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While India waits for the Supreme Court's verdict on legalising same-sex marriage, an LGBTQ couple's recent wedding in the northern state of Punjab has made headlines - and also created controversy.

Dimple, 27 - who uses the pronoun he - and Manisha, 21, married in Bathinda city on 18 September with the blessings of their families - something that's highly unusual in a conservative country like India.

But what was even more unusual was that their marriage was solemnised in a gurdwara - a Sikh temple - with the bride and groom performing all traditional rituals.

The wedding has been criticised by some religious leaders, including Sikhism's highest priest Giani Raghbir Singh who declared that "same-sex marriage was unnatural and contrary to Sikh ethics".

The marriage of two women in the presence of Guru Granth Sahib - the holy Sikh scripture - was "a severe moral and religious violation", he said, and instructed the Bathinda gurdwara committee to suspend priest Hardev Singh, who conducted the marriage, and three others from their duties until further notice.

Hardev Singh has since been removed from his position. In his defence, he said that he couldn't figure out that both the bride and the groom were female as one of the women was wearing a turban.

Dimple has questioned the claim, saying that they had provided copies of their identity proof to the gurdwara so there was no reason for confusion.

Dimple is from Mansa district while Manisha is from Bathinda - both are remote areas where LGBTQ+ rights are rarely ever discussed in public. Dimple, an upper-caste Jatt Sikh, and Manisha, a Dalit Hindu, met at a garment factory in Zirakpur, a town near Punjab's capital Chandigarh, where they both worked.

When I met them a few days after their wedding, they looked like any happy newly-wed couple. The couple told me that their Anand Karaj (or Sikh wedding ceremony) was attended by nearly 70 relatives.

In their wedding photographs and videos, Dimple appears dressed as a traditional Sikh groom with the customary garland of flowers tied to his maroon turban, while his bride Manisha is wearing a maroon and gold tunic, salwar bottoms and a silk scarf and both her arms are covered with red bangles.

Dimple, who mostly dresses in a shirt and trousers and keeps his hair short, says when he told his parents that he had no interest in boys, they understood and "extended their support, expressing joy in his happiness".

An only child, he once contemplated gender reassignment surgery and even consulted a doctor, but decided against it as his parents were concerned about the procedure's outcomes.

It was in 2017 after he moved to Zirakpur for work that he became more aware of LGBTQ+ issues. "There, I met like-minded friends who understood my situation and I also gained awareness from YouTube," he says.

Manisha, says Dimple, wasn't his first love. "I was in a relationship with a girl for five years. Earlier this year, we broke up. Then I dated another girl for three-four months, but that also didn't work out."

Manisha, who was then a co-worker and a friend, often helped him resolve his differences with his girlfriend.

"That's when I realised that Manisha could be a better partner for me. She also enjoyed my company, we grew closer and had long chats. So, we officially became a couple a month ago," says Dimple.

Manisha says he proposed to her over the phone just three or four days after they began their relationship, adding that she readily accepted. "A women needs a life partner who understands her, respects her, showers her with love, and treats her like a child."

But it did take some effort to convince her parents that she wanted to marry Dimple.

"My mother told me it's not possible to marry a girl. Eventually, I convinced her that if she wanted my happiness, then she had to let me marry who I wanted. Once she agreed, she also persuaded my father."

Their parents then met and the wedding date was finalised. As Dimple is a practising Sikh, his parents say he wanted to marry following Sikh rituals so they approached the gurdwara priest.

The couple insist that they never hid their identities and show the marriage certificate Bathinda gurdwara committee has issued them.

India decriminalised gay sex in 2018, but same-sex marriages still lack official recognition. The Supreme Court recently heard a slew of petitions seeking marriage equality and judgement is due soon.

So at the moment, a same-sex marriage is not legal in India which means that Dimple and Manisha cannot access rights enjoyed by heterosexual married couples, but at the same time, experts say it is not considered a felony.

But the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, the apex religious body of Sikhism says it is investigating if there have been any violations of religious codes.

Alongside a daily ration of gruesome videos of drone strikes and false claims about Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, they share ads for anything from cryptocurrency to fashion.

Known in Russia as "Z-Bloggers" because of their support for a war often symbolised by the letter Z, they are often embedded with the Russian army and post footage from the front line where they call on young Russians to enlist.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, pro-war influencers have gained millions of followers on Telegram, the social media platform many Russians turned to after President Vladimir Putin banned Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

That explosion in users has led to a surge in Telegram's advertising market.

War influencers have taken advantage of this. They sell ad spaces for companies looking to reach their young audiences.

To find out how much they charge, members of the BBC's Global Disinformation Team posed as hotel owners interested in posting ads on their channels.

We reached out to some of the most prominent players.

One of them was Alexander Kots, a veteran correspondent for a pro-government newspaper who became a war influencer, with more than 600,000 followers on his personal Telegram channel.

Alexander Kots said it would cost 48,000-70,000 roubles (£440-£680) per post on his channel, depending on how long the ad was kept at the top of his Telegram feed. WarGonzo quoted us the equivalent of £1,550 per post.

Top war influencers post at least one ad per day, so their potential income dwarfs Russia's average monthly wage of 66,000 roubles (£550).

An advertising agent working with Wagner-linked channels quoted us the equivalent of £260 per ad in Grey Zone, a Telegram channel with exclusive access to Wagner and over 600,000 followers.

To advertise on the channel of Alexander Simonov, a correspondent for the Ria Fan website founded by late mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, the agent quoted £180 per post.

Another Ria Fan reporter, Alexander Yaremchuk, has fewer followers so his rates are lower, at £86 per post.

While some of the Z-bloggers have significant experience of war reporting for state-run media, others like Maryana Naumova have no professional training.

A former powerlifter, she took a reporting course on a Wagner mercenary base and now presents her own show on national TV.

The BBC tried to interview prominent war-bloggers, but Alexander Kots was the only one of them who agreed to talk.

Speaking from the occupied Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, he described himself as a reporter in an information war. Nevertheless he understood Russia's propaganda depended, in part, on people like him.

"The Ministry of Defence often listens to us, and we have a direct channel to privately communicate information to them. It's all behind the scenes, and I do that," he said.

The growing market for the Z-bloggers' material is sustained by a steady stream of exclusive videos. The footage brings them a diverse following, from domestic pro-war audiences to Western and Ukrainian analysts trying to understand what is really going on in the Russian trenches.

However, some of the videos posted by the pro-war bloggers are fake.

Last March, prominent influencers including Alexander Kots posted a dashcam video that purported to show two Ukrainian soldiers stopping a car with a woman and a small child.

The gunmen in the video call the woman "a pig" for speaking Russian and threaten her. Z-bloggers said the video was a perfect example of how Ukraine treated civilians.

But we have geolocated this video to Makiivka, a town near Donetsk. This area of Ukraine has been occupied by pro-Russian proxy forces since 2014. It is impossible that a uniformed Ukrainian soldier could have operated in this occupied territory.

Added to that, the use of dashcams is illegal in Ukraine. The ban was imposed after the full-scale Russian invasion to keep troop movements secret.

And the cross on the vehicle is different from the one used by Ukraine's armed forces. All these elements suggest the video was staged.

It is one of many fakes spread by Z-bloggers to encourage young Russians to support the war, and there is evidence they are succeeding.

In one video a mobilised Russian man says he went to a recruitment centre after watching a number of videos from Vladlen Tatarsky, one of the most vocal bloggers. Tatarsky was killed in April 2023 at a meeting with his fans.

Another Russian man who volunteered to fight in Ukraine told a blogger he did so after watching a lot of WarGonzo reports. "I follow all the military news and analysis on Telegram," he said, referring to the Z-bloggers.

Asked to respond to the rise of pro-Putin war bloggers on the platform, Telegram said it was the "last platform through which Russians can access independent media outlets like Meduza, uncensored international news like the BBC or [President] Zelensky's speeches".

A spokesman said while all parties were "treated equally", Telegram respected international sanctions and blocked Russian state media "where laws forbid it".

Over the course of the war, President Putin has shown his appreciation of the Z-bloggers' efforts.

He appointed Alexander Kots to the presidential human rights council and made Semyon Pegov and several other bloggers members of a working group on mobilisation.

In June, he invited pro-war influencers and state media reporters to the Kremlin for a two-hour long conversation.

"The fight in the information space is a battlefield. A crucial battlefield," he told them. "And I really count on your help."

Patrick Gordon Macdonald charged with terrorism-related and hate propaganda offences

An Ottawa man who has been charged with terrorism offences for promoting a far-right group has been granted bail.

Patrick Gordon Macdonald, 26, was charged in July with participating in the activity of a terrorist group, facilitating terrorist activity and wilfully promoting hatred for a terrorist group.

The RCMP say he helped make propaganda material for the Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi organization that has been listed as a terror group in Canada since 2021.

Macdonald's parents put up $40,000 in sureties at a hearing on Wednesday and he is now under conditions that require him to stay in his parents' home.

He can only leave home with one of his parents or to attend legal, counselling or medical appointments.

He's not allowed to have weapons and he cannot use any computers or devices that access the internet without supervision from one of his parents.

First to be charged in Canada

Macdonald was the first to be charged in Canada with terrorism-related and hate propaganda offences because of his alleged association with a violent far-right ideology.

His bail conditions also ban him from contacting a list of 10 people and require him to give up his passport.

Police allege he operated under a screen name online, and was known as "Dark Foreigner."

The U.S.-based Southern Poverty Law Centre says that "Dark Foreigner" made graphic designs for the Atomwaffen Division.

Public Safety Canada says the group calls for acts of violence against racial, religious, and ethnic groups, as well as informants, police and bureaucrats, to prompt the collapse of society.

It has held training camps where members receive combat and weapons training, and its members have carried out acts of violence before, including at a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

The American co-leader of the group was banned from Canada after the Immigration and Refugee Board determined he was a member of a terror group.

Macdonald is expected back in court on Sept. 19.

The allegations against him have not been proven in court.

The widely held stereotype that people experiencing homelessness would be more likely to spend extra cash on drugs, alcohol and “temptation goods” has been upended by a study that found a majority used a $7,500 payment mostly on rent, food, housing, transit and clothes.

The biases punctured by the study highlight the difficulties in developing policies to reduce homelessness, say the Canadian researchers behind it. They said the unconditional cash appeared to reduce homelessness, giving added weight to calls for a guaranteed basic income that would help adults cover essential living expenses.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia described in a report for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences how they tracked the spending of 50 people experiencing homelessness after they were given C$7,500.

The study built on a previous US survey of 1,114 people that tracked “public mistrust” in unhoused people’s ability to manage money, where participants predicted that recipients of an unconditional $7,500 cash transfer would spend most of it on “temptation goods” such as alcohol, drugs and tobacco.

The Canadian researchers followed up by actually giving that amount to 50 people who were homeless in Vancouver, and compared their spending with a control group of 65 homeless people who did not receive any cash.

They found the cash recipients each spent an average of 99 fewer days homeless than the control group, increased their savings more and also “cost” society less by spending less time in shelters.

“The impact of these biases is detrimental,” Jiaying Zhao, an associate professor of psychology at UBC who led the study, said in a statement. “When people received the cash transfer, they actually spent it on things that you or I would spend it on – housing, clothing, food, transit – and not on drugs and alcohol.”

Researchers ensured the cash was in a lump sum “to enable maximum purchasing freedom and choice” as opposed to small, consistent transfers.

Zhao said the study did not include participants with severe levels of substance use, alcohol use or mental health symptoms, because researchers felt those groups did not reflect the majority of homeless people.

“Rather, they are largely invisible. They sleep in cars or on friends’ couches, and do not abuse substances or alcohol,” said Zhao.

The study comes as lawmakers in Canada are under mounting pressure from advocacy groups to implement a universal basic income project that would help ease a cost-of-living crisis.

In 2017, the most populous province unveiled the Ontario basic income pilot, meant to study the effects of a universal basic income on 4,000 participants. The program was subsequently shut down by the province’s Progressive Conservative party after an electoral victory, with one minister calling the guaranteed funds a “disincentive” to work.

A bill is currently before the country’s senate to require Canada’s minister of finance to examine the idea of a nationwide basic income project and report on possible benefits.

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Ron Hunter is taking us on a trip down memory lane – or more precisely, 42nd Street in Manhattan. He is showing us the spots where, half a century ago, he was repeatedly molested, sexually assaulted and raped from the age of 13.

All because of the Boy Scouts.

He leads us to the block that for four years in the early 1970s was his patch. It was here that he was brought by the Boy Scout leader who groomed him, then sex-trafficked under his street name “Angel” for five bucks a trick.

Hunter stands beneath the awning of the former Selwyn Theatre, which in 1972 was a movie house showing pornographic films like Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones. That’s where in the winter he sheltered from the rain and driving snow.

Next door is a now defunct sporting goods store where Hunter was trained to ply the trade. He would pretend to be window shopping, then catch the eye of a potential john reflected in the glass.

“They would say, ‘Those are pretty nice sneakers, aren’t they?’ and I would know I was going to make contact. Then we’d negotiate a price, and go from there.”

Across 42nd Street on the opposite sidewalk is the place where the Boy Scout leader, Carlos Acevedo – Charlie, as everyone knew him – would stand watching and waiting for the 13-year-old to bring back the cash. “I’d signal to him so he knew how much and how long,” Hunter said.

“Right hand was for the price – three fingers, 15 dollars, five dollars apiece.”

On one level, the story of Ron Hunter – Ronnie in his teenage years – is just a grain of sand in a vast mountain of abuse.

Now aged 63, he is one of more than 80,000 men who have made bankruptcy claims against the Boy Scouts of America on grounds they were violated by troop leaders in incidents spanning decades. It is the largest case of child sexual abuse involving a single organization in US history.

Amid that epic mass of suffering, Hunter stands out. Not just because of the severity of the abuse that he endured, or its longevity. But also because of his determination to speak out, to tell his story, in order to advance his own healing and to ensure that others are spared his ordeal.

He is suing the Boy Scouts of America and his now defunct local Scouts chapter in Brooklyn in federal court for failing to protect him from Acevedo’s clutches. The lawsuit takes advantage of the 2019 Child Victims Act that opened a window for abuse victims to seek justice long after the statute of limitations had closed.

The legal complaint points out that the Boy Scouts of America was aware for at least a century that adult volunteers were infiltrating the organization in search of vulnerable children – but did too little to stop it.

Hunter is also claiming compensation. The Boy Scouts entered bankruptcy in 2020, but emerged from it this year. Even though a $2.4bn settlement fund for victims has been set up, he has yet to receive a penny and his lawsuit remains on hold. Fifty years after the tragic events that shattered his life, he is in limbo, waiting for justice.

He’s not waiting quietly. He’s written a book, Angel Finally Found His Wings, which vividly recounts the world of blackmail and sex trafficking into which he was lured. It took him 12 long years to finish writing it.

The memoir makes for some unbearable reading. It describes through the eyes of 13-year-old Ronnie the gradual step-by-step process through which his innocence was stripped from him as he was drawn, scared and confused, into Acevedo’s orbit and on to the streets.

Taken together, the book and the lawsuit provide an extraordinary insight into the trust that the Boy Scouts betrayed. “Be prepared” is the institution’s motto, but as the lawsuit points out, the Boy Scouts of America itself was woefully unprepared, and until recently arguably unwilling, to address the rampant sexual abuse of children in its care by its own adult volunteers.

The book is extraordinary for another reason: it is the account of a man who has prevailed against the odds. As Hunter’s therapist once told him: “Ron, you shouldn’t be here. You should be dead, or in jail, or strung out.”

Instead, the Ron Hunter who gives us a tour of his childhood patch on 42nd Street is dapper, eloquent and poised. “That’s how I see it – Angel gets his wings,” he said. “Because I was able to escape.”

He lists the emotions that to this day he strives to control in his daily struggle to overcome the past. “I won’t be angry. I won’t be bitter. I won’t be hurtful or hateful. I won’t let what happened to me change who I ultimately am. Yes, I’m a victim. But more importantly I’m a survivor. I won’t let Charlie win. He will not define me.”

It’s a truism of child abuse that predators tend to prey on vulnerable and wounded kids. They make easier pickings as they have weakened self-preservation instincts and scant support networks to protect them from outside attack. As such, Ronnie made a perfect target.

Police in India are investigating a video that shows a school teacher telling her pupils to slap their seven-year-old Muslim classmate.

The boy is filmed in tears as he is slapped, allegedly for getting his times tables wrong.

The video went viral on social media, and has triggered widespread dismay and condemnation.

India's opposition leader Rahul Gandhi blamed the government for stoking religious intolerance.

The incident happened on Thursday at a private school in Uttar Pradesh, a northern state.

"Why are you hitting him so lightly? Hit him hard," the teacher is heard telling the children, as the boy stands crying.

"Start hitting him on the waist... His face is turning red, hit him on the waist instead," she added.

Authorities in India confirmed the video was real, and said they would take action.

The victim's father reported the incident to police in the Muzaffarnagar district, and has pulled him out of the school. But he did not press charges.

Rights groups have warned that hate crimes and violence against India's large Muslim minority have increased since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014.

Uttar Pradesh has been governed by his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2017.

Mr Gandhi said the party had contributed to religious tensions felt across India.

"Sowing the poison of discrimination in the minds of innocent children, turning a holy place like school into a marketplace of hatred," he posted to social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

"This is the same kerosene spread by the BJP that has set every corner of India on fire."

In June during a visit to the US Mr Modi told journalists that there was "absolutely no space for discrimination" in India.

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Revealed: Charles Haywood, creator of the Society for American Civic Renewal, has said he might serve as ‘warlord’ at the head of an ‘armed patronage network’

The founder and sponsor of a far-right network of secretive, men-only, invitation-only fraternal lodges in the US is a former industrialist who has frequently speculated about his future as a warlord after the collapse of America, a Guardian investigation has found.

Federal and state tax and company filings show that the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR) and its creator, Charles Haywood, also have financial ties with the far-right Claremont Institute.

SACR’s most recent IRS filing names Haywood as the national organization’s principal officer. Other filings identify three lodges in Idaho – in Boise, Coeur d’Alene and Moscow – and another in Dallas, Texas.

SACR’s public-facing presence is confined to a slick one-page website advertising the organization’s goal as “civilizational renaissance”, and a society “with strong leadership committed to family and culture”.

The site claims SACR is “raising accountable leaders to help build thriving communities of free citizens” who will rebuild “the frontier-conquering spirit of America”. It condemns “those who rule today”, saying that they “corrupt the sinews of America”, “[alienate] men from family, community, and God” and promising to “counter and conquer this poison”.

It also prominently features SACR’s cross-like insignia or “mark” which it describes variously as symbolizing “sword and shield” and the rejection of “Modernist philosophies and heresies”.

Atlanta-area prosecutors investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia are in possession of text messages and emails directly connecting members of Donald Trump’s legal team to the early January 2021 voting system breach in Coffee County, sources tell CNN.

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Together, the text messages and other court documents show how Trump lawyers and a group of hired operatives sought to access Coffee County’s voting systems in the days before January 6, 2021, as the former president’s allies continued a desperate hunt for any evidence of widespread fraud they could use to delay certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

 Last year, a former Trump official testified under oath to the House January 6 select committee that plans to access voting systems in Georgia were discussed in meetings at the White House, including during an Oval Office meeting on December 18, 2020,  that included Trump. 

Six days before pro-Trump operatives gained unauthorized access to voting systems, the local elections official who allegedly helped facilitate the breach sent a “written invitation” to attorneys working for Trump, according to text messages obtained by CNN.

That includes these text messages and others like it that were originally unearthed as part of a long-running civil suit focused on election security in Georgia.

Investigators have scrutinized the actions of various individuals who were involved, including Misty Hampton, a former Coffee County elections official who authored the letter of invitation referenced in text messages and other documents that have been turned over to prosecutors, multiple sources told CNN.