Eyewitnesses have recounted scenes of chaos and confusion after a religious festival in northern India ended in tragedy when scores of people were killed in a crowd crush.

At least 121 people died – almost all of them women – and 35 others were injured when overcrowding at a sermon in Mughal Garhi village in Uttar Pradesh led to the deadly crush on Tuesday. Police said they were investigating the organizers, saying a quarter of a million people arrived at the venue – more than three times the number expected – and just a few dozen police officers had been deployed.

The crush happened as female devotees rushed towards the stage to touch the feet of Bhole Baba, the self-styled godman, or guru, who led the event, according to Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister. Other officials said devotees were trying to collect ground that his car had passed over as he left the ceremony.

Lal added: “If there was no carelessness then people would not have died like this, whether it’s the administration or organizers, it’s carelessness.”

The mother of a victim who gave her name as Kamala told Reuters: “My daughter was alright when she arrived at the hospital. In fact, my daughter served water to other victims, helped them and called my brother informing us that she had made it to the hospital safely. But by the time my brother reached the hospital, my daughter was dead.”

Describing the chaos at the gathering, a survivor named Rekha told Reuters that the crush had occurred after the preaching had ended, saying: “Anyone who fell did not get up, was trampled by the crowd and died.”

Chedilal, a 65-year-old man whose 30-year-old daughter was killed in the crush, said: “We were together. I saw many dead bodies lying there so I ran to where the buses were parked.

“I looked for her everywhere but I could not find her anywhere, it became night. Where could I go? What could I do?

“I was told to go to the district hospital and here I found her body.”

Uttar Pradesh has launched a special investigative team to probe the deadly crowd crush, the state’s chief minister announced on Wednesday.

A judicial inquiry will also be carried out under the state’s high court, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said.

Adityanath suggested that the organizers were to blame, telling reporters that “the administration assumes that at such a function, internally, the security of devotees would be managed by the organizers.”

“For security, the administration deploys its force as well, but in the outer ring. Inside it is the organizers managing everything,” he said.

In a statement he shared via his lawyer, Bhole Baba – also known as Suraj Pal – offered condolences to the families of those killed as he blamed the fatal crush on “anti-social elements.”

Permission had been sought for an event with 80,000 attendees, but more than 250,000 devotees gathered at the venue, the police report said. Organizers and officials tried to direct the crowd as thousands attempted to leave and in the ensuing chaos dozens were trampled, it added.

The report alleged that event organizers provided no assistance to the injured and attempted to cover up the incident by hiding the clothes and shoes that people had lost in the crush in a nearby field.

Crowd crushes at religious gatherings in India are not uncommon, and deadly incidents have made headlines in the past, highlighting the lack of adequate crowd control and safety measures.

Hurricane Beryl, an early-season storm super-charged by abnormally warm ocean temperatures, is tearing through the Caribbean.

Grenada’s Carriacou island was “flattened” when Beryl made landfall as a Category 4 storm.

Several charities are actively distributing aid throughout the region. If you’d like to help victims, click here or use the form below.

France’s most streamed singer Aya Nakamura has joined the chorus of voices calling on the French electorate to vote against the far right in Sunday’s high stakes election.

The National Rally party, which is slated to win big in this Sunday’s second round of voting, has drawn criticism and concern from French celebrities of dual nationality, worried about the impact of their immigration policy plans. The party, headed by 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, hopes to restrict dual nationals from accessing certain state jobs. It also wants to strip citizenship rights from those born to foreign parents on French soil.

Popstar Nakamura, who immigrated to France from Mali as a child and rose to fame with her smash hit song “Djadja,” made the call in a social media post on Tuesday that zeroed in on her own experiences of racism in France.

The 29-year-old said in her post that she is “well placed to understand and know the place of racism in our country.”

Nakamura said that although she had previously chosen not to weigh in on certain issues, she now understood that her role as a major musical artist requires her to “speak out” during such an “important moment.”

She called on her fans to vote against “the only extreme to be condemned,” in what appeared to be a reference to the far right.

Nakamura herself is no stranger to threats from the far right, having previously found herself at the center of a controversy earlier this year when speculation mounted that she would perform the classic French song “Je ne regrette rien” at the Olympics opening ceremony.

Far-right fringe groups and politicians, including Marion Maréchal, a far-right lawmaker and niece of Marine Le Pen, complained that Nakamura does not even “sing in French.” This swipe was seemingly a reference to the blend of French and African slang that Nakamura uses in her lyrics.

France’s top sports stars have also been using their platforms to urge the public not to vote for the far right. Jules Kounde, a 25-year-old French Beninese national who plays on the French national team, used a press conference during the Euros tournament to share what he called his own “political position.”

“I was disappointed to see the direction France is taking, with strong support for a party against our values,” Kounde told journalists after the match between France and Belgium on Monday. “I believe it’s important to block the extreme right, the National Rally, because this party will not lead our country towards more freedom.”

Kounde’s remarks echo comments from fellow football star Kylian Mbappé, who told journalists earlier during the tournament that he is “against extremes.” Mbappé, whose family originally came from Algeria and Cameroon, stressed that he didn’t want to “represent a country” that didn’t embody his “values.”

The French far right’s strong showing in the first round has prompted concern from several European countries and even top United Nations officials. The UN’s human rights chief Volker Turk told a press conference in Geneva Wednesday that recent far-right gains across Europe should serve as an “alarm bell.”

The Chinese coast guard detained a Taiwanese fishing vessel in waters off China’s southeast coast on Tuesday night, in the latest flare-up of tensions around a group of frontline islands controlled by Taipei.

In a statement, Taiwan’s coast guard said the fishing boat, Tachinman 88, was intercepted by two Chinese coast guard vessels near the Kinmen islands, which lie just miles from the Chinese cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou. All five crew members were also detained, according to Taiwan authorities.

China coast guard officers boarded the fishing boat and then escorted it to a nearby Chinese port, the Taiwanese statement said, adding that three Taiwan coast guard vessels answered a call for help but retreated to avoid conflict when they were outnumbered by their Chinese counterparts.

China’s coast guard confirmed it detained the boat, saying in a statement Wednesday that its Fujian division had “lawfully boarded, inspected and detained a Taiwanese fishing vessel suspected of illegal fishing in the offshore waters near Quanzhou.”

China coast guard spokesperson Liu Dejun accused the Taiwanese boat of violating a summer fishing moratorium by operating trawl nets in a prohibited area and using nets with mesh sizes much smaller than China’s national minimum requirements, thereby “damaging marine fisheries resources and the ecological environment.”

The Chinese statement did not mention the status of the crew members.

China’s ruling Communist Party claims self-governing Taiwan as its territory despite having never controlled it, and has vowed to unify with the island, by force if necessary.

And Beijing has ramped up pressure on Taipei since President Lai Ching-te, who it openly loathes as a “dangerous separatist,” won the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party a historic third consecutive term in power in January.

Meanwhile, tensions remain high in the waters around Kinmen, a group of outlying islands controlled by Taiwan but nestled just a stone’s throw from the shores of China.

In a news conference Wednesday, a senior Taiwan maritime official said the Taiwanese vessel was detained amid an annual summer fishing ban implemented by China in May.

Two Taiwanese and three Indonesian crew members were detained as the boat operated 11.2 nautical miles from the mainland coast in China’s territorial waters, said Hsieh Ching-chin, deputy director general of Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration.

The Taiwan coast guard demanded the immediate release of the boat and crew.

“The Coast Guard Administration calls on China not to engage in political manipulation, which undermines cross-strait relations, and it should release the Tachinman 88 vessel and its crew immediately,” the Taiwanese statement said.

China’s coast guard has increased patrols in waters around Kinmen and other outlying islands controlled by Taiwan since February, when two Chinese fishermen were drowned while being chased by Taiwan’s coast guard, who accused them of trespassing.

In late February, Chinese coast guard officers intercepted and boarded a Taiwanese tourist boat for inspection, an unprecedented move that startled Taiwanese passengers.

Taiwanese legislator Chen Yu-jen, who represents Kinmen for Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang party, said since then, fishermen in the islands had been careful not to cross into China’s territorial waters due to Chinese coast guard patrols.

“In the past, the coast guard would usually expel fishing vessels that crossed the maritime border, but now it is strictly enforcing the law.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

During a visit to a local farm while working with development agency USAID, Ugandan entrepreneur Juliet Tumusiime realized that a huge amount of banana stems are left over from banana cultivation and simply discarded. Looking for a way to use the waste, she struck upon an innovative business idea.

Almost a decade later, now aged 42, Tumusiime is the chief executive and co-founder of Cheveux Organique, which manufactures hair made from banana fibers as an alternative to synthetic extensions.

Fashion trends among the younger population and growing purchasing power have boosted the market for hair extensions and wigs in the Africa and the Middle East, which could be worth $710 million by 2028, according to Research and Markets.

Extensions are typically made from human hair, or synthetic materials such as nylon, polyester, acrylic and PVC. Synthetics are popular in Uganda because they’re much cheaper, but they’re not biodegradable or easy to recycle. Some people complain that synthetic hair can irritate their scalp and a study of synthetic hair in Nigeria found the presence of potentially harmful heavy metals and chemicals.

“I’ve spoken to friends, colleagues, both men and women and asked them how they dispose of their hair when they take it out,” Tumusiime says. “A lot of the time it is just thrown in the trash. The level of awareness is really low – most people don’t realize that they are wearing plastic on their head which can irritate the skin and cause pollution.

“Our mission is to transform the beauty industry by providing alternatives that benefit their health and the environment. We want to empower women to make informed decisions about what hair they use and what’s best for them.”

Tumusiime says that, unlike synthetic hair, her product is biodegradable, durable and can be easily styled, treated and colored. It can also be rewashed with warm water and conditioned with detangling cream. When dry, the hypoallergenic hair can be oiled and can withstand dryers and heat up to 400 degrees, lasting weeks longer than synthetic alternatives, according to Tumusiime.

Since it’s made from discarded banana stems, she adds, it’s also a way to help curb that waste.

Uganda is Africa’s largest producer and consumer of bananas, producing about 10 million metric tons of bananas per day. Ugandans consume almost one kilogram of the fruit per person, per day, with more than 75% of the population relying on bananas as a staple food, according to the World Economic Forum.

Cheveux Organique works closely with local banana farmers, buying stems that would otherwise be discarded. The stems are split and the fibers extracted by machine. The extracted fibers are then dried and treated, before being combed out, resulting in the hair-like texture.

The “hair” is dyed into three shades: Cheveux Black, Cheveux Brown and Cheveux Blonde. Tumusiime says it has a natural sheen, is soft to the touch and can be used for braiding and styling. It’s also suitable for warm and humid climates, she notes.

The company isn’t unique in creating plant-based hair. In the US, St.Louis-based Rebundle also sells hair extensions made from banana fibers, while Nourie Hair offers a hair alternative for braiding made from Ginseng root extract and rosemary.

However, turning banana waste into a premium product does not come without challenges for Cheveux Organique. “The labor-intensive process, from picking the stems, transporting them to the facility, extracting the stems, treating them and the power needed to use this – it causes the product to become pricey,” Tumusiime says.

Cheveux Organique sells its plant-based hair in Uganda, and as fair afield as the US, France and the UK. It retails for $50 for 150 grams (5.3 ounces), which Tumusiime says is cheaper than a typical $185 for a similar amount of human hair. But synthetic hair can be bought for as little as $1 for a bundle.

“This is something that we are hugely concerned about, and we are trying to find ways to mechanize the business and produce volumes of hair whilst continuing to break even,” Tumusiime says. “The people paying these prices are getting a premium product at the end of it – and it’s about the long-term benefits that this product brings.”

Tumusiime says her startup, which currently employs 25 permanent staff members and 100 part-time workers for waste gathering, is in the process of creating regional hubs, which will function as extraction centers, as well as an education point for young people. The hubs will train future generations on the positive impacts of waste management, as well as giving young people skillsets – such as extraction and machine operation – that will equip them for future careers.

“We want to make sure that this brand is a household name,” Tumusiime says. “We want to become leaders in this industry despite challenges. But I’m passionate about what I’m doing. I’m not about to give up. I do everything possible to make sure that I achieve my objectives and achieve the vision for which I started this organization.”

Sierra Leone officially banned child marriage on Tuesday with President Julius Maada Bio signing into law a bill to end the practice that remains widespread.

Advocates hope the new legislation will better protect girls in Sierra Leone, around a third of whom are married before they turn 18, increasing the maternal death rate due to the physical risks they face from pregnancy, according to the health ministry.

Under the law, any man who marries a girl under the age of 18 could face at least 15 years in prison and a fine of around $4,000.

Parents or those attending such marriage ceremonies could also face fines.

The U.S. Bureau of African Affairs welcomed the passage of the bill as a “significant milestone (that) not only protects girls but promotes robust human rights protections.”

West and Central Africa has the highest prevalence of child marriage in the world and is home to nearly 60 million child brides, according to the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF.

A 21-year-old Sierra Leonean former child bride, who requested anonymity, told Reuters that she was forced into marriage at the age of 14 and was considering going to court since the new law would allow her to file for an annulment.

The legislation should “break the cycle of early marriage and its devastating consequences,” said Human Rights Watch researcher Betty Kabari. “It also sets a pathway forward for other African nations, such as Tanzania and Zambia, to revoke laws that permit child marriage.”

A club of Eurasian countries spearheaded by China and Russia to advance their leaders’ vision of an alternative world order is set to expand again this week – this time adding a staunch Russian ally that has openly supported Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

The expected admission of Belarus to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at its annual leaders’ summit in Astana, Kazakhstan is another push by Beijing and Moscow to transform the grouping – from a regional security bloc into a geopolitical counterweight to Western institutions led by the United States and its allies.

Belarus, which helped Russia to launch its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, will become the latest authoritarian state to join the club, after Iran became a full member last year.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have arrived in Astana for the summit that begins Wednesday, in what will be their second meeting this year. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the leader of the world’s largest democracy, is skipping the event, pointing to unease among some members about the direction the SCO is headed.

Founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to combat terrorism and promote border security, the SCO has grown in recent years in line with Beijing and Moscow’s shared ambition to counter what they see as US “hegemony” and reshape the international system in their favor.

In 2017, the bloc underwent its first expansion to welcome India and Pakistan. After adding Belarus, it will boast 10 members, representing more than 40% of the world’s population and roughly a quarter of the global economy. It also has two observer states, Afghanistan and Mongolia, and more than a dozen “dialogue partners” from Myanmar to Turkey and the Arab states.

The SCO’s expansion comes after another bloc led by China and Russia, the BRICS group of major emerging economies, more than doubled its membership and significantly extended its global reach last year.

Growing ambitions

As the SCO grows in international visibility and economic weight, it has also broadened in geopolitical ambitions.

The expected admission of Belarus, which borders the European Union, “really highlights how the SCO’s mission has changed in the last few years,” said Eva Seiwert, an expert on China’s foreign policy at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin.

“Unlike Iran, you don’t really get much like economic or security cooperation out of Belarus joining. And that’s why I argue that it’s more of a geopolitical move.”

With Russia deep in the third year of its grinding war against Ukraine, the SCO has become a crucial diplomatic avenue for Putin, as well as a platform to showcase he’s not isolated internationally. And as China’s relations with the US have plummeted, Beijing is now less concerned about the SCO being branded an anti-Western organization – a perception that has only deepened following Iran’s admission, Seiwert said.

“They want the SCO to be perceived as a major bloc that cannot be ignored anymore,” she said. “With all these countries joining, China and Russia (want to show they) both have a lot of supporters for their worldviews.”

And in that shared worldview, there is no place for the US in Eurasia.

In a meeting with his senior foreign ministry officials last month, Putin laid out a future vision for “a new system of bilateral and multilateral guarantees of collective security in Eurasia,” with the help of existing organizations like the SCO and a long-term goal to “gradually phase out the military presence of external powers in the Eurasian region.”

“During my recent visit to China, President Xi Jinping and I discussed this issue. It was noted that the Russian proposal is not contradictory, but rather complements and aligns with the basic principles of the Chinese global security initiative,” said Putin, who visited Beijing in May.

Frictions and unease

That big picture vison of an alternative future is going to be the “headline message” for China and Russia coming out of this SCO summit, said Bates Gill, a senior fellow for the National Bureau of Asian Research.

But the Belarus membership also creates big question marks that will hang over the organization, Gill said.

“It creates all sorts of problems and new questions about the reputation, legitimacy and mandate of the organization, given the nature of the Belarus regime and its support for Russia’s flagrant violation of international law and invasion of Ukraine,” he said.

“Clearly the SCO can tolerate authoritarian regimes, but for the mandate of the organization, it further diversifies and dilutes its original focus, which was to be on Central Asia.”

The bloc’s expansion hasn’t come without frictions – notably with the admission of bitter rivals India and Pakistan – while tensions between Beijing and New Delhi have also flared in recent years following deadly clashes on their disputed Himalayan border.

The grouping’s increasingly anti-Western orientation following its embrace of Iran and now Belarus has also fueled unease among members that want to keep good relations with the West, including the former Soviet states in Central Asia.

“In some respects, it puts the Central Asian states in a very awkward position,” Gill said. “They are pursuing what they like to call multi-trajectory diplomacy. They don’t want to be committed to only dealing with one major power, like Russia or China.”

Gill, who visited Central Asia in April and May, said there was an ambivalence in regional capitals about the future of the SCO.

Modi is skipping

India, too, appeared to be losing interest. Last year, it hosted the summit virtually – a muted arrangement that allowed Modi to avoid the optics of welcoming Putin and Xi to New Delhi as it sought closer ties with the US.

This year, fresh from his third consecutive term inauguration, the Indian leader is skipping the summit in Astana – despite Russian state media reports that he will visit the Kremlin next week.

“This tells us that he does not see the SCO as the most effective channel through which to pursue Indian interests in this part of the world,” Gill said.

Even China, the main driver behind the SCO’s expansion, is seeking a more direct way to engage with Central Asia – without Russia’s involvement.

Last year, five leaders from the region received a lavish welcome at the inaugural China-Central Asia summit in the Chinese city of Xi’an, the starting point of the ancient Silk Road trade route that linked imperial China with civilizations to its west over a millennium ago. In March, a permanent Secretariat for the China-Central Asia mechanism was established in the same city.

And while China and Russia aspire to present the SCO as a counterweight to US-led institutions, it remains a much weaker and less cohesive bloc compared with the likes of NATO, the European Union or the Group of Seven nations.

“Given the expansion of membership with India, Pakistan, Iran and Belarus, the organization will be even less like an alliance or committed common grouping, and more like a strategic-vision type of organization … representative of a Eurasian identity,” Gill said.

After the summit in Astana, China is due to take up the rotating presidency of the SCO for a year.

Seiwert, the expert at MERICS, said Beijing would work to find more common ground among member states.

“For China, it’s important that the SCO doesn’t fail, that it is perceived as successful. I think they’re also aware of all the difficulties that have come with all these different expansions,” she said.

“If it keeps on expanding – if Russia and China keep on pushing it to expand – then I think its regional relevance will really just diminish.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the idea of starting a ceasefire in Gaza while Hamas remains in power, after The New York Times published an article citing six current and former security officials who said a truce would give Israeli troops time to prepare for a potential land war with Hezbollah.

The officials, most of whom spoke anonymously to “discuss sensitive security matters,” also said a truce would be the most effective way to secure the release of the Israeli hostages.

Former Israeli National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata, who according to the Times maintains regular communication with “senior miliary officials,” spoke on the record, saying, “The military is in full support of a hostage deal and a ceasefire … They believe that they can always go back and engage Hamas militarily in the future.”

Faced with a “forever war” scenario, four of the officials interviewed by the Times agreed with Hulata that “keeping Hamas in power for now in exchange for getting the hostages back seems like the least worst option for Israel.”

But in a statement, Netanyahu said, “I do not know who these anonymous sources are, but I am here to make it unequivocally clear: This will not happen. The war will end once Israel achieves all of its objectives, including the destruction of Hamas and the release of all of our hostages.”

“The government directed the IDF to achieve these war objectives and the IDF has all the means to achieve them. We will not capitulate to the winds of defeatism, neither in The New York Times nor anywhere else. We are inspired by the spirit of victory.”

The report was published as the situation in Israel’s north remains extremely tense, with the Israeli military and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah ramping up cross-border attacks, which risk boiling over into a full-scale war.

“They (the IDF) understand that a pause in Gaza makes de-escalation more likely in Lebanon,” Hulata told the Times.

“And they have less munitions, less spare parts, less energy than they did before — so they also think a pause in Gaza gives us more time to prepare in case a bigger war does break out with Hezbollah,” he is quoted as saying.

When asked by the Times if it supported a truce, the IDF released a statement that didn’t answer the question directly.

“The IDF is determined to continue fighting to achieve the goals of the war to destroy the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas, the return of the hostages and the safe return of the residents in the north and south to their homes.”

“So far, significant achievements have been made in fighting in Gaza, the IDF will continue to fight Hamas everywhere in the Gaza Strip, along with continuing to promote war readiness in the north and a defense effort at all borders,” it added.

As French citizens get set to vote in runoff parliamentary elections on Sunday hundreds of contenders have bowed out in an effort to block the far-right party from the gates of power.

Over 200 candidates from President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist camp and the left-wing alliance have stepped down in a bid to avoid splitting the vote. They’ve put aside their differences with one goal in mind: to keep the far right firmly away from the 289 seats required for an absolute majority currently within their reach.

Last Sunday the French people placed the anti-immigration National Rally (RN) and its allies in first place while Macron’s centrist camp came third, behind the left-wing bloc.

After the first round in constituencies where no candidate won outright, an unprecedented number of seats – over 300 – went to a three-way run-off favoring the RN. By Tuesday, as the deadline to drop out closed, fewer than 100 remain, after centrist and left-wing candidates strategically dropped out in individual seats.

This tactic could stop some RN candidates from winning, according to analyst Antoine Bristielle.

“The main probability was an absolute majority for the National Rally, but now with all of the withdrawals, I think that’s unlikely,” Bristielle said.

In an attempt to deny the RN a majority, the NFP – a left-wing coalition that wants to lower the retirement age and tax the rich – promised to withdraw all of its candidates who came in third place in the first round.

Leslie Mortreux, an NFP qualifier and the only publicly out transgender runner, stepped aside to give right-wing Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin a better chance of defeating the RN rival in a constituency in the north.

Macron’s Ensemble allies also called on their supporters to prevent the far right taking office, but some warned against lending their votes to the hard-left France Unbowed, a party inside the NFP.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire drew the ire of the left on Tuesday when he said no vote should go to the far right but added that he personally would not vote for the far left either.

In one constituency in the south, a government minister initially refused to help an NFP candidate, reasoning that she didn’t want her voters to have to choose between two extremes.

The following day she tweeted that she was bowing out following pressure from the president and prime minister.

In over 80 three-way races, Macron’s centrist candidates dropped out in favor of candidates from the left-wing NFP. But many stopped short of encouraging their supporters to vote for a left-wing opponent.

“I’ve taken the difficult decision to withdraw … leaving it up to my voters to position themselves against the far right or far left,” Samuel Deguara, a candidate from Macron’s camp said after withdrawing.

Meanwhile, far-right doyenne Marine Le Pen condemned the political bargaining.

“The act of withdrawing and giving voting instructions shows the worst contempt for voters,” Le Pen said Tuesday.

Even before the candidate withdrawals, projections had suggested that after the second round of voting next Sunday, the RN was likely to fall short of an absolute majority and win between 230 and 280 seats in the 577-seat lower house.

In speeches before the first round, National Rally leader Jordan Bardella said he would refuse to govern a minority government, in which the RN would require the votes of allies to pass laws.

If the RN falls short of an absolute majority and Bardella stays true to his word, Macron might then have to search for a prime minister on the left, or somewhere else entirely.

And if the unthinkable for Macron happens and the RN does get an absolute majority, then it will become the first far-right party to enter the French government since World War II.

Voters in Britain are primed to end a 14-year era of Conservative rule, in a momentous general election that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is almost universally expected to lose.

Sunak took the biggest gamble of his troubled premiership by calling the early vote, but he has struggled to turn around dire polling and appears on the cusp of defeat.

If, as current polls indicate, the opposition Labour party triumph, it will finally bring down the curtain of a 14-year era of Conservative rule, ushering in a center-left government led by former barrister Keir Starmer.

Any other outcome would mean Sunak has orchestrated a shocking victory that even many in his own party believe is beyond reach – and would result in the Conservatives extending a political dynasty towards a third decade.

Here are some key questions answered.

When and how is Britain voting?

After a weeks-long campaign, polls will open at 7 a.m. local time on Thursday (2 a.m. ET), and they’ll stay open until 10 p.m.

Britons can cast a ballot in each of the country’s 650 constituencies, selecting the MP to represent the area.

The leader of the party that wins a majority of those constituencies becomes prime minister, and can form a government. That means 326 is the magic number for an overall majority.

If there’s no majority, they need to look for help elsewhere, ruling as a minority government – as Theresa May did after a close 2017 result – or forming a coalition, as David Cameron did after 2010.

The monarch has an important, albeit symbolic, role; King Charles III must approve the formation of a government, the decision to hold an election and the dissolution of parliament. The King won’t ever contradict his prime minister or overrule the results of an election.

Why did Sunak call an election?

Sunak was required to call a vote by January 2025, but the decision of when to do so was his alone.

His problem was that no good options existed. He was 20 points behind in the polls, and that deficit hadn’t budged for months. Some in his ear urged him to wait until later in the year, when poor economic news could improve.

But on the other hand, Sunak has placed much of his political capital into his pledge to stop small boat crossings to the UK by asylum seekers. He has recently passed a controversial law to process some claims in Rwanda, though nobody has yet been deported and further legal challenges may await the plan.

The warmer summer months are expected to see a huge number of such journeys across the English Channel, hurting a major pillar of his campaign message.

Ultimately, hours after some rare good economic news – a healthy month-on-month reduction in the rate of inflation – Sunak decided that this was the least bad time to pull the trigger.

But his speech, which took place in a downpour outside Downing Street, set the tone for a miserable campaign.

Who’s expected to win?

The near-universal expectation is that Sunak’s Conservative Party will lose the election.

Labour have been leading in general election opinion polls since late 2021, and that lead has been huge throughout the campaign. They are around 20 points up on average, with the Tories closer to third party challengers Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats than they are to Labour.

When converted to a projection of seats in parliament, those figures indicate either a comfortable Labour win or a Labour win so huge it would spell a near-wipeout for the Conservatives.

The Conservative brand was damaged by Partygate and a number of other scandals that led to the demise of Boris Johnson’s premiership, and then the shambolic six-week tenure of his successor Liz Truss, whose fiscal agenda sent markets into turmoil.

Sunak’s campaign has even shifted its message in recent weeks, encouraging supporters instead to prevent a massive Labour majority than to send Sunak back to Downing Street.

It’s essentially an admission of defeat, and underlines what polling has said for some time: Labour is firmly on course for victory.

But the Labour party is concerned about people taking the result for granted, and have stressed in recent days that nothing is decided until the votes are counted.

How has the campaign gone?

Starmer and Sunak have faced off in two head-to-head TV debates, which were at times ill-tempered and featured contentious claims – particularly an assertion by Sunak that Labour would cost Britons thousands in new taxes, which Labour have ruled out.

Labour’s campaign has been otherwise focused, hammering home a promise of “change” while pledging prudence with the nation’s finances.

Sunak has meanwhile struggled to stay on track; in particular a decision to leave D-Day anniversary commemorations early caused fury back home and prompted an apology.

Two head-to-head TV debates have been organized; in the first, Sunak and Starmer scrapped in a tense and occasionally personal tie. The second will air in late June.

Then on Thursday, July 4, Britons will vote between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. local time, and as soon as polls close, votes will be counted. A winner is usually declared in the early hours of Friday morning.

Who is Keir Starmer?

Rishi Sunak’s rival for power is Labour leader Keir Starmer, who is heavily favored to become Britain’s new prime minister in July.

A former, well-respected human rights lawyer who then served as Britain’s most senior prosecutor, Starmer came into politics late in life. He became a Labour MP in 2015 and less than five years later was the party’s leader, following a stint as shadow Brexit Secretary during Britain’s protracted exit from the European Union.

Starmer inherited a party reeling from its worst electoral defeat in generations, but he prioritized an overhaul of its culture – staring down left-wing supporters of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, and apologizing publicly for a long-running antisemitism scandal that had tainted the group’s standing with the public.

He has attempted to lay claim to Britain’s political center ground, and is described by his supporters as a principled, serious leader with a focus on tackling the systemic issues facing Britain. But his opponents, on both the left of his own party and the right of the political spectrum, say he lacks charisma and ideas, and charge that he has failed to set out an ambitious and broad vision for the nation.

Who else is standing?

Only Sunak or Starmer have a realistic chance of becoming prime minister, but their plans could be disrupted by a number of smaller parties.

Nigel Farage, the populist right-wing figurehead who leads Reform UK, announced he would stand for election early in the campaign – he previously declined to do so, in order to help former President Donald Trump campaign in the US election this fall – and his entry has helped the group peel away Tory support.

Farage has criticized Sunak’s record on migration, and his group has pulled close to the Tories in many polls. Holding on to that level of support come election day could cause a once-in-a-lifetime decimation of the Tories at the ballot box.

Meanwhile, as Farage attacks Sunak from the right, the Liberal Democrats, a centrist, pro-European group, have chipped away at Conservative support in affluent, southern parts of England.

Given Labour’s standing in the polls, Starmer is more equipped to take the fight to other groups. North of the border, he will look to end the Scottish National Party (SNP)’s generation-long dominance at the ballot box, capitalizing on a rocky period in the party’s recent history that has seen them replace two leaders in just over a year.

But he will need to be mindful of the Green Party, which has challenged him from the left and has attracted some younger liberal votes as a result.

In recent local elections, there was evidence too that Labour’s stance on Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza had harmed the party in majority-Muslim areas.

What issues will decide the election?

The answer to that question will go some way in deciding the night’s winner.

Labour has been dogged in trying to define the election as a referendum on 14 years of Conservative rule, seizing on public fatigue with a party that has produced five prime ministers in that span and overseen Brexit, a stuttering economy and a series of sleaze scandals.

In particular, Starmer has spoken plenty about the cost of living hitting British families, and the state of the country’s overstaffed and stretched National Health Service (NHS).

Sunak, by contrast, has tried to focus on migration – his pledge to “Stop the Boats” hasn’t yet worked, but his flagship Rwanda policy has at least become law. And he has attempted to convince voters that the economy has turned a corner, and can’t risk a change in governance.

When will we know the results?

Once polls open on Thursday, the media in Britain is barred from discussing anything that could affect voting.

But the second voting stops, an exit poll will drop that sets the course for the night. The poll, done by Ipsos for the BBC, ITV and Sky, projects the seat breakdown of the new parliament, and it’s historically been very accurate.

The real results are counted throughout the night; the shape of the evening is usually clear by about 3 a.m. local time (10 p.m. ET on Thursday), and the new prime minister – if there is one – is often in post by noon.

But things can take longer if the result is close, or if key seats go down to the wire.

Either way, the infamously sudden handover in power will take place by the weekend, leaving the new government a few weeks to work on key legislation before parliament breaks for the summer.