Wednesday evening news briefing: Hundreds of Hezbollah walkie-talkies explode across Lebanon

Good evening. Israel is suspected of remotely detonating hundreds of walkie-talkie radios and other devices in a second wave of attacks targeting Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, a British-educated entrepreneur has denied manufacturing the pagers that wounded hundreds of fighters.

Hundreds of Hezbollah walkie-talkies explode across Lebanon

Witnesses and Hezbollah officials said the explosions were a result of the group’s walkie-talkies as well as motorbike radios and security locks blowing up. Lebanon’s health ministry said at least nine people were killed and 300 were wounded in the new explosions across the east of Lebanon and in southern Beirut – follow live updates.

Analysing the situation, Paul Nuki questions whether this is a provocation too far, while Hamish de Bretton-Gordon suggests that an unleashed Israel is humiliating its enemies.

British-educated entrepreneur denies manufacturing explosive pagers

Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, the CEO of BAC Consulting, said “I do not make the pagers. I am just the intermediary. I think you got it wrong” when reached on the phone by NBC News. The devices, used by the Lebanese terror group to communicate securely, wounded more than 3,000 people and killed at least 12 in an audacious Israeli attack.

Evening Briefing: Today’s essential headlines

• Starmer caves in to train drivers’ pay demands

• Sturgeon predicts united Ireland and independent Scotland

• Pound hits two-year high ahead of ‘pivotal’ US interest rate decision

• Watch | Woman rescued from coils of giant python after struggling for two hours

• Free transport scrapped for English-speaking children – but kept for Welsh-speakers

My remarks over a ‘dog in a frock’ plunged me into a Kafkaesque nightmare

It started with a dachshund in a dress, and ended with a legal case that has cost taxpayers thousands. Elizabeth Pitt, 63, a social worker, has won her 10-month legal battle against Cambridgeshire County Council for harassment and direct discrimination, after she was investigated for being transphobic.

Comment and analysis

• Madeline Grant | It’s official: the Left aren’t morally superior

• Samuel Ramani | The West has finally declared war on Russian disinformation

• Tom Harris | Ten years on, the Scottish referendum has exposed the fallacy of devolution

• David Axe | US Navy Top Guns finally have the medicine for China’s sky-blackening bomber fleets

• Tom Sharpe | A grain ship is hit in the Black Sea. A US sub is spotted 5,000 miles away. Coincidence?

Should the Fourth Plinth be a soapbox for trans politics? ★★☆☆☆

“Recalling the mock-ups for Margolles’s block-like artwork, I worried that the finished sculpture, which weighs more than three tonnes, would be a disaster, with all the elegance of a fly-tipped fridge. In the event, it has more grace and nuance than I was expecting – but it’s still beset with aesthetic problems, and comes freighted with a Central American backstory that, writ large in such a prominent setting in central London, many may find perplexing.”

Sport Briefing: Today’s essential headlines

• Footballers could go on strike for England – but still play for their clubs

• Cheika is the Premiership’s box office signing – here is how his Leicester will play

• ‘I don’t like it’ – ref admits he did not want to send Declan Rice off against Brighton

• Sir Andy Murray committed one of golf’s cardinal sins at BMW Championship Pro-Am

• Oliver Brown | Overworked on £180,000 a week? Who does Rodri think he is kidding?

Why Ed Miliband risks a smart meter shock

Smart meters, for many owners, have failed to live up to the name. Online forums are filled with complaints from people who have received huge bills or ridiculous consumption figures after energy suppliers installed the internet-connected meters in their homes – in one case, a customer was billed over £1,000 a day for gas.