A 21-year-old man is going on trial in Austria charged with planning and preparing a terrorist attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in August 2024.

The Austrian man, named only as Beran A., has been charged with terrorism and other offences and is appearing in court in Wiener Neustadt, just south of the capital.

He was arrested after a tip-off from the CIA just before Swift's opening concert in Vienna in 2024.

As a result, all three sold-out gigs by the US superstar singer at Vienna's Ernst Happl Stadium were cancelled.

More than 195,000 people in total had been expected to attend.

Thousands of disappointed fans roamed the streets of Vienna, singing and exchanging Taylor Swift-themed friendship bracelets.

Anna Mair, the lawyer for Beran A., said her client would plead guilty in part.

Vienna prosecutors have charged him with being a member of a terrorist organisation, and preparing and planning the attack on the Taylor Swift concert.

He is also accused of declaring allegiance to, and spreading online propaganda online for, the jihadist group Islamic State, as well as making explosives and attempting to purchase weapons illegally.

Beran A. is suspected of having obtained instructions via the internet on how to make a shrapnel bomb, using the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP).

The type of shrapnel bomb was "specific to IS attacks", the statement said.

Prosecutors accuse Beran A. of having received training from other members of Islamic State on how to handle explosives and of having made several attempts to purchase various firearms and a hand grenade through illegal dealers, with the intention of importing the weapons into Austria.

Prosecutors say Beran A. started planning the attack at the latest by 21 July 2024. He was arrested on 7 August, a day before the first concert.

Also on trial in Wiener Neustadt is another 21-year-old man, named as Arda K., who is accused of being part of an Islamic State cell with Beran A. They are accused of planning other attacks in Mecca, Istanbul and Dubai.

The two men, who were in their teens at the time of the attack, both face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.

Last year, a teenager in Germany was also given an 18-month suspended sentence, for helping to prepare the foiled attack.

Prosecutors said the Syrian national, named as Mohammed A., helped Beran A. with a translation of bomb-making instructions from Arabic and put him in contact with an IS member.

The trial is expected to continue until late May.

Taylor Swift – one of the world's biggest superstars – learned about the bomb plot in Vienna when she was on the plane to Austria, according to a documentary on the Eras Tour.

In her own words, she said the tour narrowly "dodged a massacre situation" when the CIA identified a plot to explode a bomb at the concert.

Speaking to select members of the media, including the BBC, at the New York premiere of her new six part Disney+ documentary, she said that after performing for 20 years "being afraid that something is going to happen to your fans is new".

In a post on social media after the incident in 2024, she wrote: "Having our Vienna shows cancelled was devastating.

"But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives."

The 149-show Eras Tour kicked off in March 2023 and closed in December 2024.

It spanned five continents, selling more than 10.1 million tickets and becoming the first tour in history to surpass $1bn (£786m) in ticket sales.

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A man has pleaded guilty to a charge of murder more than 20 years after the fatal ambush shooting of Run-DMC's Jam Master Jay.

Jay Bryant, 52, changed his plea on Monday to guilty, telling a judge that he helped others get into a building to ambush and kill Jay Mizell, the pioneering rap star who was known as Jam Master Jay.

Prosecutors said that Bryant's DNA was found on a hat inside the recording studio where Mizell was shot in the head in 2002. Bryant originally pleaded not guilty when he was indicted in 2023.

In 2024, two others were convicted in the case – Mizell's godson Karl Jordan Jr and childhood friend Ronald Washington.

Prosecutors argued in court that Jordan and Washington planned the "execution" killing out of revenge after being cut out of a drug deal worth nearly $200,000. They argued the killing was "motivated by greed and by revenge", but Jordan and Washington's lawyers have denied being involved.

A judge overturned Jordan's conviction last year, finding prosecutors failed to prove his motive in the case. Washington has similarly challenged his conviction.

Bryant had been accused of acting as an accomplice to the pair in the killing by helping them slip into the building that housed Mizell's recording studio in Queens, New York.

Prosecutors charged that he opened a back fire door to allow Jordan and Washington entry, and avoid buzzing into the studio so they could ambush Mizell. He initially denied the charges.

But in court on Monday, Bryant acknowledged to a federal magistrate in New York that he knew a gun would be used to shoot the 37-year-old rapper that day and apologized, US media reported.

He did not name others who were involved in the deejay's killing.

The 2002 shooting sent shock waves through the music industry. The influential act he formed with Joseph "Run" Simmons and Darryl "DMC" McDaniel – famous for 1980s tracks such as It's Tricky, It's Like That and Aerosmith collaboration Walk This Way – disbanded after his death.

The case went unsolved for about two decades until federal prosecutors filed charges against the three men.

Bryant had initially pleaded not guilty in the case but changed that plea on Monday. He faces 15 to 20 years in prison over the killing and unrelated drug and gun charges.

Court documents filed last Thursday indicated that Bryant planned to change his plea and that his lawyers were negotiating a deal with federal prosecutors, the BBC's US media partner CBS News reported.

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Rongmala became an "accidental" landlord when her disabilities meant she could no longer live alone.

She moved in with her children and rented out her south London maisonette.

But last year, her tenant stopped paying rent.

Rongmala, 57, eventually sent an eviction notice and began court proceedings, but several months later the tenant is around £15,000 in rent arrears and refusing to leave.

Court delays are holding up the removal of the tenant, leaving Rongmala feeling "broken".

Some landlords are worried delays like this could become worse under the government's new Renters' Rights Act, which comes into force on 1 May in England.

The new law – which is the biggest overhaul of the private rented sector in a generation – aims to give renters more security and includes a ban on "no fault evictions" and limits to rent increases.

Rongmala says financial problems resulting from her lost rental income are causing her depression. "My children are helping me for everything, but I don't want that," she says.

Since her tenant stopped paying rent, she has had to pay £2,500 for boiler repairs as well as service charges on the estate and a mortgage on the property.

Although a judge awarded a court order for Rongmala to take possession of the property, only court-appointed bailiffs can remove a tenant. The family has been told this could take up to 11 months.

Rongmala's son, Marouf, says the toll it is taking on his mum is "heartbreaking" and adds that she's "helpless" navigating a clogged-up court system.

But dozens of renters have told the BBC about significant difficulties they face, too.

Rosie and her friends – young professionals who were at a protest in London earlier this month – said they had had to move "dozens of times" and that some people were paying "70% of their salaries" in rent.

Fran Brown, 58, told BBC Your Voice that she had had to move properties five times since 2017 and said she is now facing another rent increase. She said she felt she was "at the mercy of the landlord changing their mind".

Another renter, James, said he had received a "terrifying" eviction notice at the end of February, and that he was struggling to find a home for himself, his wife and two children.

He said it was "really tough to face the reality of needing to pack up our entire lives that we've spent 10 years building and put it somewhere else on such short notice on demand".

Currently, under a so-called Section 21 notice, a landlord can evict a tenant without giving a reason – and with just eight weeks' notice. The new legislation will restrict landlords to a handful of legal reasons for evictions, including wanting to move back in, anti-social behaviour by tenants or persistent rent arrears.

The interim director of The Renters Reform Coalition, Clara Collingwood, said she was thrilled and that the change would make a "huge difference".

But landlords say they fear the system will make it harder to remove problematic tenants.

According to figures from the Ministry of Justice, private landlords currently wait 26 weeks – a median figure – between bringing a claim and being able to repossess a property. Ten years ago, it was approximately 16 weeks.

Data from the National Residential Landlords' Association suggests the average rent loss per property is more than £12,000 nationally, and more than £19,000 in London per property.

Section 21 evictions are a "paper-based" administrative process, according to Chris Norris, policy director of the National Residential Landlords' Association – but under the new rules landlords will have to have a court hearing if a tenant challenges an eviction.

A government spokesperson said the reforms would "reduce pressure on the courts in the long-term, but to support them now we are recruiting up to 1,000 judges and tribunal members across all courts and tribunals this year".

They said the Act would give tenants "much needed and long overdue" security in their homes.

Former engineer Keith Taylor, who rents out three properties, is convinced the Act will make life much harder for people like him.

He says some tenants have left around £8,000 in damage at his properties and that the upcoming law is making landlords "very nervous".

Taylor believes more will sell up because changes to the way landlords are taxed, combined with "ever-increasing regulation", won't be worthwhile.

Greg Tsuman, director at Martyn Gerrard estate agents in London, says landlords have been selling up for the last decade, but it has accelerated over the past 12 months.

Landlord Action, a legal service for landlords, and tenants' union Acorn have both reported a rise in Section 21 "no fault" evictions. Section 21 cases made up 22% of Acorn's work with tenants in 2024 – and this has risen to to 31% so far in 2026.

While Norris, of the National Residential Landlords' Association, doesn't think there will be an "exodus" from the market as a result of the Renters Rights' Act, he does think some landlords may be more "picky" about who they rent to.

While the Act will make it illegal to discriminate against people with children, or those on benefits, ultimately a landlord will still have autonomy over who they rent their property to.

Not all landlords are negative about the reforms, however.

Rick Gannon has 70 properties worth more than £10m and believes the new laws will make things fairer for tenants and "weed out bad landlords".

"I think it's the biggest change we've seen in this industry for many, many years and I think most of it is for the better."

Rongmala and Marouf say they "don't want tenants to have to struggle".

But they say small or accidental landlords like her "are facing issues as well" and the government should be trying to help, rather than "making things harder".

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