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.

"I rode away on a camel with my grandmother, along a sandy road, and I started to cry." Ayish Younis is describing the worst moment of his life – he still regards it as such, even though it was 77 years ago, and he's lived through many horrors since.

It was 1948, the first Arab-Israeli war was raging, and Ayish was 12. He and his whole extended family were fleeing their homes in the village of Barbara - famed for its grapes, wheat, corn and barley - in what had been British-ruled Palestine.

"We were scared for our lives," Ayish says. "On our own, we had no means to fight the Jews, so we all started to leave."

The camel took Ayish and his grandmother seven miles south from Barbara, to an area held by Egypt that would become known as the Gaza Strip. It was just 25 miles long and a few miles wide, and had just become occupied by Egyptian forces.

In all an estimated 700,000 Palestinians lost their homes and became refugees as a result of the war of 1948-49; around 200,000 are believed to have crowded into that tiny coastal corridor.

"We had bits of wood which we propped against the walls of a building to make a shelter," Ayish says.

Later, they moved into one of the huge tented camps established by the United Nations.

Today, aged 89, Ayish is again living in a tent in Al-Mawasi near Khan Younis.

In May last year, seven months into the two-year war between Israel and Hamas, Ayish was forced to leave his home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah after an evacuation order from the Israeli military.

The four-storey house, divided into several apartments, that he had shared with his children and their families, was destroyed by what he believes may have been Israeli tank-fire.

Now, home is a small white canvas tent just a few metres across.

Other members of the family are in neighbouring tents. They have all had to cook on an open fire. With no access to running water they wash using canned water, which is scarce and as a result expensive.

"We returned to what we started with, we returned back to tents, and we still don't know how long we will be here," he says, sitting in a plastic chair on the bare sand outside his tent, with clothes drying on a washing line nearby.

A walking frame is propped beside him, as he moves with difficulty. But he still speaks in the crystal-clear, melodious Arabic of one who studied literature, and recited the Quran daily as the imam of a local mosque.

"After we left Barbara and lived in a tent, we eventually succeeded in building a house. But now, the situation is more than a catastrophe. I don't know what the future holds, and whether we will ever be able to rebuild our house again."

"And in the end I just want to go back to Barbara, with my whole extended family, and again taste the fruit that I remember from there."

On 9 October, Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a ceasefire and hostage release deal. The remaining living 20 Hamas-held hostages were returned to Israel and Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners.

Yet despite widespread rejoicing over the ceasefire, Ayish is not optimistic about the long-term prospects for Gaza.

"I hope the peace will spread and it will be calm," he says. "But I believe the Israelis will do whatever they like."

Under the agreement for the first stage of the ceasefire, Israel will retain control of more than half the Gaza Strip, including Rafah.

One question Ayish, his family and all Gazans are pondering is whether their homeland will ever be successfully rebuilt.

My 18 children and 79 grandchildren

Back in 1948, the Egyptian army had been one of five Arab armies that had invaded the British-controlled territory of Mandate Palestine the day after the establishment of a Jewish state, Israel. But they soon withdrew, defeated, from Barbara, prompting Ayish's decision to flee.

Ayish became a teacher when he was 19, and gained a literature degree in Cairo under a scholarship programme.

The best moment of his life, he says, was when he married his wife Khadija. Together they had 18 children. That, according to a newspaper article that once featured him, is a record – the largest number of children from the same mother and father of any Palestinian family.

Today, he has 79 grandchildren, two of them born in the last few months.

The family would move from their first tent to a simple three-room cement house with an asbestos roof in the refugee camp, which they later extended to nine rooms – thanks partly to wages earned in Israel.

When the border between Israel and Gaza opened, and Ayish's eldest son Ahmed was one of many Palestinians who took advantage of that, working in an Israeli restaurant during his holidays, while studying medicine in Egypt.

"During that time, in Israel, people were paid very well. And this is the period of time where the Palestinians made most of their money," he says.

All but one of Ayish's children gained university degrees. They became engineers, nurses, teachers. Several moved abroad. Five are in Gulf countries and Ahmed, a specialist in spinal cord injuries, now lives in London. Many other Gazan families are similarly scattered.

The Younis family, like many Gazans, wanted nothing to do with politics. Ayish became an imam at a Rafah mosque – and a local headman (or mukhtar) responsible for settling disputes, just as his uncle had been years earlier in the village of Barbara.

He was not appointed by the government – but he says that both Hamas and the Fatah political movement, the dominant party in the Palestinian authority, respected him.

That didn't save the family from tragedy, though, during the street battles of 2007, when Fatah and Hamas fought for control of the Strip. Ayish's daughter Fadwa was killed in cross-fire as she sat in a car.

The rest of the family survived through wars between Hamas and Israel in 2008, 2012, 2014 – as well as the devastating war triggered by the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

Then came that evacuation order by the Israeli military who said they were carrying out operations against Hamas in the area, forcing them to leave their Rafah home and over a year spent living in makeshift tents.

Ayish's life has come full circle since 1948. But his greatest desire is to go even further back in time, to return to the village, now in Israel, which he last saw when he was 12 – even though it no longer exists.

Apart from clothes, cooking pots and a few other essentials, the only possessions he has with him in his tent are the precious title deeds to his ancestral land in Barbara.

'I don't believe Gaza has any future'

Thoughts are now turning to the reconstruction of Gaza.

But Ayish believes the extent of the destruction – of infrastructure, schools and health services – is so great that it cannot be fully repaired, even with the help of the international community.

"I don't believe Gaza has any future," he says.

He believes that his grandchildren could play a role in the reconstruction of Gaza if the ceasefire is fully implemented, but he does not believe they will be able to find jobs in the territory as good as those they have or could get abroad.

His son Haritha, a graduate in Arabic language who has four daughters and a son, is also living in a tent. "An entire generation has been destroyed by this war.

"We are unable to comprehend it," he says.

"We used to hear from our fathers and grandfathers about the 1948 war and how difficult the displacement was, but there is no comparison between 1948 and what happened in this war.

"We hope that our children will have a role in rebuilding, but as Palestinians, do we have the capacity on our own to rebuild the schools? Will donor countries play a role in that?"

"My daughter has gone through two years of war without schooling, and for two years before that schools were closed because of Covid," he continues. "I used to work in a clothing store, but it was destroyed.

"We don't know how things will unfold or how we will have a source of income. There are so many questions we have no answers for. We simply don't know what the future holds."

Another of Ayish's sons, Nizar, a trained nurse, who lives in a tent nearby, agrees. He believes Gaza's problems are so great that the youngest generation of the family will not be able to play much role, despite their high level of education.

"The situation is unbearable," he says. "We hope that life will return to how it was before the war. But the destruction is massive - total destruction of buildings and infrastructure, psychological devastation within the community, and the destruction of universities."

Ayish's eldest son Ahmed, in London, meanwhile reflects on how it took the family more than 30 years to build their former home into what it eventually became - as money was saved over the years it was expanded, he explains.

"Do I have another 30 years to work and try to help and support my family? This is really the situation all the time - every 10 to 15 years, people lose everything and they come back to square one."

And yet he still dreams of living in Rafah again when he retires. "My brothers in the Gulf bought land in Rafah to come back and settle as well. My son, and my nephews and nieces - they want to go back."

With a pause, he adds: "By nature, I'm very optimistic, because I know how determined our Gaza people are. Trust me, they will go back and start to rebuild their lives again.

"The hope is always in the new generation to rebuild."

Top picture credit: AFP via Getty Images

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The day after a body was found in his car in Hollywood, singer D4vd was belting his TikTok hit Romantic Homicide - a brooding breakup song about killing an ex with no regret - to a sold-out crowd in Minneapolis.

The US recording artist had self-launched his music career from his sister's closet while working a part-time gig at Starbucks. It led him to viral fame, millions of followers online, and a global tour.

But all of it came to an abrupt halt last month with the discovery of a severely decomposed body in the front trunk of his Tesla.

The corpse was identified as that of 15-year-old runaway Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

A month later, mystery still surrounds the teen's death, as well as her relationship to the 20-year-old singer, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke.

Deep dives into his macabre oeuvre - which is peppered with references to death, remembrance, violence and bloody motifs - have led some to question if life was imitating art and vice versa.

The young singer has yet to publicly comment on the case or the grim discovery in his car. His spokesperson has only said that that he is "fully cooperating with authorities" and he has since hired a prominent criminal defence attorney who has represented celebrities such as Mel Gibson, Lindsay Lohan, Kanye West and Britney Spears.

Representatives for the singer - including his lawyer Blair Berk, Universal Music Group, Darkroom Records and Sony Music Publishing - did not respond to the BBC's requests for comment.

Rivas Hernandez's cause of death has yet to be determined.

The county's medical examiner has said her body was "severely decomposed" when it was found and has deferred making a ruling on how she died - an investigation they say could take months.

Police have also not named a suspect or person of interest in case, even weeks after discovering her body.

The Los Angeles Police Department has not offered many details in the case or the probe, calling it an open death investigation. The department would not comment on multiple questions posed by the BBC about the case, the investigation and any connections the singer may have to Rivas Hernandez.

"It's just such a strange one," Neama Rahmani, a former prosecutor and Los Angeles attorney, told the BBC. "It keeps getting more bizarre each day that goes on without an arrest."

That lack of information has also seemed to fuel intrigue. Fans, true-crime enthusiasts and internet sleuths have launched their own inquiries, locking in on details that appear to connect the teen girl with the gamer-turned-songwriter, who was once heralded by GQ as a "Mouthpiece for Gen-Z Heartache".

A runaway teen found dead in a Tesla

Rivas Hernandez - who lived about 75 miles away from where her body was discovered - had last been reported missing by her family in April 2024, but it was not the first time she had run away from their Lake Elsinore home.

A first-generation daughter of immigrant parents from El Salvador, neighbours recognised her as a girl who would visit the corner store almost daily to buy candy and soda, according to the Los Angeles Times.

She first went missing on Valentine's Day 2024, and her family filed a missing persons report the next day.

Posters of her face were put up in her neighbourhood and her mother posted pleas on Facebook in Spanish for her return - public overtures that apparently irked the teen.

Over the next two years, her parents would file at least two more missing-persons reports.

Her family and friends told the newspaper that every time Rivas Hernandez ran away, she would eventually return and blend back into her life as a middle schooler.

When the teens' remains were found in a bag in D4vd's Tesla on 8 September, the medical examiner said that she was wearing a tube top, size small black leggings and jewellery, including a yellow metal stud earring and a yellow metal chain bracelet.

She also had a tattoo that read "Shhh…" on her index finger - a marking nearly identical to that on the pop singer's own index finger.

The decomposition of her body indicated that she had already been "deceased for several weeks", investigators said.

Her family, who described her as a beloved daughter, sister, cousin and friend, has said they are "heartbroken and devastated by this tragic loss". They have since solicited money on a crowdfunding website to pay for her funeral, which took place earlier this month.

A singer on the precipice of main-stream fame

D4vd's rise to stardom - fuelled by TikTok and online gaming - is a paradigm for his generation.

Growing up near Houston, Texas, he was home-schooled and said he exclusively listened to gospel music until he was 13. He became an avid Fortnite player in 2017 and launched his music career using pop songs to soundtrack gameplay montages that he posted on YouTube.

He started making his own music when he ran into copyright hurdles, beginning by recording songs on The BandLab app in 2021 and uploading his work on SoundCloud.

Soon, he saw his music breaking through with thousands of listens. He then released what would become his two biggest hits thus far: Romantic Homicide and Here With Me.

The songs went viral on TikTok and led to billions of streams on Spotify, where he has amassed 33 million monthly listeners.

He signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records and released his debut EP, Petals and Thorns, in 2023. That same year, he landed on Variety's Young Hollywood list and opened for SZA on her SOS tour.

Last spring, he made his Coachella debut - known as the festival for up-and-coming talent to break into mainstream fame. He was also commissioned by Fortnite - which he has said shaped his story as an artist - to create the game's first official anthem, Locked & Loaded.

A discovery that broke a family and halted a career

But this ascent to fame came to a pause when his Tesla was towed to an impoundment lot and authorities found a bag inside the front trunk that contained Rivas Hernandez's decomposing remains after someone complained about a foul smell.

His world tour was cancelled within days of the discovery, and Sony Music Publishing reportedly suspended promotion of his sophomore album.

Los Angeles police soon raided the posh Hollywood Hills mansion where the singer was living, just blocks from where his Tesla had been towed.

US retailer Hollister and footwear giant Crocs dropped D4vd from marketing campaigns and Telepatía singer Kali Uchis announced she was taking down their collaboration, Crashing.

But while his career ground to a screeching halt, authorities have been silent on the investigation into Rivas Hernandez's death.

Investigators have not released any new information in the case since 29 September.

The agency also said that it is still unclear whether there is any criminal culpability beyond the concealment of her body.

While online sleuths have been quick to speculate, legal experts say that there is still much we don't know.

"You have this connection to David that seems pretty strong," Mr Rahmani, the former prosecutor, told the BBC. "There is a lot of smoke but look, he could be absolutely innocent and it could be someone else who had access to his vehicle."

Mr Rahmani said while there are many questions in this case, the biggest for him is "what is taking the LAPD so long".

"They haven't released any real information," he said. "This isn't a good look for the LAPD and it's a terrible look for D4vd."

He added that a case like this has added pressures: it involves a teen girl's death, it has garnered global headlines, and the investigation involves a celebrity.

Mr Rahmani noted that technology and potential for video footage is likely to be a "treasure trove" for investigators. Telsa vehicles come with advanced technology that tracks vehicles, notifies users when things like the trunk is open and are also outfitted with a slew of cameras as part of its Sentry Mode systems.

On top of this, the Hollywood home where he was living also had cameras. When authorities searched the home last month, investigators took a DVR that stores video and other data from the surveillance system.

Malden Trifunovic, the owner of the Hollywood Hills home D4vd was renting, has told the BBC that he has hired a private investigator to help uncover what might have happened inside his multi-million-dollar abode.

D4vd's manager Josh Marshall, the founder of Mogul Vision, rented the home for D4vd and has distanced himself from the singer. He vehemently denied rumours that he is connected to the death investigation.

The widening mystery

In addition to the mystery surrounding the cause of Rivas Hernandez's death, it is still unclear what relationship the teenager had with the 20-year-old singer.

Rivas Hernandez would have turned 15 the day before her body was found by police.

In California, the age of consent is 18.

Family, friends and those who knew her have told local media that she had been dating someone named David and said he was a music artist.

A former middle-school science teacher blamed her last attempt to run away from home, in the spring of 2024, on her dating a music artist she'd met online.

"She's been missing since I taught her," the teacher said in a viral video after Rivas Hernandez's body was identified.

Online sleuths have also connected her to the singer in a number of ways, from their matching tattoos to photos he posted online that appear to show them together.

But D4vd has not addressed the rumours, nor have police.

Like many who don't follow indie pop music, his landlord Mr Trifunovic said he had never heard of D4vd until news broke about the discovery. He didn't even know it was D4vd who was renting his home because the lease had been signed by the singer's manager, Mr Marshall.

"I share the same anxiety and desire to understand what happened to poor Celeste as everyone else does," Mr Trifunovic told the BBC.

Although he said he trusts the LAPD to conduct a thorough investigation, he too, is anxious for information.

"There is absolutely no question that a crime was committed," he said.

"She did not place herself in the front trunk of the Tesla or move the vehicle to where it was found."

The Spanish town of Terrassa in north-eastern Catalonia has temporarily banned the adoption of black cats from animal shelters to prevent potentially sinister "rituals" during Halloween.

All requests for the fostering or adoption of the felines will be denied from 6 October to 10 November to protect them from being hurt or used as props, said the local animal welfare service.

Deputy Mayor Noel Duque told broadcaster RTVE that adoption requests for black cats usually increase around Halloween.

While black cats are often associated with witchcraft and seen as bad luck in Western culture, many other cultures, including Japan and Egypt, see them as symbols of prosperity and fortune.

Terassa's city council said there had been no record of cruelty towards black cats in the town, however there have been incidents in other areas and the decision was taken after warnings from animal welfare groups.

"We try to prevent people from adopting because it's trendy or impulsively. And in cases like these, which we know exist, to prevent any macabre practices," Duque said.

Terrassa is home to more than 9,800 cats, according to the local authorities, and the adoption centre houses around 100 of them, 12 of which are black.

The city council emphasised that the measure is "temporary and exceptional" and represents an extra precaution for animal welfare, but did not rule out repeating the ban in the future.

Exceptions during the ban period will be assessed individually by the adoption centre and normal fostering requests will resume after Halloween.

The Red Cross has received two bodies in Gaza that Hamas says are hostages, the Israeli military has said.

The remains will be transported to Israel and formally identified. Hamas earlier said the bodies had been recovered in the Palestinian territory on Saturday.

Prior to Saturday, the remains of 10 of 28 deceased hostages had been returned to Israel.

The delay has caused outrage in Israel, as the terms of last week's ceasefire deal stipulated the release from Gaza of all hostages, living and dead. Hamas says it has struggled to find the remaining bodies under rubble.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has ordered the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt to remain closed until further notice, and said its reopening would be considered based on the return of the final hostage remains and the implementation of the ceasefire agreement.

The IDF has stressed that Hamas must "uphold the agreement and take the necessary steps to return all the hostages".

But the US has downplayed suggestions that the delay amounts to a breach of the ceasefire deal, which President Donald Trump claimed as a major victory on a visit to Israel and Egypt last week.

The text of the deal has not been published, but a leaked version that was seen in Israeli media appeared to account for the possibility that not all of the bodies would be immediately accessible.

Hamas has blamed Israel for making the task difficult, as air strikes on Gaza have reduced many buildings to rubble, and Israel does not allow heavy machinery and diggers into the territory.

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the BBC News Channel that the Gaza Strip "is now a wasteland", with people picking through the rubble for bodies and trying to find their homes - many of which have been flattened.

As part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, Hamas also returned all 20 living hostages to Israel.

Israel's military confirmed the identity of the tenth deceased hostage returned by Hamas on Friday. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) named him as Eliyahu Margalit, whose body was taken from Nir Oz kibbutz after he was killed on 7 October 2023.

Also as part of the deal, Israel freed 250 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

The bodies of 15 Palestinians were handed over by Israel via the Red Cross to officials in Gaza on Saturday, the Hamas-run health ministry said, bringing the total number of bodies it has received to 135.

Separately on Saturday, 11 members of one Palestinian family were killed by an Israeli tank shell, according to the Hamas-run civil defence ministry, in what was the deadliest single incident involving Israeli soldiers in Gaza since the start of the ceasefire.

The Israeli military said soldiers had fired at a "suspicious vehicle" that had crossed the so-called yellow line demarcating the area still occupied by Israeli forces in Gaza.

There are no physical markers of this line, and it is unclear if the bus did cross it. The BBC has asked the IDF for the coordinates of the incident.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 others hostage.

At least 68,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen by the UN as reliable.

In September, a UN commission of inquiry said Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel categorically rejected the report as "distorted and false".

Damar, one of the best surf guides on the Indonesian island of Lombok, feels right at home taking tourists out to sea.

With his fluent English and effortless banter, you would never guess what was his childhood fear: foreigners.

"When I was 10 or maybe seven, I used to cry - I used to just pee in my pants when I saw white people," Damar, now 39, tells the BBC.

That diffidence waned as the laidback island he calls home slowly found its popularity among Western travellers.

Just east of Bali, Lombok boasts the same azure beaches and stunning views as its famous neighbour, but without the exasperating crowds. Lombok's beaches are still a hidden gem among surfers, as is Mount Rinjani for hikers. Travel sites still liberally use the word "untouched" to describe the island as they offer reasons to venture beyond Bali.

So it should come as little surprise that the Indonesian government has sensed the opportunity to create another lucrative tourist haven on the sprawling archipelago.

The mission is to create more "Balis" - and Lombok will be one of them.

For islanders, this promise of "Balification" is a welcome opportunity but they are also wary of what it brings.

And the change has already begun to hit home in more ways than one.

Mandalika in the south has been chosen as the heart of the "new Bali".

Its rustic coastline has already given way to glitzy resorts, cafes and even a racetrack. Earlier this month, nearly 150,000 spectators showed up to watch the motorcycle Grand Prix.

Between 2019 and 2021, dozens of families were evicted from their village homes for the construction of the Mandalika circuit. Damar's was among them.

Confronted with what activists decried as a messy resettlement plan and unfair compensation, he and his neighbours were helpless, Damar recalls.

"I was angry, but I cannot do much. I cannot fight against the government," he says.

Since the eviction, Damar has bought a plot of land and built his own house, something that many of his neighbours haven't been able to do. As a surf guide, he estimates that he earns twice as much as a fisherman - a generational profession in his community.

"I've never really been to school, so joining the tourism industry was one of the best choices that I have ever made," Damar says. "Meeting a lot of people from many different countries… It has opened my mind."

Damar's indignation about his eviction even comes with a scrupulous caveat: "I'm not angry at the tourists. I'm just angry at my own government."

The makings of a tourist magnet

The drive to transform Lombok is part of a wider effort to lure travellers away from Bali, which has for decades played an outsized role in Indonesia's tourism industry.

The island makes up less than 1% of the country's land area and less than 2% of its 280 million-plus population. Yet last year it accounted for nearly half of all visitors to Indonesia.

But increasingly Bali's unrelenting traffic and pollution - a direct result of its success as a top tourist pick- are leaving those very tourists disappointed with what has long been touted as the "last paradise".

As it turns out, that elusive paradise lies just an hour's boat ride away.

But perhaps not for long.

More and more travellers are catching on to Lombok's appeal. Last year, 81,500 foreign tourists touched down at its airport, a 40% jump from the year before - still, a far cry from the 6.3 million foreigners who flocked to Bali.

Eager for Lombok to follow in Bali's footsteps, Indonesian authorities have secured hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, along with a $250m loan from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

This has accelerated the island's makeover.

In Kuta, a popular town in Mandalika, scrappy surfers' hostels have been replaced by a mosaic of chlorinated pools and plushy sunbeds, and an international school for the children of expats.

While authorities are hailing it as Lombok's success story, some see a cautionary tale.

The cost of paradise

A stone's throw away on the beach of Tanjung Aan, cafe owner Kartini Lumban Raja told the BBC that locals there "don't want to be 'organised' like Kuta".

"When beaches start to look like Kuta, they lose their charm. We lose opportunities. We lose natural beauty," she said.

For months, rumours of evictions had been swirling on Tanjung Aan, which was earmarked for ambitious development plans.

Days after the BBC's visit in July, they came like a rolling wave.

Security forces descended upon the beach to demolish nearly 200 stalls, including Kartini's.

Videos from that day show masked men tearing shop fences down with their bare hands as stall owners protested.

"They were banging on things, kicking plywood… it's truly inhumane," Ella Nurlaila, a stall owner, told the BBC. "My goodness, this eviction was so cruel."

The state-owned company leading Mandalika's tourism drive, InJourney Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC), has secured 2.1 trillion rupiah ($128m; £96m) to build a luxury hotel on Tanjung Aan.

Authorities said the project will create jobs and boost the local economy. But that's little consolation for stall owners like Ella and her husband Adi, who have sold coconuts and coffee on the beach for the past three years.

"Thousands of people here depend on [coastal land] for their livelihood," Adi said. "Where else are we supposed to go to earn a living?"

The couple said they had paid taxes for their stall - which, according to Adi, sat on land belonging to his parents.

But ITDC representatives told the BBC that Tanjung Aan is "state-owned land", and that the tax paid by those businesses "does not equate to legal ownership or land legitimacy".

This is just the latest bout of tensions over Mandalika's tourism push.

Just Finance International, a development finance watchdog, has repeatedly flagged "a pattern of rights violations linked to the Mandalika project" in recent years.

UN human rights experts estimate that more than 2,000 people "lost their primary means of livelihood overnight" because of the Tanjung Aan evictions. Stall owners were given neither "adequate notice" nor "suitable" resettlement plans, they said in a statement in August.

"The people of Mandalika must not be sacrificed for a project that promises economic growth at the expense of human rights," they said.

'If they want Bali, they should go to Bali'

In its quest for a remarkably different future, Lombok will also have to contend with what this means for local culture.

The predominantly Muslim island is home to thousands of mosques and the indigenous Sasak ethnic group. Compared to Bali, alcohol is not as readily available in parts of the island. On travel forums, tourists are encouraged to ditch bikinis and hot pants for more modest attire.

Such conservative sensitivities may change, or at least be driven further inland, as tourism heats up along the coastline. Travellers who have come to love Lombok are not happy about that either.

"Lombok is so special because it still has its own nature and people come to see that," said Swiss tourist Basil Berger, a sceptic of the"Bali-fication" of the island.

"If they want to see Bali, they [should] go to Bali," he said. Turning Lombok into another Bali "is the "the worst thing that they can do".

There are also environmental concerns. The motorcycle Grand Prix last year drew 120,000 spectators to Mandalika, leaving behind 30 tonnes of rubbish that authorities struggled to clear.

"Before it gets to Bali's stage of development, Lombok could learn. Because it's showing the same kind of strain," says Sekar Utami Setiastuti, who lives in Bali.

The government should ensure "tourism development brings welfare to a lot of people, instead of just bringing tourists to Lombok", she adds. "Lombok has to find its own identity - not just [become] a less crowded Bali."

No matter where that search leads, a new era has dawned on Lombok.

Andrew Irwin is among the foreign investors who have taken an early interest in Lombok's budding tourism. The American is the co-owner of LMBK Surf House, one of Mandalika's most popular surf camps.

The way he sees it, businesses like his are helping to uplift local employees and their families.

"It's giving people more opportunities to earn more money, send their kids to proper school, get proper insurance, get proper healthcare, and essentially live a better quality of life," he said.

While there's "not necessarily much one can do" about Lombok's changing landscape, he says, "we can just hope to bring a positive change to the equation".

Tourism has certainly ushered prosperity into the lives of many locals, who have decided to try their hand at entrepreneurship.

"As long you want to work, you'll make money from tourism," says Baiq Enida Kinang Lare, a homestay owner in Kuta, known to her guests as Lara. Her neighbours too have started homestays.

Lara started her business in 2014 with four rooms. She's now at 14, not counting a separate villa under construction.

As excited as she is about her prospects, she is also a little wistful as she recalled life before the hustle.

"It's difficult to find time to gather and see everyone. This is what we miss. We feel like the time flies very, very fast because we're busy," she says.

This is a feeling that would surely be shared by locals from Bali to Mykonos to Cancun, whenever tourism took off in their patch of paradise: "I miss the past, but we like the money."

President Donald Trump has said the US will return two people who survived a strike on what he called a "drug-carrying submarine" to their countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia.

Writing on social media, Trump said two other people were killed in the US strike on the vessel, which he said US intelligence confirmed was "loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics".

The attack on Thursday is at least the sixth US strike on ships in the Caribbean Sea in recent weeks. It is the first time survivors have been reported.

At least 27 people were killed in the prior five boat strikes in the waters off Venezuela, according to figures released by the administration.

The two survivors were rescued by a US military helicopter and then shuttled onto a US warship in the Caribbean, unnamed US officials told US media earlier.

In recent weeks, Trump has ramped up threats against Venezuela's leadership over claims that the country is sending drugs to the US. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has accused Trump of trying to make the South American nation "an American colony".

Trump has defended the ongoing boat attacks, saying they are aimed at stemming the flow of drugs from Latin America into the US, but his government has not provided evidence or details about the identities of the vessels or those on board.

"It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route," Trump said in his Truth Social post on Saturday.

"The two surviving terrorists are being returned to their Countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, for detention and prosecution."

He added that no US military personnel were injured in the attack.

On Friday, the US president had said the submarine targeting the latest attack was "built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs".

"This was not an innocent group of people. I don't know too many people who have submarines, and that was an attack on a drug-carrying, loaded submarine," he added.

UN-appointed human rights experts have described the US strikes as "extrajudicial executions".

Trump earlier told reporters that he had authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, and that he was considering launching attacks on Venezuelan soil.

Narco-subs have become a popular way to transport drugs as they can go largely undetected, and can be sunk after delivery. They are often homemade and constructed using fibreglass and plywood.

The US, as well as other coastal nations, have previously intercepted some of these subs.

The Red Cross has received two bodies in Gaza that Hamas says are hostages, the Israeli military has said.

The remains will be transported to Israel and formally identified. Hamas earlier said the bodies had been recovered in the Palestinian territory on Saturday.

Prior to Saturday, the remains of 10 of 28 deceased hostages had been returned to Israel.

The delay has caused outrage in Israel, as the terms of last week's ceasefire deal stipulated the release from Gaza of all hostages, living and dead. Hamas says it has struggled to find the remaining bodies under rubble.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has ordered the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt to remain closed until further notice, and said its reopening would be considered based on the return of the final hostage remains and the implementation of the ceasefire agreement.

The IDF has stressed that Hamas must "uphold the agreement and take the necessary steps to return all the hostages".

But the US has downplayed suggestions that the delay amounts to a breach of the ceasefire deal, which President Donald Trump claimed as a major victory on a visit to Israel and Egypt last week.

The text of the deal has not been published, but a leaked version that was seen in Israeli media appeared to account for the possibility that not all of the bodies would be immediately accessible.

Hamas has blamed Israel for making the task difficult, as air strikes on Gaza have reduced many buildings to rubble, and Israel does not allow heavy machinery and diggers into the territory.

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the BBC News Channel that the Gaza Strip "is now a wasteland", with people picking through the rubble for bodies and trying to find their homes - many of which have been flattened.

As part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, Hamas also returned all 20 living hostages to Israel.

Israel's military confirmed the identity of the tenth deceased hostage returned by Hamas on Friday. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) named him as Eliyahu Margalit, whose body was taken from Nir Oz kibbutz after he was killed on 7 October 2023.

Also as part of the deal, Israel freed 250 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

The bodies of 15 Palestinians were handed over by Israel via the Red Cross to officials in Gaza on Saturday, the Hamas-run health ministry said, bringing the total number of bodies it has received to 135.

Separately on Saturday, 11 members of one Palestinian family were killed by an Israeli tank shell, according to the Hamas-run civil defence ministry, in what was the deadliest single incident involving Israeli soldiers in Gaza since the start of the ceasefire.

The Israeli military said soldiers had fired at a "suspicious vehicle" that had crossed the so-called yellow line demarcating the area still occupied by Israeli forces in Gaza.

There are no physical markers of this line, and it is unclear if the bus did cross it. The BBC has asked the IDF for the coordinates of the incident.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 others hostage.

At least 68,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen by the UN as reliable.

In September, a UN commission of inquiry said Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel categorically rejected the report as "distorted and false".

President Donald Trump has said the US will return two people who survived a strike on what he called a "drug-carrying submarine" to their countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia.

Writing on social media, Trump said two other people were killed in the US strike on the vessel, which he said US intelligence confirmed was "loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics".

The attack on Thursday is at least the sixth US strike on ships in the Caribbean Sea in recent weeks. It is the first time survivors have been reported.

At least 27 people were killed in the prior five boat strikes in the waters off Venezuela, according to figures released by the administration.

The two survivors were rescued by a US military helicopter and then shuttled onto a US warship in the Caribbean, unnamed US officials told US media earlier.

In recent weeks, Trump has ramped up threats against Venezuela's leadership over claims that the country is sending drugs to the US. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has accused Trump of trying to make the South American nation "an American colony".

Trump has defended the ongoing boat attacks, saying they are aimed at stemming the flow of drugs from Latin America into the US, but his government has not provided evidence or details about the identities of the vessels or those on board.

"It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route," Trump said in his Truth Social post on Saturday.

"The two surviving terrorists are being returned to their Countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, for detention and prosecution."

He added that no US military personnel were injured in the attack.

On Friday, the US president had said the submarine targeting the latest attack was "built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs".

"This was not an innocent group of people. I don't know too many people who have submarines, and that was an attack on a drug-carrying, loaded submarine," he added.

UN-appointed human rights experts have described the US strikes as "extrajudicial executions".

Trump earlier told reporters that he had authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, and that he was considering launching attacks on Venezuelan soil.

Narco-subs have become a popular way to transport drugs as they can go largely undetected, and can be sunk after delivery. They are often homemade and constructed using fibreglass and plywood.

The US, as well as other coastal nations, have previously intercepted some of these subs.

Damar, one of the best surf guides on the Indonesian island of Lombok, feels right at home taking tourists out to sea.

With his fluent English and effortless banter, you would never guess what was his childhood fear: foreigners.

"When I was 10 or maybe seven, I used to cry - I used to just pee in my pants when I saw white people," Damar, now 39, tells the BBC.

That diffidence waned as the laidback island he calls home slowly found its popularity among Western travellers.

Just east of Bali, Lombok boasts the same azure beaches and stunning views as its famous neighbour, but without the exasperating crowds. Lombok's beaches are still a hidden gem among surfers, as is Mount Rinjani for hikers. Travel sites still liberally use the word "untouched" to describe the island as they offer reasons to venture beyond Bali.

So it should come as little surprise that the Indonesian government has sensed the opportunity to create another lucrative tourist haven on the sprawling archipelago.

The mission is to create more "Balis" - and Lombok will be one of them.

For islanders, this promise of "Balification" is a welcome opportunity but they are also wary of what it brings.

And the change has already begun to hit home in more ways than one.

Mandalika in the south has been chosen as the heart of the "new Bali".

Its rustic coastline has already given way to glitzy resorts, cafes and even a racetrack. Earlier this month, nearly 150,000 spectators showed up to watch the motorcycle Grand Prix.

Between 2019 and 2021, dozens of families were evicted from their village homes for the construction of the Mandalika circuit. Damar's was among them.

Confronted with what activists decried as a messy resettlement plan and unfair compensation, he and his neighbours were helpless, Damar recalls.

"I was angry, but I cannot do much. I cannot fight against the government," he says.

Since the eviction, Damar has bought a plot of land and built his own house, something that many of his neighbours haven't been able to do. As a surf guide, he estimates that he earns twice as much as a fisherman - a generational profession in his community.

"I've never really been to school, so joining the tourism industry was one of the best choices that I have ever made," Damar says. "Meeting a lot of people from many different countries… It has opened my mind."

Damar's indignation about his eviction even comes with a scrupulous caveat: "I'm not angry at the tourists. I'm just angry at my own government."

The makings of a tourist magnet

The drive to transform Lombok is part of a wider effort to lure travellers away from Bali, which has for decades played an outsized role in Indonesia's tourism industry.

The island makes up less than 1% of the country's land area and less than 2% of its 280 million-plus population. Yet last year it accounted for nearly half of all visitors to Indonesia.

But increasingly Bali's unrelenting traffic and pollution - a direct result of its success as a top tourist pick- are leaving those very tourists disappointed with what has long been touted as the "last paradise".

As it turns out, that elusive paradise lies just an hour's boat ride away.

But perhaps not for long.

More and more travellers are catching on to Lombok's appeal. Last year, 81,500 foreign tourists touched down at its airport, a 40% jump from the year before - still, a far cry from the 6.3 million foreigners who flocked to Bali.

Eager for Lombok to follow in Bali's footsteps, Indonesian authorities have secured hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, along with a $250m loan from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

This has accelerated the island's makeover.

In Kuta, a popular town in Mandalika, scrappy surfers' hostels have been replaced by a mosaic of chlorinated pools and plushy sunbeds, and an international school for the children of expats.

While authorities are hailing it as Lombok's success story, some see a cautionary tale.

The cost of paradise

A stone's throw away on the beach of Tanjung Aan, cafe owner Kartini Lumban Raja told the BBC that locals there "don't want to be 'organised' like Kuta".

"When beaches start to look like Kuta, they lose their charm. We lose opportunities. We lose natural beauty," she said.

For months, rumours of evictions had been swirling on Tanjung Aan, which was earmarked for ambitious development plans.

Days after the BBC's visit in July, they came like a rolling wave.

Security forces descended upon the beach to demolish nearly 200 stalls, including Kartini's.

Videos from that day show masked men tearing shop fences down with their bare hands as stall owners protested.

"They were banging on things, kicking plywood… it's truly inhumane," Ella Nurlaila, a stall owner, told the BBC. "My goodness, this eviction was so cruel."

The state-owned company leading Mandalika's tourism drive, InJourney Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC), has secured 2.1 trillion rupiah ($128m; £96m) to build a luxury hotel on Tanjung Aan.

Authorities said the project will create jobs and boost the local economy. But that's little consolation for stall owners like Ella and her husband Adi, who have sold coconuts and coffee on the beach for the past three years.

"Thousands of people here depend on [coastal land] for their livelihood," Adi said. "Where else are we supposed to go to earn a living?"

The couple said they had paid taxes for their stall - which, according to Adi, sat on land belonging to his parents.

But ITDC representatives told the BBC that Tanjung Aan is "state-owned land", and that the tax paid by those businesses "does not equate to legal ownership or land legitimacy".

This is just the latest bout of tensions over Mandalika's tourism push.

Just Finance International, a development finance watchdog, has repeatedly flagged "a pattern of rights violations linked to the Mandalika project" in recent years.

UN human rights experts estimate that more than 2,000 people "lost their primary means of livelihood overnight" because of the Tanjung Aan evictions. Stall owners were given neither "adequate notice" nor "suitable" resettlement plans, they said in a statement in August.

"The people of Mandalika must not be sacrificed for a project that promises economic growth at the expense of human rights," they said.

'If they want Bali, they should go to Bali'

In its quest for a remarkably different future, Lombok will also have to contend with what this means for local culture.

The predominantly Muslim island is home to thousands of mosques and the indigenous Sasak ethnic group. Compared to Bali, alcohol is not as readily available in parts of the island. On travel forums, tourists are encouraged to ditch bikinis and hot pants for more modest attire.

Such conservative sensitivities may change, or at least be driven further inland, as tourism heats up along the coastline. Travellers who have come to love Lombok are not happy about that either.

"Lombok is so special because it still has its own nature and people come to see that," said Swiss tourist Basil Berger, a sceptic of the"Bali-fication" of the island.

"If they want to see Bali, they [should] go to Bali," he said. Turning Lombok into another Bali "is the "the worst thing that they can do".

There are also environmental concerns. The motorcycle Grand Prix last year drew 120,000 spectators to Mandalika, leaving behind 30 tonnes of rubbish that authorities struggled to clear.

"Before it gets to Bali's stage of development, Lombok could learn. Because it's showing the same kind of strain," says Sekar Utami Setiastuti, who lives in Bali.

The government should ensure "tourism development brings welfare to a lot of people, instead of just bringing tourists to Lombok", she adds. "Lombok has to find its own identity - not just [become] a less crowded Bali."

No matter where that search leads, a new era has dawned on Lombok.

Andrew Irwin is among the foreign investors who have taken an early interest in Lombok's budding tourism. The American is the co-owner of LMBK Surf House, one of Mandalika's most popular surf camps.

The way he sees it, businesses like his are helping to uplift local employees and their families.

"It's giving people more opportunities to earn more money, send their kids to proper school, get proper insurance, get proper healthcare, and essentially live a better quality of life," he said.

While there's "not necessarily much one can do" about Lombok's changing landscape, he says, "we can just hope to bring a positive change to the equation".

Tourism has certainly ushered prosperity into the lives of many locals, who have decided to try their hand at entrepreneurship.

"As long you want to work, you'll make money from tourism," says Baiq Enida Kinang Lare, a homestay owner in Kuta, known to her guests as Lara. Her neighbours too have started homestays.

Lara started her business in 2014 with four rooms. She's now at 14, not counting a separate villa under construction.

As excited as she is about her prospects, she is also a little wistful as she recalled life before the hustle.

"It's difficult to find time to gather and see everyone. This is what we miss. We feel like the time flies very, very fast because we're busy," she says.

This is a feeling that would surely be shared by locals from Bali to Mykonos to Cancun, whenever tourism took off in their patch of paradise: "I miss the past, but we like the money."

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.

After serving 43 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, Subramanyam "Subu" Vedam was finally free.

New evidence had exonerated him earlier this month of the murder of his former roommate.

But before he could reach his family's arms, Mr Vedam was taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who want to deport him to India - a country he has not lived in since he was a baby.

Now, Mr Vedam's legal team is fighting a deportation order and his family is determined to get him out of custody, for good.

His family are now working to navigate a new and "very different" situation, his sister Saraswathi Vedam told the BBC.

Her brother has gone from a facility where he knew inmates and guards alike, where he mentored fellow inmates, and where he had his own cell, to a facility where he shares a room with 60 men and where his history of good behaviour and mentorship is unknown.

Mr Vedam has been repeating one message to his sister and other family members in the wake of the new situation: "I want us to focus on the win."

"My name has been cleared, I'm no longer a prisoner, I'm a detainee."

The 1980 murder

More than 40 years ago, Mr Vedam was convicted of murdering his once-roommate Tom Kinser, a 19-year-old college student.

Kinser's body was found nine months after he went missing in a wooded area with a bullet wound in his skull.

On the day of Kinser's disappearance, Mr Vedam had asked him for a ride. While the vehicle Kinser drove was returned to its usual spot, no one saw it being returned.

Mr Vedam was charged with Kinser's murder. He was denied bail, had his passport and green card seized by authorities and was labelled a "foreigner likely to flee".

Two years later he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 1984, he was sentenced to a separate two-and-a-half to five years for a drug offence, as part of a plea agreement. That sentence was to be served simultaneously with his life sentence.

Throughout that time, Mr Vedam maintained his innocence on the murder charges.

His supporters and family members stressed there was no physical evidence tying him to the crime.

Mr Vedam's exoneration

Mr Vedam repeatedly appealed the murder conviction and a few years ago new evidence in the case surfaced which exonerated.

Earlier this month, Centre County District Attorney Bernie Cantorna said he would not pursue a new trial against Mr Vedam.

But Mr Vedam's family knew there was one hurdle left before he was free: he still had a 1988 deportation order, based on his convictions for murder and a drug offence.

The family expected they would have to file a motion to have his immigration case reopened, Ms Vedam said.

The facts of the case are different now, she stressed.

But when they arrested him, ICE cited the immigration order as their reasoning for quickly detaining him in a different Pennsylvania facility.

While he was exonerated for the murder charge, his drug conviction still stands, they have said. The immigration agency said it acted on a lawfully issued order.

ICE did not respond to the BBC's request for comment, but told other US outlets that Mr Vedam will remain in custody pending his deportation.

Mr Vedam's family has said his decades of good behaviour, completion of three degrees and community service while behind bars should be considered when the immigration court examines his case.

"What was deeply disappointing was that we didn't even have a moment to hold him in our arms," Ms Vedam said. "He was held wrongly and one would think that he conducted himself with such honour and purpose and integrity that that should mean something."

Potential deportation to India

The family has stressed Mr Vedam's ties to India - where ICE has said they would like to deport him to - are weak at best.

While he was born there, he moved to the US at nine months old. What relatives are still alive, are distant ones, Ms Vedam told the BBC.

His community - Ms Vedam, her four daughters and other cousins - are in the US and Canada.

"He will again be robbed and miss out on the lives of the people closet to him, by being half way across the world," she said. "It's almost like having his life stolen twice."

Mr Vedam, who is a legal permanent resident, had his citizenship application accepted before he was arrested. Both of his parents were also both US citizens.

"We believe deportation from the United States now, to send him to a country where he has few connections, would represent another terrible wrong done to a man who has already endured a record-setting injustice," his lawyer, Ava Benach said in a statement to the BBC.