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G7 to release 100m barrels from reserves to combat surging diesel prices – as it happened

And, on that note, we will be closing the blog for today. Leaders of G7 nations are to release up to 100m barrels of their emergency diesel and crude oil stockpiles after coming under pressure from Donald Trump to ease surging fuel prices (16:27, 16:40, 16:54, 17:31). For more updates, follow the US live blog here: In other news, Hundreds of schools across France saw disruptions today, as student protests continue and escalate to violent incidents, with hundreds of people arrested today (13:16). The French government is struggling to deal with its worst crisis in months after it was taken by surprise by the thousands of teenagers demonstrating outside schools across the country this week (10:09, 11:54, 12:23, 14:33, 14:56, 15:17, 15:49). The protests are expected to continue next week (17:47). Elsewhere, Sweden’s Social Democratic leader Magdalena Andersson has been given another change to form the new Swedish government, with seven days to report back on the progress (11:21). The Spanish government lost two key votes to ratify a package of emergency measures aimed at tackling the nation’s housing affordability crisis – just as protesters marched on the parliament demanding help for renters (15:59). Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko warned that Russian attacks are “tearing Kyiv apart,” amid dramatic escalation in relentless strikes in the city (18:01). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Aviation security back in spotlight after nightmare on flydubai flight to Israel

At around 9.30 on Wednesday morning local time, Tali Manes was taking her six-year-old daughter Nina to the toilet on the regular flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv when she heard a series of heavy blows against the cockpit door. Manes, an Israeli bank executive, immediately told a flight attendant seated nearby that something was wrong. When he didn’t react, she shouted at him: “Something is happening in there!” Seconds later, the man “simply went to the [cockpit] door and opened it”, Manes told Israel’s Channel 12 TV. Inside, the scene was the stuff of travellers’ nightmares: blood spattered over the cockpit walls and a brutal struggle in progress between the badly injured pilot and the co-pilot, who was armed with some kind of sharp weapon. There was no one at the controls of the Boeing 737. Manes shouted again: “He’s stabbing the pilot, he’s stabbing the pilot, come help!” Many of the details of what happened on flight FZ 1073 are still unclear, but what happened next is well documented by witness testimony and videos. As the plane went into a steep dive, losing 16,000ft of altitude in around a minute, most of the 182 passengers screamed, prayed and tried desperately to reassure panicking children. But a small group rushed to the cockpit and overpowered the co-pilot. One, a plumber, copied an action seen on TV documentaries about plane crashes to pull the aircraft out of its dive. Two off-duty pilots on the flight, both among the handful of non-Israeli passengers, then took over the controls of the now almost rudderless aircraft to guide it eventually to a landing 90 minutes later in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. In the meantime, Manes had helped truss the co-pilot with a telephone cord while a dentist treated the injured Indian pilot, Smit Machchhar. It was a “great miracle”, Manes said on eventually reaching Tel Aviv on an emergency flight 10 hours later. In a video call with Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, broadcast live by TV networks, Machchhar, who is recovering in an Abu Dhabi hospital, said he had been “fighting for my life”. The pilot successfully sent an alarm to air traffic control signalling the attack and then, as his strength ebbed, managed to unlock the cockpit security door. “I had so many wounds. I had fallen down,” Machhchar said. “At one point, I realised that if I didn’t get up … then passengers would lose their lives.” For the moment, the identity of the co-pilot who attacked Machchhar is unknown, though regional sources said he was an Omani national who had joined flydubai – which is owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government – between five and nine months ago. In Israel, there is little doubt about the co-pilot’s intentions. “The co-pilot is a terrorist who tried either to hijack the plane or bring it down as a suicide. The worst scenario is he was trying to get into Israel,” said Arik Arad, the chair of the aviation cybersecurity consultancy Cyviation and El Al’s former head of security at Ben Gurion airport Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has claimed the co-pilot was exposed to “Islamist radical indoctrination”, saying Israeli investigators had found evidence on social media accounts that he wanted to “kill Jews”. “The attacker, he calls out to the aircrew: ‘Kill me, kill me,’” Netanyahu told Fox News, adding it was “clear he was suicidal”. Experts said there had been only a handful of instances of suicide by plane – cases where the pilot’s motivation is primarily to kill him or herself by crashing the plane, rather than using the plane as a weapon, as in the 9/11 attacks. In 2015, the co-pilot of a low-cost German airline flight who had hidden evidence of psychiatric illness from his employers deliberately crashed, killing himself and 150 others. Suggestions that the crash of an AirIndia 787 in Ahmedabad last year was the result of a pilot deliberately cutting fuel to engines have been fiercely disputed. Terrorism experts are sceptical that the flydubai co-pilot’s only motivation was to end his own life. “The odds that a pilot would decide to commit suicide and just happen to be flying a plane full of Israelis are pretty low,” said Colin Clarke, a terrorism expert at the respected Soufan Center in New York. “Netanyahu has a big interest in this being terrorism, but the best explanation is probably the most obvious one [ie terrorism],” he said. “The question … is: was [the co-pilot] recruited by a group or an organisation … or was he radicalised alone? In which case, what was hyping him up, given he was flying a planeload of Israelis? Could that be Gaza?” Security services have been warning of a wave of radicalisation across the Middle East prompted by the war in Gaza, which came to an inconclusive end with a fragile ceasefire a year ago. But there has been limited evidence as yet that any violent Islamist extremist groups have gained support as a consequence of the conflict. Terrorism experts said the most obvious group that might be involved in such an attack would be al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which is based in Yemen and has a history of efforts to bring down planes. They said AQAP had recently sought to launch or inspire violence internationally. “Aviation remains the classic propaganda by deed,” Clarke said. “It’s been said that terrorism is theatre, and nothing is more theatrical than taking down an airplane. You get a body count, media coverage, you get your message across, and this makes a plane is the ultimate spectacular terrorist attack.” There are now many questions for aviation security. Changes made to plane design after 9/11, which allowed pilots to lock cockpit doors from the inside, have long been controversial among experts. If Machchhar’s desperate efforts to allow access to the flight deck had been unsuccessful, there is little doubt all onboard FZ 1073 would have died. There are also questions about screening of pilots. This can be expensive for airlines and could deprive them of valuable crew if too many fail more rigorous efforts to expose psychiatric illness or extremist views. Pilots may be reluctant to fly routes where they undergo greater screening, and some may hide physical or psychological problems for fear of being grounded. Arad said: “The important issue … is that obviously pilots are not being screened enough. Lots needs to be done.” Dubai international airport, the world’s busiest airport for international passenger traffic, has built some of its appeal on a reputation for safety in a volatile region, said Philip Baum, a visiting professor of aviation security at Coventry University in England. “They are very conscious of the fact – a little bit like Israel in many respects – that they cannot afford to have a terrorist attack happening on a flight out of there,” he said. The UAE has ordered investigators to “collect information and evidence to determine the truth of the incident, its circumstances, details and motives, and to verify the extent of its connection to any terrorist activity or purpose, or the existence of prior planning or direction for it,” its attorney general, Hamad Saif al-Shamsi, said on Thursday. Arad foresees growing threats to civilian aviation from cyber-attacks and the malevolent use of AI, which could allow the targeting multiple planes simultaneously. But other experts pointed out there was no need for such sophistication to pose a threat. Clarke said: “Whether or not it involves an attacker who was self-radicalised or part of a group, keeping things simple is always the best way to carry out an attack, and this came pretty damn close.”

‘The enemy is tearing our city apart’: terror in Kyiv as Russia ramps up attacks

Valeriya Tkachenko was dropping her son off at school in central Kyiv when the air raid alert sounded. Staff hurried the children and parents into the shelter, where the frightened lawyer spent the next two hours with her son. “I’m scared to death all day about what could happen to my son,” she said as she emerged from the shelter, already late for work. A day earlier, a Russian jet-powered drone had struck a school nearby. “And I can’t plan anything any more,” she said. “It’s not sustainable like this.” Across the city on Friday morning, Artem Marchenko, an IT worker, was forced to abandon his car and walk for 20 minutes across the Pivdennyi Bridge on his way to work after repeated Russian strikes damaged the crossing. He feared Russia would soon target Kyiv’s other bridges, paralysing movement across a city of about 3 million people, the two halves of which are divided by the Dnipro. Kyiv is entering its most difficult period since the early days of the invasion, as intensifying Russian attacks reshape everyday life in a capital that Moscow is seeking to plunge into darkness. For weeks, the main worry in the capital had been the coming winter, when Russia is expected once again to try to plunge Ukraine into darkness and cold. But a sharp escalation in Russian attacks has left many residents feeling that some of the hardship they had been bracing for is already here. “The capital is in a very dramatic situation. And it’s no longer possible to pretend that we can live now as we do in peacetime,” the Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said on Friday. “The enemy is tearing Kyiv apart.” This week alone, Russian missiles and drones have struck offices, datacentres, a school and hospital and one of Kyiv’s main bridges. Moscow has also started its attacks on Ukraine’s energy, targeting a thermal power plant and other energy facilities, leaving several neighbourhoods without power and water by morning. Volodymyr Zelenskyy underlined the apparent shift in Russian tactics in an interview with the Financial Times this week, saying Vladimir Putin had recently ordered his commanders to abandon the rules of war. “They want Ukrainians to leave the capital … and show that if you don’t have the capital you don’t have the country,” Zelenskyy said in separate comments to reporters. Until recently, Kyiv had retained a deceptively normal rhythm, while cities closer to the front, including Kharkiv and Dnipro, absorbed the brunt of daily missile and drone attacks. Now, residents joke grimly that the balance is beginning to shift, with those cities at times feeling safer than the capital. The city is confronting a particularly dangerous combination of an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors for ballistic missiles and a new generation of faster, jet-powered Russian drones that are harder to shoot down. Kyiv is racing to fast-track a new generation of interceptor drones capable of taking down the jet-powered models. Several are already in use, according to three defence industry sources, though they said it could still take weeks or months to deploy them at a scale sufficient to provide meaningful protection for the capital. At the same time, Russia’s advances on the battlefield remain relatively slow and are coming at enormous cost. Moscow captured about 361 sq km in September, according to the military analyst Konrad Muzyka, an increase on recent months but still far short of the pace needed to seize the rest of the Donbas before winter, when offensive operations typically become more difficult. Ukraine, meanwhile, has clawed back about 126 sq km in a series of counteroffensives in the east, being conducted under the codename Vivaldi. That slower-moving battle on the ground is increasingly at odds with what is happening far behind the front. The contrast reflects a broader shift in the war, as Ukraine’s major cities come under growing pressure. “You can be quite successful in the land domain, but if you are vulnerable in the air, especially in the rear, that is the vulnerability your opponent is going to exploit,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a military analyst at Ukraine’s government-run National Institute for Strategic Studies. Ukrainian officials have been warning their European counterparts about the scale of the looming threat. According to the New York Times, Ukraine’s energy minister, Denys Shmyhal, recently briefed European counterparts on an intercepted Russian plan to use as many as 1,000 missiles, drones and bombs against the country’s energy system. The targets included electrical substations, hydroelectric and thermal power plants and boiler houses, in what appeared to be an effort to plunge Ukrainian cities into darkness and cold and create a humanitarian crisis. “Russia plans to freeze Kyiv out, to throw it back into the stone age,” said one senior western diplomat in Kyiv, speaking on condition of anonymity. Western diplomats say publicly that they intend to remain in Kyiv, mindful that leaving would hand Moscow a propaganda victory and risk creating the impression that Ukraine was being abandoned. However, privately two senior diplomats said contingency plans were being drawn up to relocate embassies to Lviv or eastern Poland if Russia began deliberately targeting foreign missions. “The situation is obviously deteriorating fast,” the diplomat said.

India’s Cockroach movement launches new protests over changes to voter roll

India’s youth-led Cockroach movement kicked off more nationwide protests on Friday as thousands of people gathered in Mumbai, amid mounting concerns that millions of citizens are being unfairly stripped of their vote. The movement, which calls itself the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) and has massive support among the country’s gen Zs, returned to the streets to demand the resignation of the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar. Kumar has become a highly contentious figure after a report in the Indian Express newspaper alleged irregularities and internal concerns about a process to revise and “purify” India’s electoral register, called the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). SIR, which was overseen by Kumar, has resulted in tens of millions of people being deleted from the electoral register. Large numbers are challenging their removal. Opposition politicians and civil society groups have alleged SIR is part of a widespread manipulation of India’s electoral system to benefit the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). The CJP began as online satire but grew into a powerful manifestation of youth power and an unexpected challenge to the Narendra Modi government. There were protests for weeks in the heart of Delhi and the education minister was eventually pressured into resigning in July. In the aftermath, the group declared it would remain active as a “pressure group” to hold the government to account on issues of education and democracy. Last week, after the revelations about the election commission, the CJP’s founder, Abhijeet Dipke, announced that if Kumar did not resign over the controversy, the “Cockroaches” would resume their agitation until he stepped down. Dipke said the Mumbai protest would kick off a nationwide movement, with more protests planned in Delhi, Goa, Kolkata and Bengaluru. The authorities denied permission for the group to hold their protest at Mumbai’s Shivaji park but Dipke had vowed to go ahead regardless. “We are fighting against those in power,” he said at a press conference. “We all remember Mahatma Gandhi, who fought against the Britishers. Did the British ever permit him to agitate?” Hundreds of people assembled in Mumbai on Friday afternoon, amid a heavy police presence, including many young people who said they were there to fight for India’s democracy. “Voting is the most basic right of any citizen, but because of the actions of Kumar and the election commission, that right is under attack,” said Deesha, 22, a student activist. “So many millions of people have lost their votes and aren’t even recognised as citizens of India any more. This attack on our democracy must stop. The first important step is to get Gyanesh Kumar to resign, and then SIR must be reversed.” Janvi Upadhyay, 18, said the Cockroach movement had awoken the young people of India “and if they think they can just come and take away votes and cheat the elections, we will show them just how wrong they are”. “We already forced the education minister to resign. Gyanesh Kumar should be very worried right now because he is definitely next,” she said. The election commission has denied wrongdoing in the SIR but in a move that appeared aimed at easing tensions, officials were directed to expedite the process to register newly eligible voters and those who claimed to have been wrongly omitted from electoral rolls. Anger at Kumar and the election commission also erupted in Delhi on Friday, even as the police took draconian measures to try to stop people from protesting. Thousands of police were deployed to the Jantar Mantar protest site in Delhi – which was the epicentre of the last Cockroach agitation in July – a dozen metro stations in the surrounding area were closed and an internet shutdown was imposed. Hundreds of those who turned out to Jantar Mantar were immediately forced into police buses. The mass detentions of at least 700 people, including civil society leaders and opposition politicians, prompted outrage, with protesters leaning out of the bus windows to accuse police officers of depriving them of their fundamental democratic rights. Opposition parties said they would also start a nationwide protest movement to demand Kumar’s resignation. All opposition lawmakers plan to march to the election commission office in Delhi next week.

Fires, fury and hundreds of arrests as France gripped by student protests

As dozens of school pupils sat on top of a pile of wheelie bins blocking a high school entrance in north-eastern Paris, Sophia, 17, was on the frontline of the barricade, when she would normally have been attending Spanish class. “We hope this grows into a massive youth protest movement,” said the final year baccalaureate student at Paris’s Lycée Voltaire, who did not want her real name published. She was on her second day of blocking the school entrance along with hundreds of others, ensuring all lessons were cancelled. “We just want to be listened to by the government. We’d rather stand here doing this than have to learn in poor conditions. It’s the only way to make ourselves heard.” “School is a right, not a privilege,” read a cardboard sign as Sophia listed the grievances of teenagers across France: a lack of state investment in education, overcrowded classes of up to 40 children in crumbling buildings, poor teacher pay, staff absences and an unequal system in which social background determined success. Other reasons for the protest included the opaque and difficult online system for university applications as well as the unbearable temperatures in classrooms during the heatwaves in May and June. “The education budget is being cut to shreds while so much extra funding is being put into the army,” said Sophia, who wanted to go on to study art and work in animation. She said she hoped the demonstrations and blockades would continue into next week. Several teachers stood by the barricades in support. The French government is struggling to deal with its worst crisis in months after it was taken by surprise by the thousands of teenagers demonstrating outside schools across the country this week. Students’ unions say the education system is underfunded and neglected. Hundreds of high schools were closed or barricaded on Friday, and hundreds of young people have been arrested as the movement threatens to roll on into next week. Many school students protesting have accused the state of disengaging from secondary education, describing difficult conditions in classrooms with ceilings partially collapsing during class, leaks, cockroaches and buildings in disrepair. Others have spoken of excessively long school days and a lack of teaching staff. The government said the grievances were legitimate but condemned what it called “urban violence”. Students have accused police of using excessive force and causing injuries by regularly firing teargas canisters to disperse the protests. In Paris on Friday morning, fire damaged the entrances of two high schools – Léonard de Vinci in the south of the city and Gaston-Bachelard in the south-east. Several students have been injured in the protests, while the education ministry said 65 education staff were injured, including 40 school principals. An investigation is under way after a 14-year-old boy in Val d’Oise suffered serious injuries to his mouth and jaw after police allegedly beat him and fired a form of rubber-bullet launcher. The family’s lawyer said the boy had thought he was “going to die”. Outside Lycée Voltaire, riot police stood guard on Friday amid the quiet demonstration by hundreds of children. “We’re totally pacifist,” said Yves, a 17-year-old final year pupil who did not want his name published. He would normally have been in history class but said he had the full support of his parents to be on the barricade. He wanted to study catering next year. “The atmosphere on this barricade is generally very calm,” he said. “But there have been other people from outside school who have come past and tried to set fire to things, so we’ve tried to move the bins to stop that.” On Friday morning, loud bangs rang out as some people further away from the school let off firework mortars. Yves said: “Yesterday I heard bangs going off every two minutes, it’s loud and scary when things are being fired horizontally and not up into the air. There were people provoking running battles with police but it wasn’t pupils from our school.” Camille, 18, who said he wanted to become a teacher, said pupils were also protesting over the French government’s lack of engagement over poor results in international education rankings. “France has disastrous results and yet we’re one of the countries with the longest school days,” she said. “The government refuses to see that it’s about quality, not the number of teaching hours.” Farther east, on the barricade outside the Lycée Hélène Boucher, students were singing and holding cardboard signs of support for people in Gaza, as well as banners against the far-right presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, who is riding high in the polls. Sofiane, 19, who was studying literature, said students feared the government would scrap its special €1 meals for struggling students and reduce welfare aid for housing. “We’re also protesting about the conditions in the heatwave,” he said. “It was unbearable sitting exams in 35C-40C heat, even the teachers said those were impossible conditions.” He said the demonstrations were likely to continue. “Young people just want to study and learn in decent conditions. The French state seems surprised about worsening school results, but they’re doing nothing to remedy that.”

Almost half of Fayed abuse accusers are potential trafficking victims, MPs told

Almost half of the women who reported allegations of sexual abuse by Mohamed Al Fayed to the Metropolitan police are potential victims of human trafficking, MPs have been told. In a briefing for the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for the survivors of Fayed and Harrods in July, senior Met officers said a review earlier this year found 70 survivors’ accounts bore the hallmarks of trafficking. The Home Office has confirmed that at least five survivors were victims of international and domestic trafficking. The Met’s figures suggested the number of confirmed cases could climb much higher, said the Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain, a co-chair of the APPG. “I can’t believe that wouldn’t increase,” said Chamberlain, who also compared the scale of Fayed’s abuse to Jimmy Savile’s. The Labour MP Dave Robertson, the APPG’s other co-chair, said: “The number of women who were trafficked by Mohammed Fayed and his trafficking ring is certainly much higher.” Some women were trafficked from Harrods to Fayed’s private offices and residence in Park Lane while others were taken out of the UK and abused overseas, senior police officers running the Met’s investigation, Operation Cornpoppy, told the APPG. But several survivors told the Guardian that the Home Office had not recognised them as victims of trafficking because they now live abroad. Amy, who lives in Italy, said she was trafficked from Harrods, where she initially worked on the shop floor, and her home to Fayed’s other properties. She said she was transferred to a PA role in his private residence and office at 60 Park Lane in London, where he allegedly sexually abused her, including groping her breasts and forced kissing. She said Fayed also took her in his private car and helicopter to his estate in Oxted, Surrey, where she was sexually assaulted in a lagoon-style swimming pool located behind a concealed door. “I would be removed from my home in Hammersmith and then be changed into clothes like Lacoste polo shirts and Bermuda shorts and boat shoes, which I absolutely hated,” said Amy. “That was robbing me of my actual identity. Whoever saw me leave my bedsit would say that’s not her. That’s a strong component of what trafficking is and was very calculating.” In a letter sent in June to the then minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, Natalie Fleet, Amy raised concerns about the apparent exclusion of survivors living outside the UK from the Home Office assessment of potential trafficking victims, the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). She received a response from the Home Office in August, which said there was not a requirement that a potential victim be resident in the UK before being referred to the NRM by the police, or another first responder organisation. But last month Amy was informed by her contact officer at the Met that the Home Office had confirmed it would reject any referrals made for international residents. KP Law (KPL), which represents Amy and 277 other alleged survivors of Fayed’s abuse, said nearly a quarter of those women now lived overseas. Lucy Traynor, a senior associate at KPL, criticised the apparently inconsistent advice as to who was eligible to be recognised as a victim of trafficking. The lawyer said: “We are still seeing individuals whose experiences meet the threshold for trafficking struggling to secure recognition through these systems which are designed to identify and protect victims. Amy’s case is a stark example. Despite the nature of what she experienced, she continues to face barriers to recognition outside the UK. That disconnect between what the Home Office has committed to and what survivors experience in practice is simply not acceptable.” First responders including police forces and some charities can refer someone to the NRM if they suspect they are a victim of human trafficking. The Home Oﬃce then makes an initial “reasonable grounds” decision if it believes a crime may have occurred before investigating further and making a final “conclusive grounds” decision. So far it has confirmed that five women allegedly abused by Fayed were trafficking victims. Eleanor Lyons, the independent anti-slavery commissioner, said the Home Office’s statutory guidance explicitly stated that people needed to be in the UK to be referred to the NRM. Lyons said this was because the process involved getting access to support including a safe house and counselling, which officials believed would be difficult to provide to people who do not live in the UK. But she called on the Home Office to reconsider the requirement because many affected people she spoke to just wanted to be recognised as trafficking victims, adding that the situation was causing deep distress for alleged survivors of Fayed’s abuse. “The government should be doing everything it can to make it easier to identify these women and recognise them as potential victims of modern slavery,” Lyons said. “They’re doing directly the opposite right now, which is causing further harm to the survivors.” Survivors’ groups say more than 500 women have come forward about abuse that allegedly took place at Harrods, Park Lane, Fulham football club, the Ritz hotel in Paris, and other places owned by Fayed. The Met is investigating 165 victims who have contacted the force directly. A Met police spokesperson said: “We were previously making referrals to the Home Office for victims living in the UK and abroad, but those relating to victims living abroad were being rejected. As a result, we have paused any further such referrals. Should the Home Office position change, we will restart those submissions. Our support to victims continues, regardless of where they live.” A Home Office spokesperson paid tribute to “the incredible bravery” of survivors of Fayed’s alleged abuse. They added: “We are ensuring modern slavery survivors get the support they need to recover and move on with their lives.” A Harrods spokesperson said it “supports all survivors in their pursuit of justice and continues to work closely with the Met police on its investigation”.

Friday briefing: How we covered the flydubai incident as it unfolded

Good morning. Shocking news of a cockpit stabbing. Graphic footage of bloodied crew members. Mid-air testimony from terrified passengers. This was the tenor of the heart-in-mouth reporting as the horrifying events unfolded onboard flight FZ 1073 to Tel Aviv: the early morning budget flight that plummeted 17,000ft in under two minutes before the courageous intervention of passengers and crew averted an apparent hijacking, potentially saving the lives of not just the 170+ passengers and crew on board, but many more. This morning, speculation and conflicting reports are continuing to emerge about this dramatic incident in the sky above the most geopolitically sensitive region in the world. So how does the Guardian report a swiftly developing story engulfed in misinformation, as accurately and responsibility as possible? I spoke to the reporters, bloggers and editors involved to find out. But first, this morning’s headlines. Five big stories UK politics | Ministers are working up sweeping plans for welfare changes including scrapping a key disability benefit for under-25s and replacing it with a multibillion-pound package of support to get into work. Northern Ireland | Talks aimed at resolving the Drumcree parade dispute have broken up without agreement, with Northern Ireland secretary Chris Bryant describing the situation as being between a “rock and a hard place”. US news | Tennessee’s governor has suspended all executions in the state and ordered an independent inquiry after a botched attempt to put a condemned inmate to death on Wednesday night. AI | When prompted, AI chat bots will edit images to remove the hijabs from Muslim women, a violation of one of the world’s most common and visible expressions of faith. Europe news | A fast-growing protest by high-school students over long hours, teacher shortages and decaying facilities has escalated into “urban violence”, the French government has warned. In depth: ‘It was very, very tricky to untangle what was happening’ International leaders have rushed to praise Smit Machchhar, the captain of flight FZ 1073. Bleeding heavily from multiple stab wounds, he somehow managed to release his cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to gain entry and overpower his co-pilot turned assailant, an Omani national, who had attacked Machchhar in an apparent attempt to crash the plane. Other crew members were able to stabilise the flight and, just before 11am local time on Wednesday, the Boeing 737 Max made a safe emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. All 174 passengers on board escaped serious injury. Yesterday, as internationally coordinated investigations continued, the attacker’s motives remained unknown. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News it was “too early to say” if there was any Iranian involvement, while claiming the co-pilot had previously undergone radical Islamist indoctrination and was suicidal. Other senior Israeli figures have been more vehement, with ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, describing the incident as a “terror attack”. Two Israeli security sources later told Reuters that they had not yet found Iranian involvement. Saudi investigators detained the co-pilot upon landing and are cooperating with the United Arab Emirates, the US, Oman and Israel to determine his reasons and potential affiliations. William Christou, a Beirut-based reporter with the Guardian, tells me: “They’re examining whether it’s a terror attack, whether it had any previous planning or prior direction, and if it could be a lone wolf attacker, who was perhaps motivated by anti-Israel hate, but wasn’t necessarily linked to any larger organisation or state.” *** ‘The story changed moment to moment’ William began drafting his initial report as soon as he woke up to news alerts about a potential hijacking. The Israeli government originally minimised the incident, describing it as a fight between pilots, while another early report suggested the plane had to land because of a fight between Ukrainian and Russian co-pilots. “I was sifting through so much misinformation,” he says. “The story changed very quickly, and moment to moment.” Back in the UK, Oliver Holmes was looking at flight trackers. Now based at Guardian HQ, Oliver has reported extensively across the Middle East. What I didn’t know until we spoke is that he once trained as a pilot, which has left him with an enduring interest in aerospace and aviation. Flight tracking websites have transformed how we report in-air incidents, he tells me. “Before any government has made an announcement, these platforms can tell you something seriously wrong has happened.” Flight tracking website Flightradar24 recorded the aircraft rapidly descending from its cruising altitude of about 34,000ft to 17,000ft in less than two minutes, just as it reached to the Saudi-Jordanian border. Oliver suggests that investigators will look at whether this sudden and ferocious plunge was why the plane eventually landed with part of its tail missing. Oliver sent what he could interpret from the tracking data to his international desk editors, who asked him to work on a tick-tock piece – not, for once, a reference to social media, but an old-school print term for an article that sets out the hour-by-hour narrative of an unfolding news story. “It was very, very tricky to untangle what was happening,” says Oliver. Eventually there came a flood of footage purporting to show images from inside the plane – but was it real? Each clip that the Guardian incorporated into our reporting had to be verified, particularly given the potential for AI-generated fakes. (The Guardian’s head of photography Fiona Shields is fascinating here on how we assess AI images.) *** ‘Netanyahu was trying to present himself as Mr. Security’ But this wasn’t just an aviation disaster. “It was taking place in this hugely sensitive geopolitical situation,” says Oliver. “The plane landed in Saudi Arabia which does not officially have diplomatic relations with Israel.” The budget airline itself, flydubai, had by now suspended all its flights to and from Israel, but warned against “premature speculation” while multiple governments, and Israeli officials in particular, were doing just that. This incident has occurred at a moment of extreme instability across the region, with the strait of Hormuz still closed as a result of the US-Israel assault on Iran and the resurgence of conflict in Yemen. It is also weeks ahead of knife-edge Israeli elections, with polls showing Netanyahu’s current coalition unlikely to meet the threshold needed to form a government but no clear path to power for his rivals. Just days ago, Netanyahu warned Israel faced an unspecified attack risk during the election period – an assertion greeted with cynicism by political opponents. The Israeli military subsequently confirmed they had no specific intelligence of an anticipated attack. “Most people interpreted that as Netanyahu trying to stir up his base by presenting himself as Mr. Security,” says William. Nevertheless, Netanyahu’s supporters consider him vindicated. On Thursday, William tells me, the Israeli foreign ministry started briefing diplomats that the flydubai incident was an attempt to drive a further wedge between the UAE and Israel, a relationship already strained after leaks suggesting Netanyahu was personally alerted to the 7 October attacks by the UAE president a week before it took place, something the president has denounced as “an absolute lie”. *** ‘These stories can be incredibly powerful’ It’s a challenging time to report a story like this, says Taz Ali, who led our live blog which covered the incident unfolding in real-time on Wednesday. “Readers are making connections with what’s happening in the Middle East in general, and you’re trying to answer their questions, first with very scant detail and later with a deluge of information, much of which is proved to be inaccurate.” Taz, who has a decade of experience in reporting on global events, knows the human drama of a potential hijacking immediately grabs reader’s attention. “Often those stories can be incredibly powerful, involve emergency landings, and sometimes they end in great tragedies”. And with the recent 25th anniversary of 9/11, the incident had an even deeper resonance. “Especially with the anniversary happening so recently, those memories would have been so raw in people’s minds when they came to this story.” What else we’ve been enjoying A new Taschen book of images from the National Geographic’s archives charts a century of dramatic change. And this fantastic gallery shows a tantalising selection, from the burlesque clubs of Baltimore to a blimp crossing New York Harbour. Lucinda Everett, newsletters team I loved our piece on when book clubs get dramatic, featuring werewolf smut, bad book choices, and infuriation when people don’t actually read the book. Poppy Elle Hunt’s piece about the evolution and cultural significance of human hair tackles many questions I never knew I needed answering. Case in point: what on earth is the purpose of pubic hair? Lucinda Guardian contributor Katherine Rowland went to Chicago for the United Astrology Conference and tells a captivating story about the battle over who gets to interpret the stars and how they should do it. Poppy Philip Oltermann’s interview with German artist and writer Philipp Ruch is a fascinating read. Ruch argues that “most of the theories we have to explain the rise of the Nazis don’t make sense – the data tells a far darker story”, one that could help us understand the rise of right-wing extremists today. Lucinda Sport Football | Wales ended their long wait for a Nations League win by beating Norway 2-1 in Cardiff, while Portugal maintained their perfect start with a 4-2 victory over Denmark in Copenhagen. Football | The United States is poised to host the first Women’s Club World Cup in January 2028, becoming the latest in a series of major Fifa tournaments staged in North America. Football | Andy Burnham’s intervention in the Manchester City debate has revived tensions between the Premier League and the prime minister. Something for the weekend Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now TV Blue Lights (BBC One) | ★★★★☆ This Northern Ireland-set police drama has always been modern but never explicitly topical. Until now. Race riots, organised crime and institutional politics bring it bang up to date. Read Jack Seale’s full review. Music Meshell Ndegeocello: Synonym | ★★★★☆ In the jazz-soul singer’s ‘expression of queer liberation’, stars from Chaka Khan to Bill Callahan to Cynthia Erivo duet on equally varied songs from Cher to the Human League and beyond. Read Alexis Petridis’s full review. Film Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie (in cinemas now) | ★★★★☆ Alex Gibney’s documentary follows the celebrated author’s life up to and after the attack, but what shines through is Rushdie’s remarkable courage. Read Peter Bradshaw’s full review. Art Renoir and Love (National Gallery, London, from tomorrow) | ★★★★★ Grab your straw boater – and revel in the Impressionist’s light-as-souffle masterpieces that celebrate life’s pleasures, from picnics to dances to frolics in the bushes. Read Jonathan Jones’s full review. The front pages The Guardian splashes with “Welfare changes may axe disability benefit for young”. The Times leads with “Emergency diesel talks after Trump ultimatum” and the Telegraph says “Trump tells Europe to release diesel”. The Mail runs with “Labour frees first of 10 tidal waves of convicts”, while The i Paper has “Burnham leaving the door open to snap general election in 2027”. The Sun, on Andy Burnham’s Manchester City comments, says “Own goal”. The Financial Times goes with “Global bond sell-off leaves US trapped in vicious loop”, and the Mirror leads on an interview with a survivor of the Manchester synagogue attack, saying “He stabbed me 3 times but I had to stop him”. The Latest US woman on death row survives two lethal injections in Tennessee A woman convicted of murdering a schoolmate 30 years ago has been taken to hospital after surviving two rounds of lethal injections in Tennessee. Christa Pike would have been the first woman to be executed in the state in 200 years. Pike, 50, has spent three decades on death row after she was convicted of the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. A last-minute appeal to stop the lethal injection was overturned by the supreme court, but the state governor, Bill Lee, has suspended executions in Tennessee for the rest of the year. Lucy Hough speaks to the attorney and anti-capital punishment campaigner Clive Stafford Smith. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Eleven-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan has become the youngest ever ‘woman grandmaster’ at the Chess Olympiad in Uzbekistan – while playing on a car booster seat so she could reach the board. Sivanandan, who lives in Harrow, was taught to play by her father when she was five. Within a year, she was beating him and by eight she had beaten the former British champion Peter Lee. If she reaches a rating of 2,500 in the next 11 months, she will become the world’s youngest ever outright grandmaster. She fits her chess career around school, but takes everything in her stride. “Now that I’m in secondary school there might be more homework,” she says, “but I should be able to manage”. Her ultimate ambition, she says, is simply to be the best chess player in the world. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

‘No one disrespects Our Lady’: fears for Brazil’s patron saint grip country ahead of election

A row of Biblical proportions has erupted in the run-up to Brazil’s presidential election, with the country’s patron saint, Our Lady of Aparecida, emerging as an unlikely kingmaker in the deadlocked race. Ahead of Sunday’s vote, the two frontrunners – the leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his far-right challenger, Flávio Bolsonaro – are level in the polls. But in recent days, speculation that Bolsonaro – son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro – might strip the widely cherished patroness of her position have caused a nationwide outcry, leaving some to question if it could tip the knife-edge election in favour of Lula, who is Catholic. “It could sway things one way or the other,” said Thomas Traumann, a political analyst who has been tracking the unusual election row. It remains unclear precisely how the commotion began, but debate over the issue exploded last week when a remark by Bolsonaro, whose movement includes many evangelical Christians, went viral online. In a recent broadcast, the former senator said one of his first acts as president would be to “decree that Brazil belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ”. Some Catholics took that as a sign that the Protestant politician planned to unseat Our Lady of Aparecida, although only the Vatican – which declared her Brazil’s patroness in 1930 – has the authority to do so. Those suspicions were reinforced by Bolsonaro’s reported links to JB Carvalho, an evangelical leader who has previously called for the patroness’s removal. In 2007, another Bolsonaro ally tried to introduce legislation to the same effect, although the bill was dropped. Bolsonaro has called claims he plans to unseat Our Lady of Aparecida “fake news”. He alleged the rumours were being spread by Lula supporters, as well as members of the Episcopal Conference of Brazil, a Catholic bishops’ organisation. The conference rejected the charge. Lula’s leftwing movement has taken advantage of the furore, keenly aware it could hurt the far-right candidate’s chances in a country where nearly 57% of the population is Catholic. With the result expected to be even tighter than the last one – when Lula beat Jair Bolsonaro by less than 2% – even a small number of votes could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Lula has appeared on the campaign trail holding statuettes of the Virgin Mary while his wife, Janja da Silva, has worn a pendant honouring Our Lady of Aparecida. “As long as I’m president, no one will disrespect Our Lady of Aparecida. No one. People need to learn to respect all religions,” Lula told a rally in the Amazon. Lula’s vice-president and running mate, a devout Catholic called Geraldo Alckmin, published a video describing how he had received messages from Catholics “worried about the direction of the country and the terrible news that has been circulating”. Alckmin assured voters he and Lula would preserve and protect “religious traditions, so sacred to Brazilian families”. The row speaks to the rivalry and tensions between Brazil’s once dominant Catholic church and the evangelical movement, which has grown rapidly since the 80s. Traumann said: “It touched a raw nerve, which is the growing power of the evangelicals. Evangelicals make up about 30% of the population, but their political power is much greater than 30% – and within Bolsonarismo it is even more significant”. Traumann believed that, irrespective of whether Bolsonaro really did intend to remove the patroness, the furore had tapped into “a genuine fear among Catholics of being pushed outside the system”. “I have no doubt that this is going to be important [in the election]. [Flávio Bolsonaro] knows it has landed badly,” he added. Luiz Antônio Simas, a historian and author of the book So Many Marys: Our Lady in Popular Culture, said the outcry “was a symptom of the popularity that Aparecida and the Virgin Mary in general have in the formation of our culture”. “For Brazilian popular culture, Our Lady of Aparecida transcends altars … She is extremely powerful as a defining element of what we envision Brazilian popular culture to be,” Simas said, noting how Brazil’s “Black Madonna” was present in samba parades, football culture and Afro-Brazilian faiths. While the debate flared up on the eve of the election, Simas said Our Lady of Aparecida was a long-running point of tension between Catholics and evangelicals, who oppose the Catholic veneration of saints and images. He recalled a major outcry in 1995 when a neo-Pentecostal pastor kicked a statue of Our Lady of Aparecida on TV. Simas believed religious racism was at the heart of the outcry, given that Our Lady of Aparecida was a black representation of the Virgin Mary. “When all of this comes into contact with a turbulent political context, in a country experiencing the tensions of a highly contested pre-election scenario, all these controversies come to the surface,” Simas added.