The former CEO of fashion giant Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) and his British partner have been arrested and are facing sex trafficking charges.

Mike Jeffries, his partner Matthew Smith and the couple’s alleged middleman were arrested on Tuesday morning.

The FBI and prosecutor’s office are expected to announce more details at a press conference shortly.

Lawyers for Mr Jeffries and Mr Smith have both previously denied any wrongdoing by both men. Responding to the latest news, Mr Jeffries’ lawyer told the BBC: “We will respond in detail to the allegations after the Indictment is unsealed, and when appropriate, but plan to do so in the courthouse – not the media.”

A lawyer for Mr Smith has been approached for new comment. A&F declined to comment on the latest developments.

The FBI opened an investigation last year after the BBC revealed claims that Mike Jeffries and his partner sexually exploited and abused men at events they hosted in their New York residences and hotels around the world.

A BBC investigation found there was a sophisticated operation involving a middleman and network of recruiters tasked with recruiting men for the events.

Following the BBC’s reporting, a civil lawsuit was filed in New York accusing Mr Jeffries and Mr Smith of sex-trafficking, rape and sexual assault.

The lawsuit also accused Abercrombie & Fitch of having funded a sex-trafficking operation led by its former CEO over the two decades he was in charge.

Under US law, sex trafficking includes getting an adult to travel to another state or country to have sex for money by using force, fraud or coercion.

Confirming the arrest, Brad Edwards of Edwards Henderson, a civil lawyer representing some of the alleged victims, said: “These arrests are a huge first step towards obtaining justice for the many victims who were exploited and abused through this sex-trafficking scheme that operated for many years under the legitimate cover Abercrombie provided.

“The unprecedented reporting of the BBC, coupled with the lawsuit our firm filed detailing the operation, are to credit for these monumental arrests. This was the result of impressive investigative journalism.”

In its investigation, the BBC spoke to 12 men who described attending or organising events involving sex acts run for Mr Jeffries, 79, and his British partner Mr Smith, 60, between 2009 and 2015.

The eight men who attended the events said they were recruited by a middleman who the BBC identified as James Jacobson.

Mr Jacobson, 70, previously told the BBC in a statement through his lawyer that he took offence at the suggestion of “any coercive, deceptive or forceful behaviour on my part” and had “no knowledge of any such conduct by others”.

The BBC also interviewed dozens of other sources, including former household staff.

Some of the men the BBC spoke to said they were misled about the nature of the events or not told sex was involved. Others said they understood the events would be sexual, but not exactly what was expected of them. All were paid.

Several told the BBC the middleman or other recruiters raised the possibility of modelling opportunities with A&F.

David Bradberry, then 23 and an aspiring model, said that it was “made clear” to him that without performing oral sex on Mr Jacobson, he would not be meeting A&F CEO Mr Jeffries.

“It was like he was selling fame. And the price was compliance,” Mr Bradberry told the BBC.

Mr Bradberry said he later attended a party at Mr Jeffries’s mansion in the Hamptons in Long Island where he met Mr Jeffries and had sex with him.

He said the “secluded” location and presence of Mr Jeffries’ personal staff, dressed in A&F uniforms, supervising events meant he “didn’t feel safe to say ‘no’ or ‘I don’t feel comfortable with this'”.

After the BBC’s initial investigation was published last year, A&F announced it was opening an independent investigation into the allegations raised. When we recently asked when this report will be completed – and if the findings would be made public – the company declined to answer.

Like Mr Jeffries and Mr Smith, the brand has been trying to get the civil lawsuit against it dismissed, arguing it had no knowledge of “the supposed sex-trafficking venture” led by its former CEO – which it has been accused of having funded.

Earlier this year, a US court ruled that A&F must cover the cost of Mike Jeffries’ legal defence as he continues to fight the civil allegations of sex-trafficking and rape. The judge ruled the allegations were tied to his corporate role after he sued the brand for refusing to pay his legal fees.

The brand said it did not comment on legal matters. However, in its defence submitted to court, A&F said its current leadership team was “previously unaware of” the allegations until the BBC contacted it, adding the company “abhors sexual abuse and condemns the alleged conduct” by Mr Jeffries and others.

In 2014, Mr Jeffries stepped down as CEO following declining sales and left with a retirement package valued at around $25m (£20.5m), according to company filings at the time.

Once one of America’s highest-paid CEOs, he was a controversial figure who faced claims of discrimination against staff, concerns about his lavish expenses and complaints about the unofficial influence of his life partner, Matthew Smith, inside A&F.

World Of Secrets – The Abercrombie Guys

Hear two new episodes on BBC Sounds or here if you are outside the UK

It has been more than a decade since Donald Trump last appeared on World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) programming as a special guest – but former stars are resurfacing and giving their backing to his 2024 campaign for president.

At this summer’s Republican National Convention, Terry Bollea – AKA Hulk Hogan, the all-American hero – ripped off his shirt to reveal a bright-red Trump 2024 tank top and, in a riff on his own catchphrase, exclaimed: “Let Trumpamania run wild, brother!”

Last week, in a sit-down interview with wrestler-turned-media-personality Tyrus, the former president warned listeners that manhood was under attack and religion was being mocked in the US.

And on Monday, Trump – who recently cancelled a slew of interviews with traditional outlets – traded compliments on an hour-long podcast hosted by Mark Calaway, better known as beloved WWE icon The Undertaker.

“You know what you’ve done? You’ve made politics fun again,” Mr Calaway said.

Listening intently, with his hands clasped and a smile on his face, the three-time Republican presidential nominee approvingly replied: “Yeah.”

It is perhaps an unusual place to campaign in the closing days of a tight US presidential race. But for Trump, the only WWE Hall of Famer ever to make it to the White House, the visual reverberates across social media.

• US election: Who’s ahead in the polls, Harris or Trump?

A lot of Americans tune out politics until the tail end of an election year and then “just go with the most recent thing they remember”, said Abraham Josephine Riesman, a freelance journalist and author of the book Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America.

Commenting on the latest Trump media strategy, Ms Riesman told the BBC: “There’s a lot of people who listen to wrestling podcasts, and you’re going to get a lot of people who identify as apolitical or unorthodox.”

Young men are among the key groups the Trump camp hopes to lure using podcasts and social media as well as the wrestling world. Those avenues have become essential to showcase Trump, his advisers said in a recent interview with Semafor. Trump was “a star”, senior communications adviser Alex Bruesewitz told the site.

“I think what we’re doing better this time around than he’s ever done before is leveraging Trump as a person: the celebrity of Donald Trump, the unmatched aura of Donald Trump — that’s a very popular word on TikTok, by the way,” he said.

In her book Ringmaster, Ms Riesman argues that to understand the 78-year-old’s rise, fall and comeback in American politics is to see it through the lens of professional wrestling – its art of blending fiction and reality, its psychology of elevating emotion through hyperbole, and its ability to transform the reviled into the righteous.

“In short, you say truths, outright lies and half-truths in the middle, with an equal amount of enthusiasm and sincerity at all times,” said Ms Riesman.

But, she warns, the danger of politics becoming like wrestling is that it becomes “about the thrill, about the self-identification” rather than about policies and principles.

Long before he entered politics, Trump grew up watching wrestling as a child in Queens, New York and he has always professed a deep reverence for its larger-than-life entertainers.

His rise as a businessman has many parallels to the rise of the WWE, under ex-CEO Vincent Kennedy McMahon, from a regional promotion into the largest in the world. Both men took the reins of family companies and built empires.

Flourishing under the deregulated capitalism of post-Reagan America, they also escaped scrutiny, with Trump later accused of stiffing workers and Mr McMahon depriving his athletes of healthcare benefits.

In the late 1980s, the pair’s paths converged when Trump hosted the WWE’s marquee WrestleMania event in back-to-back years at his hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

In 2007, the two men entered into a storyline rivalry, in which Trump challenged the WWE chairman’s authority and even once showered fans with dollar bills from the rafters.

“Those were the first times that Trump had ever given speeches to large, rowdy crowds that wanted red meat,” says Ms Riesman.

The feud culminated in a “Battle of the Billionaires” at WrestleMania 23, with wrestlers fighting on the two men’s behalf and a stipulation that the losing billionaire would have their head shaved bald.

The show generated more pay-per-view buys than any programme the company had ever put on up to that point, according to Bryan Alvarez, a long-time wrestling journalist and podcaster.

“There were a lot of matches on that show,” he said, “but people were super into the idea of one of these guys getting their heads shaved.”

Since his 2013 Hall of Fame induction, Trump has not appeared on WWE programming – and with the evolution of its brand and the diversification of its weekly product, it is unlikely he ever will again.

But, as president, he added Mr McMahon’s wife, Linda, to his cabinet as small business administrator. She now also chairs the pro-Trump America First Policy Institute.

As Trump seeks a return to the Oval Office, not every former WWE personality is on board.

In a viral advert aired last week on late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel’s show, former wrestler Dave Bautista – once known as “The Animal” Batista – ridiculed the presidential candidate as “a weak, tubby toddler” who “wears more makeup than Dolly Parton”.

“A lot of men seem to think that Donald Trump is some kind of tough guy. He’s not,” he said.

Yet some of the most recognisable figures in pro wrestling lore may be helping Trump break through in unconventional ways.

“If you asked a man on the street if they know Hulk Hogan, even a non-fan is going to say yes. (Trump) is hitching his wagon to people that he thinks are big-time stars,” Mr Alvarez told the BBC.

“He’s a character, a performer, and the things he says, the way he attacks his opponents, the way he puts himself over – it’s absolute total pro wrestling.”

At one point in his interview with Trump on Monday, Mr Calaway said pro wrestlers, like politicians, have to “make people care” in order to truly excel.

“You’ve been a master of this,” he remarked as Trump leaned forward with interest.

“You’ve got to make people care one way or another. Either they love you or they hate you.”

• SIMPLE GUIDE: How you can get most votes but lose
• EXPLAINER: The seven states that will decide the election
• 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

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

Imagine you’re Vladimir Putin.

The West has dubbed you a pariah for invading Ukraine. Sanctions are aiming to cut off your country’s economy from global markets.

And there’s an arrest warrant out for you from the International Criminal Court.

How can you show the pressure is not working? Try hosting a summit.

This week in the city of Kazan President Putin will greet more than 20 heads of state at the Brics summit of emerging economies. Among the leaders invited are China’s Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The Kremlin has called it one of the “largest-scale foreign policy events ever” in Russia.

“The clear message is that attempts to isolate Russia have failed,” thinks Chris Weafer, founding partner of consultancy firm Macro-Advisory.

“It’s a big part of the messaging from the Kremlin that Russia is withstanding sanctions. We know there are severe cracks beneath the surface. But at a geopolitical level Russia has all these friends and they’re all going to be Russia’s partners.”

So, who are Russia’s friends?

Brics stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The grouping, often referred to as a counterweight to the Western-led world, has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Saudi Arabia, too, has been invited to join.

• What Moscow really wants from US election

The Brics nations account for 45% of the global population. Added together, members’ economies are worth more than $28.5tn (£22tn). That’s around 28% of the global economy.

Russian officials have indicated that another 30 countries want to join Brics or seek closer ties with the club. Some of these nations will take part in the summit. In Kazan this week expect a lot of talk about Brics representing the “global majority”.

But apart from providing Vladimir Putin his moment on the geopolitical stage, what is the event likely to achieve?

Keen to ease the pressure from Western sanctions, the Kremlin leader will hope to convince Brics members to adopt an alternative to the dollar for global payments.

“A lot of the problems Russia’s economy is facing are linked to cross-border trade and payments. And a lot of that is linked to the US dollar,” says Mr Weafer.

“The US Treasury has enormous power and influence over global trade simply because the US dollar is the main currency for settling that. Russia’s main interest is in breaking the dominance of the US dollar. It wants Brics countries to create an alternative trade mechanism and cross-border settlement system that does not involve the dollar, the euro or any of the G7 currencies, so that sanctions won’t matter so much.”

But critics point to differences within Brics. “Likeminded” is not a word you would use to describe the current membership.

“In some ways it’s a good job for the West that China and India can never agree about anything. Because if those two were really serious, Brics would have enormous influence,” notes Jim O’Neill, former Chief Economist of Goldman Sachs.

“China and India are doing their best to avoid wanting to attack each other a lot of the time. Trying to get them to really co-operate on economic things is a never-ending challenge.”

It was Mr O’Neill who, at the turn of the century, dreamt up the acronym “Bric” for four emerging economies he believed should be “brought into the centre of global policy making”.

But the four letters would take on a life of their own, after the corresponding nations formed their own Bric group – later Brics, when South Africa joined. They would attempt to challenge the dominance of the G7: the world’s seven largest “advanced” economies (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US).

It’s not just India and China who have their differences. There is tension between two of the newest Brics members, Egypt and Ethiopia. And, despite talk of detente, Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been regional rivals.

“The idea that they’re all going to fundamentally agree on something of great substance is bonkers really,” believes Mr O’Neill.

And while Russia, fuelled by anti-Western sentiment, talks about creating a “new world order”, other Brics members, like India, are keen to retain good political and economic relations with the West.

In Kazan, Vladimir Putin’s task will be to skim over the differences and paint a picture of unity, while showing the Russian public – and the international community – that his country is far from isolated.

Thousands of people were out on the streets of Sydney on Tuesday, eager to see King Charles and Queen Camilla, set against the iconic Opera House in the late afternoon sunlight.

For Buckingham Palace, this was the ideal ending to the royal tour of Australia.

The optics were positive. Despite a headline-grabbing protest in Canberra on Monday, the public mood on the ground in Sydney was supportive.

But getting to this point – with a successful completion of this trip ahead of a poignant goodbye – will have come as a huge relief to royal aides.

Back in February, this tour looked unlikely to happen with the King diagnosed with cancer and having treatment.

But it stayed in the diary with modifications on the advice of doctors.

The duration of this visit has been shorter and the engagements have been arranged to avoid early starts and late finishes.

Even with the alterations, it has still been a busy schedule for the King and Queen.

On Tuesday alone the royal couple between them visited a National Centre of Indigenous Excellence, a food bank, a social housing project, a literacy initiative, a community barbecue, meeting two leading cancer researchers, celebrating the Sydney Opera House’s 50th anniversary, and a naval review in Sydney Harbour.

An Australian arm of the King’s Foundation was officially launched, expanding a charity which promotes sustainability and provides training in traditional craft skills.

These trips are a quickfire round of very diverse events, with the crowds at each demanding attention – and the King appears to have coped well.

His health challenges haven’t shown and he has appeared moved by the response he’s had from the public on his first visit here as monarch.

The protest at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday was uncomfortable but not unexpected.

The King has encountered many protesters over the years and came to Australia knowing that republican sentiment and campaigns in support of indigenous communities were likely to come up.

His presence here in Australia immediately focuses minds on the King’s role as head of state and re-opens questions about whether that is right for modern Australia.

Although republican sentiment bubbles under the surface here, except for the heckling in Parliament it has not burst through in any significant way on this trip.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who supports a republic, has been at the King and Queen’s side for several engagements and spoken warmly about his royal guests.

Before the disruption at Parliament, the prime minister formally welcomed the King to Canberra.

“You have shown great respect for Australians, even during times when we have debated the future of our own constitutional arrangements and the nature of our relationship with the crown. Nothing stands still,” said Mr Albanese.

A young woman spent hours trapped upside down after slipping between two boulders as she tried to retrieve her mobile phone during a hike in Australia.

The woman – named in reports as Matilda Campbell – was walking in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley region earlier this month when she fell into the three-metre crevice.

It was the start of a seven-hour ordeal which would see emergency services undertake a “challenging” rescue – including moving several boulders.

And even after managing to winch a 500kg (1,100lb) rock out the way, they still had to work out how to get the woman out of the “S” bend she had found herself in.

“In my 10 years as a rescue paramedic I had never encountered a job quite like this, it was challenging but incredibly rewarding,” Peter Watts, a paramedic with New South Wales Ambulance service, said, according to a release on the service’s social media pages.

She had already been upside down for more than an hour before rescuers arrived, her friends’ initial attempts to free her having been unsuccessful.

Photos shared by the ambulance service show her hanging between the boulders by her feet, as well as the complicated efforts to keep the area stable as emergency services tried to create a gap big enough to free her.

Mr Watts later described the young woman as a “trooper” in an interview with Australia’s ABC.

“We were all like, how did you get down there – and how are we going to get her out?”

Unbelievably, the rescued woman was left with just minor scratches and bruises, NSW Ambulance said.

She did not, however, manage to retrieve her phone.

“Thank you to the team who saved me you guys are literally life savers,” she wrote in a message online.

“Too bad about the phone tho.”

Russia’s embassy in Sudan has said it is investigating reports that a cargo plane with Russian crew was shot down in Darfur, a key battle ground in the civil war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The aircraft, identified as a Russian-made lyushin Il-76, was on a mission to deliver equipment and medicine to the army-held city of el-Fasher, military sources told Sudanese media.

On Monday, the RSF said it had downed a Russian-made plane flown by the Egyptian military that it accused of bombing civilians – though it was identified as an Antonov.

Egypt denies accusations that it has been providing military support to Sudan’s army during the 18-month conflict.

The vicious struggle for power between the army and RSF began in April 2023, leading to what the UN has called one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Some estimates suggest up to 150,000 people have been killed since the war began last year, according to comments made in May by US special envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello.

The UN estimates it has also forced more than 10 million people – about a fifth of the population – from their homes.

• ‘They ransacked my home and left my town in ruins’
• Duchess shocked by sexual exploitation of refugees

Details about the crash and its mission are murky.

The Russian embassy in the capital, Khartoum, said it was co-ordinating with the Sudanese military-led government to gather more information about the crash and those who were onboard.

According to the Sudan Tribune news website, all members of the crew – including three Sudan nationals and two Russians – were killed in the crash.

It quotes military sources as saying it came down in the Malha area, near the border with Chad, en route to the besieged city of el-Fasher. This has not been independently verified.

El-Fasher is the only city still under army control in the western Darfur region – and has been under attack from the RSF since April.

The RSF says it has the plane’s black box and seized documents related to the plane and its mission.

Viral footage from the alleged scene of the crash shows RSF soldiers with what appears to be identification documents next to the plane wreckage.

According to BBC Verify, the documents – including a Russian passport, a job identification card from Manas airport in Kyrgyzstan and two South African driving licences (with different expiry dates) – all relate to one individual.

Preliminary research suggests he may have graduated from a Russian military academy and may have been a resident in South Africa.

One video posted by the RSF also shows a fighter holding up 50-rouble ($0.50; £0.40) Russian currency note – however the way it is filmed makes it hard to tell conclusively that the footage was shot near the crash site.

Some reports suggest a technical fault may have been responsible for the crash – but both the army and RSF are saying it was shot down.

Others indicate it may have mistakenly been targeted.

This is because some documents seen in circulating video footage suggest the aircraft was affiliated with an airline previously linked to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Middle Eastern country denies allegations that it has been arming the RSF – though the UN says there is credible evidence.

Fresh diplomatic attempts to negotiate a cessation of hostilities between the rival forces in Sudan have failed to make progress.

Fierce fighting has recently escalated around Khartoum, which is largely controlled by the RSF, with the military intensifying airstrikes in the city’s centre and southern belt.

In Wad Madani, an RSF-held city south of Khartoum in Gezira state, local activists say more than 50 people have been killed in multiple attacks since Sunday.

The city’s “resistance committee”, made up of volunteers who try to bring aid locally to those caught up in the conflict, says more than 30 people were killed on Sunday in a military airstrike on a mosque.

It says the attack happened after evening prayers and accuses the army of using barrel bombs – banned from use in populated civilian areas under international conventions – and rescuers have been unable to identify over half of the dead as the bodies are charred and mutilated.

The attacks follow the recent defection to the army of the RSF’s top commander in Gezira state.

• Inside a hospital on the front line of Sudan’s hunger crisis
• ‘Rape me, not my daughter’, women tell BBC of civil war experience
• A simple guide to the Sudan war
• ‘Our future is over’: Forced to flee by a year of war

Election observers working for the European Union (EU) say some voting results have been doctored in Mozambique, as unrest in the country continues to grow.

Thousands of people joined opposition protests on Monday that were called by independent presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane.

He blames security forces for gunning down his lawyer Elvino Dias and another political official called Paulo Guambe in the same car last Friday – but they deny any wrongdoing.

Official results from the general election held on 9 October are due to announced by Friday.

• Fresh faces in Mozambique’s poll as independence-era leaders bow out
• A quick guide to Mozambique

Evidence has been found of “irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results at polling station and district level”, said the EU observer mission in a statement on Tuesday.

It is now urging “the electoral bodies to conduct the tabulation process in a transparent and credible manner, ensuring the traceability of polling station results”.

Vote-buying, inflated voter rolls in strongholds of the governing Frelimo party and voter intimidation have all been reported by the US-based International Republican Institute, which also sent a multinational election observer mission to the southern African nation.

Mozambique’s national results are meant to be published on the electoral commission’s website for all to see, but last month the body said its website had suffered a cyber-attack. The website remains inactive.

Fifty-year-old presidential hopeful Venâncio Mondlane, who has the backing of f opposition party Podemos, has already claimed victory and alleges that the killing of his aides on Friday night was politically motivated.

“This was a crime committed by the defence and security forces. There’s no doubt about it. The special forces killed Elvino [Dias],” he has said.

Mondlane rallied people in cities across Mozambique to protest against the killings and against what he says is the theft of the election.

On Monday, police used live rounds, tear gas, armoured vehicles and police dogs to push back protesters from the site in the capital city Maputo where Dias and Guambe were shot dead.

Demonstrators also blocked roads with burning tyres and barricades.

Footage shows Mondlane, and journalists running for cover after shots were fired in their direction.

Across the cities of Maputo, Beira and Nampula, local media reported that there were multiple arrests and at least 16 people were wounded and taken to hospital.

Shops and businesses closed on Monday but began reopening their doors on Tuesday.

The funeral for Dias is set to take place on Wednesday. Mondlane has called for further protests on Thursday and Friday.

There is growing pressure on the Mozambican authorities to identify the killers and bring them to justice following strong condemnation from former Mozambican President Armando Guebuza, the UN, the US and the EU.

Celebrated Mozambican author Mia Couto has called the killings a “crime against the nation”.

Mozambique has only ever been governed by one party – Frelimo – which has ruled since independence from Portugal.

The country is guaranteed a new president because President Filipe Nyusi is stepping down after serving the two-term limit.

The Frelimo candidate is 47-year-old Daniel Chapo.

His rivals in this election are Mondlane, Ossufo Momade – the former rebel commander-turned-leader of the main opposition party Renamo – and Lutero Simango from the Mozambique Democratic Movement.

• The poet who caught the eye of Mozambique’s freedom fighters
• Mozambique ex-minister guilty of one of Africa’s biggest scandals
• ‘I survived the ferry disaster – but lost 17 of my family’

China held a live-firing exercise from its territory closest to Taiwan one week after it launched a large-scale drill encircling the island.

Chinese military drills off the Taiwanese coast have intensified in recent years as its claims over the self-governed island have grown.

Beijing announced late on Monday that an area around Niushan – an island 105km (66 miles) from Taiwan – will be closed for drills for four hours from 09:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Tuesday.

Taiwan’s premier Cho Jung-tai said on Tuesday that China should not be conducting such exercises given their threat to regional stability.

“No matter how large the scale of the drill is, they should not be frequent and close to Taiwan,” he told reporters. “This will only cause unnecessary tension.”

Although Taipei has called the drills routine, analysts believe China is likely sending a message given their proximity to Taiwan.

The exercises are also part of a wider campaign, which has seen Chinese ships and planes regularly cross into Taiwanese territory and airspace – a grey zone warfare tactic intended to normalise the incursions and weaken Taiwan over a prolonged period.

As the Chinese drills have intensified, so have manoeuvres by Taiwan’s allies, mainly the United States.

For decades, the US Pacific fleet was the only foreign navy that regularly transited the Taiwan Strait that separates the two sides to assert its freedom of navigation.

But recently, other US allies, including Canada, Germany, Australia and Japan have been joining these patrols as part of what are called “high-visibility” operations.

The most recent was over the weekend, when the US and Canada sailed their warships through the waters.

Analysts say this represents increased signalling from China and the US. While Beijing is emphasising its claims over Taiwan, Washignton is making clear it’s support for the island.

A US official, however, told the BBC that Washington is keen on lowering tensions with Beijing given the US’s current focus on conflicts in the Middle East and Europe.

But the longer-term threat for the US still comes from China, the official said.

Last Monday, Beijing deployed a record number of 153 military aircraft, as well as warships and coast guard vessels to encircle Taiwan in an exercise designed to simulate an attack by land, sea and air.

This followed Taiwanese President William Lai’s National Day speech on 10 October, where he pledged to “resist annexation or encroachment upon [Taiwan’s] sovereignty”.

China and Taiwan are “not subordinate to each other”, he said, adding that China “has no right to represent Taiwan”.

China has repeatedly vowed to take Taiwan by force if necessary. It has long seen Lai as a “troublemaker” advocating for Taiwan’s independence.

A huge meteorite first discovered in 2014 caused a tsunami bigger than any in known human history and boiled the oceans, scientists have discovered.

The space rock, which was 200 times the size of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, smashed into Earth when our planet was in its infancy three billion years ago.

Carrying sledge hammers, scientists hiked to the impact site in South Africa to chisel off chunks of rock to understand the crash.

The team also found evidence that massive asteroid impacts did not bring only destruction to Earth – they helped early life thrive.

“We know that after Earth first formed there was still a lot of debris flying around space that would be smashing into Earth,” says Prof Nadja Drabon from Harvard university, lead author of the new research.

“But now we have found that life was really resilient in the wake of some of these giant impacts, and that it actually bloomed and and thrived,” she says.

The meteorite S2 was much larger than the space rock we are most familiar with. The one that led to the dinosaurs’ extinction 66 million years ago was about 10km wide, or almost the height of Mount Everest.

But S2 was 40-60km wide and its mass was 50-200 times greater.

It struck when Earth was still in its early years and looked very different. It was a water world with just a few continents sticking out of the sea. Life was very simple – microorganisms composed of single cells.

The impact site in Eastern Barberton Greenbelt is one of the oldest places on Earth with remnants of a meteorite crash.

Prof Drabon travelled there three times with her colleagues, driving as far as possible into the remote mountains before hiking the rest of the way with backpacks.

Rangers accompanied them with machine guns to protect them against wild animals like elephants or rhinos, or even poachers in the national park.

They were looking for spherule particles, or tiny fragments of rock, left behind by impact. Using sledge hammers, they collected hundreds of kilograms of rock and took them back to labs for analysis.

Prof Drabon stowed the most precious pieces in her luggage.

“I usually get stopped by security, but I give them a big spiel about how exciting the science is and then they get really bored and let me through,” she says.

The team have now re-constructed just what the S2 meteorite did when it violently careened into Earth. It gouged out a 500km crater and pulverised rocks that ejected at incredibly fast speeds to form a cloud that circled around the globe.

“Imagine a rain cloud, but instead of water droplets coming down, it’s like molten rock droplets raining out of the sky,” says Prof Drabon.

A huge tsunami would have swept across the globe, ripped up the sea floor, and flooded coastlines.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami would have paled in comparison, suggests Prof Drabon.

All that energy would have generated massive amounts of heat that boiled the oceans causing up to tens of metres of water to evaporate. It would also have increased air temperatures by up to 100C.

The skies would have turned black, choked with dust and particles. Without sunlight penetrating the darkness, simple life on land or in shallow water that relied on photosynthesis would have been wiped out.

These impacts are similar to what geologists have found about other big meteorite impacts and what was suspected for S2.

But what Prof Drabon and her team found next was surprising. The rock evidence showed that the violent disturbances churned up nutrients like phosphorus and iron that fed simple organisms.

“Life was not only resilient, but actually bounced back really quickly and thrived,” she says.

“It’s like when you brush your teeth in the morning. It kills 99.9% of bacteria, but by the evening they’re all back, right?” she says.

The new findings suggest that the big impacts were like a giant fertiliser, sending essential ingredients for life like phosphorus around the globe.

The tsunami sweeping the planet would also have brought iron-rich water from the depths to the surface, giving early microbes extra energy.

The findings add to a growing view among scientists that early life was actually helped by the violent succession of rocks striking Earth in its early years, Prof Drabon says.

“It seems that life after the impact actually encountered really favourable conditions that allowed it to bloom,” she explains.

The findings are published in the scientific journal PNAS.

A court in Peru has sentenced former President Alejandro Toledo to 20 years and six months in jail for corruption and money-laundering.

Prosecutors say he took $35m (£27m) in bribes from a Brazilian construction company which was awarded a contract to build a road in southern Peru.

Toledo, 78, was in office between 2001 and 2006.

He was arrested five years ago in California, where he had lived and worked for many years, and extradited to Peru last year.

The Brazilian company Odebrecht admitted paying millions of dollars in bribes to officials across Latin America and the US to secure government contracts.

Judge Inés Rojas said Peruvians had “trusted” Toledo as their president, “in charge of managing public finances” and responsible for “protecting and ensuring the correct” use of resources.

Instead, she was quoted as saying by the Associated Press, he had “defrauded the state”.

Toledo has denied the allegations against him and on Monday frequently smirked and at times laughed, especially when the judge was speaking on Monday, the news agency notes.

In 2019, another former Peruvian president, Alan García, shot himself when police arrived at his home to arrest him over bribery allegations involving Odebrecht, which has since changed its name to Novonor.

Two other former Peruvian presidents, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Ollanta Humala, are also being investigated in the Odebrecht case.

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) says Israel is continuing to prevent humanitarian missions from reaching northern Gaza with critical supplies, including food and medicine.

“Hospitals have been hit and are left without power while injured people are left without care,” Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X.

He also said Unrwa’s remaining shelters were so overcrowded that displaced people were “forced to live in the toilets”, and cited reports that people trying to flee were being killed.

The Israeli military has been intensifying a weeks-long offensive in parts of northern Gaza against what it said were Hamas fighters who had regrouped there. On Monday residents and medics said Israeli forces were besieging hospitals and shelters for displaced people.

The Israeli military said it was facilitating evacuations of civilians and ensuring hospitals remained operational while it continued “operating against terrorists and terrorist infrastructure”.

Medics at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza told Reuters that Israeli troops stormed a school and detained the men before setting the building ablaze.

Palestinian media also reported on Monday that at least 10 people had been killed by Israeli artillery fire that hit a camp for displaced people at a school in Jabalia refugee camp, a densely-populated urban area to the north of Gaza City.

Israel does not allow the BBC and other international media into Gaza to report independently, making it difficult to verify facts on the ground, so we rely on information from video footage and testimonies.

Graphic videos of the aftermath of the Israeli strike posted online by Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence agency and local journalists appeared to show at least four bodies, including a child and a woman, lying on the ground inside a tented camp.

One of the videos was filmed by a paramedic called Nabila as she ran between the dead and wounded.

“Calm down,” she is heard screaming at a badly hurt woman sitting in a pool of blood, “I swear I don’t have anything to stop the bleeding”.

In a passage pockmarked by shrapnel, she comes across a woman sitting with a baby, who says: “My children are gone, look at them.”

The Israeli military said it was checking the reports.

The Israeli military body responsible for managing crossings into Gaza, Cogat, also announced that 41 aid lorries and six fuel tankers had been transferred to the north over the past day, and that a Unicef mission had been able to deliver polio vaccines to the north.

Cogat said there were also 600 lorry loads of aid waiting to be picked up and distributed at various crossings, most of it by UN agencies.

The UN said no aid was allowed into northern Gaza during the first two weeks of October, when the Israeli military began its offensive in and around Jabalia.

The UN’s acting humanitarian chief said a “trickle” of aid was allowed through last week, after the US warned Israel in a letter to urgently boost access within 30 days or risk having some military assistance cut off.

On Monday, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it had been asking Israeli authorities for four days to access to the Falouja area of Jabalia but had been denied.

The OCHA also shared a video showing an appeal for help from a Jabalia resident who said he was one of 32 people buried underneath a building destroyed in an air strike on Friday.

“Eighteen of us got out. Fourteen people remain under rubble, including little kids. They are two, three and four-year-olds, as well as women. They’re under rubble. Alive. They begged for me to rescue them but I couldn’t,” Shamekh al-Dibes said.

Meanwhile, a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) who recently visited Gaza City said the suffering for the estimated 400,000 people in the north was “unimaginable”.

“Heavy fighting and evacuation orders are tearing communities apart. While some are desperate to leave, many, especially the elderly, sick, and people with disabilities, are unable to leave. Other stay, believing nowhere is safe,” Stephanie Eller said in a video.

“Hospitals are overwhelmed, struggling with too many patients and lack of fuel, electricity, and water supplies,” she added. “People need food, water, medical care and, above all, a respite from the ongoing hostilities.”

Hadeel Obeid, the chief nurse at the Indonesian hospital, also near Jabalia, said its water supply had been cut off and that was no food for the fourth consecutive day. She also said that the hospital needed permission from the Israeli military to operate its generator.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 42,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

US investigators are trying to find out how a pair of highly classified intelligence documents were leaked online.

The documents, which appeared on the messaging app Telegram on Friday, contain an alleged US assessment of Israeli plans to attack Iran.

The assessment is based on interpretation of satellite imagery and other intelligence.

On Monday White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said President Joe Biden was “deeply concerned” about the leak.

• Latest updates: Hezbollah launches rockets after Israeli strike kills four in Lebanon

Officials have not determined whether the documents were released due to a hack or a leak, Mr Kirby said.

For three weeks now, Israel has been vowing to hit Iran hard in retaliation for Iran’s massed ballistic missile attack on Israel on 1 October.

Iran says that was in response to Israel’s assassination of the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, on 27 September.

Military analysts say the phrasing used in the headings looks credible and is consistent with similar classified documents revealed in the past.

Headed “Top Secret”, they include the acronym “FGI”, standing for “Foreign Government Intelligence”.

The documents appear to have been circulated to intelligence agencies in the Five Eyes alliance, the five Western nations that regularly share intelligence, namely the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The acronym “TK” in the documents refers to “Talent Keyhole”, a codeword covering satellite-based Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Imagery Intelligence (IMINT).

Taken together, the two documents are a classified US assessment of Israel’s preparations to hit targets in Iran, based on intelligence analysed on 15-16 October by the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

What features prominently is the mention of two Air Launched Ballistic Missile (ABLM) systems: Golden Horizon and Rocks.

Rocks is a long-range missile system made by the Israeli company Rafael and designed to hit a variety of targets both above and below ground. Golden Horizon is thought to refer to the Blue Sparrow missile system with a range of around 2,000km (1,240 miles).

The significance of this is that it would indicate that the Israeli Air Force is planning to carry out a similar but greatly expanded version of its ABLM attack on an Iranian radar site near Isfahan in April.

By launching these weapons from long range and far from Iran’s borders it would avoid the need for Israeli warplanes to overfly certain countries in the region like Jordan.

The documents also report no sign of any preparations by Israel to activate its nuclear deterrent.

At the request of Israel, the US government never publicly acknowledges that its close ally Israel even possesses nuclear weapons, so this has caused some embarrassment in Washington.

Glaringly absent from these documents is any mention of what targets Israel intends to hit in Iran, or when.

The US has made no secret of its opposition to the targeting of either Iran’s nuclear research facilities or its oil installations.

That leaves military bases, most likely those belonging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its affiliated Basij militia as these two institutions are seen as the backbone of the Islamic Republic, projecting its military reach abroad and suppressing popular protest at home.

As regards timing, many had expected Israel to have carried out its promised retaliation by now. But back in April, Iran waited 12 days before hitting back at Israel with a barrage of 300 drones and missiles after an Israeli air strike hit its diplomatic buildings in Damascus, killing several senior IRGC commanders.

Part of the current delay in Israel’s response is likely due to US concerns at escalation with less than a month to go before the US presidential elections.

Possibly yes, by someone who wanted to derail Israel’s plans.

Iran has a large and sophisticated cyber-warfare capability so the possibility of a hostile hack is also being investigated.

These documents, if genuine as thought highly likely, show that despite the close defence relationship between the US and Israel, Washington still spies on its ally in case it is not being given the full picture.

They show that plans by the Israeli Air Force to carry out some kind of long-range retaliation against Iran are well advanced and that mitigation is being put in place against an expected Iranian response.

In short: if and when Israel does carry out these plans then the Middle East will once again experience a period of extreme tension.

President Joe Biden is “deeply concerned” about a leak of classified documents that contain the US’s assessment of Israeli plans to attack Iran, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Officials have not determined whether the documents were released due to a hack or a leak, Mr Kirby said.

House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed the publication of the documents over the weekend. They are said to contain the movements of Israeli military assets in preparation for a response to Iran’s 1 October missile attack.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said the country was prepared to counter any Israeli attack.

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.

There is no “indication” that additional documents will “[find] their way into the public domain”, Mr Kirby said on Monday.

He added that President Biden “will be actively monitoring” the investigation to uncover how the documents were released, and he intends to hear measures that will be taken “to prevent it happening again”.

• What leaked US assessment of Israeli plans to strike Iran shows

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 the 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 underway, 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.

CNN and Axios first reported the alleged leak, which appears to confirm 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 have officially acknowledged – apparently ruling out the use of such an option in any planned strike.

One former American intelligence official told the BBC that 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.

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, 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.”

Israel has carried out air strikes targeting branches of a financial association linked with Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital Beirut, as well as the south and east of the country.

There were chaotic scenes in parts of Beirut late on Sunday, as people tried to get to areas that they thought would be safer and multiple explosions were heard.

The Israeli military said it targeted money held by Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association (AQAH). It offers financial services to civilians in areas where Hezbollah has strong support, but Israel and the US accuse it of being a cover for the Iran-backed group to fund its activities.

There was no immediate comment from AQAH or Hezbollah.

The attacks appeared to mark an expansion of Israel’s war against Hezbollah, going beyond military infrastructure used by the group.

They took place hours before US President Joe Biden’s special envoy to the Middle East arrived in Beirut to explore the possibility of a negotiated end to the war.

Israel began an intense air campaign and ground invasion against Hezbollah after almost a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza, saying it wanted to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of Israeli border areas displaced by rocket attacks.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Palestinians on 8 October 2023, the day after its ally Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel.

More than 2,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, including 1,800 in the past five weeks, according to the country’s health ministry. Israeli authorities say 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.

The Israeli air strikes targeting branches of AQAH happened about 20 minutes after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders, at around 21:30 local time (18:30 GMT) on Sunday.

According to the Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA), there were 11 attacks on Dahieh, in southern Beirut.

Videos posted on social media showed one AQAH branch on fire in the Laylaki area, only 500m (1,800ft) away from the runway of Lebanon’s only functioning commercial airport, and another just to the north in Burj al-Barajneh. A third video showed a multi-storey building where there was an AQAH branch collapsing in the Chiyah area.

The NNA also said that strikes hit branches in Nabatieh, Tyre and Shehabieh in southern Lebanon, as well as those in the eastern Bekaa Valley towns of Baalbek, Hermel and Rayak – areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

“Our store and our livelihood are gone,” business owner Ahmed told Reuters news agency outside a severely damaged AQAH branch in Zahrani. “This neighbourhood is all civilian, with nothing here.”

It was not clear whether the strikes targeting AQAH caused any casualties. But the NNA reported on Monday that six women and children were killed in an air strike on a home in Baalbek, and that two bodies were recovered from a destroyed building in the southern town of Srifa.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it had struck “dozens of facilities and sites” across Lebanon that were used by Hezbollah to “finance its terrorist activities”.

It alleged that Hezbollah stored billions of dollars at branches of AQAH, and that it used the money to purchase weapons and pay members of its military wing.

“The purpose of these strikes is to target the ability of Hezbollah to function both during the war but also afterwards, to rebuild and to rearm the organisation on the day after, and [to target] the grip Hezbollah has on large parts of the Lebanese society,” an Israeli intelligence official told reporters.

Hezbollah – which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the UK, US and others – is more than just a Shia Islamist armed group. It is also a political party with representation in parliament, and a social movement, engrained in Lebanese society, with significant support.

AQAH is a key part of Hezbollah’s social services network. Before the Israeli strikes, it had more than 30 branches, often located on the ground floor of residential buildings.

Many people came to depend on AQAH after Lebanon sank into a deep economic crisis five years ago, causing the local currency to lose 90% of its value and commercial banks to restrict foreign currency withdrawals. The association allowed people to take out small, interest-free loans in dollars backed by gold or a guarantor, and to open savings accounts.

Hezbollah’s late leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a speech in 2021 that AQAH had provided $3.7bn (£2.8bn) in loans to 1.8 million people in Lebanon since it was founded in the early 1980s, and that around 300,000 people had loans with it at that time.

Nasrallah also claimed that AQAH had been strengthened by the US sanctions imposed since 2007, when American officials said the association was being used by Hezbollah as a cover to manage its financial activities and to gain access to the international financial system.

A Hezbollah press officer told the BBC on Monday afternoon that neither the group nor AQAH had issued any statements regarding the air strikes.

Earlier, a statement attributed to AQAH was circulated on social media which said people’s deposits with the association were “safe”.

The Israeli military also announced on Monday that its troops were continuing to carry out operations in southern Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure and weaponry.

Hezbollah fighters meanwhile continued to fire rockets into northern Israel, with the military reporting that 60 projectiles had crossed the border by Monday afternoon.

About 200 projectiles were detected on Sunday, when the military said its warplanes had conducted “an intelligence-based strike on a command centre of Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters and an underground weapons workshop in Beirut”.

Also on Sunday, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) accused Israeli forces of deliberately demolishing an observation tower and perimeter fence of a UN peacekeeping position in the southern town of Marwahin. It followed similar incidents in recent weeks.

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

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.

The Israeli military has not yet commented on the two incidents.

The tiny villages of Haryana state in India’s rural north-west find themselves in an unlikely spotlight these days.

Farmers’ homes in hamlets around the industrial town of Rohtak are suddenly in demand, doubling up as movie sets.

Alongside the mooing of cows, it isn’t unusual to hear a director shouting “lights, camera, action” here.

A new start-up, called STAGE, has spawned a nascent film industry in this hinterland.

“Batta”, a high-octane drama about power and injustice, is just the latest in half-a-dozen movies under production in the area, Vinay Singhal, founder of STAGE, told the BBC on the film’s sets.

“There were just a dozen odd Haryanvi films made in India’s history before we came in. Since 2019, we’ve made more than 200,” says Mr Singhal.

STAGE makes content for largely under-served provincial audiences, keeping hyper-local tastes, dialectical quirks and the rural cultural syntax in mind.

There are 19,500 different dialects in India, and STAGE has identified 18 that are spoken by a large enough population to merit their own film industry.

The app currently offers content in two languages – Rajasthani and Haryanvi. It has three million paying subscribers and is planning to expand and include other dialects like Maithili and Konkani, which are spoken in north-east and coastal-west India, respectively.

“We’re also on the verge of closing a funding round from an American venture capitalist firm to expand into these territories,” says Mr Singhal, who appeared along with his co-founders on the Indian version of Shark Tank, a business reality show, a year ago.

STAGE is among a growing number of Indian start-ups that are betting big on the rural market opportunity as the next growth frontier. Others include players like Agrostar and DeHaat.

While a bulk of India’s 1.4 billion people still live in its 650,000 villages, they’ve hardly been a market for its booming tech start-ups so far.

Asia’s third-largest economy has been a hotbed for innovation, birthing several dozen unicorns – or tech companies valued at over $1bn – but they’ve all largely built for the “top 10%” of urban Indians, according to Anand Daniel, partner at Accel Ventures, which has funded some of the country’s most successful ventures, from Flipkart to Swiggy and Urban Company.

While there have been notable exceptions like online marketplace Meesho, or a few farm technology players, the start-up boom has largely bypassed India’s villages.

That’s now changing as more founders successfully cater to rural consumers and get funded for their ideas.

“Investors don’t show you the door anymore,” says Mr Singhal.

“Five years ago, I didn’t get any money at all. I had to bootstrap the company.”

Accel itself is now cutting more cheques to entrepreneurs solving for the rural market, recently announcing it will invest up to $1m in rural start-ups through its pre-seed accelerator programme.

Unicorn India Ventures, another local VC fund, says 50% of their investments are now in start-ups based in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. And in July this year, the Japanese auto giant Suzuki announced a $40m India fund to invest in start-ups building for rural markets.

So what’s driving this shift?

The untapped market opportunity is large, says Mr Daniel, and there’s a growing realisation among investors and founders that rural doesn’t necessarily mean poor.

Two-thirds of India’s population live in the hinterland and spend about $500bn annually. In fact, the top 20% of this demographic spends more money than half of those that live in the cities, according to Accel’s own estimates.

“As India adds $4tn to GDP over the next decade, at least 5% of that will be digitally influenced, and coming from ‘Bharat’ or rural India,” says Mr Daniel.

That’s a $200bn incremental opportunity.

Giving tailwind to this is the growing penetration of smartphones among middle-income rural families.

Some 450 million Indians now use one outside its cities – which is more than the entire US population.

And click-of-a-button digital payments through the much-touted UPI interface has been a game-changer for companies looking beyond the metros to expand their offering.

“Five or seven years ago, the ability to reach this target group – be it digitally, logistically or in terms of getting payments – wasn’t easy. But the timing right now is much better for this generation of start-ups trying to address this market,” says Mr Daniel.

Also, while most innovation was happening in cities like Mumbai and Bengaluru a decade ago, a growing number of entrepreneurs are now emerging from smaller towns, driven by factors such as lower operating costs, availability of local talent, and government initiatives aimed at promoting entrepreneurship in non-metro areas, according to a report from Primus Ventures.

Being close to the ground may have also contributed to exposing founders to the potential of the vast non-metro market.

But cracking rural India is easier said than done.

The small town consumer is price-conscious and geographically dispersed. The number of addressable consumers in any given postcode is far smaller than the cities.

Infrastructure also continues to lag, so “distribution isn’t easy, and operating costs are high”, says Gautam Malik, chief revenue officer at Frontier Markets, a rural e-commerce start-up that does last-mile deliveries to villages with populations below 5,000.

Besides, those using urban templates and force-fitting them to the village context will fail, says Mr Malik.

His company quickly realised why traditional e-commerce wasn’t able to penetrate the very last mile. The village customer simply didn’t trust her money with a third party that didn’t have local presence.

To build that trust factor, Mr Malik and his team had to tie up with village-level women entrepreneurs to act as their sales and delivery agents.

Such differentiation and a commitment for the long haul will be critical, he says, to winning rural India and cracking that incremental $200bn market opportunity.

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:

Kamala Harris spent the whole of Monday making a direct pitch to independent and Republican voters in the three states that form the Democratic Party’s so-called “blue wall”.

Two weeks from the election, Harris toured Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin alongside former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, an outspoken anti-Trump Republican.

While it’s not surprising that Harris visited the most hotly contested battlegrounds of the campaign in its home stretch, she departed from her customary rally-style events.

Instead she chose a “town hall” format alongside Cheney, a series of discussions hosted by figures picked with an eye toward the other side of the political divide.

There was Republican pollster and publisher Sarah Longwell in Pennsylvania and conservative commentator Charlie Sykes in Wisconsin. The third moderator was Maria Shriver in Michigan, niece of JFK and former first lady of California under Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The locations, suburban counties outside each of the state’s largest cities, were also not chosen by chance. They are rich in the kind of college-educated, traditionally Republican voters who polls show have been moving toward Democrats even as some blue-collar voters have drifted away from the party.

It’s a sign of just how dramatically the coalitions supporting the two major parties are shifting in the era of Donald Trump.

• Follow the latest from campaign trail
• Election polls – is Harris or Trump winning?

According to Craig Snyder, a Pennsylvania-based Republican strategist who is supporting Harris, the Democrats are making a concerted outreach to disaffected Republicans, but hearing from Democrats isn’t enough.

“These voters want to hear from other Republicans,” he said. “They want to hear that they’re not alone.”

Across the three states, Liz Cheney – who co-chaired the congressional committee investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol and was ousted in 2022 by a Trump-backed primary challenger – delivered that message.

“You can vote [with] your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody,” Cheney said in Michigan. “And there will be millions of Republicans who will do it.”

• SIMPLE GUIDE: How you can get most votes but lose
• EXPLAINER: The seven states that will decide the election
• GLOBAL: The third election outcome on minds of Moscow
• ON THE GROUND: Democrats take fight deep into Trump country
• WWE: Why Trump is courting old friends from the ring
• FACT-CHECK: What the numbers really say about crime

Harris quickly added that she had seen Republicans approach Cheney and thank her for speaking out against the former president – even if they never say anything publicly.

“From my vantage point, she is not alone,” Harris said.

The crowds at the venues were supposedly filled with Republicans and undecided voters, although the questions were pre-selected and the audience response – nods of understanding and gasps of shock at details of Trump’s political misdeeds and transgressions – suggested they were mostly friendly.

Dan Voboril, a retired schoolteacher in Wisconsin concerned about the toxic nature of Trump’s Republican Party, said he was truly undecided but was considering voting for Harris.

“Come on, Dan,” Cheney urged. The former congresswoman went on to say that partisanship was less important than ensuring that a person of character and principles held the presidency.

“If you wouldn’t hire somebody to babysit your kids, then you shouldn’t make that guy the president of the United States,” she added.

Most of the questions during this three-state town hall trip, however, seemed tailor made for Harris to tout key campaign talking points.

A young mother in Pennsylvania asked how she could care for her elderly mother who has dementia.

Harris outlined her plan for government supported in-home nursing care. In Michigan there was a question about Ukraine, allowing both Cheney and Harris to warn that a Trump victory would lead to Vladimir Putin “sitting in Kyiv”.

The isolationist approach to the war adopted by Trump and his running mate JD Vance has struck a chord among Americans who think the billions of dollars spent on aiding Ukraine since Russia invaded would be better spent at home.

Every stop on the Harris-Cheney day tour included a question about abortion and reproductive rights, allowing Cheney – who is anti-abortion – to say Republican states banning the procedure were going too far.

• Musk is giving voters $1m. Is that legal?
• Why Trump is courting old friends from the WWE

Current public opinion polls show a neck-and-neck race for the presidency nationally and in the blue wall, battleground states.

In 2016, Donald Trump flipped the three traditionally Democratic “rust belt” states that used to be the heart of the American manufacturing industry but Joe Biden won them back four years later.

Most surveys currently show fewer than 10% of Republicans are backing the Democrats.

If those numbers turn out to be understated – if Cheney is right and there are shy Republicans who will ultimately break ranks and vote Democratic – Harris’s path to the White House would become much easier.

At the very least, the Harris campaign decided that the chance to chip away at Trump’s support where it might be soft was worth a day’s effort.

Zander Mundy was midway through a typical day at his office when he heard the news: tech billionaire Elon Musk was speaking at a nearby school in the town of Folsom, in the US state of Pennsylvania.

“When is the richest guy in the world in town often?” Mr Mundy remembers thinking to himself.

With a population of just under 9,000 people, Folsom is a quiet place. Residents typically shy away from speaking openly about their politics, and political yard signs are few and far between.

The 21-year-old Mr Mundy, who works at a leasing agent at an apartment complex, admits that he wasn’t planning on voting in the November election.

But once he saw crowds forming – and felt the excitement – he decided to go in, eager to hear from Musk.

By the time he left the school, he recalls leaning more towards Donald Trump than towards Kamala Harris.

“[If] someone like that tells you this is the election that’s going to decide our future, not only who’s president for the next four years but what the world world is going to be like… I think that’s pretty huge,” he told the BBC. “That matters. That’s significant.”

Musk, who previously cultivated an image as an eccentric tech genius who was only on the sidelines of politics, has now pledged full allegiance to Trump.

In full view of the American public, the 53-year-old has invested his time, operational know-how and ample pocketbook into trying to get the Republican elected – a rarity among the nation’s business elite who traditionally prefer to influence politics from behind the scenes.

It’s an approach that is starkly different to traditional CEOs, many of whom have been better known for holding expensive, exclusive fundraising dinners or hosting potential donors at lavish homes in the Hamptons.

And it’s prompted observers to ask questions about Mr Musk’s motivations.

• Follow live updates from the US campaign trail
• Election polls – is Harris or Trump ahead?

The traditional approach by CEOs is “not out in the public spotlight,” explains Erik Gordon, chair of the entrepreneurship department at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. But “Musk does it loudly and proudly, and, therefore, perhaps makes himself a lightning rod”.

Musk’s Trump-supporting political action committee – America PAC – has already spent more than $119m (£91.6m) this election cycle, according to Open Secrets, a non-profit tracker.

Additionally, Musk’s own contributions make him one of the largest individual donors in the presidential race, and reportedly play a vital role in Trump’s door-knocking and ground operation in key swing states in which the campaign hopes to mobilise voters.

Steve Davis, a key lieutenant of Musk’s who has worked for his companies including SpaceX, X and the Boring Company, has reportedly been recruited to help in the effort.

Mr Musk’s personal investment into the campaign is something that was quickly noticed by Mr Mundy.

“That alone was shocking to me,” he said. “That someone would really spend that much time and money to influence voters. That means he’s doing it for a reason.”

Some Democrats, like Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, have been urging their party to not ignore the threat Mr Musk poses ahead of the election.

Mr Musk appeals to a demographic of people who see him as “undeniably brilliant” and among whom traditional Democratic outreach efforts have proven difficult, Fetterman believes.

• Why Trump is courting old friends from the WWE
• Are Elon Musk’s election giveaways legal?

Since first endorsing Trump in the wake of the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July, Mr Musk has become a common fixture on the campaign trail, where he often delivers warnings that only Trump can “save” American democracy.

In the closing days of the race, Mr Musk has criss-crossed the state of Pennsylvania, a key battleground state that has become a focus for Trump and Kamala Harris alike.

America PAC is now doling out $1m a day until election day to one random voter – no matter their party affiliation – provided they have registered to vote and sign a petition.

At “town hall” events in Harrisburg and Pittsburgh over the weekend, for example, Mr Musk presented giant lottery-style cheques to winners, with enthusiastic crowds chanting “Elon”. He responded by telling the crowd that their energy “lights a fire” in his soul.

At a rally in Philadelphia on Monday, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Mr Musk was “dangling a million bucks to many of us who are struggling to make ends meet, if they dance for him”.

“Elon Musk thinks that dangling money in front of a working person is a cute thing to do when the election of our lives is before us because that’s what people and billionaires like that do,” she added.

Some observers, however, have questioned his motivation and have suggested that Mr Musk and his businesses stand to benefit from a relationship with Trump.

Among those observers is Matt Teske, the CEO of electric vehicle charging platform Chargeway.

According to Mr Teske, Mr Musk’s political shift has been difficult for many in the electric vehicle industry, but comes as no surprise after several years of becoming increasingly active in politics.

“I think Musk’s interests are focused, predominantly, around a handful of things that are important to him related to his businesses, [with] regulation being something he’s voiced concerns around,” Mr Tesks says. He notes that Mr Musk “pushed back heavily” on restrictions implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic in California.

The University of Michigan’s Professor Gordon agrees. He says Mr Musk sees himself as a someone who has been held back by regulators, and feels that government intervention has stifled the development of the technologies he is focused on, such as autonomous driving.

“He wants to be sort of on the frontier, [a] wild and woolly entrepreneur who can break new paths and not be bogged down by regulation, which tends to fall five, 10, 20 years behind advances in technology,” Prof Gordon says.

“Musk wants to go the other way,” he adds. “He wants to go to Mars.”

If he wins in November, Donald Trump has suggested that Mr Musk could oversee “cost cutting” in the US government. Even if he doesn’t do that exact job, Mr Musk would have Trump’s ear thanks to his support during the campaign, observers believe, and he could have a strong influence on the administration’s decision-making.

Mr Musk, for his part, has said he would be open to the idea of leading a “department of government efficiency” to end regulation’s “strangulation” of the US.

That position, Democrats say, could present a complex conflict of interest, given the billions in government contracts Mr Musk has received for SpaceX and Tesla.

“That’s kind of deeply both unethical and illegal,” says Lenny Mendonca, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s former chief economic and business adviser.

Mendonca believes that those with intertwined government and regulatory relationships “can have a voice” but should not be in a position of authority over those same interests.

Lawrence Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission, has questioned the legality of Mr Musk’s giveaways in the election cycle.

Mr Noble believes that this form of campaigning should concern Americans who value safe work environments and consumer protections.

“We know what companies do when left to their own devices. They put profit and stockholder value and CEO compensation above safety, and they kind of write off the safety issues as a cost of doing business,” he tells the BBC.

“It’s dangerous to have somebody who views business that way, and views government that way, in charge of safety,” he adds.

For Mr Musk – who relishes being a “disrupter” and renegade – there’s little question that his lucrative relationships with the US government will continue, no matter the result of the November election.

But his brand, and his reputation, are now tied to Donald Trump’s – and his actions suggest he knows it.

• 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?

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

As Americans prepare to vote for their next president, Canadians and Mexicans are watching on nervously.

For some Canadians living next to the US border, politics isn’t a topic often discussed.

“You don’t talk politics and you don’t talk religion,” says 85-year-old Ernie, who lives in the Canadian town of Fort Erie, just across the Niagara River from Buffalo, New York.

Yet for others in Fort Erie, Ontario, politics can come up, especially after a few beers, and with a US presidential election fast approaching.

A short walk from the Peace Bridge that connects the two countries is Southsides Patio Bar & Grill, where US-born bartender Lauren says she frequently has to break up political arguments.

“It happens, especially after a few drinks. Everybody’s voice is heard here,” she laughs while shaking her head.

Some 2,000 miles (3,200 km) southwest in the Mexican border city of Juarez, Sofia Ana is in the Monday morning queue of cars waiting to cross to El Paso, Texas for work.

“There’s better employment opportunities in the US, there’s better benefits,” she explains.

Ana is one of an estimated 500,000 Mexicans who legally cross the border into the US every week day.

It is in their interest that relations between the two countries remain cordial. “It affects us deeply… it is very intense,” adds Ana from her car window.

With more than 155 million Americans due to vote in the US presidential election on 5 November, it is fair to say that the outcome will be felt well beyond the US. No more so than its largest trading partners Canada and Mexico.

The two-way trade of goods between the US and Mexico totalled $807bn (£621bn) last year, making Mexico the US’s biggest trading partner when it comes to physical items.

Meanwhile, the US’s goods trade with Canada in 2023 was in second place on $782bn. By comparison the figure for the US and China was $576bn.

Mexico and Canada’s future trade with the US could be impacted if Donald Trump wins the US election. This is because he is proposing to introduce substantial import tariffs. These would be 60% for goods from China, and 20% on products from all other countries, apparently including Mexico and Canada.

By contrast, Kamala Harris is widely expected to maintain the current more open trade policies of President Biden. This is despite the fact she voted against the 2020 United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) free trade deal, saying it didn’t go far enough on tackling climate change.

Trump and Harris have “starkly different visions for the future of US economic relations with the world”, said one study in September.

Back in Juarez, shop owner Adrian Ramos says that US political instability is something business owners like himself have had to get used to. “We’ve seen it all,” he says.

Mr Ramos adds that the result in the US on 5 November will likely impact on his business whoever wins. “If Trump wins, it’s going to take longer to cross over to the States, if Harris wins, it may not, but there will be changes depending on who wins.”

In the rural Canadian township of Puslinch, Ontario, beef farmer Dave Braden is definitely more concerned about Trump returning to the White House.

“The worry with Trump is that he’ll introduce a policy [such as tariffs], and just say ‘get on with it’ and that is threatening,” says Mr Braden, standing between hay bales in front of one of his cattle fields.

“I think with Harris, we have the assumption that she will recognize the relationship between the two countries and we will work together.”

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce is also concerned about the possibility of a second Trump presidency introducing new tariffs. It calculated that tariffs of 10% on Canadian imports (a level that Trump has previously suggested), would cost each Canadian and American $CA1,100 ($800; £615) per year.

The Canadian government has reportedly been talking to Trump’s camp to try to exempt Canada in the event that he does win the election.

Not every Canadian has such fears about Trump though. One Ontario farmer who is supporting him didn’t want to speak on the record, but says he believes the former president is stronger on the economy, which would benefit Canada.

For Georganne Burke, the Republicans Overseas chapter leader for Canada, it’s no surprise that some Trump supporters don’t speak publicly about him. She says that backing Trump is “not a popular position to be in”.

Recent polling suggests that Harris is significantly more popular than Trump among Canadians.

The USMCA, which was negotiated in 2018 under Trump’s presidency, is up for renegotiation in 2026.

With that on his mind, Canada’s Minister for Innovation, Science and Industry Francois Champagne tells the BBC he is checking the US election polls daily.

“Because this is such a valued relationship. It’s why I call it this indispensable relationship, because when you look at everything, you realise how indispensable we are to each other,” he explains.

In the run up to the election Mr Champagne is spending time meeting American counterparts of both parties. In his words “connecting the dots”.

“For example, when I meet the governor of South Carolina, which has a plant in the auto sector, I remind him that a lot of the critical minerals are coming from Canada,” he says. “So, it’s making sure that everyone understands that we are joint at the hip in terms of security, supply chain, but also a growth agenda for North America.”

Lila Abed, an expert on US-Mexico relations, says that whatever November’s outcome, “there will be three essential topics on the bilateral agenda with Mexico that are going to have to be dealt with immediately” – migration, security and trade.

“It is telling that [new Mexican president] Claudia Sheinbaum hasn’t designated Mexico’s ambassador to the US,” adds Ms Abed, who is director of the Mexico Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Centre think tank.

“I don’t believe that will be announced until after the US presidential election, because she wants to take into consideration what kind of individual she wants in Washington after the result.”

Looking ahead to 2026, Ms Abed believes the USMCA renegotiation will focus on US efforts to stop increased Chinese investment in Mexico.

“Where Republicans and Democrats actually coincide is on trying to stem or trying to stop Chinese investment in Mexico, which is something that both political parties in the United States are very concerned about,” she says.

“While I believe that, you know, the tone and the policies will naturally differ depending on who wins the White House, I do believe that the main issues on the bilateral agenda will remain.”

• 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?

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

A few weeks ago, police in India discovered that scammers had set up a fake bank branch – complete with a logo, office furniture and even some employees – in a village in Chhattisgarh state. BBC Hindi pieced together what happened.

Jyoti Yadav was delighted when she got a job as an office assistant at a recently opened bank branch near her village.

She had been job-hunting for four years, facing increasing financial pressure.

The bank officials asked her to join immediately, and she agreed because it was the State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest government-backed lender and one of its most recognisable brands.

But just a week after she joined, the police and employees from a nearby branch of SBI arrived at the bank – about 200 km (124 miles) from Chhattisgarh’s capital, Raipur – and told them it was fake.

Yadav was stunned. She said the people who gave her a job had conducted an interview, issued her an appointment letter and provided an identity card, with a promised salary of 30,000 rupees ($357; £273) a month. She had begun work along with five others.

Police have arrested one person and say they are on the lookout for eight others.

Employment-related scams are not uncommon in India, where millions of young people are desperate to find a stable job. In 2022, more than two dozen men who thought they would get jobs with the Indian Railways were tricked into counting trains for days.

The job crisis is particularly acute in small towns and villages, where work opportunities are limited, often forcing young people to take risks such as paying bribes – which is illegal in India – for jobs that promise to secure their future.

The police said that the six employees of the fake bank came from financially weak backgrounds, and that some of them had paid substantial amounts as bribes for the job.

An officer involved in the investigation told BBC Hindi that the motive appeared to be swindling job-seekers of money.

According to the initial investigation, a large number of people were asked for money under the pretence of securing a bank job and were sent to the fake branch for “training”, the officer said.

After around two weeks of training, they were sent back with the promise that they would be “appointed” to an SBI branch soon, he added.

Those who were allegedly duped say the fraudsters made the bank appear legitimate.

Yadav says she filed an online form, uploaded her educational certificates and submitted biometric data as part of the onboarding process – common when joining many Indian firms.

“I never felt for a moment that I was caught in a fraud. But now everything is ruined,” she said.

She claimed to have paid 250,000 rupees – a sum she had difficulty raising – as a bribe for the job.

Rohini Sahu, from a village in the neighbouring district, was offered a job as a marketing officer by the fake employers.

Sahu told BBC Hindi that her offer letter said that she had been appointed to the Raipur branch of the SBI, but had to undergo training at this branch.

The letter, the signboard, the building and its infrastructure all convinced her it was a real bank.

“No one could have imagined in their wildest dreams that this wasn’t a legitimate bank,” she says

Residents of the village where the branch was located say they were happy when it came up as it promised easy access to banking services.

But some villagers who wanted to open accounts were told by employees that the bank was still installing servers and that they should return next month.

For some, it also offered business opportunities.

Ajay Agarwal, one of the villagers, immediately applied to run a kiosk under a scheme that allows people to operate limited banking services outside the premises of the bank.

Such banking kiosks are common in villages and small towns across India.

But he says he soon grew sceptical after his application was not approved, and that he approached the SBI branch nearby to ask questions about the branch.

Soon, the local police raided the bank. But by then the “manager” of the branch had already absconded.

The man they have arrested, police say, is also an accused in another job scam in the state. He has not issued any statement in police custody.

News presenter Andrea Byrne has said she feared her husband would be “better off” without her during the couple’s seven-year experience of infertility.

Byrne, 45, who is married to former Wales rugby international Lee Byrne, 44, has presented Welsh and network news for ITV since 2008.

“You feel so guilty,” recalled Byrne, who was told by doctors that she would likely never be able to carry her own pregnancy.

“I remember those feelings all the time of thinking [Lee] would be better off without me.”

The couple welcomed their daughter Jemima, who “defied science” by being conceived naturally, in 2019.

“I feel very conscious when I’m telling my story, that maybe it’s easier to tell because we did get the ending that we had,” said Byrne.

“But I still feel it’s important to talk about, because I know how lonely we were during that journey.”

After getting married on New Year’s Day in 2012, Byrne said she and her husband began trying to get pregnant straight away.

“We were both at the start of our 30s,” she said. “I didn’t have any reason to think there would be issues.”

After a while, they went to a fertility clinic for tests.

An ultrasound revealed an issue with the thickness of Byrne’s womb lining, which she described in her new book Desperate Rants and Magic Pants as an “unfixable rare genetic defect”.

“It’s the kind of news that you don’t expect to hear,” Byrne told the BBC.

Years of intrusive tests and procedures followed, including multiple rounds of IVF.

“To be honest, the number of cycles, I couldn’t even tell you,” she said.

“We also tried lots of different things on top of the IVF, things that we were advised might work from different specialists.

“We also had some positive pregnancy tests and thought we were pregnant, but unfortunately we had losses as well.

“So it was a real rollercoaster of emotion.”

Byrne said the years of trying to conceive also took a toll on her relationship with her husband.

“I like to think that we’re really strong because of it, but boy, at the time it’s really difficult,” she said.

“There are times when we wondered how we would stay together,” added Byrne, “because it’s so difficult emotionally”.

“I remember I used to say to Lee, and he used to get quite cross with me, because I used to say ‘oh just go and find somebody else, somebody else could do this more easily, just go and find another woman’.

“And he would say to me ‘goodness, we are in this together’.”

Doctors eventually told the couple their only hope was surrogacy and, in 2018, they began exploring the possibility of finding a surrogate in the USA.

In her book, Byrne describes finding out just minutes before she was due to present the evening news that none of the embryos they hoped to use for a surrogate were viable.

She wrote: “I look at my tear-streaked reflection in the mirror, patch up the damaged foundation, breathe deeply, walk out of the dressing room, put on a smile and walk through a busy newsroom, and on to the set.”

Byrne said that moment felt like the end of the road.

“We had a conversation after that news and decided we’d move on and build another life together,” she said.

“I get really emotional about it, because I felt so guilty about not being able to do what every other woman could do.”

But just a few months later, against all the odds, Byrne fell pregnant naturally.

“Amazingly, we fell pregnant again, and this time it was Jemima. It was unbelievable really,” said Byrne.

“We were without hope and they said the chances are you will never be able to carry your own pregnancy.

“So she [Jemima] really did defy everybody, all the medical advice we’d been given, she came along and said ‘nope, I’m going to make it through’.”

Byrne, who also hosts the Making Babies fertility podcast, said writing her book was “emotional” and “in a way cathartic”.

“I know it’s a bit of a cliched word but it does provide a little bit of closure too, I guess,” she said.

The book includes chapters reflecting the fertility experiences of a number of other celebrities who have appeared on Byrne’s podcast, including presenter Gabby Logan and comedian Geoff Norcott.

“I look at Jemima every single day and I’m just so grateful,” said Byrne.

“I’m glad that I am able, hopefully, to use my platform to hopefully have a positive effect and maybe help other people feel less isolated.”

Asked if she had any advice for others experiencing infertility, Byrne said she wished she had been kinder to herself.

“I think it’s very easy when you get some bad news about a cycle, or you’re having a bad time dealing with it, that you catastrophise and think 10 steps ahead,” she said.

“And before you know it you’ve written off any chance of anything, which is very easy to do because it feels so hopeless.

“Nobody knows what’s going to happen 10 steps down the road, so just try and deal with what’s happening in that moment. I wish I’d done that more.

“And also been a bit kinder to ourselves, and yourself in the process. Take that time to find little bits of joy where you can and take time out if you need to from it.

“Because it can be all consuming, friendships-wise, family-wise, it affects everything. So you really need to be kind to yourself.”

Cameroon’s 91-year-old President Paul Biya has been seen in public for the first time in six weeks amid speculation about his ailing health.

His absence from the public eye led to unfounded rumours of his death.

But on Monday afternoon state television showed footage of the president’s arrival at the airport in the capital, Yaoundé, on a flight from Switzerland.

The government had banned the media from discussing the health of Biya – in power since 1982 – classifying it as a matter of national security.

Rumours of his death have been circulating on and off for the past two decades.

Monday’s broadcast pictures show the president dressed in his usual neat, conservative suit and looking visibly strong.

The last time Biya had been seen was on 8 September attending a China-Africa summit in Beijing.

Since then, the government has been under immense pressure to prove that the long-serving leader was alive.

Government officials eventually denied claims that he had died, saying that Biya was in good health and on a private visit to Geneva. He is known for frequent visits to the Swiss city.

After landing, Biya was welcomed by state officials and members of the ruling party.

The unusual mobilisation of people on some streets in the capital suggests the clear intention of the government is to put to rest the speculation about his wellbeing.

His re-appearance could spark calls from within his CPDM party for him to seek another seven-year term at next year’s election.

While the “Lion Man”, as he is called by his backers, is yet to openly state if he will run, his critics say his recent political moves signal an attempt to tighten the governing party’s firm grip on power.

• The 91-year-old African president who keeps defying death rumours
• Why African leaders maintain secrecy around their health
• Cameroon country profile

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 claims about the extent of the damage caused by the unnamed individual, saying they “contain some exaggerations and inaccuracies”.

It comes after reports about the incident spread over the weekend on social media.

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 [advertising] 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 (£7.7m) of damage by disrupting an AI training system made up of thousands of powerful graphics processing units (GPU).

As well as 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.

Ariana Grande has apologised to the actress who plays horror icon Elvira after she accused the singer of ignoring her during a meet-and-greet.

Actress Cassandra Peterson, who’s best known for her Mistress of the Dark alter-ego, said Ariana Grande had requested tickets for herself and family members to one of her stage shows.

She told a panel that she’d posed for photos and signed autographs for “all her friends and relatives” but that Ariana had refused to pose for a picture in return and left before the performance.

Responding via Instagram, Ariana Grande said she was “disheartened” to see the comments and claimed she’d left the event early because she “had an anxiety attack”.

In her response on Cassandra Peterson’s post, Ariana said she didn’t “even remember” getting the chance to meet the star.

She said the event would have happened about seven years ago, after her concert in Manchester was targeted in a terror attack.

At the time, Ariana said, she “was really not great with being in public crowds or loud places”.

“But if I’m misremembering this moment, I sincerely apologise for offending you so.

“Thank you for being so nice to my mum, she told me how lovely you were (she might have different feelings about that now but I’ll talk to her… clearly, we all have our days!).”

She signed off “sending love always”, adding “you’ll always be our queen of Halloween”.

The video of Cassandra Peterson, who’s also appeared as a guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race, discussing the interaction, recently went viral.

She’s heard laughing when someone else on-stage says Ariana is “playing the wrong witch” – referencing her role as Good Witch Glinda in the upcoming film adaption of Wicked.

Fan edits of the movie’s poster made using AI have made headlines during a recent promotional tour.

One fan edit turned the image of Ariana and co-star Cynthia Erivo in-character into an animation of the two fighting.

And Photoshopped versions of the image, with Cynthia’s eyes removed, have also been criticised by the stars.

“None of this is funny,” Cynthia said. “None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”

Ariana agreed fan edits can go “too far” , that she had “so much respect” for Cynthia and found the issue “very complicated”.

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

Tributes have been made to a surfer who died after reportedly being impaled by a swordfish in Indonesia.

Giulia Manfrini, 36, from Turin in northern Italy, had been surfing in the waters of the Mentawai Islands Regency, West Sumatra Province, before the incident on Friday, according to reports.

Two witnesses are said to have tried to provide first aid to Ms Manfrini – who was later taken to a medical centre – after a swordfish struck her in the chest.

James Colston, who set up a travel agency with Ms Manfrini, said on Instagram: “Even with the brave efforts of her partner, local resort staff and doctors, Giulia couldn’t be saved.”

“The information we received from the Head of Southwest Siberut District was that an accident occurred with an Italian citizen while surfing,” Lahmudin Siregar, acting head of the Mentawai Islands Regency Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD), reportedly told news agency Antara.

He added: “Unexpectedly, a swordfish jumped towards Manfrini and stuck her right in the chest”.

Mr Colston said his former colleague had suffered “a freak accident”, adding that “we believe she died doing what she loved, in a place that she loved”.

“Giulia was the lifeblood of this company and her infectious enthusiasm for surf, snow and life will be remembered by all that came in contact with her,” he said.

Fabio Giulivi, the mayor of Ms Manfrini’s hometown Venaria Reale, said: “The news of her death has left us shocked and makes us feel powerless in front of the tragedy that took her life so prematurely.”

He added that surfing and opening a travel agency had been her “double dream”.

Previous research has suggested attacks by swordfish are rare but they can be dangerous when provoked.

JK Rowling has revealed she turned down two offers of a peerage in the House of Lords and would turn down a third.

The author’s remarks came after Conservative Party leader hopeful Kemi Badenoch said she would give Rowling a peerage for her stance on gender – a position critics have described as being transphobic.

The Harry Potter author said in a post on X that she had been offered peerages “once under Labour and once under the Tories”, adding she “still wouldn’t take it” if offered the honour for a third time.

Most peers sitting in the House of Lords are appointed by the monarch on the prime minister’s advice, with nominations vetted by the House of Lords Appointments Commission.

Badenoch praised Rowling in an interview with the Talk TV online streaming service, saying they both believed protections for women should be based not on self-identified gender but rather biological sex.

The MP for North West Essex said of Rowling: “I don’t know whether she would take it, but I certainly would give her a peerage.”

The former equalities minister went on to praise Baroness Cass for her review of NHS children’s gender services – work Badenoch “managed to get” the doctor a peerage for.

Writing on X, Rowling said: “It’s considered bad form to talk about this but I’ll make an exception given the very particular circumstances.

“I’ve already turned down a peerage twice, once under Labour and once under the Tories. If offered one a third time, I still wouldn’t take it.”

She said in an apparent reference to Badenoch: “It’s not her, it’s me.”

Rowling was awarded an OBE in 2001, and was made a Companion of Honour in 2017 by Prince William, then the Duke of Cambridge, for her work.

While the precise dates the author was offered the two peerages are unclear, the first would have come in the New Labour years, when Rowling was still writing the Harry Potter series.

The final book in Rowling’s best-selling wizard series was published in 2007. In the years since, she has written articles, plays and a series of crime books for adults under the pen name Robert Galbraith.

The crime series, known collectively under the title Cormoran Strike, were published throughout the 2010s – during which time Rowling was presumably offered a peerage for the second time.

If she had taken up a seat in the House of Lords, the author would most likely have been given the title of Baroness Rowling – and if she found the time to attend sessions, she would have a say in the work of Parliament’s second chamber, considering draft laws and potentially participating in select committees.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to read top political analysis, gain insight from across the UK and stay up to speed with the big moments. It’ll be delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

A young woman spent hours trapped upside down after slipping between two boulders as she tried to retrieve her mobile phone during a hike in Australia.

The woman – named in reports as Matilda Campbell – was walking in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley region earlier this month when she fell into the three-metre crevice.

It was the start of a seven-hour ordeal which would see emergency services undertake a “challenging” rescue – including moving several boulders.

And even after managing to winch a 500kg (1,100lb) rock out the way, they still had to work out how to get the woman out of the “S” bend she had found herself in.

“In my 10 years as a rescue paramedic I had never encountered a job quite like this, it was challenging but incredibly rewarding,” Peter Watts, a paramedic with New South Wales Ambulance service, said, according to a release on the service’s social media pages.

She had already been upside down for more than an hour before rescuers arrived, her friends’ initial attempts to free her having been unsuccessful.

Photos shared by the ambulance service show her hanging between the boulders by her feet, as well as the complicated efforts to keep the area stable as emergency services tried to create a gap big enough to free her.

Mr Watts later described the young woman as a “trooper” in an interview with Australia’s ABC.

“We were all like, how did you get down there – and how are we going to get her out?”

Unbelievably, the rescued woman was left with just minor scratches and bruises, NSW Ambulance said.

She did not, however, manage to retrieve her phone.

“Thank you to the team who saved me you guys are literally life savers,” she wrote in a message online.

“Too bad about the phone tho.”

The former CEO of fashion giant Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) and his British partner have been arrested and are facing sex trafficking charges.

Mike Jeffries, his partner Matthew Smith and the couple’s alleged middleman were arrested on Tuesday morning.

The FBI and prosecutor’s office are expected to announce more details at a press conference shortly.

Lawyers for Mr Jeffries and Mr Smith have both previously denied any wrongdoing by both men. Responding to the latest news, Mr Jeffries’ lawyer told the BBC: “We will respond in detail to the allegations after the Indictment is unsealed, and when appropriate, but plan to do so in the courthouse – not the media.”

A lawyer for Mr Smith has been approached for new comment. A&F declined to comment on the latest developments.

The FBI opened an investigation last year after the BBC revealed claims that Mike Jeffries and his partner sexually exploited and abused men at events they hosted in their New York residences and hotels around the world.

A BBC investigation found there was a sophisticated operation involving a middleman and network of recruiters tasked with recruiting men for the events.

Following the BBC’s reporting, a civil lawsuit was filed in New York accusing Mr Jeffries and Mr Smith of sex-trafficking, rape and sexual assault.

The lawsuit also accused Abercrombie & Fitch of having funded a sex-trafficking operation led by its former CEO over the two decades he was in charge.

Under US law, sex trafficking includes getting an adult to travel to another state or country to have sex for money by using force, fraud or coercion.

Confirming the arrest, Brad Edwards of Edwards Henderson, a civil lawyer representing some of the alleged victims, said: “These arrests are a huge first step towards obtaining justice for the many victims who were exploited and abused through this sex-trafficking scheme that operated for many years under the legitimate cover Abercrombie provided.

“The unprecedented reporting of the BBC, coupled with the lawsuit our firm filed detailing the operation, are to credit for these monumental arrests. This was the result of impressive investigative journalism.”

In its investigation, the BBC spoke to 12 men who described attending or organising events involving sex acts run for Mr Jeffries, 79, and his British partner Mr Smith, 60, between 2009 and 2015.

The eight men who attended the events said they were recruited by a middleman who the BBC identified as James Jacobson.

Mr Jacobson, 70, previously told the BBC in a statement through his lawyer that he took offence at the suggestion of “any coercive, deceptive or forceful behaviour on my part” and had “no knowledge of any such conduct by others”.

The BBC also interviewed dozens of other sources, including former household staff.

Some of the men the BBC spoke to said they were misled about the nature of the events or not told sex was involved. Others said they understood the events would be sexual, but not exactly what was expected of them. All were paid.

Several told the BBC the middleman or other recruiters raised the possibility of modelling opportunities with A&F.

David Bradberry, then 23 and an aspiring model, said that it was “made clear” to him that without performing oral sex on Mr Jacobson, he would not be meeting A&F CEO Mr Jeffries.

“It was like he was selling fame. And the price was compliance,” Mr Bradberry told the BBC.

Mr Bradberry said he later attended a party at Mr Jeffries’s mansion in the Hamptons in Long Island where he met Mr Jeffries and had sex with him.

He said the “secluded” location and presence of Mr Jeffries’ personal staff, dressed in A&F uniforms, supervising events meant he “didn’t feel safe to say ‘no’ or ‘I don’t feel comfortable with this'”.

After the BBC’s initial investigation was published last year, A&F announced it was opening an independent investigation into the allegations raised. When we recently asked when this report will be completed – and if the findings would be made public – the company declined to answer.

Like Mr Jeffries and Mr Smith, the brand has been trying to get the civil lawsuit against it dismissed, arguing it had no knowledge of “the supposed sex-trafficking venture” led by its former CEO – which it has been accused of having funded.

Earlier this year, a US court ruled that A&F must cover the cost of Mike Jeffries’ legal defence as he continues to fight the civil allegations of sex-trafficking and rape. The judge ruled the allegations were tied to his corporate role after he sued the brand for refusing to pay his legal fees.

The brand said it did not comment on legal matters. However, in its defence submitted to court, A&F said its current leadership team was “previously unaware of” the allegations until the BBC contacted it, adding the company “abhors sexual abuse and condemns the alleged conduct” by Mr Jeffries and others.

In 2014, Mr Jeffries stepped down as CEO following declining sales and left with a retirement package valued at around $25m (£20.5m), according to company filings at the time.

Once one of America’s highest-paid CEOs, he was a controversial figure who faced claims of discrimination against staff, concerns about his lavish expenses and complaints about the unofficial influence of his life partner, Matthew Smith, inside A&F.

World Of Secrets – The Abercrombie Guys

Hear two new episodes on BBC Sounds or here if you are outside the UK

A huge meteorite first discovered in 2014 caused a tsunami bigger than any in known human history and boiled the oceans, scientists have discovered.

The space rock, which was 200 times the size of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, smashed into Earth when our planet was in its infancy three billion years ago.

Carrying sledge hammers, scientists hiked to the impact site in South Africa to chisel off chunks of rock to understand the crash.

The team also found evidence that massive asteroid impacts did not bring only destruction to Earth – they helped early life thrive.

“We know that after Earth first formed there was still a lot of debris flying around space that would be smashing into Earth,” says Prof Nadja Drabon from Harvard university, lead author of the new research.

“But now we have found that life was really resilient in the wake of some of these giant impacts, and that it actually bloomed and and thrived,” she says.

The meteorite S2 was much larger than the space rock we are most familiar with. The one that led to the dinosaurs’ extinction 66 million years ago was about 10km wide, or almost the height of Mount Everest.

But S2 was 40-60km wide and its mass was 50-200 times greater.

It struck when Earth was still in its early years and looked very different. It was a water world with just a few continents sticking out of the sea. Life was very simple – microorganisms composed of single cells.

The impact site in Eastern Barberton Greenbelt is one of the oldest places on Earth with remnants of a meteorite crash.

Prof Drabon travelled there three times with her colleagues, driving as far as possible into the remote mountains before hiking the rest of the way with backpacks.

Rangers accompanied them with machine guns to protect them against wild animals like elephants or rhinos, or even poachers in the national park.

They were looking for spherule particles, or tiny fragments of rock, left behind by impact. Using sledge hammers, they collected hundreds of kilograms of rock and took them back to labs for analysis.

Prof Drabon stowed the most precious pieces in her luggage.

“I usually get stopped by security, but I give them a big spiel about how exciting the science is and then they get really bored and let me through,” she says.

The team have now re-constructed just what the S2 meteorite did when it violently careened into Earth. It gouged out a 500km crater and pulverised rocks that ejected at incredibly fast speeds to form a cloud that circled around the globe.

“Imagine a rain cloud, but instead of water droplets coming down, it’s like molten rock droplets raining out of the sky,” says Prof Drabon.

A huge tsunami would have swept across the globe, ripped up the sea floor, and flooded coastlines.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami would have paled in comparison, suggests Prof Drabon.

All that energy would have generated massive amounts of heat that boiled the oceans causing up to tens of metres of water to evaporate. It would also have increased air temperatures by up to 100C.

The skies would have turned black, choked with dust and particles. Without sunlight penetrating the darkness, simple life on land or in shallow water that relied on photosynthesis would have been wiped out.

These impacts are similar to what geologists have found about other big meteorite impacts and what was suspected for S2.

But what Prof Drabon and her team found next was surprising. The rock evidence showed that the violent disturbances churned up nutrients like phosphorus and iron that fed simple organisms.

“Life was not only resilient, but actually bounced back really quickly and thrived,” she says.

“It’s like when you brush your teeth in the morning. It kills 99.9% of bacteria, but by the evening they’re all back, right?” she says.

The new findings suggest that the big impacts were like a giant fertiliser, sending essential ingredients for life like phosphorus around the globe.

The tsunami sweeping the planet would also have brought iron-rich water from the depths to the surface, giving early microbes extra energy.

The findings add to a growing view among scientists that early life was actually helped by the violent succession of rocks striking Earth in its early years, Prof Drabon says.

“It seems that life after the impact actually encountered really favourable conditions that allowed it to bloom,” she explains.

The findings are published in the scientific journal PNAS.

Zander Mundy was midway through a typical day at his office when he heard the news: tech billionaire Elon Musk was speaking at a nearby school in the town of Folsom, in the US state of Pennsylvania.

“When is the richest guy in the world in town often?” Mr Mundy remembers thinking to himself.

With a population of just under 9,000 people, Folsom is a quiet place. Residents typically shy away from speaking openly about their politics, and political yard signs are few and far between.

The 21-year-old Mr Mundy, who works at a leasing agent at an apartment complex, admits that he wasn’t planning on voting in the November election.

But once he saw crowds forming – and felt the excitement – he decided to go in, eager to hear from Musk.

By the time he left the school, he recalls leaning more towards Donald Trump than towards Kamala Harris.

“[If] someone like that tells you this is the election that’s going to decide our future, not only who’s president for the next four years but what the world world is going to be like… I think that’s pretty huge,” he told the BBC. “That matters. That’s significant.”

Musk, who previously cultivated an image as an eccentric tech genius who was only on the sidelines of politics, has now pledged full allegiance to Trump.

In full view of the American public, the 53-year-old has invested his time, operational know-how and ample pocketbook into trying to get the Republican elected – a rarity among the nation’s business elite who traditionally prefer to influence politics from behind the scenes.

It’s an approach that is starkly different to traditional CEOs, many of whom have been better known for holding expensive, exclusive fundraising dinners or hosting potential donors at lavish homes in the Hamptons.

And it’s prompted observers to ask questions about Mr Musk’s motivations.

• Follow live updates from the US campaign trail
• Election polls – is Harris or Trump ahead?

The traditional approach by CEOs is “not out in the public spotlight,” explains Erik Gordon, chair of the entrepreneurship department at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. But “Musk does it loudly and proudly, and, therefore, perhaps makes himself a lightning rod”.

Musk’s Trump-supporting political action committee – America PAC – has already spent more than $119m (£91.6m) this election cycle, according to Open Secrets, a non-profit tracker.

Additionally, Musk’s own contributions make him one of the largest individual donors in the presidential race, and reportedly play a vital role in Trump’s door-knocking and ground operation in key swing states in which the campaign hopes to mobilise voters.

Steve Davis, a key lieutenant of Musk’s who has worked for his companies including SpaceX, X and the Boring Company, has reportedly been recruited to help in the effort.

Mr Musk’s personal investment into the campaign is something that was quickly noticed by Mr Mundy.

“That alone was shocking to me,” he said. “That someone would really spend that much time and money to influence voters. That means he’s doing it for a reason.”

Some Democrats, like Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, have been urging their party to not ignore the threat Mr Musk poses ahead of the election.

Mr Musk appeals to a demographic of people who see him as “undeniably brilliant” and among whom traditional Democratic outreach efforts have proven difficult, Fetterman believes.

• Why Trump is courting old friends from the WWE
• Are Elon Musk’s election giveaways legal?

Since first endorsing Trump in the wake of the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July, Mr Musk has become a common fixture on the campaign trail, where he often delivers warnings that only Trump can “save” American democracy.

In the closing days of the race, Mr Musk has criss-crossed the state of Pennsylvania, a key battleground state that has become a focus for Trump and Kamala Harris alike.

America PAC is now doling out $1m a day until election day to one random voter – no matter their party affiliation – provided they have registered to vote and sign a petition.

At “town hall” events in Harrisburg and Pittsburgh over the weekend, for example, Mr Musk presented giant lottery-style cheques to winners, with enthusiastic crowds chanting “Elon”. He responded by telling the crowd that their energy “lights a fire” in his soul.

At a rally in Philadelphia on Monday, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Mr Musk was “dangling a million bucks to many of us who are struggling to make ends meet, if they dance for him”.

“Elon Musk thinks that dangling money in front of a working person is a cute thing to do when the election of our lives is before us because that’s what people and billionaires like that do,” she added.

Some observers, however, have questioned his motivation and have suggested that Mr Musk and his businesses stand to benefit from a relationship with Trump.

Among those observers is Matt Teske, the CEO of electric vehicle charging platform Chargeway.

According to Mr Teske, Mr Musk’s political shift has been difficult for many in the electric vehicle industry, but comes as no surprise after several years of becoming increasingly active in politics.

“I think Musk’s interests are focused, predominantly, around a handful of things that are important to him related to his businesses, [with] regulation being something he’s voiced concerns around,” Mr Tesks says. He notes that Mr Musk “pushed back heavily” on restrictions implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic in California.

The University of Michigan’s Professor Gordon agrees. He says Mr Musk sees himself as a someone who has been held back by regulators, and feels that government intervention has stifled the development of the technologies he is focused on, such as autonomous driving.

“He wants to be sort of on the frontier, [a] wild and woolly entrepreneur who can break new paths and not be bogged down by regulation, which tends to fall five, 10, 20 years behind advances in technology,” Prof Gordon says.

“Musk wants to go the other way,” he adds. “He wants to go to Mars.”

If he wins in November, Donald Trump has suggested that Mr Musk could oversee “cost cutting” in the US government. Even if he doesn’t do that exact job, Mr Musk would have Trump’s ear thanks to his support during the campaign, observers believe, and he could have a strong influence on the administration’s decision-making.

Mr Musk, for his part, has said he would be open to the idea of leading a “department of government efficiency” to end regulation’s “strangulation” of the US.

That position, Democrats say, could present a complex conflict of interest, given the billions in government contracts Mr Musk has received for SpaceX and Tesla.

“That’s kind of deeply both unethical and illegal,” says Lenny Mendonca, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s former chief economic and business adviser.

Mendonca believes that those with intertwined government and regulatory relationships “can have a voice” but should not be in a position of authority over those same interests.

Lawrence Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission, has questioned the legality of Mr Musk’s giveaways in the election cycle.

Mr Noble believes that this form of campaigning should concern Americans who value safe work environments and consumer protections.

“We know what companies do when left to their own devices. They put profit and stockholder value and CEO compensation above safety, and they kind of write off the safety issues as a cost of doing business,” he tells the BBC.

“It’s dangerous to have somebody who views business that way, and views government that way, in charge of safety,” he adds.

For Mr Musk – who relishes being a “disrupter” and renegade – there’s little question that his lucrative relationships with the US government will continue, no matter the result of the November election.

But his brand, and his reputation, are now tied to Donald Trump’s – and his actions suggest he knows it.

• 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?

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

US investigators are trying to find out how a pair of highly classified intelligence documents were leaked online.

The documents, which appeared on the messaging app Telegram on Friday, contain an alleged US assessment of Israeli plans to attack Iran.

The assessment is based on interpretation of satellite imagery and other intelligence.

On Monday White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said President Joe Biden was “deeply concerned” about the leak.

• Latest updates: Hezbollah launches rockets after Israeli strike kills four in Lebanon

Officials have not determined whether the documents were released due to a hack or a leak, Mr Kirby said.

For three weeks now, Israel has been vowing to hit Iran hard in retaliation for Iran’s massed ballistic missile attack on Israel on 1 October.

Iran says that was in response to Israel’s assassination of the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, on 27 September.

Military analysts say the phrasing used in the headings looks credible and is consistent with similar classified documents revealed in the past.

Headed “Top Secret”, they include the acronym “FGI”, standing for “Foreign Government Intelligence”.

The documents appear to have been circulated to intelligence agencies in the Five Eyes alliance, the five Western nations that regularly share intelligence, namely the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The acronym “TK” in the documents refers to “Talent Keyhole”, a codeword covering satellite-based Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Imagery Intelligence (IMINT).

Taken together, the two documents are a classified US assessment of Israel’s preparations to hit targets in Iran, based on intelligence analysed on 15-16 October by the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

What features prominently is the mention of two Air Launched Ballistic Missile (ABLM) systems: Golden Horizon and Rocks.

Rocks is a long-range missile system made by the Israeli company Rafael and designed to hit a variety of targets both above and below ground. Golden Horizon is thought to refer to the Blue Sparrow missile system with a range of around 2,000km (1,240 miles).

The significance of this is that it would indicate that the Israeli Air Force is planning to carry out a similar but greatly expanded version of its ABLM attack on an Iranian radar site near Isfahan in April.

By launching these weapons from long range and far from Iran’s borders it would avoid the need for Israeli warplanes to overfly certain countries in the region like Jordan.

The documents also report no sign of any preparations by Israel to activate its nuclear deterrent.

At the request of Israel, the US government never publicly acknowledges that its close ally Israel even possesses nuclear weapons, so this has caused some embarrassment in Washington.

Glaringly absent from these documents is any mention of what targets Israel intends to hit in Iran, or when.

The US has made no secret of its opposition to the targeting of either Iran’s nuclear research facilities or its oil installations.

That leaves military bases, most likely those belonging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its affiliated Basij militia as these two institutions are seen as the backbone of the Islamic Republic, projecting its military reach abroad and suppressing popular protest at home.

As regards timing, many had expected Israel to have carried out its promised retaliation by now. But back in April, Iran waited 12 days before hitting back at Israel with a barrage of 300 drones and missiles after an Israeli air strike hit its diplomatic buildings in Damascus, killing several senior IRGC commanders.

Part of the current delay in Israel’s response is likely due to US concerns at escalation with less than a month to go before the US presidential elections.

Possibly yes, by someone who wanted to derail Israel’s plans.

Iran has a large and sophisticated cyber-warfare capability so the possibility of a hostile hack is also being investigated.

These documents, if genuine as thought highly likely, show that despite the close defence relationship between the US and Israel, Washington still spies on its ally in case it is not being given the full picture.

They show that plans by the Israeli Air Force to carry out some kind of long-range retaliation against Iran are well advanced and that mitigation is being put in place against an expected Iranian response.

In short: if and when Israel does carry out these plans then the Middle East will once again experience a period of extreme tension.

Imagine you’re Vladimir Putin.

The West has dubbed you a pariah for invading Ukraine. Sanctions are aiming to cut off your country’s economy from global markets.

And there’s an arrest warrant out for you from the International Criminal Court.

How can you show the pressure is not working? Try hosting a summit.

This week in the city of Kazan President Putin will greet more than 20 heads of state at the Brics summit of emerging economies. Among the leaders invited are China’s Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The Kremlin has called it one of the “largest-scale foreign policy events ever” in Russia.

“The clear message is that attempts to isolate Russia have failed,” thinks Chris Weafer, founding partner of consultancy firm Macro-Advisory.

“It’s a big part of the messaging from the Kremlin that Russia is withstanding sanctions. We know there are severe cracks beneath the surface. But at a geopolitical level Russia has all these friends and they’re all going to be Russia’s partners.”

So, who are Russia’s friends?

Brics stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The grouping, often referred to as a counterweight to the Western-led world, has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Saudi Arabia, too, has been invited to join.

• What Moscow really wants from US election

The Brics nations account for 45% of the global population. Added together, members’ economies are worth more than $28.5tn (£22tn). That’s around 28% of the global economy.

Russian officials have indicated that another 30 countries want to join Brics or seek closer ties with the club. Some of these nations will take part in the summit. In Kazan this week expect a lot of talk about Brics representing the “global majority”.

But apart from providing Vladimir Putin his moment on the geopolitical stage, what is the event likely to achieve?

Keen to ease the pressure from Western sanctions, the Kremlin leader will hope to convince Brics members to adopt an alternative to the dollar for global payments.

“A lot of the problems Russia’s economy is facing are linked to cross-border trade and payments. And a lot of that is linked to the US dollar,” says Mr Weafer.

“The US Treasury has enormous power and influence over global trade simply because the US dollar is the main currency for settling that. Russia’s main interest is in breaking the dominance of the US dollar. It wants Brics countries to create an alternative trade mechanism and cross-border settlement system that does not involve the dollar, the euro or any of the G7 currencies, so that sanctions won’t matter so much.”

But critics point to differences within Brics. “Likeminded” is not a word you would use to describe the current membership.

“In some ways it’s a good job for the West that China and India can never agree about anything. Because if those two were really serious, Brics would have enormous influence,” notes Jim O’Neill, former Chief Economist of Goldman Sachs.

“China and India are doing their best to avoid wanting to attack each other a lot of the time. Trying to get them to really co-operate on economic things is a never-ending challenge.”

It was Mr O’Neill who, at the turn of the century, dreamt up the acronym “Bric” for four emerging economies he believed should be “brought into the centre of global policy making”.

But the four letters would take on a life of their own, after the corresponding nations formed their own Bric group – later Brics, when South Africa joined. They would attempt to challenge the dominance of the G7: the world’s seven largest “advanced” economies (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US).

It’s not just India and China who have their differences. There is tension between two of the newest Brics members, Egypt and Ethiopia. And, despite talk of detente, Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been regional rivals.

“The idea that they’re all going to fundamentally agree on something of great substance is bonkers really,” believes Mr O’Neill.

And while Russia, fuelled by anti-Western sentiment, talks about creating a “new world order”, other Brics members, like India, are keen to retain good political and economic relations with the West.

In Kazan, Vladimir Putin’s task will be to skim over the differences and paint a picture of unity, while showing the Russian public – and the international community – that his country is far from isolated.

South Korea has summoned the Russian ambassador, seeking the “immediate withdrawal” of North Korean troops which it says are being trained to fight in Ukraine.

About 1,500 North Korean soldiers, including those from the special forces, have already arrived in Russia, according to Seoul’s spy agency.

In a meeting with the ambassador Georgiy Zinoviev, South Korea’s vice-foreign minister Kim Hong-kyun denounced the move and warned that Seoul will “respond with all measures available”.

Mr Zinoviev said he would relay the concerns, but stressed that the cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang is “within the framework of international law”.

It is unclear what cooperation he was referring to. The ambassador did not confirm allegations that North Korea has sent troops to fight with Russia’s military.

Later on Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters the cooperation between the two nations is “not directed against third countries”.

He added it “should not worry anyone”, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

Pyongyang has not commented on the allegations.

South Korea has long accused the North of supplying weapons to Russia for use in the war against Ukraine, but it says the current situation has gone beyond the transfer of military materials.

Some South Korean media reports have suggested as many as12,000 North Korean soldiers are expected to be deployed.

“[This] not only gravely threatens South Korea but the international community,” Kim said on Monday.

Moscow and Pyongyang have stepped up cooperation after their leaders Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un signed a security pact in June, which pledges that their countries will help each other in the event of “aggression” against either country.

Last week, Putin introduced a bill to ratify the pact.

Pyongyang’s deployment of troops to fight with Russia “would mark a significant escalation” in the conflict, Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Monday.

In a phone call with Rutte on Monday, South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol urged the alliance to explore “concrete countermeasures”, adding that he will take steps to strengthen security cooperation between South Korea, Ukraine and Nato.

British Foreign Minister David Lammy, who is visiting Seoul, called Russia’s actions “reckless and illegal”, adding that London would work with Seoul to respond, according to Yoon’s office.

The United States and Japan have also condemned the deepening military ties between North Korea and Russia.

Meanwhile, in response to a BBC question about the alleged North Korea-Russia cooperation, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that China hopes all parties will work to de-escalate the situation and aim for a political solution to the Ukraine crisis.

Some defence experts told BBC Korean that North Korea’s involvement could complicate the war.

“North Korea’s involvement could open the door for greater international participation in the conflict, potentially drawing in more countries,” said Moon Seong-mok from the Korea National Strategy Institute.

“The international community will likely increase sanctions and pressure on both Russia and North Korea, but it remains to be seen whether North Korea’s involvement will truly benefit either country,” Dr Moon said.

But others believe the Russian military units will have difficulties incorporating North Korean troops into their frontlines.

Apart from the language barrier, the North Korean army has no recent combat experiences, they said.

Valeriy Ryabykh, editor of the Ukrainian publication Defence Express, said the North Korean soldiers could be asked to guard sections of the Russian-Ukrainian border, which will free up Russian units to fight elsewhere.

“I would rule out the possibility that these units will immediately appear on the front line,” he said.

A body has been found in the search for missing mother Victoria Taylor in North Yorkshire.

The 34-year-old, who has a young daughter and a partner, went missing from her home in Malton on 30 September, with her disappearance prompting a major police search.

North Yorkshire Police said a body was recovered from the River Derwent at about 11:45 BST on Tuesday.

Formal identification was yet to take place, officers said, but Ms Taylor’s family had been informed and were being supported by specialist officers.

Speaking at a press conference, Assistant Chief Constable Wayne Fox said the family were “understandably distressed” by the news.

“Victoria’s family have again asked us to express their thanks to all of those who have supported police and other emergency services in our efforts to locate Victoria,” he said.

CCTV footage had showed the care home nurse heading towards a playground close to the river on the day she vanished, with items belonging to her found at the location.

Police said the body had been recovered by underwater search teams, close to where Ms Taylor’s belongings were discovered.

River searches had taken place since Ms Taylor was reported missing on 1 October, including the use of divers and specialist sonar equipment.

Just over a week after her disappearance, police said there was a “significant possibility” she had entered the river.

Thousands of people were out on the streets of Sydney on Tuesday, eager to see King Charles and Queen Camilla, set against the iconic Opera House in the late afternoon sunlight.

For Buckingham Palace, this was the ideal ending to the royal tour of Australia.

The optics were positive. Despite a headline-grabbing protest in Canberra on Monday, the public mood on the ground in Sydney was supportive.

But getting to this point – with a successful completion of this trip ahead of a poignant goodbye – will have come as a huge relief to royal aides.

Back in February, this tour looked unlikely to happen with the King diagnosed with cancer and having treatment.

But it stayed in the diary with modifications on the advice of doctors.

The duration of this visit has been shorter and the engagements have been arranged to avoid early starts and late finishes.

Even with the alterations, it has still been a busy schedule for the King and Queen.

On Tuesday alone the royal couple between them visited a National Centre of Indigenous Excellence, a food bank, a social housing project, a literacy initiative, a community barbecue, meeting two leading cancer researchers, celebrating the Sydney Opera House’s 50th anniversary, and a naval review in Sydney Harbour.

An Australian arm of the King’s Foundation was officially launched, expanding a charity which promotes sustainability and provides training in traditional craft skills.

These trips are a quickfire round of very diverse events, with the crowds at each demanding attention – and the King appears to have coped well.

His health challenges haven’t shown and he has appeared moved by the response he’s had from the public on his first visit here as monarch.

The protest at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday was uncomfortable but not unexpected.

The King has encountered many protesters over the years and came to Australia knowing that republican sentiment and campaigns in support of indigenous communities were likely to come up.

His presence here in Australia immediately focuses minds on the King’s role as head of state and re-opens questions about whether that is right for modern Australia.

Although republican sentiment bubbles under the surface here, except for the heckling in Parliament it has not burst through in any significant way on this trip.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who supports a republic, has been at the King and Queen’s side for several engagements and spoken warmly about his royal guests.

Before the disruption at Parliament, the prime minister formally welcomed the King to Canberra.

“You have shown great respect for Australians, even during times when we have debated the future of our own constitutional arrangements and the nature of our relationship with the crown. Nothing stands still,” said Mr Albanese.

Some Indigenous leaders have criticised an Australian senator’s heckling of King Charles, as she faces a backlash over a violent image of the monarch briefly posted to her social media account.

Lidia Thorpe, an Aboriginal woman, made global headlines when she shouted “you are not my king” and “this is not your land” before being escorted away from a royal event in Canberra on Monday.

The independent senator’s protest has been praised by some activists as brave, but condemned by other prominent Aboriginal Australians as “embarrassing” and disrespectful.

Thorpe has defended her actions at the event, but said a cartoon later posted to her Instagram account was inappropriate.

The drawing – which depicted the King beheaded alongside his crown – was shared by a staff member without her knowledge, the senator said.

“I deleted it as soon as I saw. I would not intentionally share anything that could be seen to encourage violence against anyone.”

The image, which has drawn condemnation, adds to heavy scrutiny of her actions on Monday.

Aunty Violet Sheridan, an Aboriginal elder who formally welcomed the King and Queen Camilla to Ngunnawal country, told the Guardian Australia: “Lidia Thorpe does not speak for me and my people, and I’m sure she doesn’t speak for a lot of First Nations people.”

Nova Peris – a former senator who was the first Aboriginal woman in parliament and is a long-time republican – also called Thorpe’s actions “embarrassing and disappointing”.

“Australia is moving forward in its journey of reconciliation… as hard as that journey is, it requires respectful dialogue, mutual understanding, and a shared commitment to healing – not divisive actions that draw attention away from the progress we are making as a country,” she wrote on X.

However, other prominent Indigenous activists have lauded Thorpe’s stand.

Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts, a Bundjalung lawyer and author, said there was “nothing more harmful or disrespectful” than inviting the monarchy to tour the country in the first place, given its history.

“When Thorpe speaks, she’s got the ancestors right with her.”

After her protest, Thorpe told the BBC she had wanted to send a “clear message” to the King.

“To be sovereign you have to be of the land,” she said. “He is not of this land.”

Speaking on Tuesday, Thorpe said she disrupted the King’s parliamentary welcome ceremony after repeated written requests for a meeting and a “respectful conversation” with the monarch were ignored.

She told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation she “wanted the world to know the plight of our people in this country” and for the King to apologise.

“Why doesn’t he say, ‘I am sorry for the many, many thousands of massacres that happened in this country and that my ancestors and my kingdom are responsible for that’?” she said.

A chorus of Australian politicians including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have also criticised her protest, and UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has defended the monarch.

When asked by reporters if it was “disgraceful” for Australian politicians to shout at the King, Sir Keir replied: “Look, I think the King is doing a fantastic job, an incredible ambassador, not just for our country, but across the Commonwealth.”

“He is out there doing his public service notwithstanding the health challenges he himself has had.”

Albanese said Thorpe had not met “the standard behaviour Australians rightly expect of parliamentarians”, while opposition leader Peter Dutton called for Thorpe to resign.

“I really don’t care what Dutton says,” Thorpe told ABC radio in response.

“I’ll be here for the next three years so get used to truth-telling.”