Israel has carried out more air strikes in Beirut and southern Lebanon, including on branches of a bank that it says is supporting Hezbollah.

Explosions were heard in southern Beirut’s Dahieh district, an area controlled by Hezbollah, as well as the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon. It is unclear whether there are any casualties.

The Israeli military earlier warned people living in 25 areas in Lebanon – including 14 in the capital Beirut – that it planned to carry out strikes throughout the night.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also said it would target banks and other financial infrastructure supporting Hezbollah.

In a statement on Sunday evening, IDF spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari warned that “anyone located near sites used to fund Hezbollah’s terror activities must move away from these locations immediately”.

“We will strike several targets in the coming hours and additional targets throughout the night,” he said.

“In the coming days, we will reveal how Iran funds Hezbollah’s terror activities by using civilian institutions, associations, and NGOs that act as fronts for terrorism,” the Israeli spokesman added.

Lebanon’s state-run news agency NNA reported strikes on branches of the bank Al-Qard Al-Hassan association, including in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

It also reported a strike on the bank’s branch near Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut. Footage showed smoke billowing following a blast near the airport.

The bank has more than 30 branches across Lebanon, including 15 in densely-populated areas in Beirut, Reuters reported.

Israel accuses the association of funnelling Iranian money to the group to fund buying and storing weapons and to pay the salaries of its members. The US also says it is used by Hezbollah to manage its finances.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it had fired more rockets into Israel on Sunday, targeting military bases. It also said it fired at Israeli troops on the ground in southern Lebanon.

• ‘No life left there’: The suburbs bearing the brunt in Beirut

On Sunday evening, the IDF said that dozens of projectiles – which usually means rockets – had been fired at northern Israel in the past 24 hours.

It also said that its warplanes conducted “an intelligence-based strike on a command centre of Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters and an underground weapons workshop in Beirut”.

It said steps had been taken to “reduce the possibility of civilian casualties”.

Israel has been accused by Hezbollah and Lebanese officials of targeting civilians, which it denies.

On Sunday, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) accused the IDF of deliberately demolishing an observation tower and perimeter fence of a UN position in the southern Lebanese town of Marwahin on the border with Israel. It follows similar incidents in recent weeks.

“Yet again, we note that breaching a UN position and damaging UN assets is a flagrant violation of international law and Security Council resolution 1701,” the Unifil said in a statement.

In a separate development, the Lebanese army said three of it soldiers were killed after a military vehicle was hit by an Israeli air strike in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon.

Israel has not yet commented on the two reported incidents.

Lebanon’s army has historically stayed out of cross-border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah – but a number of its troops have been killed in Israeli attacks since fighting escalated last month.

Hezbollah – a powerful militant group in Lebanon – says it has been firing on Israeli positions in solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran.

Lebanese officials estimate that more than 2,400 people have been killed in the country over the past year. Israel says 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights over the same period.

Moldova’s referendum on whether to change its constitution and commit to joining the EU hangs in the balance, with the No and Yes votes neck and neck.

With Yes on 49.9% and No on 50.1% – with 97% of the vote counted – it is a result few were expecting, as several recent surveys said the Yes vote would comfortably win.

The incumbent pro-EU president Maia Sandu earlier denounced the narrow result as the product of foreign interference in Moldovan politics.

She said it was an “unprecedented assault on democracy”, referring to widespread allegations that Russia paid people to vote a certain way, which Moscow denies.

As well as the referendum on changing the constitution, Moldovans also voted in the country’s presidential election on Sunday.

The votes were seen as key tests for the country, which is facing a choice between pushing on with EU membership or keeping close ties to Russia.

Sandu topped the election first round but by a much lower margin than expected – 41% of the vote – and so will now face a difficult second round in early November in which her opponents will likely unite against her.

She accused “criminal groups” of working together with “foreign forces” of using money, lies, and propaganda to sway the vote.

Sandu also said her government had “clear evidence” that 300,000 votes were bought, which she called “a fraud of unprecedented scale”.

The Kremlin has staunchly denied being involved in claims of vote-buying.

Moldova is currently in talks with the EU on becoming a member. These accession talks will continue despite Sunday’s outcome, as the referendum was not legally binding.

The vote, however, was supposed to make the process irreversible. Instead, it feels a little shakier now.

Because she failed to clinch more than half of the vote, Sandu and the second frontrunner, Aleksandr Stoianoglo, who is supported by the pro-Russian Party of Socialists, will go to a run-off on 3 November.

Stoianoglo won 27%, a result that was considerably higher than expected.

Populist Renato Usatii came third, followed by the former governor of Gagauzia Irina Vlah.

If the other candidates throw their support behind Stoianoglo ahead of the second round, Sandu could run the real risk of not being re-elected.

At Sandu’s election headquarters on Sunday evening, the mood was extremely subdued, with one of her advisers describing the result so far as “not what we expected”.

Sandu, who has cultivated close ties with Moldova’s EU neighbours, had campaigned for the Yes vote in the referendum. She had previously said the vote was would set up the future of Moldova for “many decades ahead”.

When the first results began trickling in showing that the No vote had done better than expected, Sandu’s team put the disappointing results down to the first count coming in from villages and rural areas.

The big city count narrowed the lead for the No vote, but by 01:00 (22:00 GMT) few thought the Yes camp could still stand a chance.

Many of Sandu’s supporters left her headquarters in Chisinau where they had been hoping to celebrate her victory before the count was even over. The little EU flags they’d been given to wave have been abandoned, on chairs or strewn on the ground.

An adviser to Sandu suggested that “it looked like whatever they had planned, might have worked,” referring to allegations of vote-buying, linked to Russia.

Voter turnout stood at more than 51% when polls closed at 21:00 local time (18:00 GMT), making the referendum valid.

As the night went on, the gap narrowed even further.

Several presidential candidates boycotted the referendum. Aleksandr Stoianoglo said he did not support the idea of changing the constitution – although he added he was a supporter of his country’s “European aspirations”.

However, many young people queuing at polling stations on Sunday were vocal about their support for Moldova’s future as an EU member state, with some saying they were voting because they wanted to choose a European future for their country – for the sake of the economy and for more opportunities.

Some said they were fed up of being “pulled” towards Moscow, decades after the Soviet Union collapsed and Moldova became independent.

“We have to choose a European future for our country, for our children, our future – for geopolitics, for peace, that’s the most important,” a voter called Oksana told the BBC. “Because we are between Europe and Russian influence, and we have to choose what we want.”

At a polling station for residents of the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria – which is economically, politically and militarily supported by Russia – the BBC stumbled upon evidence of vote-buying.

A BBC producer heard a woman who had just dropped her ballot in the transparent box ask an election monitor where she would get paid.

Outside, we asked directly whether she had been offered cash to vote and she admitted it without qualms. She was angry that a man who had sent her to the polling station was no longer answering her calls. “He tricked me!” she said.

She would not reply when asked who she had voted for.

In September, Ilan Shor – the fugitive Moldovan businessman accused of funnelling large amounts of cash into the country from Russia – offered money to convince “as many people as possible” to vote No or to abstain in the EU referendum.

This week, Shor then made a video statement telling people to vote for “anyone but Sandu” in the presidential election.

Yulia Navalnaya intends to be president of Russia, she tells me. She looks me straight in the eye. No hesitation or wavering.

This, like so many of the decisions she made with her husband, the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, is unambiguous.

Navalnaya knows she faces arrest if she returns home while President Putin is still in power. His administration has accused her of participating in extremism.

This is no empty threat. In Russia, it can lead to death.

Her husband, President Putin’s most vocal critic, was sentenced to 19 years for extremism, charges that were seen as politically motivated. He died in February in a brutal penal colony in the Arctic Circle. US President Joe Biden said there was “no doubt” Putin was to blame. Russia denies killing Navalny.

Yulia Navalnaya, sitting down for our interview in a London legal library, looks and sounds every inch the successor to Navalny, the lawyer turned politician who dreamt of a different Russia.

As she launches Patriot, the memoir her husband was writing before his death, Yulia Navalnaya restated her plans to continue his fight for democracy.

When the time is right, “I will participate in the elections… as a candidate,” she told the BBC.

“My political opponent is Vladimir Putin. And I will do everything to make his regime fall as soon as possible”.

For now, that has to be from outside Russia.

She tells me that while Putin is in charge she cannot go back. But Yulia looks forward to the day she believes will inevitably come, when the Putin era ends and Russia once again opens up.

Just like her husband, she believes there will be the chance to hold free and fair elections. When that happens, she says she will be there.

Her family has already suffered terribly in the struggle against the Russian regime, but she remains composed throughout our interview, steely whenever Putin’s name comes up.

Her personal grief is channelled into political messaging, in public anyway. But she tells me, since Alexei’s death, she has been thinking even more about the impact the couple’s shared political beliefs and decisions have had on their children, Dasha, 23, and Zakhar, 16.

“I understand that they didn’t choose it”.

But she says she never asked Navalny to change course.

He was barred from standing for president by Russia’s Central Election Commission.

His investigations through his Anti-Corruption Foundation were viewed by millions online, including a video posted after his last arrest, claiming that Putin had built a one-billion dollar palace on the Black Sea.

The president denied it.

Yulia says: “When you live inside this life, you understand that he will never give up and that is for what you love him”.

Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in 2020.

He was flown to Germany for treatment and the German chancellor demanded answers from Putin’s regime.

Navalny worked with open-source investigators Bellingcat and traced the poisoning to Russia’s security service, the FSB.

He began writing his memoir as he recovered.

He and Yulia returned to Russia in January 2021 where he was arrested after landing.

Many ask why they returned.

“There couldn’t be any discussion. You just need to support him. I knew that he wants to come back to Russia. I knew that he wants to be with his supporters, he wanted to be an example to all these people with his courage and his bravery to show people that there is no need to be afraid of this dictator.

“I never let my brain think that he might be killed… we lived this life for decades and it’s about you share these difficulties, you share these views. You support him”.

After his jailing, Navalny continued his book in notebook entries, posts on social media and prison diaries, published for the first time. Some of his writing was confiscated by the prison authorities, he said.

Patriot is revealing – and devastating. We all know Navalny’s final chapter, which makes the descriptions of his treatment – and his courage in the face of it – even more poignant.

Navalny spent 295 days in solitary confinement, punished, according to the book, for violations including the top button of his fatigues being unbuttoned. He was deprived of phone calls and visits.

Yulia Navalnaya told me: “Usually, the normal practice is banishment just for two weeks and it’s the most severe punishment. My husband spent there almost one year.”

In a prison diary from August 2022, Navalny writes from solitary confinement:

Navalnaya says she was prevented from visiting or speaking to her husband for two years before he died. She says Alexei was tortured, starved and kept in “awful conditions”.

After his death, the US, EU and UK announced new sanctions against Russia. These included freezing the assets of six prison bosses who ran the Arctic Circle penal colony and other sanctions on judges involved in criminal proceedings against Navalny.

Yulia calls the reaction to his death by the international community “a joke” and urges them to be “a little less afraid” of Putin. She wants to see the president locked up.

“I don’t want him to be in prison, somewhere abroad, in a nice prison with a computer, nice food… I want him to be in a Russian prison. And it’s not just that – I want him to be in the same conditions like Alexei was. But it’s very important for me”.

The Russians claim Navalny died of natural causes. Yulia believes President Putin ordered the killing.

“Vladimir Putin is answering for the death and for the murder of my husband”.

She says the Anti-Corruption Foundation she now leads in her husband’s place already has “evidence” which she will reveal when they have “the whole picture”.

The book is as much a political work as a memoir, a rallying cry to anyone who believes in a free Russia. It is also being published in Russian, as an ebook and audiobook. But the publishers won’t send hard copies to Russia or Belarus, because they say they can’t guarantee the book would get through customs.

How many Russians will dare to buy it, even in electronic form, is unclear – and how much impact it could have remains questionable.

The message etched on every page is that Navalny never gave up. His arch wit shines through.

He says, in the punishment cell, he is getting “for free” the experience of staying silent, eating scant food and getting away from the outside world that “rich people suffering from a midlife crisis” pay for.

Only once does he share feeling “crushed”, during the hunger strike he undertook in 2021 in order to demand medical care from civilian doctors. “For the first time, I’m feeling emotionally and morally down,” he writes in one entry.

But Yulia says she never worried that he would actually be broken by the regime.

“I’m absolutely confident that is the point why finally they decided to kill him. Because they just realised that he will never give up”.

Even the day before he died, when he appeared in court, Navalny was filmed joking with the judge.

Yulia says laughter was his “superpower”.

“He really, truly laughed at this regime and at Vladimir Putin. That’s why Vladimir Putin hated him so much”.

The writing is laced with a great deal of irony.

The book will sell better if he dies, Navalny writes:

In the end, Patriot is also a love story about two people fully committed to a cause they believed in.

A cause for which Yulia has now become the figurehead.

After a visit from her, Navalny writes:

The air strike that killed the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah shook the earth for hundreds of metres in every direction.

A few blocks away, in the Beirut suburb known as the Dahieh, Mehdi Moussawi thought his own building was falling down.

From his balcony, the 45-year-old taxi driver and his wife Zahraa – who asked that their names be changed for this story – watched as a thick blanket of smoke and dust enveloped everything around them. In the distance, they could hear debris raining down, and overhead the familiar buzz of an Israeli drone.

The drones had become so common over Dahieh in the previous few days that they barely noticed them anymore. A majority Shia suburb in the south of Beirut, Dahieh was once again under Israel’s watchful eye; its more than half a million residents again under threat of death from above.

“The missiles come down from the sky,” Mehdi said, gesturing the arc of a projectile falling to earth, “and suddenly everything you have is gone.”

He was sitting on a dirty, sun-baked patch of pavement on the edge of Martyrs’ Square in central Beirut – now home for the couple and their teenage boys. Around them were hundreds of others in similar circumstances, many from Dahieh. The suburb has borne the brunt of the recent Israeli bombing of Beirut, prompting a mass exodus of virtually its entire population.

Dahieh is largely under the control of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed political and paramilitary group that is a powerful force across Lebanon.

Hezbollah refused requests from the BBC for permission to enter the suburb for this story, to see the bomb damage, but a BBC analysis of video footage, Israeli evacuation warnings and recent satellite imagery shows at least 65 air strikes which have severely damaged or completely destroyed buildings. Some of those strikes have comprised dozens of individual bombs, and many have levelled not only the apparent target building but destroyed or severely damaged several adjacent buildings too.

This was the fate of Mehdi and Zahraa’s apartment – to be next door to an Israeli strike. Zahraa wept when she saw footage of their blackened and mangled building. “Look at us,” she pleaded. “Our home is gone. We have no hygiene, we cannot wash. We have nothing.”

Dahieh is often described as a Hezbollah stronghold. The term does not reflect the totality of the suburb – a densely packed residential area where other political parties operate and where not everyone supports Hezbollah – but the group is certainly the strongest force there. Above ground, it is woven through the suburb’s social and political fabric, and provides services like welfare and education. Below, it has bunkers and tunnels from which it can operate.

The IDF has targeted Dahieh in order to assassinate Hezbollah leaders, and says the group uses its bunkers to store weapons among the civilian population. It says it is targeting Hezbollah in order to safely return 60,000 of its own citizens to the north of Israel, which has come under rocket fire from Lebanon over the past year.

Unlike other parts of Beirut, Dahieh doesn’t have its own name, as such – the word simply means ‘suburb’. It is one of the most densely populated residential areas in all of Lebanon – a place of narrow streets and alleyways, where buildings seem to jostle for available space. It was heavily bombed in the previous war, back in 2006, and still bears scars from it.

“Dahieh was originally a very beautiful place but all the wars have taken their toll,” said Rasha al-Ameer, a novelist and publisher who was born and raised in the suburb and still lives there. Her brother, a prominent critic of Hezbollah, was assassinated in Lebanon in 2021.

“It is still a very vivid place and a diverse place. We have a cultural institution there and a lot of political activity,” she said. “It would be a terrible thing if Dahieh was destroyed. Though the bombing has destroyed much already.”

As well as homes, the Israeli air strikes have destroyed or damaged shops, businesses, restaurants and clinics. “Destruction on destruction,” said Mohaned Khalaf, a 45-year-old Sunni Muslim bakery worker, of his street in Burj El Brajneh, the most heavily targeted part of the suburb.

Khalaf, already a refugee once, from Syria, has gone back into Dahieh periodically to check on the apartment he shares with his two brothers and their mother, to see if his furniture remains. “The buildings around ours have been destroyed,” he said. “There is no life left there, not a person to be seen.”

The destruction has tested some Dahieh residents’ patience with Hezbollah – particularly Sunnis and other non-Shias. “This war is hurting everyone,” said Khalaf’s mother, Sameera, who wept on the street. “I am 63 years old,” she said. “I just want a place where I can wash.”

Sameera does not want to return to Dahieh, even after the war. “Yes, we could go back and rebuild, but Hezbollah and Israel will fight this war over and over again,” she said. “And Dahieh will suffer again.”

Shia Muslims, Hezbollah’s more natural support base, took a more supportive view – even those whose lives had been completely upended by the conflict. Members of Hezbollah had handed out food and $100 bills to displaced Shia families on the streets in central Beirut, several families said, and helped assist with shelter places.

“We used to support Hezbollah and we still support Hezbollah,” said Gharib Ali, a 61-year-old janitor who fled the suburb. Around him, his family nodded in agreement. The effect of the war on their lives “changes nothing for the Shia community,” he said. “If anything, it only increases our support. Every Shia feels the same.”

In this way, Mehdi and Zahraa may be something of an outlier – a Lebanese Shia couple, residents of Dahieh for decades, who were critical of Hezbollah for its role in the conflict.

“Dahieh is not Hezbollah, we are not Hezbollah, our building was not Hezbollah,” Zahraa said, angrily. “We went to sleep one night and woke up in someone else’s war.”

The family’s apartment is now uninhabitable, though the building may be salvageable. The Israeli army has sometimes issued social media warnings ahead of its air strikes, but there was no warning for the strike that hit Mehdi and Zahraa’s building. Their eldest son had gone home that day to shower, taking advantage of a seemingly quiet moment, and was knocked over and cut by flying glass when the bomb hit.

International humanitarian law generally requires an effective advance warning ahead of a strike that might affect civilians. But the BBC has found evidence of repeated Israeli strikes against Dahieh and other parts of Beirut where no warning was issued. And where there were warnings, some have been sent as little as 30 minutes beforehand, sometimes in the middle of the night.

“That timeframe is not an effective advance warning for someone who lives in Dahieh,” said Ramzi Keiss, a Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These are people are sleeping, they’re in their beds. They are not looking at social media.”

Hezbollah was also possibly violating international humanitarian law, Keiss said, by placing its military commanders in and around the civilian population. “But that doesn’t give you a free pass to bomb as heavily as you can,” he added, referring to Israel.

“When you’re using 2000lbs in densely populated areas, you’re going to put civilians at the risk of great harm.”

Lebanese officials estimate that more than 2,400 people have been killed in the country over the past year and more than 1.2 million been displaced. Israel says 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights over the same period.

Back in the 2006 war, after Israel had pounded Dahieh and heavily bombed Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure, a senior IDF officer, Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot, sketched out what would become known as the “Dahieh doctrine”. It called for applying “disproportionate force” against civilian areas, with the goal of pressuring the people of Lebanon to turn on Hezbollah.

The recent escalation by Israel had gone “beyond Dahieh doctrine”, said Prof Amal Saad, an expert on Hezbollah and lecturer in politics at Cardiff University. “This is more like Gaza doctrine, which is similar, but has the goal of specifically targeting and displacing a community.”

In Dahieh, Israel’s actions were currently “somewhere between its Dahieh and Gaza doctrines”, she said.

The destruction would not bring about, as the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly expressed hope for, a reduction in support for Hezbollah in places like Dahieh, Prof Saad said.

“Whenever Israel invades like this, it only increases support for Hezbollah among Shias,” she said. “After 2006, support skyrocketed. I don’t know much higher it can go now than 90%, but this will solidify it.”

Two weeks after the bombing of Dahieh began, the air strikes ceased unexpectedly, following pressure from the US government, which said it had made it clear to Israel it was unhappy with the “scope and nature” of the targeting of Beirut.

One day passed without any strikes, then another, then another. After three days, residents began returning on Monday and Tuesday to check on their apartments and retrieve possessions. Among them was Mehdi, who took his eldest son’s scooter and headed back into the devastated area around their building to grab clothes for the boys.

Then, early on Wednesday morning, Israel began bombing Dahieh again.

“We knew it was only a matter of time,” said Mehdi. He was sitting with Zahraa and the boys, a few hours after the strikes resumed, on the street by their makeshift tent, which was really just two rugs thrown over an improvised frame.

Towering over them was an upscale, new, and completely empty apartment building. It bore a similar name to their apartment building, Zahraa said. “But for the cost of one of these apartments you could buy an entire neighbourhood in Dahieh,” she said.

They would go back and rebuild, she said. She raised her arms in a mock bicep curl, to demonstrate the strength of the people from the Dahieh. “We have no choice,” Mehdi said. “Some people have choices, we don’t.”

They would return the moment the ceasefire was announced, he said. He knew that there would be no electicity, no water, and no windows in the buildings. But it was still better than being on the street. Overhead, an Israeli drone was buzzing. Mehdi looked up at the empty apartments across the street, and down at the tent they were sleeping under. “God willing, the ceasefire will come before the rain,” he said.

TikTok-owner, ByteDance, says it has sacked an intern for “maliciously interfering” with the training of one of its artificial intelligence (AI) models.

But the firm rejected reports that spread over the weekend on social media about the extent of the damage caused by the unnamed individual, saying they “contain some exaggerations and inaccuracies”.

BBC News has contacted ByteDance to request further details about the incident.

The Chinese technology giant’s Doubao ChatGPT-like generative AI model is the country’s most popular AI chatbot.

“The individual was an intern with the commercialisation technology team and has no experience with the AI Lab,” ByteDance said in a statement.

“Their social media profile and some media reports contain inaccuracies.”

Its commercial online operations, including its large language AI models, were unaffected by the intern’s actions, the company added.

ByteDance also denied reports that the incident caused more than $10m of damage by disrupting an AI training system made up of thousands of powerful graphics processing units (GPU).

Aside from firing the person in August, ByteDance said it had informed the intern’s university and industry bodies about the incident.

ByteDance operates some of the world’s most popular social media apps, including TikTok and its Chinese-equivalent Douyin.

It is widely seen as a leader when it comes to algorithm development due to how appealing its apps are to users.

Like many of its peers in China and around the world, the social media giant is investing heavily in AI.

It uses the technology to power its Doubao chatbot as well as many other applications, including a text-to-video tool called Jimeng.

A dramatic and unprecedented surge in hoax bomb threats targeting Indian airlines is wreaking havoc on flight schedules, diverting planes and causing widespread disruptions.

A video posted on social media last week showed passengers draped in woollens, walking down the icy ladder of an Air India plane into the frigid air of Iqaluit, a remote city in Canada.

The 211 passengers on the Boeing 777, originally en route from Mumbai to Chicago, had been diverted early on 15 October due to a bomb threat.

“We have been stuck at the airport since 5am with 200 passengers… We have no idea what’s happening or what we are supposed to do next… We are completely stranded,” Harit Sachdeva, a passenger, posted on social media. He praised the “kind airport staff” and alleged Air India was not doing enough to inform the passengers.

Mr Sachdeva’s post captured the frustration and anxiety of passengers diverted to an unknown, remote destination. Hours later, a Canadian Air Force plane ended their ordeal by ferrying the stranded passengers to Chicago. Air India confirmed that the flight had been diverted to Iqaluit due to a “security threat posted online”.

The threat was false, mirroring scores of similar hoaxes targeting India’s airlines so far this year. Last week alone, there were at least 90 threats, resulting in diversions, cancellations and delays. In June, 41 airports received hoax bomb threats via email in a single day, prompting heightened security.

For context, between 2014 and 2017, authorities recorded 120 bomb hoax alerts at airports, with nearly half directed at Delhi and Mumbai, the country’s largest airports. This underscores the recurring nature of such threats in recent years, but this year’s surge has been sensational.

“I am deeply concerned over the recent disruptive acts targeting Indian airlines, affecting domestic and international operations. Such mischievous and unlawful actions are a matter of grave concern. I condemn attempts to compromise safety, security and operational integrity of our aviation sector,” federal aviation minister, Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu, said.

So what is going on?

Hoax bomb threats targeting airlines are often linked to malicious intent, attention-seeking, mental health issues, disruption of business operations or a prank, experts say. In 2018, a rash of jokes about bombs by airplane passengers in Indonesia led to flight disruptions. Even fliers have proved to be culprits: last year, a frustrated passenger tried to delay a SpiceJet flight by calling in a bomb hoax alert after missing his check-in at an airport in India’s Bihar.

These hoaxes end up wreaking havoc in one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets. More than 150 million passengers flew domestically in India last year, according to the civil aviation ministry. More than 3,000 flights arrive and depart every day in the country from more than 150 operational airports, including 33 international airports.

Last week’s hoaxes peaked even as India’s airlines carried a record 484,263 passengers on a single day, 14 October. India has just under 700 commercial passenger planes in service, and an order backlog of more than 1,700 planes, according to Rob Morris of Cirium, a consultancy. “All this would certainly render India the fastest growing commercial aircraft market today,” says Mr Morris.

Consider the consequences of a bomb threat alert on an airline.

If the plane is in the air, it must divert to the nearest airport – like the Air India flight that diverted last week to Canada or a Frankfurt-bound Vistara flight from Mumbai that diverted to Turkey in September. Some involve fighter jets to be scrambled to escort planes reporting threats like it happened with a Heathrow-bound Air India flight over Norfolk and a Singapore-bound Air India Express last week.

Once on the ground, passengers disembark, and all baggage and cargo and catering undergo thorough searches. This process can take several hours, and often the same crew cannot continue flying due to duty hour limitations. As a result, a replacement crew must be arranged, further prolonging the delay.

“All of this has significant cost and network implications. Every diverted or delayed flight incurs substantial expenses, as grounded aircraft become money-losing assets. Delays lead to cancellations, and schedules are thrown off balance.” says Sidharath Kapur, an independent aviation expert.

The dramatic rise in bomb threats on social media from anonymous accounts has complicated efforts to identify perpetrators. The motives remain unclear, as does whether the threats come from a single individual, a group, or are simply copycat acts.

Last week, Indian authorities arrested a 17-year-old school dropout for creating a social media account to issue such threats. His motivations remain unclear, but he is believed to have targeted four flights – three international – resulting in two delays, one diversion and one cancellation. Investigators suspect that some posts may have originated from London and Germany after tracing IP addresses.

Clearly, tracking down hoaxers presents a significant challenge. While Indian law mandates life imprisonment for threats to airport safety or service disruption, this punishment is too severe for hoax calls and would likely not withstand legal scrutiny. Reports suggest the government is considering placing offenders on a no-fly list and introducing new laws that could impose a five-year prison term.

Ultimately, such hoax threats can cause serious anxiety for passengers. “My aunt called to ask if she should take her booked flight given these threats. ‘Should I take a train?’ she asked. I told her, ‘Please continue to fly’,” says an aviation consultant, who preferred to remain unnamed. The threats continue to disrupt lives and sow fear.

The US is investigating a leak of classified documents describing an American assessment of Israel’s plans to attack Iran, House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson has confirmed.

The documents were reportedly published online last week and are said to describe satellite imagery showing Israel moving military assets in preparation for a response to Iran’s missile attack on 1 October.

The documents, marked top secret, were shareable within the Five Eyes intelligence alliance of the US, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, CBS, the BBC’s US partner, reported.

For weeks Israel has been deciding how and when to respond to Iran’s latest missile attack. Israel’s defence minister has warned it will be “deadly, precise and surprising”.

The two documents reportedly appear to be attributed to the US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency (NSA), and were published on an Iranian-aligned Telegram account on Friday.

Johnson, the highest-ranking member of Congress, told CNN on Sunday that “the leak is very concerning”.

“There’s some serious allegations being made, there’s an investigation under way, and I’ll get a briefing on that in a couple of hours,” the Louisiana Republican lawmaker said.

The Pentagon confirmed in a statement that it was aware of reports about the documents, but did not comment further.

The US agencies involved, as well as the Israeli government, have not publicly commented on the leak.

CNN and Axios first reported the leak, which confirms once again that the US spies on its close ally Israel.

One document makes a reference to Israel’s nuclear capabilities – which neither the US nor Israel ever officially acknowledge – apparently ruling out the use of such an option in any planned strike.

One former American intelligence official told the BBC the unauthorised release was probably an attempt to expose the scale of the planned retaliation, possibly to disrupt it.

The US is investigating whether the information was intentionally leaked by a US agent, or whether it was stolen, possibly through hacking, officials told the Associated Press (AP).

The two documents appear to be based on satellite information obtained from 15-16 October.

The first is titled: “Israel: Air Force Continues Preparations for Strike on Iran and Conducts a Second Large-Force Employment Exercise,” according to Reuters news agency. It describes ballistic and air-to-surface missile handling.

The second is titled: “Israel: Defense Forces Continue Key Munitions Preparations and Covert UAV Activity Almost Certainly for a Strike on Iran”. It discusses Israeli drone movements.

On Friday, US President Joe Biden said he had a “good understanding” of what Israel was planning.

“Do you have a good understanding of what Israel is going to do right now in response to Iran… and when they will actually respond?” a reporter asked him.

“Yes, and yes,” Biden replied.

“Can you tell us?” asked the reporter.

“No, and no.”

New evidence seen by the BBC suggests more babies in Lucy Letby’s care were harmed – and in one case poisoned with insulin.

The former nurse was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others – including trying to kill two with insulin at the Countess of Chester Hospital neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.

BBC One’s Panorama has seen documents which suggest a third baby may have also been poisoned within hours of Letby taking over the boy’s care.

Medical records reveal the infant’s blood sugar level plummeted and lab results indicated he had suspiciously high levels of insulin.

Panorama has also discovered that potentially life-threatening incidents involving infants occurred on almost a third of Letby’s 33 shifts while she was training at Liverpool Women’s Hospital in 2012 and 2015.

The programme’s revelations follow months of criticism of the prosecution’s case in her first trial. A number of experts have challenged the medical evidence used to convict Letby, as well as the way statistics were put forward in court.

In August 2023, the 33-year-old was sentenced to life in prison, with no chance of parole. Letby was then found guilty of attempting to murder a seventh baby at a second trial in July this year, and sentenced to a 15th whole-life prison term.

The nurse has been refused leave to appeal against the convictions from her first trial.

Panorama has examined mounting questions from leading statisticians and medical experts about the safety of her convictions.

But as part of the programme, new evidence has also emerged of other sick and premature babies potentially being harmed while in Letby’s care.

When the body produces insulin naturally, it also produces a substance called C-peptide. Typically, the level of C-peptide will be five to 10 times higher than the level of natural insulin.

Letby’s first trial heard blood tests from the two babies showed they had high levels of insulin and very low levels of C-peptide.

The prosecution argued the insulin must have been given to them rather than naturally produced.

Letby’s lawyers did not accept the insulin evidence used in court, but neither did they argue it was wrong. When she was cross-examined Letby herself accepted the two babies must have been poisoned, but denied it was done by her.

• Listen to the Lucy Letby: The Public Inquiry podcast on BBC Sounds

The new evidence seen by Panorama shows a blood test from a third baby being cared for by Letby in November 2015 also recorded very high levels of insulin and low levels of C-peptide.

Lab results indicated the insulin level was in excess of 6,945 picomoles per litre – a very high reading. Had the insulin been natural, the C-peptide level would have been between 35,000 and 70,000, but the blood test showed it was just 220.

At the time, consultants on the neonatal unit assumed the insulin must be natural. Tests later revealed the baby had congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) – a condition where the body naturally produces too much insulin.

But four experts have told Panorama that CHI could not explain such an exceptionally high insulin reading for the infant – partly because of the low C-peptide level, but also because a baby with CHI would never produce that much insulin.

Medical records seen by Panorama show how quickly the boy became poorly after Letby came on duty. A blood test taken at 06:56 showed the infant had a normal blood sugar level of three millimoles per litre (mmol/L).

Letby started her shift at 08:00, and by 13:54 his blood sugar level had plummeted to one mmol/L – a dangerously low level, and a strong indication the baby had too much insulin.

The boy’s blood sugar level remained low throughout the nurse’s shift and he only recovered after she went off duty at 20:00.

Letby’s new lawyer, Mark McDonald, noted that the baby had a particular problem with regulating his own insulin. He also disputed the claim that the baby’s condition could not explain the extremely high insulin levels recorded by the lab.

“It may be said by one expert, but I have other experts that have a completely contradictory view,” Mr McDonald said. “I’m working night and day on this case. If I thought for a moment that [Lucy Letby] was guilty, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

Some experts have also questioned the accuracy of the simple test used to measure insulin in all three of the cases, known as the immunoassay method.

They point out there is another, more precise test and that only the more advanced test can definitively determine levels of insulin in the blood.

There are circumstances in which the immunoassay method can give flawed or misleading results, but the test is widely used and is usually accurate.

Panorama has spoken to leading experts on all sides of this debate. The programme found circumstances in which interference might occur are very unlikely in the context of the babies in the Letby case. It is even more unlikely that three lab tests conducted within months of each other would all be wrong.

It’s a point that Letby’s lawyer, Mr McDonald, disputes: “It is accepted by all sides that there’s an error rating [with the test], but it’s the percentage of the error rating that’s not accepted.”

Panorama has also discovered that potentially life-threatening incidents occurred on almost a third of Letby’s 33 shifts while training at Liverpool Women’s Hospital in 2012 and 2015.

In one case, from November 2012, a baby boy collapsed and water was subsequently discovered in his breathing tube – a highly irregular occurrence. The clinical notes confirm that the nurse looking after him was Letby.

In addition, a retrospective analysis showed that babies’ breathing tubes became dislodged on 40% of Letby’s shifts. The norm per nurse per baby was 1%.

Cheshire Police is continuing to investigate other cases the force believes the nurse may have been involved in, including the Liverpool incidents.

Mr McDonald plans to take Letby’s case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to apply for it to be sent back to the Court of Appeal.

Reporter Judith Moritz, who has covered the case from the start, investigates the questions that have been raised about Lucy Letby’s conviction.

Watch Lucy Letby: Unanswered Questions on BBC iPlayer, or on BBC One on Monday 21 October at 20:00 (20:30 in Wales and Northern Ireland).

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has cancelled a trip to Russia after injuring his head in an accident at home on Saturday.

The 78-year-old was scheduled to travel on Sunday afternoon for the Brics summit – a grouping of major developing countries including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

A top hospital in capital Brasília said it advised the president to avoid long-haul flights temporarily.

He will now participate in the meetings via video link instead.

In a statement, the Sírio-Libanês Hospital in Brasília said the president was advised against long-distance travel, but is able to continue other activities as normal.

It added that Lula suffered a laceration to the back of his head and is being monitored by doctors.

The president’s office said he will take part in the summit virtually from Brasília and will continue his other work.

His office did not disclose any details about his injury.

Citing doctors at the hospital, local media said the president was sent home on Saturday after receiving five stitches.

He then returned to the hospital on Sunday morning for a follow-up and was later sent home, local media said.

Lula was set to travel at 17:00 local time (20:00 GMT) on Sunday for what would have been his first face-to-face meeting with President Vladimir Putin this year.

On Friday, Putin announced that he will not attend the G20 summit in Brazil next month.

He said his arrival might “disrupt” the conference and insisted the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for his arrest was not a factor.

Last year, Putin skipped the previous Brics summit in South Africa after the ICC issued a warrant for his arrest.

If Putin left Russian soil, he would have been subject to the arrest warrant. As ICC signatories, South Africa and Brazil would have been expected to help in Putin’s arrest.

The Brics grouping is seen by some as an alternative to the G7 group of advanced economies.

The forum was founded 15 years ago by major emerging markets Brazil, Russia, India, China, and has since expanded to include South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

This year’s summit will take place in the Russian city of Kazan from Tuesday to Thursday.

Hurricane Oscar has made landfall in eastern Cuba, packing winds of nearly 80mph (130km/h) on the third day of a nearly nationwide power outage.

On Friday, the island’s main energy plant failed and knocked out electricity for 10 million people. Supply was partially restored on Saturday, before collapsing again.

Energy and Mining Minister Vicente de la O Levy said power would be restored for most by Monday night, while “the last customer may receive service by Tuesday”.

The category 1 hurricane made landfall near the city of Baracoa at 17:50 local time (21:50 GMT), where waves reaching up to 13ft (four meters) high hit the seafront.

A few hours after landfall, Oscar weakened into a tropical storm, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).

The NHC said the storm could still cause “significant” flash flooding and mudslides in eastern areas.

For many people since the outages began, it has been a few days with no air conditioning or fan. Food is now beginning to rot in fridges, and some families are having to cook with firewood. Many homes are without water as the supply depends on electric pumps.

Patience is wearing thin, certainly as expressed by many on social media.

It is an increasingly critical situation, with schools and businesses closed and fears for the continued functioning of hospitals.

There are fears that a significant storm would damage Cuba’s creaking energy distribution infrastructure.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Saturday that authorities in the east of the island were “working hard to protect the people and economic resources, given the imminent arrival of Hurricane Oscar”.

Friday’s total blackout came after the Antonio Guiteras power plant in Matanzas – the largest on the island – went offline around 11:00 local time.

The communist president has blamed the decades-long US embargo for preventing much needed supplies and replacement parts from reaching Cuba.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez later echoed the president’s words, posting on X that “if the embargo is lifted, there will be no blackouts. This way the US government could support the Cuban people… if it wanted to”.

Cuba has also been hit this year by a drop in crucial fuel shipments from Venezuela.

On Friday, Cuban officials announced that all schools and non-essential activities, including nightclubs, were to close until Monday.

Non-essential workers were urged to stay home to safeguard electricity supply, and non-vital government services were suspended.

“This is crazy,” Eloy Fon, an 80-year-old pensioner living in central Havana, told the AFP news agency.

“It shows the fragility of our electricity system… We have no reserves, there is nothing to sustain the country, we are living day to day.”

Bárbara López, 47, a digital content creator, said she had already “barely been able to work for two days”.

“It’s the worst I’ve seen in 47 years,” she said. “They’ve really messed up now… We have no power or mobile data.”

• Fuel in Cuba to become five times more expensive
• Cuba laments collapse of iconic sugar industry
• ‘The violence is getting out of hand’: Crime grips Cuba’s streets

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero addressed the public in a televised message on Thursday, blaming deteriorating infrastructure, fuel shortages and rising demand for the electricity failures.

“The fuel shortage is the biggest factor,” he said.

The head of the National Electric Union (UNE) Alfredo López Valdés also acknowledged the island had been facing a challenging energy situation, with shortages chiefly to blame.

Extended blackouts – particularly one this widespread – are always a tense time in Cuba.

In part, because the ability to keep the lights on represents a potential public order issue for the Cuban government.

In July 2021, thousands of protesters spilled into the streets in demonstrations sparked by days-long blackouts in much of the country.

The Cuban government has become increasingly aware that many on the island have lost a degree of fear over speaking out about the many daily problems they face.

Some are even prepared to take to the streets and chant anti-government slogans, if conditions merit it.

In March, Hundreds of people in Cuba’s second-largest city, Santiago, staged a rare public protest over chronic power blackouts and food shortages.

Liam Payne fans have gathered at vigils around the world – from Birmingham to Manila – to grieve, sing, and cry in memory of the former One Direction star who died on Wednesday.

Police estimated that between 800 and 1,000 people gathered in London’s Hyde Park on Sunday to remember the 31-year-old who died after falling from the third floor of a hotel balcony in Argentina.

The crowd sang One Direction songs, such as the chart-topping hit What Makes You Beautiful, with many fans in tears.

Groups of fans have also come together in Glasgow, Paris, Sydney, and elsewhere.

It is not yet known when his body will be repatriated to the UK.

Payne rose to global fame as part of the boyband One Direction – created on The X Factor TV show in 2010 – and sang together with bandmates Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Niall Horan.

Fans showed up in London’s Hyde Park, braving the drizzly weather on Sunday afternoon, and brought with them letters, pictures and flowers.

Many were placing them at the Peter Pan statue where the memorial was being held.

Organiser Alicia Sinclair, 22, from Hertfordshire, said One Direction was “a light in a lot of people’s lives, especially mine”.

“There are a lot of people upset and it’s a good time for us to come together and be with people who understand,” she told BBC 5 Live.

“My favourite memories with my sister are almost entirely revolving around One Direction,” she added.

“So for me it feels like, I guess like the end of us growing up together. That’s what makes it so hard.”

In London, fans Emily and Olivia first fell in love with Payne and One Direction when they were at school.

“Growing up, it’s hard to put it in words, but being a Directioner became such an important community for me,” said Emily, 25.

“Being young at the time, it was my first feeling of being in love, my first feeling of crushing on a boy, of being excited about boys,” added Olivia, who is 23. “I kissed the posters every night. We all did.”

“It felt like you were part of the best club in the world and it’s a huge part of why we bonded together.”

She added that part of the reason why Payne’s death has hit so hard, is because she “always hoped for a One Direction reunion one day”.

“We took it for granted,” she said.

Arriving with flowers in their hands and some people with tears in their eyes, hundreds of fans of One Direction and Payne arrived in Chamberlain Square in the centre of Birmingham.

Some fans paying tribute to the singer were upset while others were dancing and singing One Direction songs and sharing their memories of Liam Payne and the band.

Jamie Parker, 27, was one of many leaving flowers and a handwritten note in tribute.

Parker said his mother died from cancer in 2013 and that he and his sister “relied on the One Direction albums to help us process our grief and navigate our feelings”.

He added: “When I woke up to the news that he’d died, I was just in utter disbelief.”

Elizabeth Turay went to the vigil in Birmingham with her two sisters, telling the BBC they used to listened to Payne’s songs together from his solo music career as well as music from One Direction.

“We all shared the same experiences as sisters, it’s just been a massive part of our childhoods,” the 19-year-old said.

Sophie Peach said Payne was “my whole entire childhood”, adding that he “got me through a lot as a child”.

The 18-year-old said her happiest memories of the singer was watching him on MTV, seeing him in the charts, and “dancing with my sister around the living room singing all the One Direction”.

In Glasgow, people gathered to pay tribute at a vigil despite the organisers’ plan to postpone due to weather concerns.

People of all ages laid flowers, lit candles and sang One Direction and Payne’s songs at the memorial in George Square.

A one minute silence was held, and some fans cried as they hugged their friends and remembered Payne.

In Paris, a crowd gathered and flowers and candles were laid at the Tuileries Gardens beneath a framed photo of the singer on Sunday afternoon.

One fan at the vigil, Alexandra Veloso Silva, 31, told the Reuters news agency it felt like she had “lost someone from my family”.

Another fan Roman, 23, said Payne’s death feels like “another subject that brings us relief has been taken from us”.

Earlier this weekend, people came together in Liverpool and his home town of Wolverhampton outside St Peter’s Church.

In Buenos Aires, people gathered earlier this week outside the hotel where Payne was found dead. His father, Geoff Payne, viewed tributes for his son on Friday outside the Casa Sur hotel in the city.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry has said at least 87 people were killed and more than 40 injured in Saturday’s Israeli air strike on the city of Beit Lahia in the north of the Palestinian enclave.

The ministry said a number of people were still under the rubble after a residential area was hit.

Israel said it was checking reports of casualties but added that earlier – lower – figures published by Hamas were “exaggerated”. In recent weeks, the Israel military has been carrying out intense bombardment of northern Gaza, saying it wanted to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping there.

A senior UN official warned that the “nightmare in Gaza is intensifying” and the war “must stop now”.

The UN’s peace process co-ordinator, Tor Wennesland, said that “nowhere is safe in Gaza”.

In a statement, Tor Wennesland said he condemned the continuing attacks on civilians.

“This war must end, the hostages held by Hamas must be freed, the displacement of Palestinians must cease, and civilians must be protected wherever they are. Humanitarian aid must be delivered unimpeded,” he said.

In a statement on Sunday, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry revised its death toll from 73 to 87 after the Israeli strike on Beit Lahia.

The earlier casualty figures were provided by Hamas late on Saturday.

The ministry also said that ambulance crews were unable to reach the site of the Israeli strike.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) described the strike as a “precision” attack on a “Hamas terror target”. It told the BBC it was “doing everything possible to avoid causing harm to civilians”.

Dr Eid Sabbah, Kamal Adwan Hospital’s director of nursing, said the Israeli strike in Beit Lahia had completely destroyed several buildings, with “more than four, five residential blocks… razed to the ground”.

The strikes targeted an entire residential square, Dr Sabbah said, in between Abu Jidian roundabout and Al Qassam mosque.

Dr Sabbah added that dozens of people were killed and many were wounded “some of whom reached the hospital, some of whom remain under the rubble”.

He urged for an end to the “siege” on hospitals in northern Gaza and “for life to return to normal… before it’s too late, before our nation is exterminated”.

Several images – including the one below – have since emerged on social media showing the treatment of the injured from Beit Lahia at the Kamal Adwan Hospital.

The images have been verified by the BBC as being from the hospital.

Israel confirmed the death of a senior army officer in northern Gaza’s Jabalia area on Sunday.

Col Ahsan Daksa died after leaving his tank and being struck by an explosive, said IDF spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari.

Three other officers were injured, one seriously, during the same incident.

Israel began a renewed military offensive in northern Gaza in early October, saying it was trying to prevent Hamas from regrouping in the area.

In particular, Israeli forces have surrounded and bombarded the densely-populated Jabalia area, which includes an urban refugee camp – with at least 33 people reported killed in a strike late on Friday.

Humanitarian groups have warned that virtually no aid has entered the area in the past few weeks. Israel’s own statistics show that aid deliveries to Gaza as a whole have collapsed when compared with the same period in September.

On Saturday, the UN’s top humanitarian official, Joyce Msuya, said that Palestinians in northern Gaza are enduring “unspeakable horrors” and called for these “atrocities” to stop.

Israel has repeatedly denied it is preventing humanitarian aid from entering Gaza – but on Tuesday the US told it to boost access within 30 days or risk having some American military assistance cut off.

At least 42,603 ​people have been killed and 99,795 injured in Gaza since the war began last October, the Hamas-run authorities say.

The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, leaving around 1,200 people dead and 251 taken to Gaza as hostages. Israel vowed to destroy Hamas in response, launching a ground offensive in the enclave.

Elsewhere, Israel continued its air strikes against the Lebanese group Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Sunday.

In a statement, the IDF said: “Earlier this morning, the IAF [Israel’s air force] conducted an intelligence-based strike on a command centre of Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters and an underground weapons workshop in Beirut”.

It added that several steps were taken to “reduce the possibility of civilian casualties”, including “issuing advance warnings to residents”.

The IDF also reported that about 160 rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese army said three of it soldiers were killed after a military vehicle was hit by an Israeli air strike in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon.

Israel has not yet commented.

Lebanon’s army has historically stayed out of cross-border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah – but a number of its troops have been killed in Israeli attacks since fighting escalated last month.

Hezbollah – a powerful militant group in Lebanon – says it has been firing on Israeli positions in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran.

Two Hamas officials told the BBC discussions to choose a successor for the group’s leader Yahya Sinwar, whose killing was confirmed on Thursday, will begin very soon.

The officials said that Khalil al-Hayya, Sinwar’s deputy and the group’s most senior official outside Gaza, is considered a strong candidate.

Al-Hayya, who is based in Qatar, currently leads the Hamas delegation in ceasefire talks between the group and Israel, and possesses a deep knowledge, connection and understanding of the situation in Gaza.

Hamas leaders will convene once again to select a successor for Sinwar, who was Israel’s most wanted man, just two months after the killing of former leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

A senior Hamas official had described Sinwar as the architect of the 7 October attacks, emphasising that his appointment was intended as a bold message of defiance against Israel.

Since July, ceasefire negotiations have stalled, and many believe that Sinwar’s leadership was a significant obstacle to any ceasefire deal.

Despite the killing of Sinwar, a senior Hamas official reiterated to the BBC that the movement’s conditions for accepting a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages have not changed.

Hamas continues to demand a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, an end to hostilities, the transfer of humanitarian aid, and the reconstruction of the war-torn territory – conditions that Israel has categorically rejected, insisting that Hamas must surrender.

When questioned about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for Hamas to give up its weapons and surrender, officials from the movement responded: “It is impossible for us to surrender.

“We are fighting for the freedom of our people, and we will not accept surrender. We will fight until the last bullet and the last soldier, just as Sinwar did.”

The assassination of Sinwar was one of the most significant losses for the organisation in decades. However, despite the challenges of replacing him, Hamas has a history of enduring leadership losses since the 1990s.

While Israel has succeeded in killing most of Hamas’s leaders and founders, the movement has proven resilient in its capacity to find new ones.

Amidst this crisis, questions linger regarding the fate of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and who will be responsible for their safety and protection.

In this context, Mohammed Sinwar, Yahya Sinwar’s brother, has emerged as a pivotal figure. He is believed to be leading the remaining armed groups of Hamas and may play a crucial role in shaping the future of the movement in Gaza.

As Hamas navigates this critical moment, the war in Gaza goes on.

Dozens of people were killed in Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza on Saturday as Israeli troops intensified attacks against what Israel says are Hamas attempts to regroup.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is undeterred from his war aims following a reported drone attack on his private residence.

“The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake,” he wrote in a post on X.

His office earlier said a drone was “launched towards” his residence in the northern coastal town of Caesarea on Saturday morning.

Mr Netanyahu and his wife were not at home at the time, and no one was injured.

Iran says Hezbollah was behind the reported attack, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.

Iran’s mission to the UN was quoted as saying: “The action in question has been carried out by Hezbollah in Lebanon”.

Hezbollah – which is funded and equipped by Iran – has not commented on the reports.

• Bowen: Sinwar’s death is serious blow to Hamas, but not the end of the war

The Israeli military said three drones were launched from Lebanon, with one hitting a building in Caesarea.

They did not confirm whether the building was part of the prime minister’s residence, nor the extent of any damage.

US outlet Axios reported that the drone did hit the residence.

At 08:19 local time (06:19 BST), the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: “In the last hour, three unmanned aerial vehicles crossed into the country from Lebanon.

“Two of the aircraft were intercepted. Another aircraft hit a building in Caesarea, no injuries.”

The Israeli prime minister makes use of two private homes, in Caesarea and Jerusalem, and has also spent time at Beit Aghion, his official residence in Jerusalem, which is currently being renovated.

The reported attack comes as Israel prepares to respond to Iran’s large-scale ballistic missile attack on 1 October – with Israel’s defence minister saying its response would be “deadly, precise and surprising”.

Many Israelis cheered and danced on the streets at the news that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar – chief architect of the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel – had been killed.

But his death at the hands of Israeli forces in Gaza on Wednesday has raised anxieties for families of the hostages still being held.

Meanwhile, few Palestinians believed Sinwar’s killing would bring an end to the devastating year-old war in Gaza.

Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 42,500 Palestinians, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says. It followed Hamas’s attack on Israeli communities on 7 October last year, which killed about 1,200 people and saw the group take 251 hostages.

• Follow live updates on this story
• Who was Yahya Sinwar?
• Jeremy Bowen analysis: Sinwar’s death is serious blow to Hamas, but not the end of the war
• Watch: BBC Verify analyses footage of Sinwar’s killing

People in Israel were overwhelmingly supportive of Sinwar’s killing in a chance encounter with Israeli troops.

In Tiberias in northern Israel, several hundred people danced, waved flags and played loud music at the news.

“It’s very good“, Nissim Weizmann told the BBC as he sat outside a grocery shop in the town.

“He’s a bad man and his time has come. This is a present for everyone. Both Palestinians who are with us and the Jews.”

At a beach just south of Tel Aviv, bathers cheered and applauded when a lifeguard first announced rumours of the death over a loudspeaker.

But others were more circumspect, wondering how Sinwar’s killing would affect prospects for the release of Israeli hostages who continue to be held by Hamas in Gaza.

“To be honest, I feel a bit numb,” Anat Ron Kandle in Tel Aviv told the Reuters news agency.

“I have a deep concern for the hostages, and it’s very difficult to find faith and hope.

“And I always think about, what if that could have been me, [it] could have been my son that was with me?”

Family members of the remaining 101 hostages still in Gaza gathered in Tel Aviv after the news broke.

They have been demonstrating for months, urging the Israeli government to reach a ceasefire deal with Hamas to get their relatives home.

Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan was taken hostage, urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Don’t bury the hostages.”

“Go out now to the mediators and to the public and lay out a new Israeli initiative,” she said to Reuters.

“If Netanyahu doesn’t use this moment and doesn’t get up now to lay out a new Israeli initiative – even at the expense of ending the war – it means he has decided to abandon the hostages in an effort to prolong the war and fortify his rulership.”

In Gaza, some Palestinians said they believed Sinwar’s death could open a path towards ending the war, saying it left Israel with “no reason to continue this genocide”.

“They always said they wanted to eliminate Sinwar to stop this war,” Ali Chameli told Reuters.

But the reality on the ground since his killing was “quite the opposite”, said Jemaa Abou Mendi.

Speaking to the AFP news agency, he said: “the war has not stopped, and the killings continue unabated.”

Speaking in the city of Khan Younis, which has been largely left in ruins by a year of bombardment and fighting, Dr Ramadan Faris said the outcome of the war did not depend on any single person’s fate.

“It’s a war of extermination against the Palestinian people, as we all know and understand,” he said.

Also in Khan Younis was Lina Anuni, who fled Gaza City with her three children a year ago.

“I opposed [Sinwar] while he was alive and hold him equally responsible, alongside the Israeli occupation, for my suffering and that of 2.3 million Palestinians,” she told the BBC.

“Yet, I felt a sense of sadness at his passing,” she added.

One man, who chose not to be identified, told the BBC World Service’s Gaza Today programme that though there were “differing opinions” about the former Hamas leader, his death would not change things for people in Gaza.

“I don’t believe this will change the dynamics of the conflict,” he said, citing how the deaths of other senior Hezbollah and Hamas figures – like Hassan Nasrallah last month – had resulted in “nothing fundamentally” shifting.

“Instead, tensions escalated further, raising concerns for us as Palestinians,” he said.

Some Palestinians described Sinwar as a martyr.

Yousef Jamal, who said he supported the 7 October attack on Israel, said: “He [Sinwar] did not hide among the displaced, seek refuge with enemy prisoners, or retreat into tunnels.”

Yahya Sinwar, 61, was said to have spent much of his time hiding in tunnels along with a small team of bodyguards and a “human shield” of hostages seized from Israel.

But reports indicate he met his end in an encounter with an Israeli patrol in southern Gaza. No hostages were found with him.

Piece of advice for you – never buy a huge amount of champagne unless you’re absolutely certain it’s worth celebrating.

In November 2016, Russian ultranationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky was so excited by Donald Trump’s victory, and so sure that it would transform US-Russian relations, he splashed out on 132 bottles of bubbly down at the Duma, Russia’s parliament, and partied away (in his party offices) in front of the TV cameras.

He wasn’t the only one celebrating.

The day after Trump’s surprise White House win, Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of state channel RT, tweeted her intention to drive around Moscow with an American flag in her car window.

And I’ll never forget the moment a Russian official told me she had smoked a cigar and drunk a bottle of champagne (yes, MORE champagne) to toast Trump winning.

• Election polls – is Harris or Trump winning?
• Book claims Trump secretly sent Covid tests to Putin

In Moscow, expectations were high that Trump would scrap sanctions against Russia; perhaps, even, recognise the Crimean Peninsula, annexed from Ukraine, as part of Russia.

“The value of Trump was that he never preached on human rights in Russia,” explains Konstantin Remchukov, the owner and editor-in-chief of newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

It didn’t take long for all that fizz to go flat.

“Trump introduced the heaviest sanctions against Russia at that time,” recalls Remchukov.

“By the end of his term, a lot of people were disappointed in his presidency.”

Which is why, eight years on – publicly at least – Russian officials are more cautious about the prospect of a second Trump term.

President Vladimir Putin has even come out and backed the Democratic Party candidate, although that “endorsement” was widely interpreted as a Kremlin joke (or Kremlin trolling).

Putin claimed he liked Kamala Harris’s “infectious” laugh.

But you don’t need to be a seasoned political pundit to understand that out on the campaign trail it’s what Trump has been saying, not Harris, that’s guaranteed to put a smile on Putin’s face.

For instance, Trump’s criticism of the scale of US military assistance for Ukraine, his apparent reluctance to blame Putin for Russia’s full-scale invasion and, during the presidential debate, his refusal to say whether he wants Ukraine to win the war.

By contrast, Kamala Harris has argued that support for Ukraine is in America’s “strategic interest” and she has referred to Putin as “a murderous dictator”.

Not that Russian state TV has been particularly complimentary about her either. A few weeks ago one of Russia’s most acerbic news anchors was completely dismissive of Harris’s political abilities. He suggested she would be better off hosting a TV cookery show.

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There’s another possible outcome that may well suit the Kremlin – a super tight election, followed by a contested result. An America consumed by post-election chaos, confusion and confrontation would have less time to focus on foreign affairs, including the war in Ukraine.

US-Russian relations soured under Barack Obama, grew worse under Donald Trump and, in the words of the recently departed Russian ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov, they are “falling apart” under Joe Biden.

Washington lays the blame fully on Moscow.

It was just eight months after Putin and Biden met for a summit in Geneva that the Kremlin leader ordered the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Not only did the Biden administration send a tsunami of sanctions Russia’s way, but US military aid has been crucial in helping Kyiv survive more than two-and-a-half years of Russia’s war. Amongst the advanced weaponry America has supplied Ukraine are Abrams tanks and HIMARS rocket systems.

It’s hard to believe now that there was a time, not so long ago, when Russia and the US pledged to work as partners to strengthen global security.

In the late 1980s Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev formed a geo-political double-act to slash their countries’ respective nuclear arsenals.

If there was one thing Reagan seemed to enjoy as much as nuclear disarmament it was reciting Russian proverbs to Gorbachev in broken Russian (“Never buy 132 bottles of champagne unless you’re certain it’s worth celebrating” would have been a good one).

In 1991 the First Ladies of the USSR and America, Raisa Gorbacheva and Barbara Bush, unveiled an unusual monument in Moscow – a mother duck with eight ducklings.

It was a replica of a sculpture in Boston Public Gardens and was presented to Moscow as a symbol of friendship between Soviet and American children.

It’s still popular with Muscovites today. Russians flock to Novodevichy Park to pose for photos with the bronze birds, although few visitors know the back story of superpower “duck diplomacy”.

Like US-Russian relations themselves, the ducks have taken a few knocks. On one occasion some of them were stolen and had to be replaced.

It’s to the Moscow mallard and her ducklings I head to find out what Russians think of America and of the US election.

“I want America to disappear,” says angry angler Igor who’s fishing in a nearby pond. “It has started so many wars in the world. The US was our enemy in Soviet times and it still is. It doesn’t matter who’s president.”

America as Russia’s eternal enemy – that’s a worldview often reflected here in the state media. Is Igor so angry because he gets his news from Russian TV? Or perhaps it’s because he hasn’t caught many fish.

Most of the people I chat to here do not see America as an evil adversary.

“I’m all for peace and friendship,” says Svetlana. “But my friend in America is scared to call me now. Maybe there’s no free speech there. Or, perhaps, it’s here in Russia that there’s no freedom of speech. I don’t know.”

“Our countries and our two peoples should be friends,” says Nikita, “without wars and without competing to see who has more missiles. I prefer Trump. When he was president there weren’t any big wars.”

Despite the differences between Russia and America there is one thing the two countries have in common – they have always had male presidents.

Can Russians ever see that changing?

“I think it would be great if a woman became president,” says Marina.

“I would be happy to vote for a woman president here [in Russia]. I’m not saying it would be better or worse. But it would be different.”

A dramatic and unprecedented surge in hoax bomb threats targeting Indian airlines is wreaking havoc on flight schedules, diverting planes and causing widespread disruptions.

A video posted on social media last week showed passengers draped in woollens, walking down the icy ladder of an Air India plane into the frigid air of Iqaluit, a remote city in Canada.

The 211 passengers on the Boeing 777, originally en route from Mumbai to Chicago, had been diverted early on 15 October due to a bomb threat.

“We have been stuck at the airport since 5am with 200 passengers… We have no idea what’s happening or what we are supposed to do next… We are completely stranded,” Harit Sachdeva, a passenger, posted on social media. He praised the “kind airport staff” and alleged Air India was not doing enough to inform the passengers.

Mr Sachdeva’s post captured the frustration and anxiety of passengers diverted to an unknown, remote destination. Hours later, a Canadian Air Force plane ended their ordeal by ferrying the stranded passengers to Chicago. Air India confirmed that the flight had been diverted to Iqaluit due to a “security threat posted online”.

The threat was false, mirroring scores of similar hoaxes targeting India’s airlines so far this year. Last week alone, there were at least 90 threats, resulting in diversions, cancellations and delays. In June, 41 airports received hoax bomb threats via email in a single day, prompting heightened security.

For context, between 2014 and 2017, authorities recorded 120 bomb hoax alerts at airports, with nearly half directed at Delhi and Mumbai, the country’s largest airports. This underscores the recurring nature of such threats in recent years, but this year’s surge has been sensational.

“I am deeply concerned over the recent disruptive acts targeting Indian airlines, affecting domestic and international operations. Such mischievous and unlawful actions are a matter of grave concern. I condemn attempts to compromise safety, security and operational integrity of our aviation sector,” federal aviation minister, Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu, said.

So what is going on?

Hoax bomb threats targeting airlines are often linked to malicious intent, attention-seeking, mental health issues, disruption of business operations or a prank, experts say. In 2018, a rash of jokes about bombs by airplane passengers in Indonesia led to flight disruptions. Even fliers have proved to be culprits: last year, a frustrated passenger tried to delay a SpiceJet flight by calling in a bomb hoax alert after missing his check-in at an airport in India’s Bihar.

These hoaxes end up wreaking havoc in one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets. More than 150 million passengers flew domestically in India last year, according to the civil aviation ministry. More than 3,000 flights arrive and depart every day in the country from more than 150 operational airports, including 33 international airports.

Last week’s hoaxes peaked even as India’s airlines carried a record 484,263 passengers on a single day, 14 October. India has just under 700 commercial passenger planes in service, and an order backlog of more than 1,700 planes, according to Rob Morris of Cirium, a consultancy. “All this would certainly render India the fastest growing commercial aircraft market today,” says Mr Morris.

Consider the consequences of a bomb threat alert on an airline.

If the plane is in the air, it must divert to the nearest airport – like the Air India flight that diverted last week to Canada or a Frankfurt-bound Vistara flight from Mumbai that diverted to Turkey in September. Some involve fighter jets to be scrambled to escort planes reporting threats like it happened with a Heathrow-bound Air India flight over Norfolk and a Singapore-bound Air India Express last week.

Once on the ground, passengers disembark, and all baggage and cargo and catering undergo thorough searches. This process can take several hours, and often the same crew cannot continue flying due to duty hour limitations. As a result, a replacement crew must be arranged, further prolonging the delay.

“All of this has significant cost and network implications. Every diverted or delayed flight incurs substantial expenses, as grounded aircraft become money-losing assets. Delays lead to cancellations, and schedules are thrown off balance.” says Sidharath Kapur, an independent aviation expert.

The dramatic rise in bomb threats on social media from anonymous accounts has complicated efforts to identify perpetrators. The motives remain unclear, as does whether the threats come from a single individual, a group, or are simply copycat acts.

Last week, Indian authorities arrested a 17-year-old school dropout for creating a social media account to issue such threats. His motivations remain unclear, but he is believed to have targeted four flights – three international – resulting in two delays, one diversion and one cancellation. Investigators suspect that some posts may have originated from London and Germany after tracing IP addresses.

Clearly, tracking down hoaxers presents a significant challenge. While Indian law mandates life imprisonment for threats to airport safety or service disruption, this punishment is too severe for hoax calls and would likely not withstand legal scrutiny. Reports suggest the government is considering placing offenders on a no-fly list and introducing new laws that could impose a five-year prison term.

Ultimately, such hoax threats can cause serious anxiety for passengers. “My aunt called to ask if she should take her booked flight given these threats. ‘Should I take a train?’ she asked. I told her, ‘Please continue to fly’,” says an aviation consultant, who preferred to remain unnamed. The threats continue to disrupt lives and sow fear.

There is no conscience. There is no humanity. There are only leaders who watch and do not act.

This is what Ahmed al-Dalou believes, as the images of his family burning replay in his mind. He says his life is gone. It died in the inferno of al-Aqsa compound with his boys and wife in the early hours of Monday 14 October.

In front of him on the ground is a shroud, wrapped around the body of Abdulrahman,12, his youngest son.

The child lingered in agony for four days after the fire, sparked by an Israeli strike. The day before he died Ahmed saw him in hospital and he was able to tell his father: “Don’t be worried, I am OK dad… I’m fine. Don’t be afraid.”

Ahmed is half speaking, half crying, as he talks of what has been taken from him.

“Three times I tried to pull him [Abdulrahman] out of the fire, but his body fell back into it.”

His older brother, Sha’aban, 19, and his mother, Alaa, 37, both died on the night of the fire.

Sha’aban became a new symbol of Gaza’s terrible suffering. Images of him writhing in agony as he burned to death in the family’s tent were shared around the world on social media.

There are burns all over Ahmed’s face and hands. The tone of his voice is high, a keening sound. Of the anonymous pilot who sent the missile, and the leaders who gave him orders, Ahmed said: “They broke my heart, and they broke my spirit… I wish the fire had burned me.”

The strike happened at about 01:15 local time last Monday (23:15 BST on Sunday).

The Israeli military said it was targeting a Hamas “command and control” centre in the al-Aqsa hospital compound in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip.

Hamas denies operating in hospitals.

Four people were killed immediately and dozens more wounded, including many with severe burn injuries. The Israel Defense Forces said it was “reviewing the incident”.

A spokesperson for the White House told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that footage of the fire was “deeply disturbing” and called on Israel to do more to protect civilians.

“Israel has a responsibility to do more to avoid civilian casualties – and what happened here is horrifying – even if Hamas was operating near the hospital in an attempt to use civilians as human shields.”

The US and other powers, including Britain, have expressed concern about civilian casualties since the early stages of the war.

People are burned to death, blown to pieces, and shot every day in this war.

Most of the time the death agonies happen away from the cameras. It is the frantic search for survivors in the rubble, the dramatic scenes at hospitals, the endless stream of funerals, that are captured by cameras.

But the death of Sha’aban al-Dalou was different. His hand can be seen, reaching out of the inferno, a figure wrapped in flame, writhing and beyond the reach of any help.

In the days following his death Sha’aban’s own videos and photographs emerged. He was a typical teenager of his generation, aware of the power of social media, adept at recording his daily life.

The burning figure from the night of fire appeared to the world as an articulate, intelligent teenager, a software engineering student, a young man who took care of his family planning for a new life outside Gaza. He filmed himself donating blood and encouraged others to do the same.

“We saw so many injuries, many children are in dire need of blood… All we demand is for a ceasefire and this tragedy to end.”

We are only able to tell the story of al-Dalou family because of our own local journalist who went to meet the survivors. International journalists from media organisations, including the BBC, are not given independent access to Gaza by Israel.

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In a video recorded in the tent where he died Sha’aban described how his family had been displaced five times since the war began a year ago. He had two sisters, and two younger brothers.

“We live in very hard circumstances,” he said. “We suffer from various things such as homelessness, limited food, and extremely limited medicine.”

In the background, as he speaks, there is the loud mechanical hum of an Israeli observation drone, a constant in the daily and nightly soundtrack of Gaza.

The surviving brother of Sha’aban and Abdulrahman, Mohammed al-Dalou, told the BBC that he had tried to go into the flames to rescue his older brother.

But other injured people had held him back, fearing he too would be killed. Mohammed did not sleep in the family tent, but outside on the street where he kept watch over their piled belongings.

“I was screaming for someone to let me go, but in vain… My brother’s leg was trapped and he couldn’t free himself. I think you saw it in the video. He was raising his hand.

“That was my brother. He was my support in this world.”

Sha’aban would come and wake him for prayers in the morning with a bottle of water and he would tell him: “I’ll work for you.”

Mohammed recalled how the brothers set up a stall at the gates of the hospital selling food that the family made.

“We managed everything with our hard work. Everything we had was from our effort. We would get food and drink… then everything was lost.”

He saw the burned bodies, but could only identify his mother. Although her remains had been mutilated by fire, he recognised a distinctive bracelet.

“Without it, I wouldn’t have known she was my mother. Her hand was detached from her body, but the bracelet was still on it. I took it off her hand.”

This is his only memento of the woman who was “the kindness in our home”.

The al-Dalou family is in shock. The survivors mourn the dead. Our BBC colleague asked Mohammed about the psychological cost of seeing his loved ones die.

“I can’t describe it. I can’t describe how I felt. I want to explain it to people, but I can’t. I can’t describe it. I saw my brother burning in front of me, and my mother too.”

Then, as if he is posing a question on behalf of the dead, he asks: “What more do you need, and you stay silent? You see us burning, and you stay silent.”

Alcohol smuggler Guled Diriye is exhausted.

He has just returned from his trip transporting contraband from the Ethiopian border.

The 29-year-old slumps in his chair inside a colonial-style villa battered by years of fighting in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu – a city once known as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean.

His sandals are covered in a potent orange dust – the residue from the desert.

Mr Diriye’s dark eyes droop. The bags underneath speak of sleepless nights, the hours of tension traversing the dangerous roads and negotiating checkpoints with armed men.

There is also the haunting memory of a fellow smuggler who was shot dead.

“In this country, everyone is struggling and looking for a way out. And I found my way by making regular trips by road from the Ethiopian border to Mogadishu,” he says, explaining that smuggling was a means to support his family in a tough economic climate.

The use and distribution of alcohol is illegal. Somalia’s laws must comply with Sharia (Islamic law), which forbids alcohol, but it has not stopped a growing demand, particularly among young people in many parts of the country.

Mr Diriye’s neighbour Abshir, knowing he had fallen on hard times as a minibus-taxi driver, introduced him to the precarious world of alcohol smuggling.

Rickshaws began to take over the city, pushing minibus drivers out of business.

Both were childhood friends who had sheltered together in the same camp in 2009 during the height of the insurgency in Mogadishu – he was someone he could trust.

“I began picking up boxes of alcohol at designated drop points in Mogadishu on [his] behalf and manoeuvring through the city and offloading them at designated locations. I didn’t realise it at first but this was my introduction into smuggling.”

His involvement snowballed and Mr Diriye soon found himself navigating from the porous frontier with Ethiopia through Somalia’s rural hinterlands.

He understands that he is breaking the law, but says the poverty that he finds himself in overrides that.

The smuggling journey begins in Somali border towns such as Abudwak, Balanbale, Feerfeer and Galdogob.

“Alcohol mostly originates in [Ethiopia’s capital] Addis Ababa and makes it to the city of Jigjiga, in the Ogaden region,” Mr Diriye says.

The Ogaden or, as it is officially known in Ethiopia, the Somali region, shares a 1,600km (990-mile) border with Somalia. People on both sides share ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious ties.

Once the alcohol is loaded, it is moved across the plains of the Somali region, and then smuggled across the border into Somalia.

The border town of Galdogob is a major hub for trade and travel and has been hit hard by the flow of alcohol being smuggled from Ethiopia.

Tribal elders have raised concerns over alcohol-related violence.

“Alcohol causes so many evils [such as shootings],” says Sheikh Abdalla Mohamed Ali, the chairman of the local tribal council in the town.

“[It] has been seized and destroyed on multiple occasions but it’s like living next to a factory. It keeps putting out more and more, no matter what we do.”

“Our town will always be in the midst of danger.”

But for the smugglers the goal is to get the alcohol to the capital.

“I drive a truck that transports vegetables, potatoes and other food products. When the truck is loaded up it’s filled with whatever I’m transporting, but I make the most money from the alcohol on board,” Mr Diriye says.

Sometimes smugglers cross into Ethiopia to pick it up and at other times they receive it at the border. But whichever approach is taken, concealment is a crucial part of the profession as the risks from being caught are immense.

“The loader’s job is the most important. Even more important than driving. He’s tasked with concealing the alcohol in our truck, with whatever we have on board. Without him, I wouldn’t be able to move around so easily — at least not without getting caught.

“The average box of alcohol I move has 12 bottles. I usually transport anywhere from 50 to 70 boxes per trip. Usually half the load on my truck is filled with alcohol.”

Large swathes of south-central Somalia are run by armed groups, where the government has little to no control: militias, bandits and the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabab roam with impunity.

“You can never travel on your own. It’s too risky. Death is always on our minds,” Mr Diriye says. But that concern does not get in the way of business and there is a brutal pragmatism to thinking about the make-up of the team.

“If I get wounded in an attack on the road, there has to be a back-up who can continue the journey. Everyone knows how to drive and knows the roads well.”

Smugglers drive on dirt tracks and roads that have not been renovated in decades. Landmines and unexploded ordnances left behind from previous conflicts are also an issue.

“I travel through at least eight to 10 towns to reach Mogadishu. But we don’t count the towns, we count the checkpoints and who mans them,” Mr Diriye says.

They encounter various clan militias with different allegiances, either lingering in the distance or at roadblocks.

“In case we get jammed up by a clan militia, if one of us is from the same clan as that militia or even a similar sub-clan, it increases our chances of survival. This is why all three of us are from different clans.”

He painfully recalls: “I’ve encountered numerous attacks.

“One of the guys that works with me is relatively new. He replaced my last helper who was killed two years ago.”

Mr Diriye had been driving in suffocating heat for six hours, so decided to nap, passing the wheel to his helper.

“While I was sleeping in the back, I heard a large burst of gunfire that suddenly woke me up. We where surrounded by militiamen. My loader was screaming as he ducked in the passenger seat.” The substitute driver was killed.

Once the commotion ceased, the loader and Mr Diriye picked up their dead colleague from the front seat and put him in the back of the truck.

“I’ve never seen so much blood in my life. I had to wipe [it] away from the steering wheel and keep on driving. In all my years, nothing prepared me for what I saw that day.”

As the pair drove off and got a good distance away from the militiamen, they pulled over to the side of the road and laid his body there.

“We didn’t even have a sheet to cover his body, so I took off my long-sleeved buttoned-up shirt and made do with it.

“It was a difficult decision but I knew I couldn’t keep driving around smuggling alcohol with a dead body in the truck. We had a few government checkpoints up ahead and I couldn’t jeopardise my load or my freedom.”

Two years later he says the guilt of leaving the body by the road still haunts him.

He left behind a family, and Mr Diriye is unsure they even know the truth surrounding the circumstances of his disappearance and death.

The danger that Mr Diriye faces is a recurring reality that many smugglers endure while illicitly ferrying alcohol from Ethiopia to Mogadishu, in order to quench the growing demand.

Dahir Barre, 41 has a slim build with noticeable scars on his face that appear to tell a story on their own. He has a dark sense of humour and seems hardened by the near-decade of smuggling that enables him to bypass the possible consequences of what he does.

“We face a lot of problems and dangers but still continue to drive despite the risk due to the poor living conditions in Somalia,” he says.

Mr Barre has been smuggling alcohol from Ethiopia since 2015 and says lack of opportunity made worse by years of poverty pushed him into the dangerous trade.

“I used to do security for a hotel in the city centre. I was armed with an AK-47 and was tasked with patting people down at the entrance.”

Long nights in a dangerous job with meagre pay did not feel worth it.

“One hundred dollars a month to stand in the way of potential car bombs that might plough through the front entrance sounds crazy now that I think of it.”

One of the day-shift guards then put him in touch with friends from the border region and “I’ve been travelling these roads ever since”.

“Back in 2015 I was only getting $150 per trip, compared to $350 per trip now and those days it was far riskier because al-Shabab had control over more territory, so you risked more encounters with them.

“Even the bandits and militias were more dangerous back then.

“If you had red or brown stained teeth, the militias would assume you chewed khat and smoked cigarettes, meaning you had money so they would abduct you and hold you for ransom.

“As drivers we’ve been through a lot and the danger still exists,” Mr Barre says.

If they are caught by al-Shabab fighters then it can be most dangerous since the armed group has a zero-tolerance policy on contraband, especially alcohol. The Islamist insurgents set the vehicle on fire and then detain the smugglers before fining them.

Other armed men can be more easily bribed with money or liquor.

It takes an average of seven to nine days to reach Mogadishu from the Ethiopian border. The smugglers then make their way to a pre-arranged drop-off point.

“When we arrive, a group of men will show up and unload the regular food products into a separate truck, then leave. Afterwards, once that’s done, another individual will arrive, sometimes accompanied by more than one vehicle and they’ll take the boxes of alcohol,” Mr Diriye says.

“But it doesn’t end there. Once it leaves my possession, it’ll pass through more hands, eventually ending up with local dealers in the city, who can be reached with a simple phone call.”

Mr Diriye often thinks about his entry into smuggling, and where his future may lie.

“My neighbour Abshir who initially got me into smuggling alcohol, stopped doing it himself three years ago.”

Abshir offered his nephew, an unemployed graduate at the time, a job in smuggling. But he was killed on his third trip in an ambush by bandits.

“Afterwards Abshir quit smuggling. He became religious and turned to God. I rarely see him any more.”

Despite the dangers, Mr Diriye says it will not deter him.

“Death is something that is predestined. I can’t let fear come in the way of making a living. Sure, sometimes I want to throw the keys on the table and start afresh but it’s not that easy. Temptation is everywhere and so is poverty.”

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It’s perhaps no surprise that the décor of TV BRA’s new studio is shocking pink.

It’s the favourite colour of two of the station’s reporters, Emily Ann Riedel – who is wearing a pink top when I visit – and Petter Bjørkmo. “I even had pink hair!” Bjørkmo tells me, laughing, before adding that he had to get rid of it “because I am a reporter – reporters have to look decent.”

All the reporters at TV BRA – which means “TV Good” – are disabled or autistic; most have a learning disability.

• For an easy English version of this article, click here

Every week, they put together an hour-long magazine programme covering news, entertainment and sport, which is broadcast on a major Norwegian streaming platform, TV2 play, as well as TV BRA’s own app and website.

The show is presented in simple Norwegian and is slower than mainstream news reports, making it much easier to follow. Between 4,000 and 5,000 people tune in every week.

The station’s 10 reporters are dotted around the country, where they work as local news correspondents.

Riedel, who has Down’s Syndrome, lives and works in the seaside city of Stavanger. She has had to learn to contain her effusive personality.

“I have to follow the script and not talk about personal stuff – because here is about the news. When I work here I have to be very professional.”

Although she has been at the station for years, some things are still novel, like the mascara she wears before going on camera, and which she says weighs down her eyelids.

“I don’t need it because I look beautiful,” Riedel tells me with a smile. “I have inner beauty and outside beauty.”

“Yeah that’s right,” chuckles Camilla Kvalheim, the managing editor of the station – and also, currently, make-up artist. “But in the studio, with heavy lights and everything, you look paler.”

Kvalheim and a small technical crew who are not disabled produce and edit all the reports.

Although Riedel and her colleagues have mild learning impairments – they can mostly speak English well, and travel without support – some things are a challenge.

I watch as the team tries to get to grips with a new autocue system. The presenters frequently have to read a line many times to get a good take.

“Sometimes it can be difficult to say what’s in the cue cards, so we have to do it again and again,” says Kvalheim. She also has to provide on-the-job training for her team, who did not study journalism at university before joining the TV station.

Nevertheless her expectations of her team are high.

“She says: ‘Can you please do that again? Can you repeat what you said? Can you look directly into the camera, I want you to be perfect – this is very important,’” says Riedel.

“And when she is being proud, when we are finished, then she says: ‘I like this part! I like this part! That is what I want to see! Use your energy to be the best that you can be!’”

It’s been pointed out that people with learning disabilities can be held back by overly positive feedback, which stops them from developing their skills. That is not an issue here.

“If we are going to be seen by the audience we have to have a professional look,” says Kvalheim unapologetically. “If they are going to be respected as reporters and journalists they need to follow the ethical standards of other news organisations.”

The origins of TV BRA began more than a decade ago, when she was working as a teacher for people with a learning disability at a residential care home in Bergen, and decided to pursue a passion for filmmaking. She found that as soon as she got a camera out, the dynamic between her and the people she was working with changed.

“Suddenly when we were working together on those films, we were a crew, we were a team. It wasn’t me over them – we were equal,” Kvalheim recalls.

Finding that her creative collaborators had much to say about the world, she was encouraged to continue the work, and it steadily built momentum.

Now it is a national network, with a proper studio – but Kvalheim admits that her reporters are not paid the same sort of money as their peers at other networks.

The station receives state funding, and has revenue from supplying TV2 with a weekly show, but money is extremely tight.

A good job, then, that the team are motivated by things other than money. In Norway, as in every country, people with learning disabilities face issues ranging from low employment rates to access to support and housing. Being able to understand the news empowers the wider community to campaign on these issues.

A recent report from Petter Bjørkmo is a case in point. He visited a woman with more severe learning disabilities, who lives in sheltered accommodation in Trondheim. “The city – the government – wants to take away her shopping,” he told me, meaning her budget to be accompanied to the shops by a support worker.

“They told her that she has to go online. But she can’t! Because she can’t speak very well, it’s hard for her to get online to buy food. She needs help!”

Bjørkmo’s report a got a “massive response” from viewers, says Kvalheim, though it did not cause the local government to rethink their position.

“TV BRA is very important,” agrees Svein Andre Hofsø, another reporter. “Because we are talking about people with a disability, and what are our rights in real life.”

Hofsø, a roving news reporter based in Oslo, was well-known even before joining TV BRA.

He took the title role in a 2013 film, Detective Downs. Before the last parliamentary election, in 2021, Andre got the chance to don his detective’s fedora again, but this time his job was to grill various politicians on their policies in his tongue-in-cheek style.

One such sequence shows him sitting on a bench outside the parliament building in Oslo, pretending to read a newspaper. A politician, Jonas Gahr Støre – the leader of the Labour Party – strolls outside but behind a pillar, a stooge is waiting to ambush him. As Hofsø looks on, the stooge throws a butterfly net over the unsuspecting Støre.

In the next scene, we see Støre in a chair in a basement. Hofsø shines an angle-poised lamp in his face, and shows him photos of disabled people looking sad and lonely. “If we vote for you, what will you do for us?”

At this point, Støre sets out his policies for disabled people. And after the election, he did indeed become prime minister.

Camilla Kvalheim laughs when she recalls the encounter. “That was very funny. Every time we’ve met him since, he says, ‘Oh – are you going to catch me in that butterfly net?!’”

On the day I visit TV BRA, they are paid a visit from Silje Hjemdal, a local lawmaker for the right-wing Progress Party.

A team of four reporters quiz her on everything from roads to immigration, and what she thinks of plans for the lavish new national theatre in Oslo (being from Bergen, she has some doubts about the project). Kvalheim is there too, steering the questions.

Hjemdal’s answers are serious, but there is also a warmth to the encounter; she is a long-term supporter of the station .“A lot of politicians now know what TV BRA is, so I would say it’s a big, big progress, just the five last years,” she tells me.

TV BRA is not the only TV news station presented by people with learning disabilities. Similar, albeit smaller, programmes exist in Iceland and Denmark. Meanwhile Slovenia, Holland and several other countries offer an “easy news” service – simplified reports, though not presented by people with a learning disability.

For viewers of TV BRA, this kind of service is essential. “I think this TV station is really important for our community,” says Anne-Britt Ekerhovd, a fan of the station, who has a learning disability. “They explain things really well. In different news like NRK, they explain it too hard for us to understand. TV BRA is much easier to understand.”

Another fan of the station, Espen Giertsen, agrees: “There is something special about this – they are making TV in a new way.”

TV BRA’s reporters are very conscious of the important role they have in serving this often-neglected audience.

“If they have tonnes of weight on themselves, I want them to lift it up, so they can be free, so they can feel like they are accepted,” says Emily Ann Riedel.

People Fixing the World – The pioneering TV news service

It all started with a friend request.

Kirat Assi thought she’d hit the jackpot when Bobby, a handsome cardiologist, got in touch with her in 2009.

He wasn’t a total stranger. The pair were both from west London’s Sikh community and had friends in common.

So, Kirat accepted, and her online chats developed into deeper conversations before blossoming into a full-on love story.

The two became more and more entangled in each other’s lives but they never met, even after years of correspondence.

Bobby would provide increasingly outlandish excuses. He’d had a stroke. He’d been shot. He had entered witness protection.

The tall tales, though, were always backed up by someone close to Bobby – or so Kirat thought.

In truth, she was the victim of a wildly elaborate and traumatising catfishing scheme.

After nine years, when the excuses ran thin, Kirat finally came face-to-face with Bobby.

But she didn’t recognise the person in front of her.

The person she’d been messaging was her female cousin, Simran, who had been the brains behind everything.

Looking back now, Kirat asks herself: “How could you have been so stupid?”

Kirat’s shocking story was a hit for podcast maker Tortoise in 2021. You can listen to that on BBC Sounds here. Now, three years on, Netflix has recently released a documentary which features her recounting her experience.

She says that telling her story has prompted others to ask the same question: “How can somebody fall for that?”

It’s also prompted abuse from some people online.

“For people who might still think I’m stupid. That’s fine, you’re allowed your opinion,” she tells BBC Asian Network News.

But Kirat says people shouldn’t make assumptions – and countering these was partly what prompted her to tell her story.

“I’m not stupid, I’m not dumb. I’m the one that’s chosen to speak.

“I’m the one that’s put myself out in the firing line and I hope others will come forward,” she says.

Which prompts another question: Why would someone who’d been duped in this way put themselves in the public eye?

Kirat, who’s from a Punjabi background, says speaking out was important because she wanted to challenge stigmas in the South Asian community.

“We are so scared to open up about these issues,” she says.

“Because of how a community will be seen by wider society, the victims in our communities keep suffering.”

Kirat says her dad’s reaction to her story is a good example of what she means.

“He doesn’t want to know what happened,” she says.

“Because to face up to what happened, and how horrific it was, it’s going to be painful.

“I love my dad and I know my dad loves me,” she says, adding: “It’s a different set of values that he has been brought up with.”

Kirat says she hasn’t spoken directly to “the real Bobby” about what happened, and puts this down to the community’s reluctance to have difficult conversations.

She wonders if her experience would have been the same if she’d come from another background.

“I’d be making different decisions,” she says.

“Because we have responsibilities towards our community. You have the pressure of family.”

Despite some negative reactions to the re-tellings of Sweet Bobby, Kirat says she would rather deal with questions up-front.

“If you do see me, don’t be scared to approach me,” she says.

“And if you want to say something which might be controversial to me, it’s OK.

“Let’s have a discussion about it,” she says.

When Kirat’s asked if speaking to podcast or documentary producers has given her a sense of closure, she’s less certain.

Simran rejected offers to be involved in the documentary, where she’s played by an actress.

Kirat successfully brought civil action against her cousin, receiving compensation and an apology at the end of the case.

A statement from Simran included in the show says: “This matter involves events that began when she was a schoolgirl. She considers it a private matter and strongly objects to what she describes as numerous unfounded and damaging accusations.”

Kirat says Simran hasn’t faced any criminal charges, and wants her to be held accountable.

“I’m not OK with that person being out there,” says Kirat.

There’s another question that she’s no closer to answering: Why?

Kirat doesn’t think she will ever truly find out what drove the campaign against her.

“I think I’ve long given up,” she says.

“The extent to which that person went, you can’t ever justify it.

“I can’t understand why you didn’t stop… what gave you pleasure from hearing somebody in pain.”

But not having answers is not stopping her from moving forward with life, including dating again.

“I’m working really hard, harder than I should have to right now to rebuild my life and career,” she says.

“I don’t carry the victim mentality around with me. I don’t want to be that person.

“I’m going to carry on working towards goals and dreams.”

Listen to Ankur Desai’s show on BBC Asian Network live from 15:00-18:00 Monday to Thursday – or listen back here.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has said he will give away $1m (£766,000) a day to a registered voter in key swing states until the US presidential election on 5 November.

The winner will be chosen at random from those who sign a pro-US Constitution petition by Mr Musk’s campaign group AmericaPAC, which he set up to support Republican nominee Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House.

The first lottery-style cheque was given away to a surprised attendee at a town hall event in Pennsylvania on Saturday night. Another cheque was handed out on Sunday.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who supports Kamala Harris, called Mr Musk’s strategy “deeply concerning.”

• 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

Shapiro told NBC News’ Meet the Press that law enforcement should potentially look at the payments.

The contest is open to voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina, all key battleground states that will ultimately decide the White House election.

Election law expert Rick Hasen wrote on his personal Election Law Blog that he believed Mr Musk’s offer was “clearly illegal”.

Federal law states that anyone who “pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting” faces a potential $10,000 fine or a five-year prison sentence.

Though Mr Musk is technically asking voters to sign a form, Mr Hasen questioned the intent behind the strategy.

“Who can sign the petitions? Only registered voters in swing states, which is what makes it illegal,” said Mr Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) law school.

Those who sign the petition – which pledges to support free speech and gun rights – must submit their contact details, potentially allowing AmericaPAC to contact them about their vote.

Both Mr Musk and AmericaPAC have been approached for comment.

Campaigns and political action committees rely on tactics like petition signing, survey requests, or merchandise purchases to build massive databases of voter information. That data can then be used more accurately to target voters, or raise funds from supporters who are already onboard.

In Pennsylvania, Mr Musk is giving voters $100 for signing the petition, plus another $100 for each person they refer who signs. Voters in other battleground states get $47 per referral.

But the strategy may be covered by a loophole under US election law because no-one is being directly paid to vote – despite introducing money into a process that could identify likely Trump voters.

In the US, it is illegal to provide payments to get people to vote – not only for a certain candidate, but to simply cast a ballot.

The rule prompted icecream-maker Ben & Jerry’s to give its product free to everyone on election day in 2008, having initially planned to limit it just to those with an “I voted” sticker.

While campaigning on Sunday, Trump was asked about Mr Musk’s giveaway.

“I haven’t followed that,” he said, adding that he speaks to Mr Musk often and he is a “friend”.

The founder of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, formerly Twitter, has emerged as a key Trump supporter.

Mr Musk launched AmericaPAC in July with the aim of supporting the former president’s campaign.

He has so far donated $75m (£57.5m) to the group, which has quickly become a central player in Trump’s election bid.

The Trump campaign is highly reliant on outside groups such as AmericaPAC to canvas voters.

A statement on the group’s website reads: “AmericaPAC was created to support these key values: Secure Borders, Safe Cities, Sensible spending, Fair Justice System, Free Speech, Right to Self-Protection.”

Mr Musk said he wants to get “over a million, maybe two million, voters in the battleground states to sign the petition in support of the First and Second Amendment”.

“I think [it] sends a crucial message to our elected politicians,” he added.

Mr Musk is currently the world’s richest man, with an estimated net worth of $248bn (£191bn), according to US business magazine Forbes.

Alec Baldwin has returned to US sketch show Saturday Night Live (SNL) for the first time since his trial over a fatal shooting on the set of the film Rust was dismissed.

Baldwin said his career might be over after a prop gun he was holding during rehearsals fired a live round killing Halyna Hutchins in 2021, leading to him being charged with involuntary manslaughter, which he denied.

He returned to SNL this week, a show he has hosted a record 17 times.

He opened this week’s episode as Fox News host Bret Baier, in a parody of his recent interview with Democratic US presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

Alongside Maya Rudolph as Harris, the pair poked fun at the combative interview.

Baldwin’s Baier said he could not listen to his interviewee’s answers “because I’m talking”, a joke about how the pair interrupted each other.

After they shook hands, Rudolph’s Harris laughed: “The pleasure is neither of ours.”

In 2017, Baldwin won an Emmy award for his portrayal of Republican US presidential nominee Donald Trump on SNL.

Baldwin will not face another trial on charges of involuntary manslaughter relating to Ms Hutchens’ death after the case against him in New Mexico was dismissed in July.

He denied pulling the trigger on the set of the western, which was being filmed in the state, and said he did not know who put live bullets in the gun.

He called it a “one in a trillion episode”.

The trial collapsed after his lawyers claimed police and prosecutors had hidden evidence – a batch of bullets – that could have been connected to the shooting.

While prosecutors argued the bullets were not relevant, the judge in New Mexico decided they should have been shared with Baldwin’s team regardless.

In April, the production’s armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was jailed after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

Prosecutors said she had failed to notice that live bullets had been mixed with dummy rounds in a box of ammunition on set – one of which was in the firearm used by Baldwin.

On a Sunday morning in September, the air inside the historic Mt Lebanon AME Zion Church was filled with the sounds of gospel music, prayer – and politics.

“This is a… very, very important, very, very dangerous opportunity,” Reverend Javan Leach said.

“The reason why I say dangerous: because if we don’t participate with our voice, and our body, that’s just like casting a vote for the other side.”

“Amen,” the congregation shouted.

Located in Pasquotank County, where a third of the population is black, the church is in a rare Democratic stronghold on North Carolina’s north-east coast.

It was rural black voters, like those at Mt Lebanon church, who were credited with helping Barack Obama take the state in 2008, the only time a Democrat has won North Carolina since the 1970s. Donald Trump took the state in both 2016 and 2020.

But support for Democrats has been declining in Pasquotank, just as it has been in other rural areas across the country over the past few years. In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won the county by just 62 votes – the party’s slimmest margin yet – barely bigger than Sunday’s congregation.

Trump beat Biden in the state by 1.3% in 2020, but polls now rate it as a “toss-up” between him and Kamala Harris, giving Democrats fresh hope in a state where losing has been the norm.

With margins razor-thin in not just North Carolina, but other battleground states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, Harris’s campaign will have to excite Democratic voters from across all corners of the state – not just the blue urban areas, but the deep-red countryside, too.

To do that, they’ve opened offices in places where Democrats have usually not campaigned but where strategists see new potential. The goal is to churn out as many votes as possible in the least likely places – even if it means venturing deep into politically unfriendly territory.

Onslow County, located along a rural stretch of the state’s south-eastern coastline, is one of those places.

Last month, a few dozen Democrats were gathered there at a local bed-and-breakfast to eat pulled pork and talk party strategy.

“We don’t have to be afraid to be Democrats in rural communities,” Anderson Clayton, North Carolina’s Democratic Party chairwoman, told the small crowd.

“We should be proud of that and wear it on our chest this year when we go to vote.”

As she spoke, she pointed to picnic tables smothered in Democratic paraphernalia: blue tablecloths, blue balloons, and rolls of blue stickers that said “I’m voting with Democrats”. A life-size cutout of Kamala Harris stood nearby.

It was a defiant display in a place like Onslow.

While Trump’s 2020 victory in the state overall was a narrow one, in Onslow County he won by an immense margin of 30%.

“It is really scary to get out and knock doors. I get that,” Clayton said.

While she was speaking, a large truck roared by with a Trump flag waving above its rear.

Her optimism didn’t waver.

“There is a political realignment happening in rural communities across North Carolina,” Clayton continued, her voice elevating.

“Whether or not people choose to realise it, they’re going to see it.”

The party has made big investments in the state, including signing up 32,000 volunteers, hiring over 340 staff members, and opening up 28 offices, including in rural Republican-led counties like Onslow.

Republicans have begun to notice.

Earlier this month, Senator Thom Tillis told media outlet Semafor “what we’re seeing in North Carolina that we haven’t seen for a time, though, is a really well organised ground game by the Democrats”.

Although Harris has little chance of winning a majority of votes in these deep-red parts of the country, this election will be won on the margins. And so Democrats are betting that a few extra votes in unexpected areas may make the difference in an extremely close race.

Near the end of the campaign event in Onslow County, the energy of the crowd began to fizzle as the sun dipped beyond the trees.

A few lingered, including a 14-year-old who walked up to Clayton to introduce himself.

“After hearing you speak, I decided I’m going to go door knock on Saturday,” Gavin Rohwedder said.

Clayton smiled – one more volunteer today in Onslow than yesterday.

“It’s piece by piece,” she told the BBC. “All people need is somebody to show up.”

But the Democrats’ plans were upended when Hurricane Helene hit in late September.

The storm wreaked havoc in North Carolina, killing at least 95 people. Nearly 100 are still missing.

As residents begin the lengthy process of rebuilding, both parties must also reassess their ground game.

In Buncombe County, where the Democratic stronghold of Asheville is located, some people are still living without internet connection, mobile phone service or clean water, said the county’s party chair, Kathie Kline.

“The typical way to win elections is to knock on doors and to have face-to-face conversations with people,” she told the BBC. “Of course, we had to stop that.”

When North Carolina residents began early voting on Thursday, Kline said some people waited in line at polls to vote, while others queued at government-provided trailers to shower.

It’s a chaotic set of circumstances that Kline agreed could hurt Democrats’ chances in November: “I don’t like saying it out loud, but yes.”

Republicans are not going to cede North Carolina without a fight.

Strategists say the state looks like a must-win for Donald Trump to take back the presidency. In 2020, it was the only one of the seven battleground states he won.

“It’s very hard for us to win unless we’re able to get North Carolina,” said Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, during a campaign stop last month.

The state’s pivotal role in the election is felt by Republicans on the grassroots level, too.

Adele Walker, who owns an antique store in Selma, North Carolina, is a lifelong Republican, but this is her first year volunteering to canvass.

“This is such an important election,” Walker said, noting her opposition to abortion and fears about illegal immigration.

While out canvassing backroads on foot, Walker passed a woman sitting on her porch and stopped to speak to her.

“Hola,” said Walker, who identifies as Hispanic, continuing the conversation in Spanish.

The woman told Walker she was from Honduras and answered “no” when asked if any political groups had previously approached her.

Walker then reached into a cardboard box she’d been carrying under her arm and handed the woman one of roughly a dozen copies of the Constitution translated to Spanish.

She left the encounter in slight astonishment.

“That’s interesting,” Walker said. “Someone said that Democrats were walking through here just last week.

“Guess they missed her.”

At Mt Lebanon church, Reverend Leach is ensuring everyone understands the urgency of voting.

The church’s origins date back to the mid-1800s, its original congregation composed of African-American slaves. Since then, it has evolved into a hub for social and political activity.

Now, the reverend implored his congregation: “Someone say mission possible.”

Possible, he said, if they – black, rural voters – showed up to the polls.

“Some of you who don’t think your vote matters… We can’t let them take us back 40, 50, 60 years,” Reverend Leach said, echoing a line often used in Harris’s stump speech.

His warning struck a personal chord with William Overton, who was in the crowd. The 85-year-old told the BBC he was voting for Harris and that his number one concern was protecting abortion rights.

“The laws now are worse than they were in the 1950s,” Overton said.

Abortion is an intimate issue for him. His wife had a miscarriage in South Carolina in 1964, he said, and relied on medical care that is now sometimes illegal in that state.

Democrats’ investments into rural areas are felt here, Overton said, adding that he’s been receiving daily campaign calls and texts.

“The excitement is up compared to 2020,” he said.

Michael Sutton, another Democratic voter and member of the church, agreed.

“The way things look even here, in North Carolina, in this small town, everybody is energised,” Sutton said. “It feels like we have a good chance.”

But energy is one thing – votes are another.

Standing outside of Mt Lebanon church was 25-year-old Justin Herman.

He told the BBC he voted for Joe Biden in 2020, but feels undecided about this election.

“I don’t know much about Kamala,” Herman said. “Trump, sometimes the stuff he says isn’t ideal. I don’t feel like I can relate to either candidate.”

Then, Herman said something that strikes to the heart of the challenge that Democrats are facing not just in this state, but nationally.

“I don’t know if I’m going to vote at all.”

At least seven people have died after part of a ferry dock collapsed in Georgia’s Sapelo Island on Saturday, local authorities say.

Georgia’s department of natural resources, which operates the dock, said at least 20 people plunged into the water when the gangway collapsed.

The incident happened at approximately 16:30 local time (20:30 GMT) at the Marsh Landing Dock as crowds gathered for a cultural celebration.

Multiple people have been taken to hospital and search and rescue operations are under way.

US President Joe Biden said he and his wife Jill mourn the lives lost and “pray for the injured and anyone still missing”.

It is not yet known what caused the collapse of the walkway, which connected an outer dock where people board the ferry to another dock onshore, according to local reports.

Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, said he and his family were “heartbroken” by the tragedy and asked for prayers “for those lost, for those still in harm’s way, and for their families”.

The governor has sent “state resources to aid in search, rescue, & recovery”, Georgia representative Buddy Carter said in a post on X.

Biden said his team “stand ready to provide any and all assistance that would be helpful to the community”.

Local authorities said the gangway has been secured and the incident is under investigation.

Tyler Jones, a spokesperson for Georgia’s National Resources Department, said there was “no collision,” according to the Associated Press agency.

“The thing just collapsed,” he said. “We don’t know why.”

Pastor Jerald Thomas of the nearby Elm Grove Church went to the scene to help.

“They came together quickly, and they began to send the necessary things that was needed in order to make the people stay while they were going through this tragic time,” he told local outlet WTOC.

People had gathered Saturday to celebrate the island’s community of Hogg Hummock, which is home to a few dozen black residents.

Hogg Hummock was founded by newly-freed former enslaved people from plantations in coastal Georgia who settled on Sapelo Island following the US Civil War, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation said on its website.

Saturday’s event “should have been a joyous celebration of Gullah-Geechee culture and history instead turned into tragedy and devastation”, President Biden said in his statement.

Small communities descended from enslaved island populations in the South, known as Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia, are scattered along the coast from North Carolina to Florida.

Sapelo Island is reachable from the mainland by boat.

A Palestinian man from Gaza has told the BBC that the house the former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in was his home for 15 years before he had to flee in May.

Ashraf Abo Taha said he was “shocked” as he identified the partially destroyed building in Israeli drone footage of the incident as his home on Ibn Sena street in Rafah, southern Gaza.

Sinwar, the key figure behind the 7 October attacks on Israel, was killed by Israeli troops on Wednesday.

The Israeli military released drone footage that it said showed Sinwar in a partially destroyed house before he was killed.

Mr Abo Taha told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Lifeline that he had left his home in Rafah for Khan Younis on 6 May, when Israel ordered evacuations and began an operation against Hamas fighters, and had not received any news of his house until now.

Mr Abo Taha said his daughter first showed him the footage purportedly capturing Sinwar’s last moments on social media, saying it depicted their house in Rafah. He initially didn’t believe her, he said, until his brother confirmed the house was indeed his.

“I was like ‘yes this is my house’ and I saw the pictures and here I was shocked”, Mr Abo Taha said.

He said he had no idea why Sinwar was there or how he got there.

“Never ever did me and my brothers and sons have anything to do with this,” he said.

The BBC has verified that pictures and videos provided by Mr Abo Taha of his home match imagery of the house where Sinwar was killed.

BBC Verify compared and matched images of the home’s window archways, external decorations on doorways, shelves, and armchairs from the footage.

The BBC cannot independently verify that Mr Abo Taha owned the home.

• Who will lead Hamas after killing of Yahya Sinwar?

The footage of Sinwar’s killing was analysed by the BBC, and the house in which he was last seen was one of the few partially destroyed buildings in a neighbourhood with extensive damage.

The Israeli assault on Rafah in May was met with strong international criticism, and triggered the exodus of more than a million Palestinians, according to the UN.

Many had been forced to move for a second or third time, as they had been sheltering in and around Rafah after being displaced from other parts of Gaza.

Mr Abo Taha said he had built his home in Rafah himself with the help of his siblings. It had cost some 200,000 shekels (£41,400) and had been in good condition when he left, he said.

He described his home’s orange sofas and an orange casserole dish, remembering the last time he saw them as he fled his home.

“These are memories because some of these were brought by my mum and they are very precious to me,” he said.

“What happened has saddened me a lot, the house that I built and all my payments are gone,” he said. “Only God can compensate us.”

Rock legend Ozzy Osbourne has been inducted as a solo artist into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Birmingham’s 75-year-old Prince of Darkness received a standing ovation from an all-star band and the 20,000-capacity crowd in Cleveland, Ohio, on Saturday.

“I’d like to thank whoever voted me into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for my solo work. Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” he shouted above deafening cheers after actor Jack Black presented him with the award.

The diverse group of inductees this year also included: Mary J Blige, Cher, Peter Frampton, Foreigner, A Tribe Called Quest and the Dave Matthews Band.

“My fans have been so loyal to me over the years. I cannot thank them enough”, said Osbourne, who was inducted at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse arena.

“I’ve [also] been fortunate to play with some of the world’s greatest guitar players, drummers and bass players, and a few of them are here tonight.

“But I’ve got to say one thing for a guy by the name of Randy Rhoads. If I hadn’t met Randy Rhoads, I don’t think I’d be sitting here now.”

Rhoads, an acclaimed guitarist, helped to transform Osbourne’s solo career after he was kicked out of heavy metal band Black Sabbath in Birmingham in 1979. He died in 1982, aged just 25.

Osbourne saved his biggest thank you for his family. His wife Sharon, daughter Kelly and her son, Sidney, were in the audience.

“More than that, my wife Sharon saved my life. And my grandbabies and my babies. I love them all.”

During his induction, Black described the first time he heard the rocker’s solo hit album “Blizzard of Oz” (1980), saying “heaven had opened up”.

“I didn’t realise I was entering a whole new world of heavy metal.”

And he added: “You know a lot has been made of his evil alliance with the dark lord, Satan, but in truth, Ozzy is a loving father and husband and friend.”

Osbourne, who grew up in a large family in Aston, was previously inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006 as a member of Black Sabbath, which he formed in 1968. He has since sold 100 million records, both as a solo artist and with the band.

It had not been certain whether he would perform on Saturday due to bouts of ill health; he has Parkinson’s disease.

One of the last times he was seen on stage was at the closing ceremony of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

In the event, he watched on stage from a big leather bat-shaped throne as an all-star band performed his set playlist. Country superstar Jelly Roll gave an outstanding rendition of Osbourne’s Mama, I’m Coming Home. Maynard James Keen sang Crazy Train, accompanied by Wolfgang Van Halen, and Billy Idol belted out No More Tears.

The musicians included his long-time guitarist and co-writer Zakk Wylde, Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, and Osbourne band member Adam Wakeman on keyboards.

Osbourne, who feels a strong connection to his West Midlands roots, retired from touring last year, although he later said he wanted to perform two final shows in Birmingham to say goodbye to his fans.

“Birmingham until I die,” he cried out during his performance with Black Sabbath at the Commonwealth Games two years ago.

He is still considered a legend in the city, despite leaving years ago to pursue his career.

There have been various city honours bestowed on him. He was the first artist to be honoured on Birmingham’s own Hollywood-style Walk of Fame on Broad Street in 2007.

The huge mechanical bull seen in the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games was also named “Ozzy” following a public vote. It is now on display at Birmingham New Street railway station.

There is also a bench in the band’s honour on the renamed Black Sabbath Bridge over the canal on Broad Street.

Osbourne credits the Beatles for getting him into music when he was a teenager growing up in a large family in Aston.

Paul McCartney was among a string of artists who lined up to pay tribute to him in a look back at his career, in a video played during his induction.

Artists become eligible for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 25 years after the release of their first recording.

In the 2011 documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, he said the band made him realise that “[he] was going to be a rock star for the rest of [his] life”.

Osbourne’s outstanding legacy was played out in front of some of the world’s finest musicians during the five-hour show on Saturday – 55 years after he started in the business.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has said he will give away $1m (£766,000) a day to a registered voter in key swing states until the US presidential election on 5 November.

The winner will be chosen at random from those who sign a pro-US Constitution petition by Mr Musk’s campaign group AmericaPAC, which he set up to support Republican nominee Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House.

The first lottery-style cheque was given away to a surprised attendee at a town hall event in Pennsylvania on Saturday night. Another cheque was handed out on Sunday.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who supports Kamala Harris, called Mr Musk’s strategy “deeply concerning.”

• 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

Shapiro told NBC News’ Meet the Press that law enforcement should potentially look at the payments.

The contest is open to voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina, all key battleground states that will ultimately decide the White House election.

Election law expert Rick Hasen wrote on his personal Election Law Blog that he believed Mr Musk’s offer was “clearly illegal”.

Federal law states that anyone who “pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting” faces a potential $10,000 fine or a five-year prison sentence.

Though Mr Musk is technically asking voters to sign a form, Mr Hasen questioned the intent behind the strategy.

“Who can sign the petitions? Only registered voters in swing states, which is what makes it illegal,” said Mr Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) law school.

Those who sign the petition – which pledges to support free speech and gun rights – must submit their contact details, potentially allowing AmericaPAC to contact them about their vote.

Both Mr Musk and AmericaPAC have been approached for comment.

Campaigns and political action committees rely on tactics like petition signing, survey requests, or merchandise purchases to build massive databases of voter information. That data can then be used more accurately to target voters, or raise funds from supporters who are already onboard.

In Pennsylvania, Mr Musk is giving voters $100 for signing the petition, plus another $100 for each person they refer who signs. Voters in other battleground states get $47 per referral.

But the strategy may be covered by a loophole under US election law because no-one is being directly paid to vote – despite introducing money into a process that could identify likely Trump voters.

In the US, it is illegal to provide payments to get people to vote – not only for a certain candidate, but to simply cast a ballot.

The rule prompted icecream-maker Ben & Jerry’s to give its product free to everyone on election day in 2008, having initially planned to limit it just to those with an “I voted” sticker.

While campaigning on Sunday, Trump was asked about Mr Musk’s giveaway.

“I haven’t followed that,” he said, adding that he speaks to Mr Musk often and he is a “friend”.

The founder of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, formerly Twitter, has emerged as a key Trump supporter.

Mr Musk launched AmericaPAC in July with the aim of supporting the former president’s campaign.

He has so far donated $75m (£57.5m) to the group, which has quickly become a central player in Trump’s election bid.

The Trump campaign is highly reliant on outside groups such as AmericaPAC to canvas voters.

A statement on the group’s website reads: “AmericaPAC was created to support these key values: Secure Borders, Safe Cities, Sensible spending, Fair Justice System, Free Speech, Right to Self-Protection.”

Mr Musk said he wants to get “over a million, maybe two million, voters in the battleground states to sign the petition in support of the First and Second Amendment”.

“I think [it] sends a crucial message to our elected politicians,” he added.

Mr Musk is currently the world’s richest man, with an estimated net worth of $248bn (£191bn), according to US business magazine Forbes.

Israel has carried out more air strikes in Beirut and southern Lebanon, including on branches of a bank that it says is supporting Hezbollah.

Explosions were heard in southern Beirut’s Dahieh district, an area controlled by Hezbollah, as well as the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon. It is unclear whether there are any casualties.

The Israeli military earlier warned people living in 25 areas in Lebanon – including 14 in the capital Beirut – that it planned to carry out strikes throughout the night.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also said it would target banks and other financial infrastructure supporting Hezbollah.

In a statement on Sunday evening, IDF spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari warned that “anyone located near sites used to fund Hezbollah’s terror activities must move away from these locations immediately”.

“We will strike several targets in the coming hours and additional targets throughout the night,” he said.

“In the coming days, we will reveal how Iran funds Hezbollah’s terror activities by using civilian institutions, associations, and NGOs that act as fronts for terrorism,” the Israeli spokesman added.

Lebanon’s state-run news agency NNA reported strikes on branches of the bank Al-Qard Al-Hassan association, including in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

It also reported a strike on the bank’s branch near Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut. Footage showed smoke billowing following a blast near the airport.

The bank has more than 30 branches across Lebanon, including 15 in densely-populated areas in Beirut, Reuters reported.

Israel accuses the association of funnelling Iranian money to the group to fund buying and storing weapons and to pay the salaries of its members. The US also says it is used by Hezbollah to manage its finances.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it had fired more rockets into Israel on Sunday, targeting military bases. It also said it fired at Israeli troops on the ground in southern Lebanon.

• ‘No life left there’: The suburbs bearing the brunt in Beirut

On Sunday evening, the IDF said that dozens of projectiles – which usually means rockets – had been fired at northern Israel in the past 24 hours.

It also said that its warplanes conducted “an intelligence-based strike on a command centre of Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters and an underground weapons workshop in Beirut”.

It said steps had been taken to “reduce the possibility of civilian casualties”.

Israel has been accused by Hezbollah and Lebanese officials of targeting civilians, which it denies.

On Sunday, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) accused the IDF of deliberately demolishing an observation tower and perimeter fence of a UN position in the southern Lebanese town of Marwahin on the border with Israel. It follows similar incidents in recent weeks.

“Yet again, we note that breaching a UN position and damaging UN assets is a flagrant violation of international law and Security Council resolution 1701,” the Unifil said in a statement.

In a separate development, the Lebanese army said three of it soldiers were killed after a military vehicle was hit by an Israeli air strike in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon.

Israel has not yet commented on the two reported incidents.

Lebanon’s army has historically stayed out of cross-border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah – but a number of its troops have been killed in Israeli attacks since fighting escalated last month.

Hezbollah – a powerful militant group in Lebanon – says it has been firing on Israeli positions in solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran.

Lebanese officials estimate that more than 2,400 people have been killed in the country over the past year. Israel says 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights over the same period.

TikTok-owner, ByteDance, says it has sacked an intern for “maliciously interfering” with the training of one of its artificial intelligence (AI) models.

But the firm rejected reports that spread over the weekend on social media about the extent of the damage caused by the unnamed individual, saying they “contain some exaggerations and inaccuracies”.

BBC News has contacted ByteDance to request further details about the incident.

The Chinese technology giant’s Doubao ChatGPT-like generative AI model is the country’s most popular AI chatbot.

“The individual was an intern with the commercialisation technology team and has no experience with the AI Lab,” ByteDance said in a statement.

“Their social media profile and some media reports contain inaccuracies.”

Its commercial online operations, including its large language AI models, were unaffected by the intern’s actions, the company added.

ByteDance also denied reports that the incident caused more than $10m of damage by disrupting an AI training system made up of thousands of powerful graphics processing units (GPU).

Aside from firing the person in August, ByteDance said it had informed the intern’s university and industry bodies about the incident.

ByteDance operates some of the world’s most popular social media apps, including TikTok and its Chinese-equivalent Douyin.

It is widely seen as a leader when it comes to algorithm development due to how appealing its apps are to users.

Like many of its peers in China and around the world, the social media giant is investing heavily in AI.

It uses the technology to power its Doubao chatbot as well as many other applications, including a text-to-video tool called Jimeng.

The US is investigating a leak of classified documents describing an American assessment of Israel’s plans to attack Iran, House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson has confirmed.

The documents were reportedly published online last week and are said to describe satellite imagery showing Israel moving military assets in preparation for a response to Iran’s missile attack on 1 October.

The documents, marked top secret, were shareable within the Five Eyes intelligence alliance of the US, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, CBS, the BBC’s US partner, reported.

For weeks Israel has been deciding how and when to respond to Iran’s latest missile attack. Israel’s defence minister has warned it will be “deadly, precise and surprising”.

The two documents reportedly appear to be attributed to the US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency (NSA), and were published on an Iranian-aligned Telegram account on Friday.

Johnson, the highest-ranking member of Congress, told CNN on Sunday that “the leak is very concerning”.

“There’s some serious allegations being made, there’s an investigation under way, and I’ll get a briefing on that in a couple of hours,” the Louisiana Republican lawmaker said.

The Pentagon confirmed in a statement that it was aware of reports about the documents, but did not comment further.

The US agencies involved, as well as the Israeli government, have not publicly commented on the leak.

CNN and Axios first reported the leak, which confirms once again that the US spies on its close ally Israel.

One document makes a reference to Israel’s nuclear capabilities – which neither the US nor Israel ever officially acknowledge – apparently ruling out the use of such an option in any planned strike.

One former American intelligence official told the BBC the unauthorised release was probably an attempt to expose the scale of the planned retaliation, possibly to disrupt it.

The US is investigating whether the information was intentionally leaked by a US agent, or whether it was stolen, possibly through hacking, officials told the Associated Press (AP).

The two documents appear to be based on satellite information obtained from 15-16 October.

The first is titled: “Israel: Air Force Continues Preparations for Strike on Iran and Conducts a Second Large-Force Employment Exercise,” according to Reuters news agency. It describes ballistic and air-to-surface missile handling.

The second is titled: “Israel: Defense Forces Continue Key Munitions Preparations and Covert UAV Activity Almost Certainly for a Strike on Iran”. It discusses Israeli drone movements.

On Friday, US President Joe Biden said he had a “good understanding” of what Israel was planning.

“Do you have a good understanding of what Israel is going to do right now in response to Iran… and when they will actually respond?” a reporter asked him.

“Yes, and yes,” Biden replied.

“Can you tell us?” asked the reporter.

“No, and no.”

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 had a small lead over Trump in the national polling averages since she entered the race at the end of July and she remains ahead – as shown in the chart below with the latest figures rounded to the nearest whole number.

Harris saw a bounce in her polling numbers in the first few weeks of her campaign, building a lead of nearly four percentage points towards the end of August.

But the numbers have been relatively stable since early September, even after the only debate between the two candidates on 10 September, which was watched by nearly 70 million people.

You can see how little the race has changed nationally in the last few weeks in the poll tracker chart below, with the trend lines showing the averages 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 and neither candidate has a decisive lead in any of them, according to the polling averages.

If you look at the trends since Harris joined the race, it does help highlight some differences between the states – but it’s important to note that there are fewer state polls than national polls 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.

In Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, the lead has changed hands a few times since the start of August but Trump has had a small lead for a few weeks now. It’s a similar story in Nevada but with Harris the candidate who has been slightly ahead.

In the three other states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – Harris has been leading since the start of August, sometimes by two or three points, but in recent days the polls have tightened significantly and Trump now has a very small lead in Pennsylvania.

All three of those states had 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 then she will be on course to win the election.

In a sign of how the race has changed since Harris became the Democratic nominee, on the day that Biden quit the race he was trailing Trump by nearly five percentage points on average in the seven swing states.

In Pennsylvania, Biden was behind by nearly 4.5 percentage points when he dropped out, as the chart below shows. It is a key state for both campaigns as it has the highest number of electoral votes of the seven and therefore winning it makes it easier to reach the 270 votes needed.

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 all of the 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.

• Listen: How do election polls work?

• 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

Moldova’s referendum on whether to change its constitution and commit to joining the EU hangs in the balance, with the No and Yes votes neck and neck.

With Yes on 49.9% and No on 50.1% – with 97% of the vote counted – it is a result few were expecting, as several recent surveys said the Yes vote would comfortably win.

The incumbent pro-EU president Maia Sandu earlier denounced the narrow result as the product of foreign interference in Moldovan politics.

She said it was an “unprecedented assault on democracy”, referring to widespread allegations that Russia paid people to vote a certain way, which Moscow denies.

As well as the referendum on changing the constitution, Moldovans also voted in the country’s presidential election on Sunday.

The votes were seen as key tests for the country, which is facing a choice between pushing on with EU membership or keeping close ties to Russia.

Sandu topped the election first round but by a much lower margin than expected – 41% of the vote – and so will now face a difficult second round in early November in which her opponents will likely unite against her.

She accused “criminal groups” of working together with “foreign forces” of using money, lies, and propaganda to sway the vote.

Sandu also said her government had “clear evidence” that 300,000 votes were bought, which she called “a fraud of unprecedented scale”.

The Kremlin has staunchly denied being involved in claims of vote-buying.

Moldova is currently in talks with the EU on becoming a member. These accession talks will continue despite Sunday’s outcome, as the referendum was not legally binding.

The vote, however, was supposed to make the process irreversible. Instead, it feels a little shakier now.

Because she failed to clinch more than half of the vote, Sandu and the second frontrunner, Aleksandr Stoianoglo, who is supported by the pro-Russian Party of Socialists, will go to a run-off on 3 November.

Stoianoglo won 27%, a result that was considerably higher than expected.

Populist Renato Usatii came third, followed by the former governor of Gagauzia Irina Vlah.

If the other candidates throw their support behind Stoianoglo ahead of the second round, Sandu could run the real risk of not being re-elected.

At Sandu’s election headquarters on Sunday evening, the mood was extremely subdued, with one of her advisers describing the result so far as “not what we expected”.

Sandu, who has cultivated close ties with Moldova’s EU neighbours, had campaigned for the Yes vote in the referendum. She had previously said the vote was would set up the future of Moldova for “many decades ahead”.

When the first results began trickling in showing that the No vote had done better than expected, Sandu’s team put the disappointing results down to the first count coming in from villages and rural areas.

The big city count narrowed the lead for the No vote, but by 01:00 (22:00 GMT) few thought the Yes camp could still stand a chance.

Many of Sandu’s supporters left her headquarters in Chisinau where they had been hoping to celebrate her victory before the count was even over. The little EU flags they’d been given to wave have been abandoned, on chairs or strewn on the ground.

An adviser to Sandu suggested that “it looked like whatever they had planned, might have worked,” referring to allegations of vote-buying, linked to Russia.

Voter turnout stood at more than 51% when polls closed at 21:00 local time (18:00 GMT), making the referendum valid.

As the night went on, the gap narrowed even further.

Several presidential candidates boycotted the referendum. Aleksandr Stoianoglo said he did not support the idea of changing the constitution – although he added he was a supporter of his country’s “European aspirations”.

However, many young people queuing at polling stations on Sunday were vocal about their support for Moldova’s future as an EU member state, with some saying they were voting because they wanted to choose a European future for their country – for the sake of the economy and for more opportunities.

Some said they were fed up of being “pulled” towards Moscow, decades after the Soviet Union collapsed and Moldova became independent.

“We have to choose a European future for our country, for our children, our future – for geopolitics, for peace, that’s the most important,” a voter called Oksana told the BBC. “Because we are between Europe and Russian influence, and we have to choose what we want.”

At a polling station for residents of the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria – which is economically, politically and militarily supported by Russia – the BBC stumbled upon evidence of vote-buying.

A BBC producer heard a woman who had just dropped her ballot in the transparent box ask an election monitor where she would get paid.

Outside, we asked directly whether she had been offered cash to vote and she admitted it without qualms. She was angry that a man who had sent her to the polling station was no longer answering her calls. “He tricked me!” she said.

She would not reply when asked who she had voted for.

In September, Ilan Shor – the fugitive Moldovan businessman accused of funnelling large amounts of cash into the country from Russia – offered money to convince “as many people as possible” to vote No or to abstain in the EU referendum.

This week, Shor then made a video statement telling people to vote for “anyone but Sandu” in the presidential election.

It all started with a friend request.

Kirat Assi thought she’d hit the jackpot when Bobby, a handsome cardiologist, got in touch with her in 2009.

He wasn’t a total stranger. The pair were both from west London’s Sikh community and had friends in common.

So, Kirat accepted, and her online chats developed into deeper conversations before blossoming into a full-on love story.

The two became more and more entangled in each other’s lives but they never met, even after years of correspondence.

Bobby would provide increasingly outlandish excuses. He’d had a stroke. He’d been shot. He had entered witness protection.

The tall tales, though, were always backed up by someone close to Bobby – or so Kirat thought.

In truth, she was the victim of a wildly elaborate and traumatising catfishing scheme.

After nine years, when the excuses ran thin, Kirat finally came face-to-face with Bobby.

But she didn’t recognise the person in front of her.

The person she’d been messaging was her female cousin, Simran, who had been the brains behind everything.

Looking back now, Kirat asks herself: “How could you have been so stupid?”

Kirat’s shocking story was a hit for podcast maker Tortoise in 2021. You can listen to that on BBC Sounds here. Now, three years on, Netflix has recently released a documentary which features her recounting her experience.

She says that telling her story has prompted others to ask the same question: “How can somebody fall for that?”

It’s also prompted abuse from some people online.

“For people who might still think I’m stupid. That’s fine, you’re allowed your opinion,” she tells BBC Asian Network News.

But Kirat says people shouldn’t make assumptions – and countering these was partly what prompted her to tell her story.

“I’m not stupid, I’m not dumb. I’m the one that’s chosen to speak.

“I’m the one that’s put myself out in the firing line and I hope others will come forward,” she says.

Which prompts another question: Why would someone who’d been duped in this way put themselves in the public eye?

Kirat, who’s from a Punjabi background, says speaking out was important because she wanted to challenge stigmas in the South Asian community.

“We are so scared to open up about these issues,” she says.

“Because of how a community will be seen by wider society, the victims in our communities keep suffering.”

Kirat says her dad’s reaction to her story is a good example of what she means.

“He doesn’t want to know what happened,” she says.

“Because to face up to what happened, and how horrific it was, it’s going to be painful.

“I love my dad and I know my dad loves me,” she says, adding: “It’s a different set of values that he has been brought up with.”

Kirat says she hasn’t spoken directly to “the real Bobby” about what happened, and puts this down to the community’s reluctance to have difficult conversations.

She wonders if her experience would have been the same if she’d come from another background.

“I’d be making different decisions,” she says.

“Because we have responsibilities towards our community. You have the pressure of family.”

Despite some negative reactions to the re-tellings of Sweet Bobby, Kirat says she would rather deal with questions up-front.

“If you do see me, don’t be scared to approach me,” she says.

“And if you want to say something which might be controversial to me, it’s OK.

“Let’s have a discussion about it,” she says.

When Kirat’s asked if speaking to podcast or documentary producers has given her a sense of closure, she’s less certain.

Simran rejected offers to be involved in the documentary, where she’s played by an actress.

Kirat successfully brought civil action against her cousin, receiving compensation and an apology at the end of the case.

A statement from Simran included in the show says: “This matter involves events that began when she was a schoolgirl. She considers it a private matter and strongly objects to what she describes as numerous unfounded and damaging accusations.”

Kirat says Simran hasn’t faced any criminal charges, and wants her to be held accountable.

“I’m not OK with that person being out there,” says Kirat.

There’s another question that she’s no closer to answering: Why?

Kirat doesn’t think she will ever truly find out what drove the campaign against her.

“I think I’ve long given up,” she says.

“The extent to which that person went, you can’t ever justify it.

“I can’t understand why you didn’t stop… what gave you pleasure from hearing somebody in pain.”

But not having answers is not stopping her from moving forward with life, including dating again.

“I’m working really hard, harder than I should have to right now to rebuild my life and career,” she says.

“I don’t carry the victim mentality around with me. I don’t want to be that person.

“I’m going to carry on working towards goals and dreams.”

Listen to Ankur Desai’s show on BBC Asian Network live from 15:00-18:00 Monday to Thursday – or listen back here.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have been ramping up personal attacks on each other as the White House rivals blitzed battleground states 16 days before the election.

In Pennsylvania, Trump served fries at a McDonald’s as he sought to cast doubt on Harris’s biographical detail about having worked decades ago at the fast-food chain.

The US vice-president was in Georgia, where she tweeted that Trump was “exhausted, unstable, and unfit to be President of the United States”.

Polls show the two locked in a razor-tight race across the country, including in the seven battleground states that could swing the election.

Speaking in traditionally Republican-leaning Lancaster County on Sunday afternoon, Trump focused heavily on the economy and immigration – issues his campaign believes give him an edge with undecided voters.

“If you look at the polls, the biggest thing is the economy,” he said. “But I think this [the border] is bigger than the economy… that’s the number one thing people want to talk about.”

Earlier in the day, Trump visited a McDonald’s in Feasterville-Trevose, a suburb of Philadelphia, where he learned to make fries, dunking the wire basket in sizzling oil, and serving meals at a drive-through window.

The restaurant itself was closed to sit-in diners during Trump’s visit.

“I like this job,” said the Republican, who is himself fond of Big Macs and Filet-o-Fish sandwiches.

He again accused Harris of “lying” about having once worked at the fast-food chain.

“I’ve now worked [at McDonald’s] for 15 minutes more than Kamala,” said Trump.

Harris spokesman Ian Sams told the BBC that Trump’s stunt was a sign of “desperation”.

“All he knows how to do is lie,” he told the BBC. “He can’t understand what it’s like to have a summer job because he was handed millions on a silver platter, only to blow it.”

The campaign added that the vice-president had worked on the cash register, ice cream machine and fry machine at a McDonald’s on Central Avenue in Alameda, California, in the summer of 1983.

McDonald’s placed an ad in the 1983 edition of the yearbook at a local high school, with pictures featuring a couple of students who worked there at the time.

The BBC has spoken to one of the students in the photos, who said he remembers a lot of people who worked alongside him at the restaurant more than 40 years ago, though he did not recall Kamala Harris being one of them.

The New York Times, however, spoke to a high school friend of Harris, Wanda Kagan, who said she remembered the now-vice-president working at McDonald’s around that time.

On Sunday, Harris celebrated her 60th birthday and gave an interview to MSNBC, whose host asked her about Trump’s remark at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, on Saturday that she was a “[expletive] vice-president”.

Harris said Trump’s language “demeans the office” of the presidency. “He has not earned the right” to be president again, she added.

Earlier in the day, she told a congregation of black church-goers near Atlanta, Georgia, to vote against “chaos, fear and hate” – personified, she suggested, by her Republican rival. On Saturday she told a rally in the city that Trump was “cruel”.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX who has been campaigning for Trump, pledged to give away $1m a day to voters who sign his petition backing the US Constitution.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said the plan was “deeply concerning” and that law enforcement should potentially look into the matter.

The crowd at Trump’s town hall-style event in Lancaster on Sunday was largely receptive to his remarks.

But one attendee, Jordan Ashby, told the BBC he was undecided and waiting to hear closing arguments from both candidates.

“I truly don’t know yet,” said the Lancaster resident when asked how he would vote. “I have family on both sides of the fence. It’s a difficult time right now.”

Other attendees told the BBC they were attracted by Trump’s vows to secure the US-Mexico border and reduce inflation.

“[Inflation] is what I see a lot of in my daily life, especially with gas prices and affording groceries,” said Brennan Zeyak, an 18-year-old college student voting for the first time this year.

Both candidates will continue making their final pitches on Monday.

Harris will on Monday embark on a whirlwind tour of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Trump will head to the hurricane-stricken town of Asheville, North Carolina, before holding a rally in the town of Greenville.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: How to win a US election
• EXPLAINER: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• GLOBAL: Harris or Trump? What Chinese people want
• ON THE GROUND: Democrats take fight deep into Trump country
• FACT-CHECK: What the numbers really say about crime
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

Piece of advice for you – never buy a huge amount of champagne unless you’re absolutely certain it’s worth celebrating.

In November 2016, Russian ultranationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky was so excited by Donald Trump’s victory, and so sure that it would transform US-Russian relations, he splashed out on 132 bottles of bubbly down at the Duma, Russia’s parliament, and partied away (in his party offices) in front of the TV cameras.

He wasn’t the only one celebrating.

The day after Trump’s surprise White House win, Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of state channel RT, tweeted her intention to drive around Moscow with an American flag in her car window.

And I’ll never forget the moment a Russian official told me she had smoked a cigar and drunk a bottle of champagne (yes, MORE champagne) to toast Trump winning.

• Election polls – is Harris or Trump winning?
• Book claims Trump secretly sent Covid tests to Putin

In Moscow, expectations were high that Trump would scrap sanctions against Russia; perhaps, even, recognise the Crimean Peninsula, annexed from Ukraine, as part of Russia.

“The value of Trump was that he never preached on human rights in Russia,” explains Konstantin Remchukov, the owner and editor-in-chief of newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

It didn’t take long for all that fizz to go flat.

“Trump introduced the heaviest sanctions against Russia at that time,” recalls Remchukov.

“By the end of his term, a lot of people were disappointed in his presidency.”

Which is why, eight years on – publicly at least – Russian officials are more cautious about the prospect of a second Trump term.

President Vladimir Putin has even come out and backed the Democratic Party candidate, although that “endorsement” was widely interpreted as a Kremlin joke (or Kremlin trolling).

Putin claimed he liked Kamala Harris’s “infectious” laugh.

But you don’t need to be a seasoned political pundit to understand that out on the campaign trail it’s what Trump has been saying, not Harris, that’s guaranteed to put a smile on Putin’s face.

For instance, Trump’s criticism of the scale of US military assistance for Ukraine, his apparent reluctance to blame Putin for Russia’s full-scale invasion and, during the presidential debate, his refusal to say whether he wants Ukraine to win the war.

By contrast, Kamala Harris has argued that support for Ukraine is in America’s “strategic interest” and she has referred to Putin as “a murderous dictator”.

Not that Russian state TV has been particularly complimentary about her either. A few weeks ago one of Russia’s most acerbic news anchors was completely dismissive of Harris’s political abilities. He suggested she would be better off hosting a TV cookery show.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: How to win a US election
• EXPLAINER: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• CONGRESS: A waitress, mechanic and Nascar driver runnning
• ON THE GROUND: Harris faces headwinds in Michigan
• VOICES: ‘I’m uneasy’ – first-time voters weigh in
• GLOBAL: Harris or Trump? What Chinese people want

There’s another possible outcome that may well suit the Kremlin – a super tight election, followed by a contested result. An America consumed by post-election chaos, confusion and confrontation would have less time to focus on foreign affairs, including the war in Ukraine.

US-Russian relations soured under Barack Obama, grew worse under Donald Trump and, in the words of the recently departed Russian ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov, they are “falling apart” under Joe Biden.

Washington lays the blame fully on Moscow.

It was just eight months after Putin and Biden met for a summit in Geneva that the Kremlin leader ordered the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Not only did the Biden administration send a tsunami of sanctions Russia’s way, but US military aid has been crucial in helping Kyiv survive more than two-and-a-half years of Russia’s war. Amongst the advanced weaponry America has supplied Ukraine are Abrams tanks and HIMARS rocket systems.

It’s hard to believe now that there was a time, not so long ago, when Russia and the US pledged to work as partners to strengthen global security.

In the late 1980s Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev formed a geo-political double-act to slash their countries’ respective nuclear arsenals.

If there was one thing Reagan seemed to enjoy as much as nuclear disarmament it was reciting Russian proverbs to Gorbachev in broken Russian (“Never buy 132 bottles of champagne unless you’re certain it’s worth celebrating” would have been a good one).

In 1991 the First Ladies of the USSR and America, Raisa Gorbacheva and Barbara Bush, unveiled an unusual monument in Moscow – a mother duck with eight ducklings.

It was a replica of a sculpture in Boston Public Gardens and was presented to Moscow as a symbol of friendship between Soviet and American children.

It’s still popular with Muscovites today. Russians flock to Novodevichy Park to pose for photos with the bronze birds, although few visitors know the back story of superpower “duck diplomacy”.

Like US-Russian relations themselves, the ducks have taken a few knocks. On one occasion some of them were stolen and had to be replaced.

It’s to the Moscow mallard and her ducklings I head to find out what Russians think of America and of the US election.

“I want America to disappear,” says angry angler Igor who’s fishing in a nearby pond. “It has started so many wars in the world. The US was our enemy in Soviet times and it still is. It doesn’t matter who’s president.”

America as Russia’s eternal enemy – that’s a worldview often reflected here in the state media. Is Igor so angry because he gets his news from Russian TV? Or perhaps it’s because he hasn’t caught many fish.

Most of the people I chat to here do not see America as an evil adversary.

“I’m all for peace and friendship,” says Svetlana. “But my friend in America is scared to call me now. Maybe there’s no free speech there. Or, perhaps, it’s here in Russia that there’s no freedom of speech. I don’t know.”

“Our countries and our two peoples should be friends,” says Nikita, “without wars and without competing to see who has more missiles. I prefer Trump. When he was president there weren’t any big wars.”

Despite the differences between Russia and America there is one thing the two countries have in common – they have always had male presidents.

Can Russians ever see that changing?

“I think it would be great if a woman became president,” says Marina.

“I would be happy to vote for a woman president here [in Russia]. I’m not saying it would be better or worse. But it would be different.”

Yulia Navalnaya intends to be president of Russia, she tells me. She looks me straight in the eye. No hesitation or wavering.

This, like so many of the decisions she made with her husband, the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, is unambiguous.

Navalnaya knows she faces arrest if she returns home while President Putin is still in power. His administration has accused her of participating in extremism.

This is no empty threat. In Russia, it can lead to death.

Her husband, President Putin’s most vocal critic, was sentenced to 19 years for extremism, charges that were seen as politically motivated. He died in February in a brutal penal colony in the Arctic Circle. US President Joe Biden said there was “no doubt” Putin was to blame. Russia denies killing Navalny.

Yulia Navalnaya, sitting down for our interview in a London legal library, looks and sounds every inch the successor to Navalny, the lawyer turned politician who dreamt of a different Russia.

As she launches Patriot, the memoir her husband was writing before his death, Yulia Navalnaya restated her plans to continue his fight for democracy.

When the time is right, “I will participate in the elections… as a candidate,” she told the BBC.

“My political opponent is Vladimir Putin. And I will do everything to make his regime fall as soon as possible”.

For now, that has to be from outside Russia.

She tells me that while Putin is in charge she cannot go back. But Yulia looks forward to the day she believes will inevitably come, when the Putin era ends and Russia once again opens up.

Just like her husband, she believes there will be the chance to hold free and fair elections. When that happens, she says she will be there.

Her family has already suffered terribly in the struggle against the Russian regime, but she remains composed throughout our interview, steely whenever Putin’s name comes up.

Her personal grief is channelled into political messaging, in public anyway. But she tells me, since Alexei’s death, she has been thinking even more about the impact the couple’s shared political beliefs and decisions have had on their children, Dasha, 23, and Zakhar, 16.

“I understand that they didn’t choose it”.

But she says she never asked Navalny to change course.

He was barred from standing for president by Russia’s Central Election Commission.

His investigations through his Anti-Corruption Foundation were viewed by millions online, including a video posted after his last arrest, claiming that Putin had built a one-billion dollar palace on the Black Sea.

The president denied it.

Yulia says: “When you live inside this life, you understand that he will never give up and that is for what you love him”.

Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in 2020.

He was flown to Germany for treatment and the German chancellor demanded answers from Putin’s regime.

Navalny worked with open-source investigators Bellingcat and traced the poisoning to Russia’s security service, the FSB.

He began writing his memoir as he recovered.

He and Yulia returned to Russia in January 2021 where he was arrested after landing.

Many ask why they returned.

“There couldn’t be any discussion. You just need to support him. I knew that he wants to come back to Russia. I knew that he wants to be with his supporters, he wanted to be an example to all these people with his courage and his bravery to show people that there is no need to be afraid of this dictator.

“I never let my brain think that he might be killed… we lived this life for decades and it’s about you share these difficulties, you share these views. You support him”.

After his jailing, Navalny continued his book in notebook entries, posts on social media and prison diaries, published for the first time. Some of his writing was confiscated by the prison authorities, he said.

Patriot is revealing – and devastating. We all know Navalny’s final chapter, which makes the descriptions of his treatment – and his courage in the face of it – even more poignant.

Navalny spent 295 days in solitary confinement, punished, according to the book, for violations including the top button of his fatigues being unbuttoned. He was deprived of phone calls and visits.

Yulia Navalnaya told me: “Usually, the normal practice is banishment just for two weeks and it’s the most severe punishment. My husband spent there almost one year.”

In a prison diary from August 2022, Navalny writes from solitary confinement:

Navalnaya says she was prevented from visiting or speaking to her husband for two years before he died. She says Alexei was tortured, starved and kept in “awful conditions”.

After his death, the US, EU and UK announced new sanctions against Russia. These included freezing the assets of six prison bosses who ran the Arctic Circle penal colony and other sanctions on judges involved in criminal proceedings against Navalny.

Yulia calls the reaction to his death by the international community “a joke” and urges them to be “a little less afraid” of Putin. She wants to see the president locked up.

“I don’t want him to be in prison, somewhere abroad, in a nice prison with a computer, nice food… I want him to be in a Russian prison. And it’s not just that – I want him to be in the same conditions like Alexei was. But it’s very important for me”.

The Russians claim Navalny died of natural causes. Yulia believes President Putin ordered the killing.

“Vladimir Putin is answering for the death and for the murder of my husband”.

She says the Anti-Corruption Foundation she now leads in her husband’s place already has “evidence” which she will reveal when they have “the whole picture”.

The book is as much a political work as a memoir, a rallying cry to anyone who believes in a free Russia. It is also being published in Russian, as an ebook and audiobook. But the publishers won’t send hard copies to Russia or Belarus, because they say they can’t guarantee the book would get through customs.

How many Russians will dare to buy it, even in electronic form, is unclear – and how much impact it could have remains questionable.

The message etched on every page is that Navalny never gave up. His arch wit shines through.

He says, in the punishment cell, he is getting “for free” the experience of staying silent, eating scant food and getting away from the outside world that “rich people suffering from a midlife crisis” pay for.

Only once does he share feeling “crushed”, during the hunger strike he undertook in 2021 in order to demand medical care from civilian doctors. “For the first time, I’m feeling emotionally and morally down,” he writes in one entry.

But Yulia says she never worried that he would actually be broken by the regime.

“I’m absolutely confident that is the point why finally they decided to kill him. Because they just realised that he will never give up”.

Even the day before he died, when he appeared in court, Navalny was filmed joking with the judge.

Yulia says laughter was his “superpower”.

“He really, truly laughed at this regime and at Vladimir Putin. That’s why Vladimir Putin hated him so much”.

The writing is laced with a great deal of irony.

The book will sell better if he dies, Navalny writes:

In the end, Patriot is also a love story about two people fully committed to a cause they believed in.

A cause for which Yulia has now become the figurehead.

After a visit from her, Navalny writes: