There are not many sports that can keep an audience enraptured through 45 minutes of ceremony before the first point is even contested.

And yet, the intricate traditions unfolding in a small clay ring - virtually unchanged in hundreds of years - managed to do just that.

Welcome, then, to the Grand Sumo Tournament - a five-day event at the Royal Albert Hall featuring 40 of the very best sumo wrestlers showcasing a sport which can date its first mention back to 23BC.

London's Victorian concert venue has been utterly transformed, complete with six-tonne Japanese temple roof suspended above the ring.

It is here the wrestlers, known as rikishi, will perform their leg stomps to drive away evil spirits, and where they will clap to get the attention of the gods.

And above all this ancient ceremony, a giant, revolving LED screen which wouldn't look out of place at an American basketball game, offering the audience all the stats and replays they could want.

Sumo may be ancient, and may have strict rules governing every aspect of a rikishi's conduct, but it still exists in a modern world.

And that modern world is helping spread sumo far beyond Japan's borders.

It was a "random video" which first caught Sian Spencer's attention a couple of years ago.

This was quickly followed by the discovery of dedicated YouTube channels for a couple of the sumo stables, where rikishi live and train, waking up early to practice, followed by a high protein stew called a chankonabe, and then an afternoon nap - all in the service of bulking up.

Then she discovered the bi-monthly, 15 day championships, known as basho, and from there, she was hooked.

The London tournament was simply a "once-in-a-lifetime", not-to-be-missed, opportunity to see it all in real life, the 35-year-old says.

Julia and her partner Cezar, who live in Edinburgh, discovered sumo through a more traditional route: a trip to Japan six years ago.

"We saw it as a very touristy activity, but we actually ended up loving the sport," says Julia, 34.

"From there on, we tried to find communities, information, just to learn more and more about it," Cezar, 36, adds.

Colleagues, friends and family, they found, could be quite taken aback by their new passion.

"It's the only sport we watch," explains Julia - so they found like-minded people on messaging apps like Telegram.

"We found Italian groups, English groups," says Julia.

"Outside of Japan, online is the only way to interact with the sport," adds Cezar.

Going to Japan is almost the only way to see a top-flight sumo tournament.

This week's event in London is only the second time the tournament has visited the city - the first time was in 1991 - while the last overseas trip was to Jakarta in 2013.

But even going to Japan isn't a guarantee of getting a seat. Last year was the first time in 24 years that all six of the bi-monthly, 15-day events had sold out in 28 years, Kyodo News reported - fueled by interest at home, and by the tourist boom which saw more than 36m foreigners visit in 2024.

So for many, the London tournament is the first time they have watched sumo in person - and it doesn't disapoint.

"Seeing it up close, you get a sense of the speed and the power which you don't get on TV. It was incredible," says Caspar Eliot, a 36-year-old fan from London. "They are so big."

To win, one man needs to push another out of the ring or to the ground using brute strength. The majority use one of two styles to achieve this, often in split seconds - pushing, or grappling.

Either way, the sound of the two rikishi colliding in the first moment of the match reverberates around the hall.

Caspar and his wife Megha Okhai had been among those lucky enough to get tickets when they visited Japan last year - only for them not to arrive in the post in time.

It didn't stop them falling head over heels, however, and they have watched every basho this year. So when it came to the London Grand Sumo Tournament, they weren't taking chances.

"I think we had four devices trying to book tickets," Caspar tells the BBC ahead of the event, displaying his sumo towels proudly - a must for diehard fans. "We got front row seats, on the cushions."

The cushions right next to the ring are of course highly prized - but also, a bit risky.

On Thursday, it was all 181kg and 191cm of Shonannoumi which went plummeting into the crowd - perhaps making those in the slightly cheaper seats breathe a sigh of relief.

Of course, the size of the rikishi is one of the first things most people think of when they think of sumo. The Albert Hall's director of programming revealed to The Guardian earlier this week that they "had to source and buy new chairs which can take up to 200kg in weight".

But sumo - for all its sell-out events - is not without its troubles behind the scenes. A series of scandals over the last couple of decades around bullying, match fixing and sexism have dented its image.

And then there is the fact that last year - while being a bumper one for ticket sales - saw the lowest number of new recruits joining the stables.

Perhaps the strict life of a rikishi doesn't look as appealing as it once might have. Its popularity among young Japanese is also being threatened by other sports, like baseball. As Thomas Fabbri, the BBC's resident sumo fan, said: "My Japanese friends think I'm mad, as they see it as a sport for old people."

Japan's falling birthrate will also not help - nor is the Japanese Sumo Association's rule which restricts each stable to just one foreign rikishi. Despite this, Mongolians have dominated for the past few years - and one of the most exciting rising stars hails from Ukraine.

Not that any of this has worried fans in London.

"Seeing all this ritual and ceremony that goes with sumo is quite special," fan Sian says. "Now, seeing it in person, you feel like you are more part of it."

Julia and Cesar agree in a message the next day.

"It's a Japanese sport but we didn't feel out of place, so many people from all around the world around us."

For Megha, the drama "made it so incredible" - as did meeting the other fans.

"Getting out of a very niche Reddit community and being able to see all these sumo fans in person and being able to chat with other people who are just as into this as we are - it was worth every penny of sumo gold."

Additonal reporting by Thomas Fabbri

Want to watch? Audiences can tune in via BBC iPlayer, the BBC Red Button, the BBC Sport website and app.

When Charlotte Morjaria headed for a weekend at Butlin's with her two best friends, she had no idea it would save her life.

On the last day of their girls' trip in June, the group befriended a stag party and were playing games, running around outside their accommodation and "being silly".

"Probably a tad too much drinking, albeit we were having a fantastic time before disaster struck - or you could call it a miracle," Charlotte, 31, said.

When one of the men scooped her up over his shoulder during a game of tag, she heard something "go pop" but put it out of her mind and carried on enjoying her evening.

When she was still in pain after returning home to Newport from the holiday park in Minehead, Somerset, she went to A&E thinking she had broken a rib.

But a CT scan done to check for any internal damage revealed a "sizeable" cancerous tumour on her kidney that she had no idea even existed.

"In that moment, it was probably the most scared I've ever been in my life," she said.

Charlotte sat in the hospital A&E waiting room for 22 hours and nearly left several times.

"I've just come back from Butlin's, I'm absolutely done in, I don't want to be sat in a waiting room alone, falling in and out of consciousness," she recalled.

"I'm sat there with what I suspect is a bruised rib... I felt like a bit of a fraud."

Then, "out of nowhere" her mum, followed by one of her friends, arrived to keep her company and persuaded her to stay.

When she was seen, doctors ordered the scan and Charlotte was told her rib was OK but said the medics around her did not have "the faces of people who are just going to say you're fine".

"They said they'd found a sizeable mass on my left kidney."

"Still slightly hungover and in a daze", she was told the 7cm (2.5in) tumour was being treated as cancer and was sent straight from The Grange Hospital to nearby Royal Gwent Hospital in her hometown.

Charlotte said dozens of questions "flood your brain" including how a tumour this size was missed.

"The conversation was a strange one, because I thought I was fine. There really weren't very big tell-tale signs."

She explained there were a lot of factors which hid her symptoms of weight loss, chronic fatigue and back pain, and she enjoyed an active lifestyle, going to dance classes and swimming regularly.

Having previously struggled with disordered eating, she had been taking the weight loss medication Mounjaro in 2024, but stopped when it appeared to be making her unwell.

She also has depression, for which she takes medication, and put the "normal aches and pains" down to running around after her "absolutely crazy" two-year-old son Sebastian.

"The doctors were astounded, not only by the fact I was this young, healthy woman, but the fact that, on the surface, I'd had no idea," she added.

Charlotte was diagnosed with stage one TFE3 renal cell carcinoma - a rare form of kidney cancer.

In August, the day before her 31st birthday, she had surgery to have her kidney removed.

"[My consultant] had only heard of one case, it is rare. They didn't have a lot of information," she said.

"Thankfully it hadn't spread... but they still needed to get it out pretty quickly."

In September, Charlotte was told she was cancer free, but needs regular scans for the rest of her life as she is deemed high risk.

"The reality of it is, every six months I'm going to be scared. I'm going to be a mess. I'm cancer free, but I'm not free of cancer."

She said she felt lucky to have a "brilliant life" with her husband Ben and their son, but adjusting to her new reality had been hard.

"Even though I haven't lost my hair, even though I'm seemingly well... it's taken its toll."

She asked the doctors about lifestyle changes but was told "there was no rhyme or reason" for her tumour and to "be sensible" - eating healthily and not drinking too much alcohol.

"It's a silly story, it's a laugh and I'm happy people have a giggle. You walk into a room and you say the c-word, it makes people feel uncomfortable, it's often awkward to talk about.

"But I want it to raise awareness... an adult Butlin's weekender did indeed save my life."

Every week it seems US financial markets are hit by another bout of fear.

The latest worries spread this week from the banking sector in the US, after two regional lenders warned they would be hit by losses from alleged fraud.

But before that, markets swooned over signs of rekindled US-China tensions, as the two superpowers face off over tariffs, advanced technology and access to rare earths.

The bankruptcies of car parts supplier First Brands and subprime car lender Tricolor acted as a trigger for nervous chatter in September.

Over the last month, US shares, which had been climbing since their tariff-induced rout in April, have flattened.

But in many ways the market swings so far - down roughly 3% at the steepest - are not unusual.

Zooming out, the major indexes have still posted gains since the start of the year, with the S&P 500 up roughly 13%. That's smaller than 2024 but still solid.

"The market has done surprisingly well so far this year ... driven by an improvement in corporate profits and the enthusiasm surrounding AI," says Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research.

The resilience of the stock market is, ironically, exactly what is driving some of the jitters.

Put simply, when set against other standard metrics like profits, share prices in the US are very high.

Meanwhile, concerns about a possible bubble emerging in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry have generated a steady undercurrent of talk since the start of the year - discussions that have ramped up as analysts struggle to see how the vast sums of money the biggest players are throwing at one another all fit together.

The Bank of England warned recently of "stretched valuations" and rising risk of a "sharp market correction".

Those concerns were echoed in remarks from JP Morgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon and to some extent US central bank chair Jerome Powell.

The International Monetary Fund was the latest to chime in this week.

"Markets appear complacent as the ground shifts," it said in its financial stability report, which noted risks from trade tensions, geopolitical uncertainty and rising sovereign indebtedness.

James Reilley, senior markets economist at Capital Economics, said the market falls triggered by the regional banks were a sign of investors alert to risk and moving quickly to reduce exposure amid uncertainty about whether the losses were indicative of wider issues.

But he said the brief nature of the drops showed how quickly such worries could clear.

Many investors remain optimistic, with analysts at firms such as Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo in recent weeks boosting their forecasts for where the S&P 500 might climb by the end of the year.

David Lefkowitz, head of US equities at UBS Global Wealth Management, said he thought a sharp sell-off was unlikely at a time when growth in the US remains solid and the US central bank is lowering borrowing costs.

He is expecting the S&P 500 to end the year hovering around 6,900 points, about 4% higher than where it sits on Friday.

While he acknowledged the troubles popping up at banks, he noted that the lenders involved have alleged fraud.

He said the overall picture, when looking at default levels, appears healthy, and he saw little risk that demand for AI would suddenly decline, puncturing valuations.

"I'm not saying we're in a bubble. I'm not saying we're not in a bubble. The question is what's going to drive the downside," he said. "Things don't usually spontaneously decline."

A typical bull market - when shares are rising - lasts about four and a half years, said Mr Stovall.

With inflation still sticky, and investors wary of events in Washington, like the government shutdown and Trump administration's efforts to influence the US central bank, this year's market rally has been "unloved", said Mr Stovall.

On the other hand, he noted: "It's just a matter of time. Corrections and bear markets have not been repealed. They might simply be delayed."

Republican governors in several US states have placed National Guard troops on standby in preparation for a nationwide protest to oppose Donald Trump and his policies.

The organisers of the "No Kings" protests say that gatherings will take place at more than 2,500 locations around the US. Trump allies have accused the protesters of being allied with the far-left Antifa movement.

Governors in Texas and Virginia have activated their state's National Guard troops, however it is unclear how visible the military presence will be.

Organisers say that at the last No Kings protest, held in June, more than five million people took to the streets to denounce Trump's political agenda.

The protest organisers say the protest will challenge Trump's "authoritarianism".

"The president thinks his rule is absolute," they say on their website.

"But in America, we don't have kings and we won't back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty."

Some Republicans have dubbed the protests "Hate America" rallies.

"We'll have to get the National Guard out," Kansas Senator Roger Marshall said ahead of the rallies, according to CNN.

"Hopefully it'll be peaceful. I doubt it."

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday activated the state's National Guard ahead of a protest scheduled in Austin, the state's capital.

He said the troops would be needed due to the "planned antifa-linked demonstration".

Democrats denounced the move, including the state's top Democrat Gene Wu, who argued: "Sending armed soldiers to suppress peaceful protests is what kings and dictators do — and Greg Abbott just proved he's one of them."

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also ordered the state National Guard to be activated.

A weapons smuggler, who used a fishing boat to ship ballistic missile parts from Iran to Houthi rebels in Yemen, has been sentenced to 40 years in a US prison.

Pakistani national Muhammad Pahlawan was detained during a US military operation in the Arabian Sea in January 2024 - during which two US Navy Seals drowned.

Pahlawan's crew would later testify they had been duped into taking part, having believed they were working as fishermen.

The Houthis were launching sustained missile and drone attacks on Israel at the time, as well as targeting international commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, saying they were acting in support of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Iran has consistently denied arming the Houthis.

The crew's detailed testimonies to a court in the US state of Virginia provide a rare look inside a smuggling operation that helped power the attacks.

The components found on Pahlawan's boat were "some of the most sophisticated weapon systems that Iran proliferates to other terrorist groups", US federal prosecutors said after his trial.

The 49-year-old was sentenced on Thursday, having been previously convicted on five counts - including terrorism offences and transporting weapons of mass destruction.

Court documents show the sentences for two of the five counts will run concurrently for 240 months, or 20 years. The other three counts, another 20 years, will run consecutive to that - making a total of 480 months, or 40 years.

'Walking dead person'

The eight crew members who testified in court said they had no idea what was inside the large packages on board the boat, named the Yunus.

One crew member said that when he questioned Pahlawan about it, he was told to mind his own business.

Pahlawan, however, knew just how dangerous the cargo was.

He referred to himself as a "walking dead person" in text message exchanges with his wife, sent in the days before the January 2024 voyage which would get him arrested.

"Just pray that [we] come back safely", said the message, used as evidence in court.

"Why do you talk like this, 'may or may not come back'", she asked him.

Pahlawan told her: "Such is the nature of the job, my dear, such is the nature of the job."

His final words to her before sailing were: "Keep me in your prayers. May God take me there safely and bring me back safely, alright. Pray."

For this journey, Pahlawan was paid 1,400 million rials (£25,200; $33,274) - a substantial fee prosecutors at his trial described as "danger money".

The trip was "part of a larger operation" funded and co-ordinated by two Iranian brothers, Yunus and Shahab Mir'kazei, said the then-US Department of Defense (now known as the Department of War) in a statement in June.

The Mir'kazei brothers are allegedly affiliated, it added, with Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) - the most powerful armed force in Iran. The IRGC is designated as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US.

Both Shahab and Yunus Mir'kazei have been charged by the American authorities, but are still at large and believed to be in Iran.

Pahlawan made two successful smuggling voyages before he was caught - one in October 2023, and a second two months later.

The dozen men he recruited to join him were all from Pakistan and had travelled across the border into Iran looking for work.

Before setting off on the December trip - the US court heard - the crew were tasked with loading large packages onto the boat in Chabahar on Iran's south coast.

Then, after five or six days at sea, when they were close to the coast of Somalia, the crew described another boat pulling up next to them at night and them having to hand over the cargo.

Crew member Mehandi Hassan told the court there were about five men on the other boat, who spoke in a language he didn't recognise.

Their next voyage, the following month, was expected to follow the same route. As before, it began in the small port of Konarak before sailing to Chabahar, where the crew were made to load heavy boxes on board.

The packages, the US Navy would later discover, contained Iranian-made ballistic missile parts, anti-ship cruise missile components and a warhead.

Once at sea, Pahlawan kept to himself - according to crew testimony - often staying in his cabin and watching movies on his phone. Sometimes they would see Pahlawan on a second mobile - a satellite phone - but they didn't know what he was saying, said Mehandi Hassan, because he would speak in a language they didn't understand.

On 11 January, the crew said they were woken by the sound of helicopter rotors overhead and a US Navy ship pulling alongside. Pahlawan came out of his cabin to tell everyone to "keep going" and not to stop the boat, telling them the ship and helicopters belonged to pirates.

Armed US Navy Seals and Coast Guard officers attempted to board the Yunus. "There was a lot of commotion," one crew member, Aslam Hyder, told the court.

Special Warfare Officer Christopher Chambers lost his grip and fell into the water during the operation - and Special Warfare Officer First Class Nathan Gage Ingram jumped in to try to save him.

Both men were so laden with equipment that they quickly drowned, an internal report later found. Their bodies were never found and they were declared dead 10 days later.

The crew remained on the Yunus for two days before being offloaded to a US Navy ship, the court heard, where they were separated into two groups and held in windowless containers.

Pahlawan ordered the crew to lie and to say the captain had already fled. "He said, 'Don't tell them that I am the [captain], because I can do serious damage to you guys if you do that'," Aslam Hyder told the court.

"He started to threaten us… It was about the family and the children, that they will not know about you and you won't know what happened to them," he said. "Then we got very scared and we became quiet."

One by one, said crew members who gave evidence, they were taken out of the containers to be interrogated individually. Everyone on board - including Pahlawan - was asked who the captain was and, according to US prosecutors, Pahlawan "simply evaded, lied, and hid".

The American military said the packages found on board the Yunus were the first Iranian-supplied weapons to be seized by US forces since the Houthis had started attacking vessels in the Red Sea a few months earlier.

But Pahlawan had been following a common route for smugglers carrying weapons bound for Yemen.

Between 2015 and 2023, US forces and their allies seized almost 2.4 million pieces of ammunition, 365 anti-tank guided missiles, and more than 29,000 small arms and light weapons from small boats in the Arabian Sea, according to a UN report.

Typically, smugglers use dhows - a type of small boat, often for fishing - to transport cargo close to the coast of Somalia.

As with the Yunus, it is here that weapons are transferred to other, smaller boats, which then set sail to "secluded beaches off the southern coast of Yemen… where they are then smuggled across the desert to Houthi-controlled areas of the country", the UN Office on Drugs and Crime report says.

William Freer, from the UK think tank Council on Geostrategy, told BBC News that while most of the Houthi attacks have involved smaller weapons, the components found on Pahlawan's ship are "a lot more complicated and can pack a lot more punch".

"Very quickly, most shipping companies decided to redirect all their vessels, where possible, around South Africa rather than transiting through the Red Sea."

This lengthy detour adds about 10 to 12 days of sailing time to each trip, and extra fuel, which previous analysis has estimated to cost companies about an extra $1m (£748,735) per round trip.

Mr Freer added that the impact on commercial shipping has continued to this day.

"Within about two months of the initial attacks [in October 2023], shipping transiting through the Red Sea had dropped by about 60% to 70%, and it has stayed at that level ever since, even with the ceasefires," he told us.

Even though Houthi strikes are now less frequent, he added, there are still "just enough attacks to convince shipping companies it is not worth running the risk of returning" to the Red Sea route.

Iran has been accused by the US, UK, Israel and Saudi Arabia of smuggling missiles and other weapons to the Houthis by sea, in violation of a UN Security Council resolution since the armed group ousted Yemen's internationally-recognised government from much of north-western Yemen 10 years ago, sparking a devastating civil war. Iran denies this.

On 5 June this year, Pahlawan was found guilty of conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorists; providing material support to the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guard Corps' weapons of mass destruction programme; conspiring to and transporting explosive devices to the Houthis, knowing these explosives would be used to cause harm; and threatening his crew.

"Pahlawan was not only a seasoned smuggler," prosecutors said, "he knew what he was smuggling and its intended use."

In a final plea to the court for leniency, Pahlawan's lawyer wrote that life for Pahlawan's wife had long been estranged from her family because of her marriage to him, and that since his arrest, her and her child's lives had become "extremely difficult and harsh".

"Since the jury verdict, Mr Pahlawan's singular focus in their telephone conversations is the wellbeing of his family," his attorney said. "He does not talk about himself or his fate. He cries with worry over what will become of his wife and child."

But the court ruled that his high sentence was "appropriate due to the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant".