A British actor edited out of the BBC adaptation of an Agatha Christie drama following accusations of rape has had charges against him dropped for insufficient evidence.

Ed Westwick, 31, vehemently denied the accusations against him when they were made in November.

The BBC, however, decided to remove the Christie drama, Ordeal by Innocence, from its Christmas schedule.

And in January they went one step further, announcing that Westwick would be edited out and his scenes reshot, with Christian Cooke playing his role. Fellow cast members including Bill Nighy, Anna Chancellor, Anthony Boyle and Alice Eve were to join Cooke on location in Scotland to shoot the new scenes, which eventually aired later in the year.  

On Friday prosecutors in Los Angeles announced that they had dropped charges against Westwick.

The Stevenage-born actor, best known for his role on Gossip Girl, was accused in November of raping two women and sexually assaulting a third in 2014. 

Actress Kristina Cohen made the first allegation in a post on Facebook, writing that Westwick held her down and raped her at his home in West LA.  Two more women – actress Aurelie Wynn and Rachel Eck – came forward with their own accounts.

Prosecutors said on Friday in a memo that two of the women provided witnesses to help corroborate their accounts, including some who were outside the room where the alleged incident took place. But the evidence was inconclusive, they said.

“Those witnesses were not able to provide information that would enable the prosecution to prove either incident beyond a reasonable doubt,” prosecutors wrote.  “Prosecution on those two incidents is declined due to insufficient evidence.”

The memo also states that some additional women made allegations of inappropriate touching, but that the incidents fell outside the statute of limitations.

Westwick denied the claims against him from the beginning, calling them “provably untrue.”

His lawyer, Blair Berk, told TMZ on Friday that it was “clear from the start” that the accusations were “absolutely untrue”.

“It is a shame there are those who prejudged this case and that it took over eight months for Ed to be officially cleared of all of these charges,” he said. 

“I hope that those who made such quick judgment here not knowing anything about the abundant evidence of innocence in this case will hesitate next time before they so publicly accuse someone who has committed no wrongdoing."

The south Indian state of Kerala has been hit with the highest rainfall in a century leaving more than 300 dead, after widespread flooding submerged roads, power lines went down and dams reached bursting point.

Pinarayi Vijayan, the state’s chief minister, said on Twitter: “Kerala is facing its worst flood in 100 years. 80 dams opened, 324 lives lost and 223,139 people are in about 1500+ relief camps.” 

The 324 death toll includes fatalities from a previous bout of monsoon storms last month, and includes the fatalities since last week which is thought to be up to 175. 

Narendra Modi, the prime minister, was due to reach Kerala Friday evening to help manage the disaster, after attending the funeral of the former Indian leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in Delhi.

A red alert has been issued in all 14 Keralan districts, with the central government activating all three wings of the armed forces in a gargantuan rescue operation. Helicopters airlifted people from their roofs and dam gates were flung open as torrential rain battered the state non-stop for nearly a fortnight. 

Tourists were warned against travelling to the state and the airport in the city of Kochi is closed until August 26. “The situation is bad here and it is understandably closed for tourism now, while we deal with the rescue efforts”, said Thomas Joseph, General Manager of the travel company Kerala Holidays.

Speaking to The Telegraph from Kochi, he said: “It’s still raining so heavily it’s not safe for air travel really, but even many of the roads across the state are submerged or slippery. But we hope that in two or three days the storms will break, and we can try and get on with rebuilding. 

“While many parts of Kochi are not too bad, some areas around it, especially near the Periyar River are badly flooded." 

People stranded in the hill station of Munnar, one of the main tourist sites in Kerala, say hotel rooms lie vacant, most places have lost power and there’s little phone reception, with roads submerged by mud. 

Officials warn that hospitals in the state are facing a shortage of oxygen and petrol stations are running dry. The fierce storms have caused grave damage to crops and properties that the state estimates to be over Rs 80bn (£1bn).

Several appeals have been launched online and tech companies joined the rescue efforts. Amazon India has appealed to customers to donate clothing and items for shelters, while Google and Facebook developed tracking programs to help find stranded people.

Domestic airlines have been asked to keep a fixed maximum on air fares for flights to and from Kerala by the central government, and telecom companies pledged free call and data services for users in the state during the crisis.

Kerala is a popular destination for foreign and Indian visitors due to its idyllic beaches and rivers, picturesque houseboats and fresh seafood. Over 1 million foreign tourists visited the state last year, according to official data.

A tanker truck exploded on a motorway just outside the northern Italian city of Bologna on Monday, engulfing the area with flames and black smoke, the fire service said, with local media reporting one person killed.

The explosion occurred near Borgo Paginale to west of the city, very close to Bologna airport, at around 2.00 pm (12pm GMT), the Italian fire service said on Twitter.

The cause of the blast is not yet known.

Italian news agency Ansa has reported that two people died and more than 60 others were injured following the blast.

A video published on Twitter by the Italian fire service shows a huge column of black smoke billowing from the wreckage of the truck on the city’s ring road.

Images released earlier by the fire service showed burning cars in an adjacent carpark.

One video filmed by a motorist circulating on Twitter shows the moment the tanker exploded, when a black plume of smoke was suddenly swept away by a powerful ball of flame that takes over the entire horizon.

Norwegian authorities said a polar bear on Saturday attacked and injured a polar bear guard who was leading tourists off a cruise ship on an Arctic archipelago. The polar bear was shot dead by another employee, the cruise company said.

The Joint Rescue Coordination for Northern Norway tweeted that the attack occurred when the tourists from the MS Bremen cruise ship landed on the most northern island of the Svalbard archipelago, a region between mainland Norway and the North Pole that is known for its remote terrain, glaciers, reindeer and polar bears.

The German Hapag Lloyd Cruises company, which operates the MS Bremen, told The Associated Press that two polar bear guards from their ship went on the island and one of them "was attacked by a polar bear and injured on his head."

The polar bear was then shot dead "in an act of self-defense" by the second guard, spokeswoman Negar Etminan said.

The injured man was taken by helicopter to the town of Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen island. He was not identified and no further information was given on him.

"He was flown out, was responsive, and is currently undergoing medical treatment," Etminan said, adding that the victim was not in a life-threatening condition.

She said all cruise ships traveling in the northern region are obliged to have polar bear guards aboard.

Svalbard – locator map

Arctic tourism to the region has risen sharply in the last few years and is now in high season. A Longyearbyen port schedule showed that 18 cruise ships will be docking at the Arctic port in the next week. 

A British woman has been stabbed to death while visiting a New York woman she had just met, who pounced on her in the living room and claimed she had to “rid her home of evil”.

Faye Doomchin, 66, from the town of Great Neck on Long Island, met the 60-year-old British woman on Monday.

The two women had lunch with a male mutual friend, and the trio then went back to Doomchin’s house for coffee and cake, and to hear the man play the piano. 

“While they were sitting in the living room, they were talking and Doomchin made statements that she did not like the woman from England,” said Detective Lieutenant Stephen Fitzpatrick, of Nassau County police.

At around 3:50pm, Doomchin, the detective said, “claimed she needed to rid the house of evil.”

“She then appeared from the kitchen with a kitchen knife, walked right over to her and stabbed her in the chest.”

The British woman, whose identity was not released, was taken to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead.

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“There was no premeditation to that. There were no incidents prior to that,” said Mr Fitzpatrick. 

“We’re still looking to find out what may have precipitated this as the investigation continues.”

Police say that the man, from the New York borough of Queens, introduced the victim – who was visiting New York on holiday — and Doomchin to each other the day of the murder.

“They never met before. They just met that day, had lunch and this incident happened,” said Mr Fitzpatrick.

He said that the British woman had known the man for 12 years. Doomchin and the man were friends who last saw each other eight months ago.

“They were friends, they socialised,” said Mr Fitzpatrick. “He played musical instruments and came over to play for everybody.”

Doomchin’s neighbours expressed shock at the murder, saying they never saw anything of concern.

"She’s such a loving mother,” said Negar Paknoush, speaking to her local TV station. “So kind."

Doomchin has one prior arrest on her record for second-degree assault in 1999 in which a weapon was used.

She has now been charged with second degree murder and is being held without bail after being arraigned. Her lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, tells Newsday his client suffers from mental illness.

British tourists have described their terrifying escape from a maqnitude 7 earthquake which struck the Indonesian holiday islands of Lombok and Bali on Sunday evening, killing at least 98 people.

Amid chaotic scenes, thousands, including many foreign tourists, were still waiting to be evacuated from the worst affected areas of Lombok on Monday night, as rescuers frantically rushed to save the injured and buried.

An estimated 20,000 are now homeless and more than 200 injured, with some being treated for gruesome crush injuries out in the open, next to damaged hospitals. Dozens are feared to still be trapped under a mosque in the village of Lading-Lading which collapsed during evening prayers.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the national disaster agency spokesman, tweeted a horrifying video of the ruins, telling reporters that the number of victims across the earthquake zone was expected to rise.

Among the tourists who had a narrow escape was Hannah Small from Bournemouth, who described to the Telegraph how she had been in the bathroom in her hotel in Ubud, Bali, when the walls began to sway.

“I was in the bath and the whole room started shaking viciously. Parts of our ceiling were falling down and the walls were cracking,” she said.

“My partner grabbed me out of the bath with a towel and we ran down three flights of stairs to reach the ground floor for safety. The hotel staff were panicking, which made the guests even more worried,” Ms Small added.

“Once the quake was over everyone was scared to go back to their bedrooms and spent a few hours sat outside together. Through the night there were small aftershock rumbles which kept everyone up.”

Ms Small was able to leave on Monday for the safety of Singapore. Tourists and locals in Lombok, particularly in the less accessible tropical Gili islands, host to popular diving resorts off the northwest coast, faced a traumatic evacuation, however.

Mr Sutopo said that 2,700 tourists had been removed from the islands so far. But many remained trapped for a second night outside.

“We’re still trying to get back to Bali from Lombok. There’s a lot of scared and battered people around,” tourist Becky Morris tweeted on Monday night.

Throughout the day dramatic footage emerged of frightened crowds jostling on palm-fringed sandy beaches and pushing over each other to access a limited number of rescue boats.

Helen Milne from Oxfordshire told the BBC that her daughter, Laura, was trapped on the island of Gili Trawangan.

She said: "They are stuck on the island and are reporting rioting, fighting, and people can’t get on boats. There’s no water, no food, the shops have been ransacked. It’s a rapidly deteriorating situation out there for them."

Mads and Tanni Jacobsen, from Denmark, told the Telegraph of scenes of panic as they tried to escape from Gili Air with their two children Alma, 3, and Signe, 11.

The family had spent Sunday night sheltering with locals in a nearby school, petrified by conflicting reports of an approaching tsunami.

Ms Jacobsen, a nurse, had helped to treat badly injured victims with a First Aid kit before the family joined the throngs waiting to be rescued from the beach.

“We stood in line and waited for two hours. It was difficult with the kids as people didn’t have good behaviour at that moment. Everyone was shoving, swimming with life jackets to catch the boat,” said Mr Jacobsen. The family were then charged $100 for one seat on a rescue vessel.

The Jacobsens are now in the relative safety of Lombok’s main airport in the town of Mataram, sleeping on floors with hundreds of other tourists waiting to fly out.

Fears are rising, however, for residents of the north of the island, a more residential and less developed area close to the earthquake’s epicentre, which is difficult for rescue teams to reach due to damaged roads.

Endri Susanto, who runs an organisation helping the relief efforts, told CNN that he had found a “totally broken” hospital in the north.

“I saw about 80 per cent of the houses, 80 per cent of the buildings had fallen down or collapsed because of the earthquake,” he said of the surrounding area.