in the evening sun, blending into the wilderness. After over six months of patience, he positioned his camera trap near the footprints of potential prey, revealing the elusive lynx in its natural habitat.

Fortunato Gatto came across a gnarled birch tree draped with pale ‘old man’s beard’ lichens in Glen Affric in the Scottish highlands. Glen Affric is home to the highest concentration of native trees in the UK, making it a vital ecosystem.

Jack Zhi captures a young falcon practicing hunting on a butterfly near its sea-cliff nest. For the past eight years, he observed the birds in this area, but tracking them was particularly challenging as they were so fast.

Jiří Hřebíček created an artistic image of a carrion crow by using a long shutter speed while moving his camera on purpose.

John Marriott photographs a lynx resting, with its fully grown young sheltering from the cold wind behind it. After a week of tracking led him to the group, he kept his distance to avoid disturbing the family in the snowy forest.

Justin Gilligan created a mosaic from 403 pieces of plastic found in the digestive tract of a dead flesh-footed shearwater. He has been documenting research from a team that studies the impact of plastic pollution on marine ecosystems.

Parham Pourahmad watched the last rays of sunlight highlight a young Cooper’s hawk eating a squirrel. Over the summer, he photographed wildlife in a city park to show that “nature will always be wild and unpredictable”.

Karine Aigner spotted a yellow anaconda coiled around the snout of a yacaré caiman while leading a tour group. She observed the two reptiles struggling, uncertain which was the aggressor, while horseflies clung to the snake’s back.

Tube-snout fish eggs glimmer among golden kelp, their colours fading as they develop. Sage Ono, inspired by his grandfather’s marine biology stories, captures the unique underwater life of Monterey Bay’s giant kelp forests.

“I like small and weird. So, when I saw the eggs and the kelp, I was like, okay, this is something I don’t have a photograph of. I’ve never really seen a photograph of it, so it’s really interesting to me.” Sage said.

The annual exhibition dedicated to the WPY competition opens at the Natural History Museum on Friday.

Voters in the US go to the polls on 5 November to elect their next president.

The election was initially a rematch of 2020 but it was upended in July when President Joe Biden ended his campaign and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris.

The big question now is – will America get its first woman president or a second Donald Trump term?

As election day approaches, we’ll be keeping track of the polls and seeing what effect the campaign has on the race for the White House.

Harris has been ahead of Trump in the national polling averages since she entered the race at the end of July, as shown in the chart below with the latest figures rounded to the nearest whole number.

The two candidates went head to head in a televised debate in Pennsylvania on 10 September that just over 67 million people tuned in to watch.

A majority of national polls carried out in the week after suggested Harris’s performance had helped her make some small gains, with her lead increasing from 2.5 percentage points on the day of the debate to 3.3 points just over a week later.

That marginal boost was mostly down to Trump’s numbers though. His average had been rising ahead of the debate, but it fell by half a percentage point in the week afterwards.

You can see those small changes in the poll tracker chart below, with the trend lines showing how the averages have changed and the dots showing the individual poll results for each candidate.

While these national polls are a useful guide as to how popular a candidate is across the country as a whole, they’re not necessarily an accurate way to predict the result of the election.

That’s because the US uses an electoral college system, in which each state is given a number of votes roughly in line with the size of its population. A total of 538 electoral college votes are up for grabs, so a candidate needs to hit 270 to win.

There are 50 states in the US but because most of them nearly always vote for the same party, in reality there are just a handful where both candidates stand a chance of winning. These are the places where the election will be won and lost and are known as battleground states or swing states.

• What is the electoral college?

Right now, the polls are very tight in the seven states considered battlegrounds in this election with just one or two percentage points separating the candidates.

That includes Pennsylvania, which is key as it has the highest number of electoral votes of the seven states and therefore winning it makes it easier to reach the 270 votes needed.

In a sign of how the race has changed since Harris became the Democratic nominee, on the day Biden quit the race he was trailing Trump by nearly five percentage points on average in these seven states.

One thing to note is that there are fewer state polls than national polls being carried out at the moment so we have less data to go on and every poll has a margin of error that means the numbers could be higher or lower.

But looking at the trends since Harris joined the race does help highlight the states in which she seems to be in a stronger position, according to the polling averages.

In the chart below you can see that Harris has been leading in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin since the start of August – but the margins are still small.

All three had all been Democratic strongholds before Trump turned them red on his path to winning the presidency in 2016. Biden retook them in 2020 and if Harris can do the same this year then she will be on course to win the election.

The figures we have used in the graphics above are averages created by polling analysis website 538, which is part of American news network ABC News. To create them, 538 collects the data from individual polls carried out both nationally and in battleground states by lots of polling companies.

As part of its quality control, 538 only includes polls from companies that meet certain criteria, like being transparent about how many people they polled, when the poll was carried out and how the poll was conducted (telephone calls, text message, online, etc).

You can read more about the 538 methodology here.

At the moment, the polls suggest that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are within a couple of percentage points of each other in swing states – and when the race is that close, it’s very hard to predict winners.

Polls underestimated support for Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Polling companies will be trying to fix that problem in a number of ways, including how to make their results reflect the make-up of the voting population.

Those adjustments are difficult to get right and pollsters still have to make educated guesses about other factors like who will actually turn up to vote on 5 November.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• ANALYSIS: Harris goads Trump into flustered performance
• EXPLAINER: Seven swing states that could decide election
• IMMIGRATION: Could Trump really deport a million migrants?
• FACT CHECK: Was US economy stronger or weaker under Trump?
• Read more about: Kamala Harris | Donald Trump | US election