There's shouting and all-round chaos as police officers - machine guns and pistols held out in front of them - pile inside.

Doors are kicked in, curtains ripped down, drawers are opened in bedrooms, and boxes and tables are overturned.

"There's children here!" the women shout, as they all drop to the floor.

We are on a drugs raid in Guayaquil in Ecuador, and the police say they have good intelligence that this is the home of a drug dealer.

I have done dozens of embeds during my career covering Latin America's drugs gangs, and it's always deeply upsetting to see children caught up in it.

These are homes, and these are women and children, but their rights are trumped by their circumstances - they are poor, live in a rough area, and the likelihood is that one of their family members is part of a gang.

The police coming through their door is a fact of life for them.

What has changed here, though, is that the raids have increased, and will continue to.

Why? Because US President Donald Trump has launched a war against drug cartels - and is demanding that countries on his list of troublesome nations tow the line and join him, or face punishing sanctions or worse.

Ecuador doesn't produce drugs, but it is used as a transit country by drug cartels in this region. Its ports are the gateway to sea routes north to the United States and west to Asia and the South Pacific.

It is for this reason that Ecuador is on Trump's list. But Ecuador wants help combatting these criminal networks and has been co-operating with the US.

Trump has been sending resources and military muscle to Ecuador, and the US is planning to open a military base there.

In exchange, Ecuador's security forces are raising their game to assure America that they are on the same page.

We witnessed this effort in real time, guided through multiple raids by a police officer with the call sign "Lynx". He's a former special forces officer now affiliated with the drugs squad, and he is something of a phenomenon.

"The United States [is] giving us money, guns, technology, and we are so happy about that," he told me.

"It's very important for the war."

You could say that Lynx is in many ways the poster boy of the Ecuadorian police - he's extremely confident, highly rated by his superiors and adored by his team.

Among his repertoire of skills, he is an expert drone pilot.

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I joined him in the car park of the police headquarters as he put up his drone and started spotting drug deals on the streets a kilometre or so away. We watched the screen on the controller as two transactions took place.

The multibillion-dollar drugs business is a vast global network, and by taking out the "small guys" as Lynx calls them, they hope to disrupt the chain higher up.

"We always grab the small guys, and they talk ... give me that guy, he's a bigger guy, and then we go, go, go," is how Lynx describes taking out the chain.

They hope that any intelligence they can gather from the lower links will ultimately be valuable information they can pass on to the US to catch more important figures.

Lynx briefs his boss, and then we jump in our vehicles as the police try to track down the dealers. They find them - and the drugs they were selling - the next day.

The same day, we head to a notoriously dangerous hilltop neighbourhood with Lynx and the rest of the officers. They are looking for more drugs and dealers who will talk.

They arrest one man they say is a lookout - and as they search through piles of rubbish for drugs, they find bags of cocaine.

Lynx thinks we are being watched, so he sends his drone up again, this time to see what's happening in the streets above us.

"Many people [are] up on the hill, like radars looking for us, and what we are doing, and they have an advantage because they're higher up," he says.

"We will take the evidence, and that guy is not the owner, he is just a lookout," he says, pointing to the man in handcuffs on the floor.

"And then I'm going to take you next to where a big drug dealer is, a strong dealer."

I ask Lynx if he thinks people who do drugs in London, New York, or Los Angeles - or anywhere really - think about him and his officers on the streets every single day.

"I think no, because they're in the countries more powerful, smarter, if they really [knew] I think they would think no, it's bad, because people are killing in poor countries for the drugs, for the drugs [they] are consuming," he replied.

"Maybe they'll think, oh I don't have to do that."

The haul of drugs, weapons, ammunition and money from the raids we joined is pretty impressive.

Bags of marijuana, kilo packets of cocaine cut for sale, alongside a kilo of pure cocaine paste. There's also money, weapons and ammunition.

It's something of a Latin American tradition to display the results of these raids.

Behind the table, also on display, are the alleged gang members.

Who they know is worth more than all the drugs in front of them, which is what the Americans want.

The peer has faced calls to stand down from MPs across the political spectrum, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who earlier this week agreed with Baroness Mone's contention that the government was pursuing a "vendetta" in trying to recover improper Covid funding.

"Too right we are," she said in comments at the Labour Party conference.

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In an extraordinary letter to the prime minister, Baroness Mone has accused Ms Reeves of endangering her and her family with her comments, citing the murders of Jo Cox and David Amess as evidence of the risks facing parliamentarians.

She also alleged ministerial interference in the civil and ongoing criminal investigations of PPE Medpro, and has called for an investigation into whether ministers have "improperly influenced" the Crown Prosecution Service and the National Crime Agency.

In the letter, sent from the private office of Baroness Mone OBE and seen by Sky News, she addresses the prime minister directly, writing in a personal capacity "first as a wife, second as a mother, and lastly as a Baroness."

Referring to Ms Reeves' comments, she writes: "The chancellor's deliberate use of the term "vendetta", a word connoting vengeance, feud and blood feud, is incendiary and has directly increased the risks to my personal safety.... My family and I now live with a heightened and genuine fear of appearing in public."

She goes on to accuse Reeves and health secretary Wes Streeting of "falsehoods" in demanding that she hand back £122m, pointing out that she was never a director of PPE Medpro and "never received a penny from it personally."

While the company was founded by her husband Doug Barrowman, a High Court judgement this week confirmed that Baroness Mone introduced it to the government's VIP fast lane for PPE providers, and lobbied on its behalf in negotiations.

She has previously admitted that £29m of profit from the PPE contract was passed to a family trust of which she and her children are beneficiaries.

The peer has also accused the Prime Minister of "a total lie" when "you stated in Parliament that my children had received £29m into their bank accounts."

Baroness Mone said that following these comments, she had received threatening and abusive communications, and cited the death of TV presenter Caroline Flack, who took her own life, as showing "the fatal consequences of personalised public vilification".

"Your cabinet members, by repeating this knowingly false claim, are inciting hostility and inflaming public hatred against me."

She has also accused the home secretary of influencing the NCA and Director of Public Prosecutions in unspecified meetings to discuss "high-profile cases".

"That political influence is being brought to bear is, therefore, undeniable," she said.

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On Wednesday, PPE Medpro was ordered to repay £122m paid for 25 million surgical gowns that failed to meet sterility standards in breach of its contract with the Department of Health and Social Care.

PPE Medpro was put into administration the day before the judgment, with assets of just £666,000.

Asked if Baroness Mone would step down from the Lords, a spokesman said: "Those calling for Baroness Mone's resignation from the House of Lords would be well advised to read the open letter sent this morning to the prime minister, which sets out how this has now become a personal attack and vendetta, politically motivated with loss of all balance and objectivity."

Sky News has asked Number 10 and the Treasury for a response to the allegations made by Baroness Mone.

Michael O'Leary told the Money blog the industrial action would cost Ryanair around £20m.

While the company could afford to swallow the cost, he said, it would ultimately be customers who will be worse off, and they should complain.

Members of the SNCTA will go on strike from Tuesday 7 October until the morning of Friday 10 October over a dispute about pay and working conditions.

While it will obviously affect flights heading to France, it will also affect those that use French airspace to reach their final destination - these are called overflights.

This includes flights to and from lots of places including Spain, Italy and Greece.

O'Leary called for overflights to be protected from strike action, saying disrupting them is an abuse of the free single market.

On the first two days of the strikes, he said Ryanair was expecting to be asked to cancel about 600 flights - with almost all of them overflights.

"That's about 100,000 passengers who will have their flights cancelled needlessly next Wednesday and Thursday," he said.

"On any given day at the moment, we operate about 3,500 flights and about 900 of those flights cross over French airspace and about two thirds of those, around 600 flights, are cancelled every day there's an air traffic control strike.

"The UK is the country whose flights get cancelled most because of the geographic proximity to France."

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While he accepted the rights of French workers to strike, he said Eurocontrol, a civil-military organisation that supports air traffic management across Europe, could step in to look after the airspace and keep flights operating.

"It wouldn't stop the French striking, they have the right to strike and we accept that but they should be cancelling local French fights, not flights from the UK to Spain or from Italy to Ireland. This is a fundamental breach of the single market," he said.

He called on the government to "put pressure" on the EU Commission and the French government to protect overflights during industrial action.

"We bloody well demand that our overflights are protected. If British citizens today going to Italy, or we have Spanish visitors wanting to come to London, they should not have their flights disrupted or cancelled," he said.

He claimed: "They [the government] don't care about the travelling public and they won't get off their arses and demand that their overflights be protected."

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A Department of Transport spokesperson said: "Airspace is sovereign, and it is for each state to decide how best to manage their own.

"We know strikes can cause disruption for passengers and airlines and airports have robust resilience plans in place to minimise their impact."

O'Leary encouraged affected passengers to complain about any disruptions to transport ministers and the European Commission using the airline's dedicated ATCruinedourholiday.com website.

Several other European airlines, such as EasyJet, British Airways, Vueling and Lufthansa, could also face disruptions.

The full impact of the strikes next week is still unknown, as airlines tend to avoid cancellations this early before the action begins.

EasyJet told Money it was still waiting for information from the authorities to understand the impact of the strikes.

"We will update customers directly and continue to monitor the situation," it said.

If you are due to travel during the strike, it's worth keeping an eye on the status of your flight on the airline's website or app.

August "Gus" Lamont disappeared from his family's remote homestead on Saturday.

Members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) have joined South Australia Police in the search in the state's mid north.

Gus' family said they were "devastated" by his disappearance.

In a statement previously released through South Australia Police, they said: "This has come as a shock to our family and friends, and we are struggling to comprehend what has happened.

"Gus' absence is felt in all of us, and we miss him more than words can express. Our hearts are aching, and we are holding onto hope that he will be found and returned to us safely."

Police said Gus was last seen at the homestead, some 200 miles (320 kilometres) north of Adelaide, wearing a grey sun hat, a blue Despicable Me-style top featuring a yellow Minion character, light grey trousers, and boots.

Yorke Mid North police are leading the search with support from water, mounted, air and dog units.

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The search effort has also been bolstered by police cadets, emergency service volunteers, trail bike and ATV teams, drones, a traditional Aboriginal tracker, and a large number of dedicated community and family members.

A contingent of 48 personnel from the ADF have joined the operation and are expected to assist police with ground searches over the coming days.

Gus' family added: "We are incredibly grateful to the South Australia Police, emergency services and the many organisations and community members, neighbours and friends who have come together to help find Gus.

"At this time, we kindly ask for privacy as we focus all our energy on supporting the search and working closely with the police."

Paloma Shemirani collapsed on 19 July last year and died in hospital five days later.

She had earlier declined treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma and instead followed an "alternative" treatment plan, including daily coffee enemas advised by her conspiracy theorist parents.

Her brothers were hoping coroner Catherine Wood would find Paloma's death an "unlawful killing" after concluding that she "could and should" have survived with conventional treatment.

However, despite ruling her mother had "adversely influenced" Paloma, 23, through "incomprehensible" actions - and that both she and her husband had "more than minimally" contributed to her death - the inquest did not rule it was "unlawful".

Her mother, Kay "Kate" Shemirani, a prominent online conspiracy theorist, and her father, Dr Faramarz Shemirani, who is "sympathetic" to his ex-wife's views, had tried to blame medical staff for their daughter's death.

Outside Kent and Medway Coroner's Court, Gabriel Shemirani said: "It pains me to say that this is a failure by the state I have unfortunately been expecting.

"My sister wasn't just failed by Kay Shemirani, she was failed by a state that showed no care for the people it promises to protect - by social services who played a blind eye to the abuse it should have exposed, by a police force that acted indifferent to a crime it should have investigated and by a coroner that cowered away from a murder it was meant to uncover."

An osteopath who saw Paloma on the morning she collapsed said he had "never seen" a lymphoid mass like hers in 43 years of practice.

The inquest was told Ms Shemirani had questioned medical staff to the extent that the coroner found it "highly likely that she seeded some form of doubt in Paloma's mind as to her diagnosis".

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Ms Shemirani was struck off as a nurse in 2021, and a Nursing and Midwifery Council committee found she had spread COVID-19 misinformation that "put the public at a significant risk of harm".

After graduating from the University of Cambridge, Paloma was working and living in a flat with a housemate and was "estranged" from her mother until her cancer diagnosis.

Ms Shemirani encouraged her to come back to the family home and took a leading role in Paloma's alternative "treatment programme", the inquest heard.

At the time of her diagnosis, doctors at Maidstone Hospital told Paloma she had an 80% chance of recovery through chemotherapy.

The coroner said: "It seems that if Paloma had been supported and encouraged to accept her diagnosis and considered chemotherapy with an open mind she probably would have followed that course."

She later added: "If approached with an open mind, Paloma would have chosen the chance to survive, and if she had undergone chemotherapy she probably would have survived."

The coroner found it "incredible" Ms Shemirani was claiming her daughter was "well" in July, and it was "egregious and incomprehensible" that she did not seek further medical advice as Paloma's condition worsened.

Abusive

"The influence that was brought to bear on Paloma did contribute more than minimally to her death," said Ms Wood.

Gabriel Shemirani told the inquest, "I blame my mother entirely for my sister's death", by "obstructing" his sister from receiving treatment.

Mr Shemirani alleged he and his siblings "felt unsafe" around their mother and that she had been "emotionally distant" and physically abusive to them as children.

He further alleged during his evidence that his father was also physically abusive to him and his brother.

It was noted in Paloma's initial hospital admittance in autumn 2023 that she had "recently moved out of her mother's house due to emotional and physical abuse including food restrictions" by doctors at Maidstone Hospital.

Texts and voice notes from her parents during her stay in December 2023 showed them advising her insistently to "discharge herself".

Family dysfunction

In April 2024, Gabriel Shemirani brought a High Court case to assess his sister's ability to exercise her capacity to make medical decisions.

The case made slow progress, and while Paloma gave a witness statement saying she was making her own choices, she had said in a text that she was being "kept out" of the proceedings, the court heard.

The coroner noted the "striking" family dysfunction which had been "on display very publicly" during the inquest.

"The dynamics within the immediate family were complicated and dysfunctional at the time of Paloma's death," she said.

Ms Wood added that their behaviour in court had been "reprehensible" as they sought to blame medical professionals for their daughter's death.

Paloma's brothers were not told about their sister's collapse until after her death.