Long queues to vote in the US have been celebrated by some of those who endured them as a welcome sign of enthusiasm. But outside America, there was a different take. You may think waiting 11 hours to vote would be the height of frustration, but not for one family in Georgia. “We made it, y’all,” says Johnta Austin in one viral video filmed as they reach the front of the queue, describing the lengthy process as an “honour”.

With early voting under way across much of the US, social media images show long queues of people, sometimes waiting for hours, patiently inching their way in line towards the polling booth.(BBC)…[+]

President Donald Trump has returned to the campaign trail less than two weeks after testing positive for coronavirus. He told thousands of supporters, many not wearing masks, that he could give them “a big fat kiss”, at a rally in the battleground state of Florida. His rival, Joe Biden, speaking in Ohio, accused the president of “reckless behaviour” since his diagnosis. The two presidential candidates are scrambling to secure votes with three weeks until the 3 November election. Opinion polls suggests Mr Biden has a 10-point lead over Mr Trump nationally. However his lead in some key states is narrower – as is the case in Florida, where the Democrat is 3.7 percentage points ahead, according to an average of polls collated by Real Clear Politics.(BBC)…[+]

Peru has opened the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu for a single Japanese tourist who had waited almost seven months to visit the world heritage site. Jesse Katayama was due to visit Machu Picchu in March but it closed because of coronavirus. Culture Minister Alejandro Neyra said Mr Katayama was granted access after submitting a special request. The ancient Inca citadel – Peru’s top tourist attraction – is expected to re-open at reduced capacity next month. No exact date has been given. Mr Katayama planned to spend only a few days in Peru, but became stranded in the town of Aguas Calientes, near Machu Picchu, in mid-March because of coronavirus travel regulations.(BBC)…[+]

A man in the United States has caught Covid twice, with the second infection becoming far more dangerous than the first, doctors report. The 25-year-old needed hospital treatment after his lungs could not get enough oxygen into his body. Reinfections remain rare and he has now recovered. But the study in the Lancet Infectious Diseases raises questions about how much immunity can be built up to the virus. The man from Nevada had no known health problems or immune defects that would make him particularly vulnerable to Covid.

Bangladesh is to introduce the death penalty for rape cases, following days of protests about the country’s high level of sexual violence against women. Law Minister Anisul Haq told the BBC that the president would issue an ordinance on Tuesday making it law. There was widespread outrage in Bangladesh last week after footage of a brutal gang assault on a woman went viral on social media. An activist group says it recorded about 5,400 rape cases last year.

But activists say conviction rates are extremely low and many cases go unreported because women fear they will be stigmatised. Protesters galvanised by last week’s viral video have demanded faster trials and changes to the way rape cases are prosecuted. An investigation by Bangladesh’s National Human Rights Commission found that the woman in the viral video, who was attacked in the southeastern district of Noakhalim, had been raped repeatedly over time and terrorised. Eight men were arrested after the video emerged.(BBC)…[+]

Israel has approved a plan to bring 2,000 Ethiopian Jews to the country, marking a major step towards ending a decades-long saga over their fate. They are part of about 8,000 members of a community who have been waiting to come to Israel for years. Known as Falash Mura, their right to settle in Israel is a contentious issue as their background rules out automatic citizenship available to most Jews.

Secret operations brought thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in the 1980s. Many members of the Falash Mura have familial connections to that community, which is known as the Beta Israel. However, they have only been allowed to emigrate to Israel on a case-by-case basis, and thousands remain in camps in Gondar and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.(BBC)…[+]

More than 100,000 people have signed a petition by former Australian PM Kevin Rudd calling for an inquiry into Rupert Murdoch’s media dominance in Australia. Mr Murdoch’s company News Corp Australia controls about 70% of the nation’s print circulation. Mr Rudd said a top inquiry should scrutinise media ownership but particularly Mr Murdoch, calling him “a cancer on our democracy”. News Corp Australia and Mr Murdoch have not commented on the petition.

The company has often defended its reporting against accusations of political bias, racism and climate change scepticism. Mr Rudd posted the petition on a parliamentary website on the weekend and said an “avalanche of support” for it had briefly overwhelmed IT systems. The petition will be submitted to parliament on 5 November. Unlike in some nations, Australia’s government is not obligated to respond to it when support reaches a certain level.(BBC)…[+]